Rain, rain, go away
Oh my gosh Im freezing!! We are having the worst weather in the history of bad weather. Okaaaay, maybe not really, but for someone who is used to a foot of snow this time in December, this is NOT NORMAL!
To use the expression everyone here makes fun of, but noone understands...It's raining cats and dogs!!! My host-dad got on the bus this morning (he gets on a few stops after me, Im not sure why) his jacket was so wet, you couldnt even tell that is was normaly three shades lighter. Probably on account of I leave earlier and stole the umbrella...I really need to get my own.
So, I got to school, and was only partially soaked, so I huddled next to a radiator for a bit, cursing having grown up in a climate that doesn't know the meaning of humidity, and that with all this rain the humidity here is 10 billion times higher than normal and it makes me COLD!!
Anyways, I did my exam once I got feeling back in my frozen fingers. I think it went alright, I remembered 21 of the 25 countries in the European Union, although I had to guess where alot of them were to label the map (like really, there is no way I'm ever going to remember where Slovakia is on a blank map, it just isnt going to happen!), and I didn't have a clue as to what the capitals were. And no, we did not go over that in class, all we did was learn what countries are in the EU, not where they are or what their capitals are. And the capital of Tchecoslovakia is not something the stressed upon us at school in Canada...I obviously can't even spell it in English! Oh, and when I was finally on the last question, I asked the teacher a question and he explained it to me then started to walk away. All of a sudden, he turns around and says 'Oh, I forgot to tell you, you and Simone can use your notes if you want.'
Thank you. Thank you for telling me this when Im on the LAST QUESTION. I was SO mad, I spent an hour trying to remember all 25 countries, and I know exactly where the list of them all is in my notes, that were sitting at home on the couch in my room, where I left them when I finished studying last night.
I'm going to kill him.
On the bright side I have the same teacher for Science, so at least now I'll know to bring my notes for that...
So, anyways, back to the weather. I left school and it was still pouring, do I went to the post office and took my time getting envelopes, because my bus didnt come for 1/2 hour. When I finally made it back outside and sprinted across the parking lot to the shelter of the clock tower (yes where I almost caught fire, no chance of that today), I shook out my umbrella so it wouldnt soak everything in my bag and while the handle stayed put in my hand, the important unbrella-y part went flying. Luckily by the time the bus got to my stop it wasnt really raining anymore.
But still, the whole day all I've been thinking is 'This is December, I know how to deal with snow in December, I DO NOT know how to deal with rain storms in December!' I no longer blame all the people in the southern USA when they get scared by an inch of snow. I totaly understand
Happy St.Nicholas
I just wrote my EASIEST exam in the history of exams!!!
Oh right, it's exam time....blech
But, my first exam, today, waaas...English! How amazing is that? I think they were trying to lure me into a false sence of security though. I promise I'll study for my other exams though, except French, because it's an oral exam, but I did read the article I have to talk about!
Anyways, back to my point. My English exam today. First we listened to a tape, and answered some questions. I obviously knew all the answers, but I had to reply in French, so I hope I didn't make too many stupid mistakes, as I tend to do when I'm writing French...
Then I got to write a letter to a friend who had just won the Lottery. And to make it even easier, we were given a list (in French) about stuff we had to talk about in our letter. Everyone else wrote like, a half a page. I rambled on for a page and a half in teeny tiny writing, because, everyone here is crazy and only uses graph paper...for EVERYTHING.
Then there was a vocabulary page, which honestly just made my day.
"What is the name of a 'dog's house'?" : __________
I'm still not sure why they made me do the test, but Im kind of glad they did, at least I know I'll pass that one.
There was supposed to be an oral part to it as well, where the prof. gave 4 people in the room a topic then they went off and talked about it, but he wouldn't let me do it because he thought that it would intimidate/make it harder for the other kids. He better give me marks for it, I've been correcting him in class all year long.
And today is St. Nicholas, so go out and be merry, or whatever it is that you're suposed to do. I'm going to eat my St. Nick shaped speculoos cookies. My host family isnt really big on holidays, so we didn't do anything. But that's alright I guess, I still have chocolate Grandma sent me and candy from Bailey's birthday party!
*Surprise!*
I got the best surprises ever at school today! So remember the whole St. Nicholas thing? Well, in the school budgets they get 6€ per student to buy something for St. Nicholas! How cool is that? LOL
SO anyways, exams start tomorrow so we dont have class on Wednesday when St. Nicholas actually is so in our first period class our teacher came in with this huge H&M bag (I was thinking, ‘okay, M. Hock is a little wierd, but I doubt he shops at H&M’) but he starts passing around the bad and we all got a package of Speculoos (ie. The BEST cookies EVER) shaped like St. Nick, and navy blue (our school color) scarf with our school’s name embroidered on it! Lol, so it’s a little dorky, but I gotta admit its a pretty good (free!) souvenir for me and Simone, the Brasillian exchange student in my class.
Yeah, I was pretty psyched.
So, we had English (read: I did nothing), then I had French with a 5th grade class (read: 11th grade) and my French teacher told me what she had prepared for me and Simone for our exam. She gave me a super easy magazine article to read and I’ll have to go into the exam to talk to her about it. Yessss, I’ll acually pass!
After French I had my 2 hour gym class, thank god it’s only once a week, it’s not even real gym class. We don’t do sports, we do like...stuff from 80’s excercise videos. Step routines and abdominal combinations to bad techno music. Gag.
But I was getting ready to go to the Sandwicherie with Simone because she didn’t like what her host mom had made her for lunch, and evreyone started saying good bye! We were like ‘ah! What’s going on?’ But since exams start tomorrow (not for me! Math is tomorrow and I dropped my math class!! I get to sleep in!) they gave all the 6th and 5th grades the afternoon off. It was great, I have the whole afternoon free, house to myself (Sometimes I really love that Damien failed last year and is still in 4th grade).But, when I was waiting for the bus with Simone we were sitting against a door under this ledge thingy that sticks out of the clock tower, and the door gets ‘locked’ by a piece of metal put through two loopy thingies. So when we sat against the door it moved a bit, but we didnt really think anything about it. Then I noticed that there was something smoking! I looked down and someone had left their cigarette on the lock thingy on the door and when the door moved it fell down on to my jacket!! I think Im quite lucky though that it didnt damage my jacket and it didnt land in my hair. It would have been slightly disasterous....
