My impressions on the first day of school . . .

Today was the first day of school at Lycee Notre Dame Des Anges Saint Amand Les Eaux (In other words the catholic high school in the town of Saint Amand). Today was just a half day in the afternoon; it started at 1:30, and was comprised solely of what would be compatible to the american homeroom. I'm in the 'ES' section, which means that my classes are central to economics. There are 22 students in that section with me, Thomas being one of them, thank goodness, and only 4 of them are boys, strange, no? From what I saw today, which was not much, it didn't seem very different from school in the US. The schedule is the main difference so far. All the classes it seems are just randomly put into slots during the week, and some are double classes; there must be some rhyme and reason to the system, the only problem is I haven't the slightest idea what that reason is! Well, that's the least of my worries, as long as I have it written down. My real problem is that I have to take French and Economics tomorrow, my first real day of classes! Yikes! I'm not at all looking forward to that, but what can I do. I also have math, which normally wouldn't worry me, as numbers are the same in all western languages, except that another exchange student wrote that he had to take a test in math before school started and it had word problems, which were terribly confusing. Please: No Word Problems! Other than my insecurities about tomorrow, I liked the school very much. I liked the teacher, who by the way also teaches French, yay! I think if I can keep my mind focused, and ask lots of questions, I may actually be able to go to school in French. The reason I say 'keep my mind focused' is that I find when one does not understand what's going on in the conversation it becomes increasingly easy, and almost hard not, to daydream. thus my new moto: FOCUS. I find after a week here, if I concentrate on every word, I can some times distinguish meaning in a sentence, which can lead to meaning in the conversation going on around me, but its hard.

more tomorrow . . . a bientot,

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