school. Part I

the first real day of classes was pretty simple, and easy, as the first two periods were spanish, which I'm not taking, considering everyone else in my segment (we have segments here so that instead of picking individual subjects, you pick a section, literature, math, science, or economics, and then everyone who picked that section, or sometimes there are enough students to split up into two, are put in a segment. You then have all your classes with that same segment of 12-14 students), is in Spanish IV and I haven't taken Spanish since third grade, when for 30 minutes twice a week before school we made calendars in Spanish and learned the colors. Also, luckily enough for me, English and Spanish are almost always the first class/classes of the day, which means, I almost always have the morning off! On the down side, the meaning of free period here is vastly different from the free periods of Santa Fe Prep. Instead of going to the over heated, well lit, cushy library, with which we have been well spoiled, to talk with friends or do homework together, everyone goes to the building at the back of the old part of the high school, designated for free periods. This building reminds me greatly of detention, as it is a long hall with small windows along the top of one wall four rows of desks with little chairs for working. At the front of the hall there is a small platform with a desk for the teacher charged with watching us all, any real form of conversation is forbidden here, though there is a constant swirling of whispers, which is tolerated, Also at the front of the hall is a large clock, which dolls away the time. The entire hall save for a cheerful mural that reads 'hello, friends' at the back is painted a drab light blue, and this includes the cement floors. WHile the whole things is designed I'm sure to be a productive study hall, I can't help picturing nuns with rulers!

The rest of the campus is generally more up-beat. Everyone here thinks the buildings are awful eye sores, but while I find the interior of the classrooms a bit drab the exterior architecture is actually quite interesting. Its very French, by which I mean the entire thing is brick, with white-washed windows surrounded by large white brick trim. At the top is a row of arched turrets, just beneath a black slate roof, and there is a large arched door to enter the middle school, in which a small rectangular section opens. It's really kind of iconic and stereotypical, which I have to admit, I love. However the buildings where we have most of our classes are not quite so attractive, while they have windows, they always feel a bit close and dark to me.

Well buildings aside, the classes themselves are very nice. I really like all of my teachers and for the most part I can understand them. Economy and French are by far the hardest subjects. Economy, which I have never taken before, but which I now have everyday save wednesday, which is just a half day, is hard because the terms are not to be found in my beloved French/English dictionary as they are terms for... you guessed it: economics! Luckily for me however, most of the words are practically the same in English, so I can understand the concept of the lesson. When it gets hard is when we learn a concept centered around a word I cannot translate. I usually have no problem taking notes between what the teacher writes on the board and what I can copy from Thomas's notes, when I can't spell a word or I miss a pronoun in a sentence. However, when the teacher dictates notes, or we simply have to listen and pick out the important stuff for ourselves, then I have a really hard time keeping up. Thank go Thomas has every class with me!

French is even harder than Economy because I have a hard time understanding the teacher when she lectures us, and its hard for me to write anything remotely interesting or dynamic with my limited knowledge of French adjectives and phrases. The good thing, though, is that as I mentioned earlier she is also my homeroom teacher so she is very helpful and has told me that I can come seek help any time I need it, which I am assuming will be often.

Math is pretty easy for me which is nice, because, while the word problems (yes, there were word problems, dictated to us, no less!) were a bit confusing on the first day, the math itself is fairly simple, so I shouldn't have to great a problem with that class, though undoubtedly it will get harder. History/Geography hasn't really picked up yet either, but so far it has been simple enough for me to understand everything that's going on without a problem. Biology, which we only have twice a week, seems to be a kin to what we did last year at Prep, inasmuch as they seem to have taken the Bio I course Prep offers and split it into two years, this being the second year. I believe we are just starting a unit on genetics, and I should have no problem in doing well in that class.

I know my "easier" classes out number my "harder" classes, but the hard classes are hard enough to make up the difference, and they're all hard as they're all in French! The other problem is I'm very afraid of having to take a test in which I have to explain a concept or something in French, as I'm not sure I'd really be able to adequately describe anything in French.

This is a really long post and its late so I'll split it into two parts

to be continued . . .

e

A few things I've noticed . . .

These are just some observations/differences, readily apparent to me, between France and America:

• Les Bisoux: Everyone knows the French do the double kiss, one on each cheek, here called les bisoux, but it is still rather surprising when you're an american, I find. If you are a girl then you use les bisx all the time, for everyone, hello and goodbye. However, if you are a guy, you use les bsx only with girls and family, everyone else is handshake material. If you meet someone for the first time you use les bsx; they are not a display of affection, just a greeting. They are used all the time here, always! I found this especially interesting when compared with the american counter part. When we meet someone for the first time we either, shake their hand if it's formal, hug them, if we have heard a lot about them, or if they are family we've just never met, etc., or we just nod and smile and give them the once over. We don't shake people's hands after we've met them; we simply don't. I have come to the conclusion that either a. the French have no personal boundaries, or b. the French are much nicer, more civilized people, who prefer to greet others with a kiss on the cheek, rather than eye them up and down from afar. Personally, I prefer option b!
• Tests: this one is very simple...I have discovered the word for tests here is interrogations. This rather frightened and intimidated me on my first day of school, as that's when I found out every Saturday we go to school and take an 'interrogation' in a specified subject, which changes weekly!
• Breakfast: I love breakfast! I mean everywhere, not just here, I simply love this meal. Probably I love it because it affords the breakfaster so many options: sweet or savory, almost any kind of meat, toast or bread, or some sort of other goodie like a muffin or pastry. Hot or Cold, quick or slow, doesn't matter. Anyway, here in France breakfast is just that much better, because not only does one have the option of real French pastries from the local boulangerie, although this option is usually saved for the weekend, but there is also the option of a large hunk of baguette, also from the boulangerie, smothered in butter and nutella/jam or just butter, dipped into your bowl of coffee/hot chocolate, whichever you prefer. It is simply divine, and it's an everyday thing! Another major difference during breakfast is that they don't eat toast, I don't even think my host family owns a toaster!
• Yogurt: Here for dessert the most common thing to eat is, you guessed it, yogurt. Now I don't mean just Yoplait in a variety of flavors, though there's that too, but basically all manner of puddings and custards, including but not limited to, chocolate mousse, creme brulee, caramel, etc., all in individual yogurt containers. Now I'm not sure if this is because the French simply don't have a separate word for pudding other than yaourt, which means yogurt, or it really is just that much cooler here, but at any rate it does make one feel healthier to say they ate yogurt instead of ice cream!
• Colorful Clothing: Or should I say lack thereof? Here no one, not even the crazy teenagers, where bright colors. Occasionally you will see a little girl, no older than 7, dressed in hot pink and purple, or electric blue, but that is really the only exception. The color palate here is Black, Grey, White, Brown, Tan, and occasionally red. That's it! Weird after going to an american high school, full of blue and red pants, and neon green sweat shirts, with orange and purple sneakers or hot pink flats with yellow tights! And to make the transition even clearer, I went into an H&M store in New York, where everything was color coded, so that the shelfs near the front contained only green and yellow, then a section of Blue and Purple, etc., and every design was in at least three different colors. Here I went into an H&M, and the store contained Tan, Champagne, Black, and Navy blue! Bizarre, no?
• Punctuation: My final observation for now is the French punctuation. Instead of quotation marks they use <>. Instead of decimal points they say 2,25 and replace the use of comas as marking the thousands place like 1,000 the French write 1.000. So Confused!

Well, that concludes my culture shock section of the week, by the way yesterday was officially one week in France, and I'm sorry I didn't have it in me to write about the first day of classes yesterday. Maybe I'll have the will tonight. Later today we're going to Lille, the urban center of northern France, for La Braderie, a big street festival with lots of Moules Frites, or Mussels and French Fries.

a Bientot,

e

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,

e

Here, at last!

I am now writing from Marchiennes, France! I arrived on Friday, but I left Santa Fe on Tuesday at 7 in the morning (ugh). Oh so much happened during those four days, how I will ever be able to write it all I don't know, but I can try. Well, to start with, I went to the first day of school in Santa Fe before I left, as they started on Monday. That was an interesting experience, because I felt like I belonged there and yet I had to keep reminding myself and everyone else that I was leaving, and that I was not going to be there with them through the hard and easy parts of the school year. But then I had to wake up at four in the morning and all those deep complicated thoughts and feeling left me, and were replaced by foggy confusion and regret for booking said 7:00 flight!

We had a layover in Chicago, and then onto Boston, where we spent the night, and the next morning I said goodbye to my parents, and met the other 7 kids going to France with CIEE. We spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Boston doing touristy things. We went on a boat tour of Boston harbor, saw the mapporium, which was very cool, and then walked around Harvard campus and Harvard Square. When we returned from Harvard Square we grabbed our luggage, which was quite an ordeal, as we all had tons of suitcases, and big ones too, and lugged them over to the airport. At the airport we chugged are way through security, then onto the plane. We took a german airline to Frankfurt, which is a 5 or 6 hour flight. Then the same airline to Charles De Gaulle, which is supposed to be an hour long flight. Unfortunately, we were delayed due to some baggage problems, and it was a two hour ordeal. Then our baggage was delayed at Charles De Gaulle, which would have been fine, except that during the hour delay at Frankfurt one girl's suitcase (luckily not all of her luggage, but still...) was sent to Munich instead. In summary, we were two and half hours late getting to the reception area of Charles De Gaulle.

My family came and picked me up at the airport, which was so nice of them, as everyone else had to take trains to their host family with all their luggage. I felt bad being two and a half hours late though, nut at the same time I couldn't leave the group. We were all together on all the flights, except for one girl, who had changed her flight to return to the US, and they changed her flight there was well, so she had to wait an hour by her self at the Frankfurt airport, so that was unfortunate.

Marchiennes is beautiful, and very charming. We biked to the next town over today and it was so much nicer, view wise, than any american bike ride, I think, anyway. My host family has been introducing me to their friends, which is nice, though I still have a very hard time understanding what they say because they speak so quickly and abbreviate everything! However, I think I'm understanding a little more everyday. On Friday, I was so tired from not sleeping for 21 hours straight that I didn't understand anything at all!

We went to the high school where I'll be going this year with Sarah and Thomas to get the text books for my classes. The architecture of the School is very French. I got my books alright, but I think I confused them because I didn't declare a specialty. Here the students in 11th grade, or premier form, pick a specialty to study for the baccalaureate. I have to take economy, so Thomas was trying to explain to me the basics that they learned last year, in French mind, which was very confusing. The confusion was much increased by the fact that the dictionary didn't have most of the phrases because they were specific to economics. I'm taking biology again, but its supposed to be the next level, as they took it last year like us. The reason I say supposed to be is because I was looking at the text book today and the index says we will learn only things that were covered in my class last year. I'm not sure yet whether or not this is a good thing but right now I'm thinking yes!

Well, I think that's all I have to say for now. My host family is great, I think it would be so much harder if my host family and I didn't get on, because that does happen apparently, so I'm really grateful to them. They have a dog who is very cute but crazy, so that's nice because my dog is also crazy.

a bientot,

e

Packed

Salut,

so I've just finished packing for 10 months, and oh my god I thought it would never end, but fortunately it has. I'm eternally grateful to be finished after 5 days of running around my house pulling out clothes, extra toiletries, art supplies, etc. and making list after list of reminders. Today I stuffed them all into my apple green suitcase and one other little one with much frustration and back pain. Then I measured them on the bathroom scale and they are both, thank goodness, under 50 lbs. If they get lost I'm screwed because they hold basically all the clothes I own, and I'll be wearing the same two outfits for the days it takes them to find and ship it. Not to mention the fact that the little one only has coats basically, so if just one gets lost it better be the little one. Now that the packing part of my preparations is over I don't know what to do with myself! Maybe I'll go eat a hot dog or a hamburger to prepare for leaving the US...

A bientot

e

ONE WEEK

wow its finally here, and I barely know what to do with my self! I've been wanting this for so long, probably about 7 years and now that the time has arrived I feel so out of the moment and out of my body; almost like looking in at the preparations, detached. Well, the preparations are innumerable: Packing, repacking, writing down addresses and phone numbers, and email addresses, visiting friends/family, saying goodbye to the library where I volunteered this summer, planning sleepovers, calls, making cake and pie (mmm), copying recipes and emptying my camera, etc. etc. etc. Things to do keep popping into my head and then I write them down (or forget them!) but I'm making progress. Oh not to mention the fact that tomorrow is my mom's birthday, and my dad's birthday is four days after I leave, so we're planning several birthday bash events, but finding/wrapping gifts is very difficult when the gift receivers don't want to leave for a minute.

Tonight: Tacos! I'm trying to pack in as much new mexican food and chile as I can before I leave. I don't know how I'll survive 10 months without any chili sauce, which is the staple food of my life, along with bread and milk. Tomorrow we are celebrating at the Shed so yay for red chile sauce on blue corn cheese flat enchiladas!!!

I have more journals than I know what to do with, so I guess that means I have to crack down and keep a written log of events this year (can I do it: probably not, but I'll try). Thanks to everyone who gave me a journal Perhaps, thanks to you, I will be able to learn some actual discipline in the art of journal keeping.

Oh, for all those who are reading this and in Nuevo Mexico, my friend, Shanny, just sent me this quote in an email and I love it so I'm going to post it here, sorry if you're not in NM, hang tight ;D..."Poor New Mexico, so far from heaven, so close to Texas..." haha, its perfect, thank you Shanny.

Now on to more news of France. I'll be arriving in France on Friday, and starting school on Monday, not a lot of transition time, but I guess that's nice in a way; I won't have time to let the anxieties build about my language skills, or lack there of. I know next to nothing about my school, or schedule except that it is Catholic and . . . well, that's it. Wish me luck! I know I'll need it.

A bientot,

e a la france

20 days and counting!

We had the party on Sunday. It was a great success, I'm only sorry that a few people couldn't make it! Am taking a break from thank you notes and sticker-ing up my new planner (thanks Megan!). Also packing for my up-coming trip to Colorado with friends. I got these great vintage, only used once, green suitcases, a two-suitcase matching set when we went to truth or consequences last fall, and I haven't had a chance to use those yet so it should be exciting, though I'm only taking one. Oh, I'm also seriously considering going to Prep for the first day of school, as I don't leave until the next day, though I won't have any classes to go to so I'll have to tag along with my friends. we'll see. anyway thats all my exciting news, wow I do live the high life, thank-you notes and project runway in one day phew, so much excitement. more later, a bientot!