Mostly School

Permission to go to Italy is still in progress, so I don't have any updates about that, but, in exactly one month from now, I will be in London, England :) I'm really looking forward to that trip too. Bonding time with some exchange students I don't normally see is always nice.  And I've never been to London before, so it should be good. I'm sure I will take a lot of pictures. 

School is still going well. And it's still a bit easier to understand things with every day, but I fell like I've reached an extreme slowing down in my learning curve. Maybe it's just because I'm used to being bombarded with new information by now, or that I just did most of my learning within the first month of me being here, so now it's just slowing down.  I think it's the second one.  I don't learn as many new words per day anymore, execpt when I have geography class. Basically we sit there and read articles all class... and it takes me about 10 times as long to read one, because there is a word in every sentence or two that I don't know... there are lots of underlinings and random english words written in green on my notes.

But while we're on the topic of school, I want to say that I think, if I were a native french speaker, school here would be a breeze! Everything in my chem and bio classes that we're doing now, I learned two years ago.  And my french class... well we're preparing to write and essay.  The teacher is going on and on, class after class, explaining how to write this essay... back home, teachers took one class or less to explain an essay. After that, it was go do it, and if you have any questions talk to me on your own time.  Teachers here explain things foreverrr. Like my biology teacher has been dicsussing Mendel and his peas and hybrids and Punnett squares for like 3 classes now... not even unveiling new information each time. Just going over and over the same stuff. I think it should only take one class for the amount we've learned so far. But, back to french class.  The requirements for the essays here seem to be much more leniant than back home.  In my grade 12 english class, I wrote 10 page in-class essays, and 7 page typed up essays.  I saw an example of an essay here, and it was 2.5 pages. And that's not even taking into consideration the huge margins because stuff was written in the side! If it had normal margins it would have been 2 pages.
If I was fluent in french, I would be laughing.  And my french class are the most advanced french students in the school.  Maybe my grade 12 english teacher was just that much of a hard ass, (don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the woman) that I now believe if a paragraph is not (at least) almost a page long, it is much too short... but man these guys have it easy.
For another thing in french class, I might be analysing George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four again.  That could be interesting.  I wish I had kept all my stuff for my various essays on my computer... but, surprisingly enough, I remember a lot.

Us exchange students get extra french work, but it's grammar stuff, to help learn the language better, and not what we're doing in normal french class.  Today our teacher for that gave us Treasure Island (L’île au trésor), and we have to read two chapters by next week.  I think I am able to handle it.  But it's weird, because the teacher for that gives us worksheets with things that range from being as simple to identifying masculin and feminin, to as hard as filling in the blanks with the proper word (7 options, they all sound exactly the same, mean totally different things) ex. Sens, sans, s'en, sang, sens, .... and two more
and we are supposed to know which goes in the blank of a completely french saying that doesn't even translate into english. So it goes all over the place, from being things I learned when I was 6, to things I haven't even the slightest clue what they mean!

I watch Castle on Monday nights.  It's on TV here, but it's always repeats ): and watching it isn't the same without my mom.  It's also not as funny in french, but I still enjoy it, and because they are repeats and I have seen the episodes before, I can imagine what they actually said, in their english voices, and it is funny, so it's ok.  But I wonder if I'm ever going to see any new episodes. 

I finished my second book since being here yesterday.  I obviously need to find more things to do on school nights (actually read like 510 pages in a week).  But I don't usually have much homework to do, and somehow all my other friends do.  And I'm sure it will take me a lot longer to read "L’île au trésor", especially since I'll probably have my french-english dictionary open more than the novel!