6

February 6

16:00

Right now Mathilde and I are on the bus on the way home from school and I have some time to write because Mathilde is just talking to Martin (a friend). Mathilde has lots of friends, and I can't remember all of their names but here's the ones I remember: Albane, Emma, Claire, Clarisse, Valentin, Laurane, Pierre, and lots more. Those might not be spelled right, because I've only ever heard them out loud. 

School here is different, but not as different as I thought it would be. The thing I've most noticed actually is the paper; it's always graph paper. Maybe I'll take a picture to show you. I don't know why, but it's the paper that I find the most different between Canadian schools and French schools. 

We do take a lot if notes, but there are also oral presentations and such. For example, in French today we started a PowerPoint project on "Le Cid" and in Spanish there were oral presentations very similar if not exactly the same as what I remember doing in Canada. 

Right now Albane has come over to join us. She was listening to music with Pierre until an minute ago. 

Anyway, so schools here are different but the same. The cafeteria was on strike today and there were huge picket lines and shouty people standing around outside the school today. It was a funny first day for me to come. 

So because there was no food available at the school, we bussed to subway for lunch instead. We were going to go to a Chinese food place, but something happened at the last minute, I'm not sure what, and we ended up going to subway instead. Which I was fine with. They were wondering if I knew subway, and I said I did. I think subway is all over. 

17:00

Right we had to get off the bus all of a sudden, so I'm continuing now. 

We had SES first thing, which is kinda like economy. We talked about supply and demand, and prices and demand, and how to calculate the elasticity of price as a function of demand and all that. Also about the paradox of luxury products: when the price get higher, more products are sold, and we talked about why this is and all that. I found it pretty interesting, but then again I had never been in a class like that before. Mathilde said it was boring. The teacher wasn't very good either, enfaite. 

Next we went to French, where they had a test (un "contrôle" en français) so I started reading "How to kill a mockingbird" for my English class back in Victoria. I figured I'd better start it. Next, because it was a double block of French, we went to the computer lab and started a new power point project about "Le Cib" (some Spanish lord from the 11th century called Rodrigo Diaz de Vivir, who defended Spain from Muslim invaders) and abound play that someone wrote based on this legend. I was in a group with Mathilde and a guy called Maxime (or maybe it was Maxine, I couldn't tell). That wasn't too bad, and the French teacher is really nice and everyone respects her as well. 

Then we had lunch, which I already told you about, and then after lunch we went to Spanish. Enfin il n'est pas très gentil lui, he has this was of looking at you which is scary. But he seems ok and good at teaching Spanish so there's that. They just did some little back and forth prepared memorized trialogue (a three person dialogue ;) with a mom and a dad and their son who wants to be a nurse, I think? I only understood about half of what they said because they've been doing Spanish for three years now, and I've only done one year, and it was a year ago now on top of that. So I'm a little rusty and they are way above my level in Spanish and speak really fast. 

Then the last class of the day: Math. Now normally I'm all for math, and apparently the class I was in were all strong students in math, but the teacher sucked. The parents are talking to the principal about finding a different teacher, because what's happening is students who normally excel at math are put with this teacher and all of a sudden their grades go down fast. He really doesn't know how to teach: he goes too fast, he doesn't care, sometimes he teaches the wrong things, etc. The class just generally hates him, and so they just talk the entire time which makes it even harder for the teacher (and the kids). For me, I find that what he is teaching and the actual calculations aren't hard, but the round-about way that he teaches makes it really hard for anyone to concentrate. Also it's impossible to read his writing. 

I was sitting next to Mywïenne (I have no idea how to spell that- it's apparently a name from Bretagne) during math and she seems to be like me: she's really good at math and she likes doing it, but even she didn't know exactly what was going on, and she had come to math every day. This math class is the equivalent of our classe de sciences humaines à Victoria, but ten times worse. Mathilde says each time that have a test, she just uses the textbook to study because nothing she learns in class makes any sense. I probably would too. 

Luckily, because I'm an exchange student and marks don't count here, I can talk to the office and to Mathilde's parents (and I have already) and just go to the library or something during the math blocks. I might be able to work on work from home or something. 

Also we didn't have sports  (PE) today, but apparently we are doing ping pong right now, and then muscle building. 

I just remembered their dog's name! It's Taiga. I think it's a good name. 

18:00

Well I've been writing for an hour now. Funny, it doesn't seem that long. 

After school, Mathilde, Albane and I bussed to the bottom of the mountain, where we hitch-hiked up the mountain with someone named Phillipe (we could tell because on the display it said something about Phillipe's iPhone). Apparently Albane had hitched a ride with him before. I think because revel is such a small village, it's ok to be hitch- hiking about. If we were in a city I'd be a bit more worried. It seems like everyone knows each other here. 

And now I'm sitting at home in front of the wood stove (the only source of heating for the house) and warming my feet. I'm feeling quite content at the moment :)

Oh yes, and I wore my wig ("perruque" en français) all day at school today, just because it was the first day and I didn't know how people would react and all. I think tomorrow I'll wear a hat, and see what happens. It's quite annoying to have to wear a wig all day. It really gets in the way, especially while eating. 

I think later this evening Mathilde it going to karate again. In Thursdays it's heavy workout day, and because she's qualified to go to the France national karate competition in Paris this March representing Revel, she is working really hard at the moment. It means I get to back to Paris once more before I leave France :)

22:00

I'm going to go to bed earlier today. So this is just to tell you what I had for dinner: vegetable soup, fish, pasta, cheese. Voilà. Bonne nuit tout le monde :)