It's Vacation Time #3

Well, here we go for my third vacation here in France. This afternoon as I walked the 100 steps home from school, I made a rather startling revelation. I spent these three vacations with three different families. While on one hand it is a bit sad that I didn’t get the chance to celebrate all of these vacations and share traditions with just one family, on the other hand I think it is kind of cool. I’m getting to experience different styles of vacation, different activities, and different traditions. I think out of all of the vacations so far, I’m most excited about this one. For one, it has been 8 long weeks since my last vacation so I am totally ready for this one. And for two, we have a great line-up for these tow weeks. We have day trips planned to Paris an Brussels, plus a full week of skiing in the Alps. The skiing trip is really a dream coming true for me, and I absolutely cannot wait.

So, what happened in this eventful week leading up to vacation, during which my friends back home were gallivanting around and celebrating their week of vacation(President’s week)? When I explained the concept of President’s Week and the fact that we celebrate certain president’s birthdays in the US, I got some funny looks from my classmates. Apparently that is taking patriotism a little too far, just like hanging a flag in front of your house.

So, this week I had two practice bacs for French and a math DS. My French written test was Monday morning and I wrote for 4 hours about 1. why man can have trouble communicating and 2. whether a comic or joking tone can effectively be used to discuss a serious or grave topic(using examples from fables and movies, as well as the literature provided. I was very sorely tempted to use the Pirate’s of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland as an example, but I thought that the most-likely stingy correctors in Paris would think I was off-subject and taking the liberty of using other forms of art as an example too far.) Overall, I would say that this, my 4th written french test, was the best of them all. I understood almost all of the text and I managed to write 6.5 pages, so I think that’s not too shabby. I’m excited to see what grade I will get because this will be the first time that I get graded by someone who doesn’t know that I am American. My second bac blanc was my oral on Tuesday afternoon. I was so worried about this one it was ridiculous. I mean, back home, my weakest subject for the AP test was the speaking and I had enough trouble talking for 1.5 minutes about a simple picture story, so how on earth was I going to do a 10 minute exposé about French literature and then answer 10 minutes of questions? All in all, it went really well. I came in to the room when it was my turn and the corrector guy gave me my question. And then I had 30 minutes to prepare. Then he called me over and I sat down in front of him to present my text. I spoke for exactly 10 minutes, like you are supposed to, so that part went well. I was trying to focus on so many things at once that my grammar and pronunciation probably went out the window for the benefit of my attempts at presenting examples and creating transitions between sections. I realized about five minutes in that I wasn’t using sentences whatsoever. I was just linking phrases with “because... because... because...” Plus, I would start a sentence with a phrase, link my example with a “because”, and then say the exact same phrase that I had started with. However, I was really proud of myself because during the 30 minutes of preparation, I had had time to write out a full introduction and conclusion so those were both pretty good. Even the interview went pretty well and I was able to answer the questions, even if I didn’t really expand enough. The grades were posted on the wall today, and I got 14/20! Even though it doesn’t look like it to American standards, that is actually a really good score. It was better that a lot of people in my class. I will get the grades on my other bac blancs back after vacation and I will get the chance to see if I would have passed the bac had this been the real one.

I also had my math DS today. How cruel is that, putting a 2 hour math test as the last 2 hours of class before vacation? Like the other math tests, it was pretty easy given that I have already done almost everything we have studied this year back home. So, I ended the week knowing I did well, and happily “skipped”(well not literally, I kept my skipping to myself) out the doors of the school and home to pick up my guitar for my lesson.

Tuesday’s PE step class was a whole lot of fun. We started, like always with a warm-up/revision. Then we learned a few new steps and did a couple of short routines. And then we split into little groups and made up 2 blocs of 4 8-count steps. We had a certain amount of time to practice and then we had to perform for the other groups while being graded. My group decided to put the “feet” on the steps to make them higher, which gives automatically +1 point. And then we choses the fast music, “Beat It” giving us another extra point. We had a cool routine and did really well, so I think we got a good grade. The week after vacation, I think I’m going to bring my camera to make a little video during class that I can put on my blog. Since we were doing the fast music and doing lots of practices, we actually got a pretty good workout and were panting heavily by the end of the two hours.

I guess that’s it for the school week, so let’s do a little bit of “marche arrière”(reverse(as in an automobile)) back to last weekend, when Nicole came over. She took the bus after school on Friday and I met her in downtown(a nice easy 5 minute walk from the house.) We headed back to the house and chilled out for a while, eating my peppermint bark brownies and playing blocus. We played some wii and I played a bit of guitar for her. It was super lucky that my host mom had made quiche that night because Nicole had never eaten quiche before, even though she’s been here since September.  As usual, we stayed up late, playing with Photobooth and talking. I was really proud of this because we spoke completely in French the whole weekend(except a few sentences here and there of course.) Saturday morning, I forced her to get up early(9:00am) so that we could enjoy our time together. We went to the train station to pick up a Youth card(which earns from 25 to 60% off of all voyages so pays for itself quickly) and did some school supply/scrapbook shopping at the bookstore. We went to a great little italian restaurant in downtown for lunch and then headed back to the house. She caught the 515pm bus back home(after we had planned for the 415pm, gone to the wrong bus stop and seen her bus arrive and leave from the other stop) and then I headed off for my handball game where I scored my first goal. Sunday was a chill day at home doing homework and now we’ve come full circle back to Monday morning with my French bac blanc.

Well, that's it for the week, can't wait to tell you about my great vacation.

My amazing peppermint bark brownie cake!

We love Blocus!

Playing with Photobooth. All collage credit goes to Nicole.

Here's my bedroom. It's small but fantatsic and a space to call my own. My dream cather has done a good job of keeping the bad dreams away, and my most recent dreams have involved french fries and trying out for a soccer team with a broken ankle in a cast. Bizarre dreams for sure, but not bad dreams. You can always tell when I'm comfortable in a room because I get very messy very fast. If I'm too neat and tidy, it's a bad sign. Here, the clothes and books all over the place are a very good sign.