Hi, everyone!
Guess what happened last Monday! I opened my shutters in the morning, and IT HAD SNOWED!!!! We've had a few "flurry storms," but this was the first snow that stuck.
I didn't get to play in the snow, but I did spend the day in Lyon with Anna, a German exchange student who was at my school in the US last year. It was so great to see her and catch up on everything that she's been up to. Since it was Easter Monday (a holiday here in France), almost no stores were open, but we had fun anyway. We walked around the almost empty mall at Part-Dieu with her sister, then met her parents for lunch. Afterwards, we went to le Parc de la Tête d'Or, a zoo of sorts (much more parc than zoo, but there were elephants, monkeys, giraffs, lions, tigers, and bears -oh, my!) :) It started getting cold and drizzling, so we went to their hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon there. I laughed so much that my cheeks hurt at the end of the day!
Monday also marked an important chapter in my book of becoming more independant/self-confident; I took the train by myself - and didn't get lost! :) Good practice for May, when I'm going to Norway!
Back-track a little: Easter. Over the night, the Easter bells had brought chocolate for the family (the Easter Bunny exists mostly in Alsace, where there are a lot of people with German heritage). We went to church in the morning then went back to the house and ate. And ate. And ate... It was really yummy! That afternoon, we relaxed, watched a movie, and played Rummikub. Nice. :)
Otherwise, I'm getting ready for lots of travelling. This Saturday, I'm going to Lyon again, this time with the other 3 AFSers at my school, then I'm going down to Montelimar for the night, visiting an AFSer who had been at my school at the beginning of the year, but changed families right before Christmas. The weekend after, I'm going to le château d'Anjou for another AFS weekend. The week after, I have 2 days of school, then go to Paris with my class! We get back to Annonay just in time for April vacation, during which I'm going to Strasbourg with my host family. A week and a half after vacation, I'm heading to Norway for 5 days. Whew! Lots of travelling!!
That's pretty much it for now.
Hope everyon's doing well.
-Catherine
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
end of vacation
I just finished vacation... it's back to school! We should be getting 2nd trimester report cards soon.
Over vacation, I didn't do much. My only trip was to my host mom's parents' house, near Marseilles. I'm always astonished when I see them - her dad looks (and acts) just like my Pepere!!! Her mom isn't exactly like my Memere, but she does make amazing food, just like her!
Otherwise, I worked on the books that I have to read for school in the U.S. and got down to getting permission for the trips I want to take later this year (including Norway... FUN!!!).
Hope everyone's doing well.
-Cate
Over vacation, I didn't do much. My only trip was to my host mom's parents' house, near Marseilles. I'm always astonished when I see them - her dad looks (and acts) just like my Pepere!!! Her mom isn't exactly like my Memere, but she does make amazing food, just like her!
Otherwise, I worked on the books that I have to read for school in the U.S. and got down to getting permission for the trips I want to take later this year (including Norway... FUN!!!).
Hope everyone's doing well.
-Cate
Friday, February 15, 2008
Hi, all!
Wow, these last six weeks have really flown by, and I'm just starting another 2-week long vacation. Yay! We don't have much planned - we're just hanging around the house and maybe going down to visit grandparents for a little while.
Since my last entry, I've been really busy with school, especially with the "Bac Blanc," which is a mock form of the Baccalauréat that I'll be taking in June. For the French written portion (which I actually took before Christmas), I got a 7/20 and on the oral portion I got a 10, which means that I would have passed the oral but not the written. I think my writing skills have improved since then, and they probably will even more before June, so I am a bit hopefull. :) For the math and science parts, I got passing grades, too (math:19, biology:11, physical science: 17.5).
We also had our mid-year AFS weekend. I can't believe that I've already finished more than half of my 10 months here! The weekend was fun, between seeing all of the other AFSers in my region and the talent show on Sunday afternoon, where I performed Cinderella (the short, funny version) with 8 other AFS students.
Some other international students also arrived at my school - another girl from the US arrived with AFS, and a boy from Australia came with Rotary. I knew that AFS was a strong program in my region, as almost everybody knows about it. It was great to have someone here through a different program, though, as everyone got to see that AFS isn't the only program out there. He also seemed to be really happy with his Rotary experience, so he was a great marketer. :)
I'm going to sign out for now so that I can get a good night's sleep to start off the vacation correctly. haha.
Hope everyone's doing well!
-Catherine
Wow, these last six weeks have really flown by, and I'm just starting another 2-week long vacation. Yay! We don't have much planned - we're just hanging around the house and maybe going down to visit grandparents for a little while.
Since my last entry, I've been really busy with school, especially with the "Bac Blanc," which is a mock form of the Baccalauréat that I'll be taking in June. For the French written portion (which I actually took before Christmas), I got a 7/20 and on the oral portion I got a 10, which means that I would have passed the oral but not the written. I think my writing skills have improved since then, and they probably will even more before June, so I am a bit hopefull. :) For the math and science parts, I got passing grades, too (math:19, biology:11, physical science: 17.5).
We also had our mid-year AFS weekend. I can't believe that I've already finished more than half of my 10 months here! The weekend was fun, between seeing all of the other AFSers in my region and the talent show on Sunday afternoon, where I performed Cinderella (the short, funny version) with 8 other AFS students.
Some other international students also arrived at my school - another girl from the US arrived with AFS, and a boy from Australia came with Rotary. I knew that AFS was a strong program in my region, as almost everybody knows about it. It was great to have someone here through a different program, though, as everyone got to see that AFS isn't the only program out there. He also seemed to be really happy with his Rotary experience, so he was a great marketer. :)
I'm going to sign out for now so that I can get a good night's sleep to start off the vacation correctly. haha.
Hope everyone's doing well!
-Catherine
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Happy New Year!
Hi, all.
I hope everyone had a great holiday season and I wish everyone good health, happiness, etc. in 2008 (only a year and a half until I graduate!! Oh, goodness.)
It's been quite a while since I last wrote. I've been really busy with school work and vacation and everything. :) At the end of November, I felt a little weird about things, since there's no Thanksgiving here. I ended up making a small Thanksgiving dinner to share with my host family anyway, thanks to a care package from my aunt. Then I realized that, since there isn't Thanksgiving here, there isn't a holiday to mark the beginning of the Christmas season (decoration- and commercial-wise). I barely heard anything about Christmas throughout all of the month of December, which was a little odd, as in the US, I hear about it non-stop starting on Thanksgiving (and sometimes even before). In the middle of December, I recieved my report card for the first trimester. I'm in the 2nd quartile of the class! I won't lie: I'm really proud of myself for pulling that off, especially since I didn't understand what was going on in some of my classes at the beginning of the year. My two whole uninterrupted weeks of Christmas vacation (that was really nice!) were split into two parts: the first week, we were in the south of France with the grand-parents, eating way too much, and the second week, we relaxed at the house and had guests a few of the afternoons. Overall, it was a very enjoyable vacation. :)
For my last DS before vacation, we had a "Bac Blanc" in French, which is a practice test for the Bac. When my teacher handed them back to us earlier this week, she said that she had graded them like they would be graded for the Bac, including the tests of the AFS students. Guess my grade. 7/20. Yup, that's right. I almost have 10, which is what you have to have to pass. Plus, I took that before vacation and the real Bac isn't until the end of June!
Coming up next for school is the oral portion of the Bac Blanc, which I'm not expecting to do as well on. We're given a page of a book that we've read in class and have 30 minutes to put together a presentation on it that will explain all of the little details and will last up to 20 minutes. The deal with the oral is that you're in a room with the examinor for 20 minutes, and if you finish your presentation in 10 minutes, they get to ask you questions for 10 minutes, which can be a bit difficult. I'm really glad that I have no problem reading slowly in French! So we'll see how that goes.
Other than that, nothing new is really going on. I'm still working really hard in school, trying to improve my average (which was a 12.9/20, where the class average was 12) and all of that. I also just realized that I'm almost to the half-way point of my trip. Wow. The first couple of months went rather slowly, but the rest of the time has flown by.
My next entry will be dedicated to talking about Annonay and Roiffieux.
à plus tard!
-Catherine
I hope everyone had a great holiday season and I wish everyone good health, happiness, etc. in 2008 (only a year and a half until I graduate!! Oh, goodness.)
It's been quite a while since I last wrote. I've been really busy with school work and vacation and everything. :) At the end of November, I felt a little weird about things, since there's no Thanksgiving here. I ended up making a small Thanksgiving dinner to share with my host family anyway, thanks to a care package from my aunt. Then I realized that, since there isn't Thanksgiving here, there isn't a holiday to mark the beginning of the Christmas season (decoration- and commercial-wise). I barely heard anything about Christmas throughout all of the month of December, which was a little odd, as in the US, I hear about it non-stop starting on Thanksgiving (and sometimes even before). In the middle of December, I recieved my report card for the first trimester. I'm in the 2nd quartile of the class! I won't lie: I'm really proud of myself for pulling that off, especially since I didn't understand what was going on in some of my classes at the beginning of the year. My two whole uninterrupted weeks of Christmas vacation (that was really nice!) were split into two parts: the first week, we were in the south of France with the grand-parents, eating way too much, and the second week, we relaxed at the house and had guests a few of the afternoons. Overall, it was a very enjoyable vacation. :)
For my last DS before vacation, we had a "Bac Blanc" in French, which is a practice test for the Bac. When my teacher handed them back to us earlier this week, she said that she had graded them like they would be graded for the Bac, including the tests of the AFS students. Guess my grade. 7/20. Yup, that's right. I almost have 10, which is what you have to have to pass. Plus, I took that before vacation and the real Bac isn't until the end of June!
Coming up next for school is the oral portion of the Bac Blanc, which I'm not expecting to do as well on. We're given a page of a book that we've read in class and have 30 minutes to put together a presentation on it that will explain all of the little details and will last up to 20 minutes. The deal with the oral is that you're in a room with the examinor for 20 minutes, and if you finish your presentation in 10 minutes, they get to ask you questions for 10 minutes, which can be a bit difficult. I'm really glad that I have no problem reading slowly in French! So we'll see how that goes.
Other than that, nothing new is really going on. I'm still working really hard in school, trying to improve my average (which was a 12.9/20, where the class average was 12) and all of that. I also just realized that I'm almost to the half-way point of my trip. Wow. The first couple of months went rather slowly, but the rest of the time has flown by.
My next entry will be dedicated to talking about Annonay and Roiffieux.
à plus tard!
-Catherine
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The French Schools, plus a little catch-up :)
So... It's been a while since I last wrote. I spent vacation in Normandy, visiting the debarkment beach, the American cemitary Deauville, Honfleur, and a few other really cool places. The debarkment beach and the cemitary were... amazing to see. There's so much history there, and it's so beautiful. On the way back, we stopped at Versailles, which is also really pretty. Here's a link to my pictures from the trip: http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006771&l=48f0d&id=1241970410.
I also spent a Saturday in Paris (we left at 3:30 in the morning and stayed in Paris until 3:30 the next morning) with a bunch of other AFS people. We walked all around the city and saw the Eiffel tower at night, all lit up, and l'Arc de Triomphe, along with a bunch of other smaller sites.
Now, about the schools here. They start with the years of CP, which is like our elementary school. They take all of the same classes as we do in the US plus (believe it or not) English. My 6-year-old host sister has learned a bunch of songs in English and their French equivilants, and I'm often a bit taken aback to hear the English version of "Frère Jaques" being sung in the next room! They have the same teacher all day.
Kids start "College", which consitst of 6ème through 3ème, - our middle school - when they're about the age of our 6th graders. They continue with all of their old subjects and add one more language. In the private school here in Annonay, the choices for the second foreign language are Spanish and German. At this point, they start to have different teachers. They stay with the same group of studentsin the same room, and the teachers move around.
The equivilant of our high school - Lycée - starts in 2nde. It is only 3 years long. In 2nde, students start to think about what they want to do with their lives, and add more classes onto their schedules - they can choose from a few different classes, including Art Plastiques, Italian, and Latin. In 1ère, they choose which "track" they want to be in - L (literature), S (science), or ES (economic and social sciences). They will stay on this track during 1ère and Terminale years, and will take different standardised tests, depending on which track they're on. On the literature track, for example, a student has 6 hours of French class each week, at least 3 1/2 hours of English, and 5 hours of History, but only 2 hours of math and 1 1/2 of sciences. On the other hand, a student on the science track has fewer hours of history and French, but many more hours of math and science. In addition, every student chooses a "speciality" - English, math, and Art are 3 of the most common choices. They then take at least 2 hours every week focusing on this subject. At the end of 1ère, every student takes the French portion of the BAC, the standardised test that every Lycée student in France takes. Of course, this test is harder for the students in L than the students in S and ES, as they have spent more time working on the subject. Students in L also take the math and science portions of the BAC. During Terminale year, students in L don't have any math or science in their schedules, but concentrate more on literature, history, and languages. At the end of the year, every student takes the portions of the BAC that they have not already taken. The scores on these tests determine what they will be able to do after Lycée. Some people even repeat either 1ère or Terminale year in order to try to get a better grade on the BAC.
One major difference that I've noticed is the grades. All grades are out of 20. The thing that was the most surprising to me, though, is that most students are moderately happy with a 10. In the US, if I have a grade out of 20, I'm moderately happy with a 16. Here, getting a 16 is really good, and almost all of the students would be extremely happy with a 16 or above.
That's all for now. I hope you enjoy the pictures and have a great Thanksgiving!!
-Catherine
I also spent a Saturday in Paris (we left at 3:30 in the morning and stayed in Paris until 3:30 the next morning) with a bunch of other AFS people. We walked all around the city and saw the Eiffel tower at night, all lit up, and l'Arc de Triomphe, along with a bunch of other smaller sites.
Now, about the schools here. They start with the years of CP, which is like our elementary school. They take all of the same classes as we do in the US plus (believe it or not) English. My 6-year-old host sister has learned a bunch of songs in English and their French equivilants, and I'm often a bit taken aback to hear the English version of "Frère Jaques" being sung in the next room! They have the same teacher all day.
Kids start "College", which consitst of 6ème through 3ème, - our middle school - when they're about the age of our 6th graders. They continue with all of their old subjects and add one more language. In the private school here in Annonay, the choices for the second foreign language are Spanish and German. At this point, they start to have different teachers. They stay with the same group of studentsin the same room, and the teachers move around.
The equivilant of our high school - Lycée - starts in 2nde. It is only 3 years long. In 2nde, students start to think about what they want to do with their lives, and add more classes onto their schedules - they can choose from a few different classes, including Art Plastiques, Italian, and Latin. In 1ère, they choose which "track" they want to be in - L (literature), S (science), or ES (economic and social sciences). They will stay on this track during 1ère and Terminale years, and will take different standardised tests, depending on which track they're on. On the literature track, for example, a student has 6 hours of French class each week, at least 3 1/2 hours of English, and 5 hours of History, but only 2 hours of math and 1 1/2 of sciences. On the other hand, a student on the science track has fewer hours of history and French, but many more hours of math and science. In addition, every student chooses a "speciality" - English, math, and Art are 3 of the most common choices. They then take at least 2 hours every week focusing on this subject. At the end of 1ère, every student takes the French portion of the BAC, the standardised test that every Lycée student in France takes. Of course, this test is harder for the students in L than the students in S and ES, as they have spent more time working on the subject. Students in L also take the math and science portions of the BAC. During Terminale year, students in L don't have any math or science in their schedules, but concentrate more on literature, history, and languages. At the end of the year, every student takes the portions of the BAC that they have not already taken. The scores on these tests determine what they will be able to do after Lycée. Some people even repeat either 1ère or Terminale year in order to try to get a better grade on the BAC.
One major difference that I've noticed is the grades. All grades are out of 20. The thing that was the most surprising to me, though, is that most students are moderately happy with a 10. In the US, if I have a grade out of 20, I'm moderately happy with a 16. Here, getting a 16 is really good, and almost all of the students would be extremely happy with a 16 or above.
That's all for now. I hope you enjoy the pictures and have a great Thanksgiving!!
-Catherine
Monday, October 8, 2007
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Guess who got a 19 out of 20 on the math portion of the DS when the class average was 15.8!!!! Yeah, that would be me. :) I'm much better at math in France than in the US, apparently.
I haven't gotten the results from the French portion yet, but I think I did pretty well. I think I'll find out this afternoon, when I have 2 hours of French class. Yay.
Really, though, I like my classes a lot. English is really easy (but what's new, right?), I'm enjoying Bel-Ami by Maupassant in French class, History seems like it would be interesting if I understood what was going on :), math is really easy (for the first time in several years), and I don't have to go to Spanish because everyone here has been taking it for 5 years already.
My host family is great. I really like talking to them and going out to do family stuff... It's quite fun. :)
So... Next time, I'll put in a little more about the school system, which is SO different.
~Catherine~
I haven't gotten the results from the French portion yet, but I think I did pretty well. I think I'll find out this afternoon, when I have 2 hours of French class. Yay.
Really, though, I like my classes a lot. English is really easy (but what's new, right?), I'm enjoying Bel-Ami by Maupassant in French class, History seems like it would be interesting if I understood what was going on :), math is really easy (for the first time in several years), and I don't have to go to Spanish because everyone here has been taking it for 5 years already.
My host family is great. I really like talking to them and going out to do family stuff... It's quite fun. :)
So... Next time, I'll put in a little more about the school system, which is SO different.
~Catherine~
Friday, October 5, 2007
Week 6
Well.
I've been here for 5 weeks now, and in school for most of it. It's been fun, exciting, difficult, funny, sad, great... everything, really.
I don't have much time right now (I have DS in 10 minutes - basically, every Friday I have to take a 4-hour long written test. Each week, it's a different subject or two different subjects. Today's the first one I'm taking, and they're for French and Math. Wish me luck!), but I just wanted to get that out there and let everyone know that I'm doing well.
My host family's great, as are the people in my class (I stay with the same group of people all day - the classes don't switch around like they do in my high school in the US).
I'll get a longer, more detailed note up either Monday or Thursday of next week.
-Catherine
I've been here for 5 weeks now, and in school for most of it. It's been fun, exciting, difficult, funny, sad, great... everything, really.
I don't have much time right now (I have DS in 10 minutes - basically, every Friday I have to take a 4-hour long written test. Each week, it's a different subject or two different subjects. Today's the first one I'm taking, and they're for French and Math. Wish me luck!), but I just wanted to get that out there and let everyone know that I'm doing well.
My host family's great, as are the people in my class (I stay with the same group of people all day - the classes don't switch around like they do in my high school in the US).
I'll get a longer, more detailed note up either Monday or Thursday of next week.
-Catherine
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