34 Days

Ok, so I know I've been kind of slacking off with my posts and I will try and get better. I would hate to have done a really good job in the beginning and then just stop at the end.. that's what usually happens to me when I try and keep a journal of my trips or whatever, and I'm not going to let it happen this time! I never finished talking about Friday, nor did I get back on to make another post on Saturday, but I'll quickly brief them, as well as Sunday for ya.

Friday, the only really cool thing worth noting is that I went to the really pretty park I wanted to get my senior pictures in for the two hours Parcours used to take up. Sabrina and I took senior-like pictures with my camera, so even though I don't think they'll be decent enough quality to use for the real deal, I still have the pictures I would've like to take there. I'm going to try and find someone with a really nice camera and get them to take good ones for me, because they turned out cuuuuute :)!

Saturday, I came to school and went to Italian again with Sabrina and Camille. I really like that class. The teacher is really chill and laid back, and I think we do more conversational talking than we do reviewing Italian. I bought a big boquet of flowers for my host mom while I was in town, too, becase Sunday was Mother's Day here. Then, in the evening, I had a band concert! haha! Our jazz group had to play for the town Mother's Day event. This is kind of a funny story. I was running late and so when I got there, I hurried and put my flute together. My host mom gave a little speech and then introduced us. We started playing, and I could not get any sound to come outt! I couldn't figure out what was wrong, and I tried to fake it as best I could, but since I was so preoccupied trying to figure out what was wrong with the flute, I don't think I did a very good job with that. I dunno if anyone could really tell, though. In the end, I realized I forgot to pull the cleaning stick out of the flute before I put it together. ahah. Woops. Afterwards, I talked with a bunch of people and hung out in the back by the elementary school. Pierre, Pierre-Antoine, and some other people explained how everything was set up in the classrooms when they were younger and that some of the books we could see on the bookshelf were the same and it was fun. Just before 11, I went into town for "The Longest Night" visual arts festival in Arras. It went until 3AM, but we didn't stay the whole time. We went to see Luc and Alain, mainly. Originally, I was going to go with some friends, but since my cell phone is out of credit for the moment (I'm going to refill it tomorrow), we couldn't keep in touch, so that didn't work out. Luc, Alain, Pierre, my host mom, and I went to see some art, and then we watched a little silent movie in the back of a trailer.

Sunday was both Mother's Day and Election day. Unfortunately, I have to go to theatre, so I will tell you all about that later.
And I willll be back on today; I won't leave you hanging like I did Saturday.
:p!

Haha, Valerie. What were you doing upppp?! But anyway, I didn't have theatre and instead went out with Alice and Wendie. We met up with Joy and Alicia and then talked for a while. After that, I returned back to school to meet up with Sabrina, Marion, Virginie, and Laureen for lunch.

Okay, well I got a little ahead of myself there, so we're going to back up a little. Yesterday was Mother's Day, so since my host mom had to be at the Mairie all day for the European Elections, I had Pierre help me clean. My host mom always wants to clean up, but she neverr has time, so we planned on doing it for her. As nice as it would have been to do the whole house (or even just the whole main floor), it was not possible to do it all in one day. We decided to attack the living/dining room first, then move on to the other rooms if we had time. We cleaned the junk off the main table, and then moved all the knick-knacky things off the other surfaces and put everything on the table. We used a surface cleaner on everything, and then went through the junk and things that were on the table. I organized all the bookcases and cleaned a small one out completely. That one was instead filled with knick-knacks. At around one thirty, my host mom came home and we had lunch. She asked us if we could unstack the dishwasher and tidy the kitchen up a bit this afternoon. So, we took a break from the living room and did the kitchen. I did the dishwasher and Pierre took care of all the crap on the table. Then he did the counters and I cleaned out and organized majority of the drawers. They were insanely messy, too, so I was pretty pround when they were done. I didn't get to all of them, but I got the main ones tidied up. After that, we went back to work on the living room.

At a little after 5, my host mom came to get me to bring me to see how the elections worked. When you walked in, there were fliers of each party/group running and brown envelopes. You could grab as many fliers as you wanted, and then you go into one of the two voting booths. You stick the flier of the group you want to vote for into your envelope, and then throw the others in the garbage inside the booth. Once you've closed the enevelope, you exit the booth and go to a long table in the middle of the room. First, you give your national identity card to Arlette so she can varify you are who you say you are. Then, Jean-Luc checks to see if you are on the 'Eligable Voters List' and once he finds your name, you drop your envelope into the giant box and sign next to your name on the list to say you voted. At 6:00, the polls closed. 353 people out of seven-hundred-some eligable people in town voted (a little over 50%). Eight conseil members split into groups of four and sat at tables with the envelopes. One person would open the envelope, the next person would read off and sort the fliers, and two people would keep tallies (so that they don't mess up). If an envelope contained more than one different flyer, it was invalid. It was also invalid if the envelope was empty or had something other than the official flyer inside. If the envelope contained two or more of the same flier, it still counted, but only once. After all the votes were counted and all the paperwork was done, my host mom read off the results to the people who'd come to see how things turned out. If I remember right, the 'Gauche' party, the 'Vert' party, as well as a few others, did really well. We will have to wait and see how things turn out nationally.

After that was over, I went back home and helped Pierre finish up the living room. When my host mom was finally allowed to go inside, she was shockeddd at how awesome of a job we did :)! I'm pretty proud of how much we accomplished, too. I wish we would have taken a before and after picture- same goes for the kitchen. My parents will NEVER believe me! haha.

Anyway, today I got up and came to school at 10 for Anglais Complementaire. Kozimor is just going to irritate me right up until the end. I recorded the first 10 minutes of class today, just so that I can show you the way he talks when I get back, because it is impossible to describe. Unfortunately, it stopped before he got angry with me for not talking in English much with my classmates. He had asked me how I was doing and then he started asking me about when I'm leaving and what I'm going to do before I leave and all that. Then he asked Wendie what she thought about me being in her class. That was kind of a jerky question, I thought, because it really only leaves the person to respond in one way or be really rude. Anyway, after that, he asked Wendie if she spoke in English with me often outside of class. Wendie was kind of hesitant about telling him no, so I thought I would help her out by telling him that I told people I was here to learn French and they did not need to speak English with me. He took that completely the wrong way and got all over my case for being selfish and not letting the other people take advantage of having me here. I was so taken aback by what he said that I stopped arguing for a few seconds. Then I just wanted to yell in his face! He was going on and on about how I don't need to speak English all the time, but I should talk with my friends as much as possible in English and that way they can get better with their English, too. He asked me if I understood what he was saying, and I said yes, but I told him that I was sorry, but I'm not here to teach others English (I wanted to say that that was HIS job, but I held my tongue). I told him that I worked hard to get myself here and I wanted to get as much out of it as I could, so I need to speak in French. I told him that I helped people with English if they needed it (which is true), and that I talked English in English class, but I'm not going to speak it with my classmates in a conversational setting. He then replied that I should have, because I can speak French at home with my host family and he is sure that that would have been plenty. The whole class was thankfully on my side and people kept blurting in things on my defense. Sabrina said that if someone wanted to improve their English, they could go on a program like mine to the States or to England (since it's not that far). He had a reply for everything, though. What finally ended it was when Alice said "It's too late!" Thank God for that. The conversation really pissed me off. I have never ever met a teacher like him before, and I really hope I don't meet another. Thankfully I only have to spend one more hour of my life in his presence on Thursday, and then, never again! :D!

Okay, I apologize for my constant rants about this guy, but I don't think I've gotten through one class period where he hasn't done something really jerky or something that's really pissed me off. After class, I came to the CDI while Sabrina had Chinese. Then I went out in town with Wendie and Alice since theatre is finished. I bought a chocolate filled croissant and ate that before coming back to school at one. I got there a little early and the doors weren't yet open. Saloua, Parine, and Justine were waiting outside, too. Saloua had a bunch of markers and 'tatooed' Parine's arm. Then she asked if she could do mine, too, so I let her. She wrote "I <3 GAMBETTA" all the way down my forearm and onto my hand. lol. When the doors opened up, I found the girls and we ate lunch. Now we have until 4:00 to chill. There's no more science, so after the first hour of English LV1, I have an hour and a half to hang out before the second hour of English LV1. Then I end my day with an hour of French.

à demain!
<3Miranda

Word of the Day: faire le ménage = to do housework