This Week In School: 100 Years Of USGEL

If I'm quite honest, not alot has happened this Week In School. Sure there was the big celebration for USGEL, the sportive organisation that has been funding this area for the past 100 years, but other than that its been pretty much business as usual.

Monday was an average School day, German wasn't anything to really comment about, we did a revision on the three D's: Die, Der and Das. This was the lesson where the Teacher wrote a word to the parents of a kid that did the Hitler salute in Class...not something that I would do in front of the Teacher. Especially THIS Teacher. Science was us fiddling around with lots of wires and little light bulbs on our great quest for mesuring...the intensity of an electrical circuit. Not something hugely interesting. Art was us applying those last touches to our short film (how long have we been working on this project now?), and somehow we managed to salvage most of the sound from our original 'cut'. I'm sure the Extended Edition Boxset will be out on Blu-Ray and DVD Monday (filmed using the lowest quality camera money can buy!). Maths was me getting my Test Result back (the one where I 'cheated'), and just as the Teacher said it was horrendous: 7/20. You'll be happy to know that the bits where I used my calculator to help me with mental calculation had a big fat X all over it. Could have been worse I suppose, the guy next to me (and he probably has the highest average in the Class) had a gigantic cross over the ENTIRE FRIGGING PAGE! You couldn't rub it in more, could you Teacher? History in the afternoon charted the inevitable end of Louis the XVI (the French like to name their kings Louis alot don't they?) and the start of a new Republic. Shame that France was now being attacked by EVERYONE at this point or it might have meant peace for the Frenchians. French was the Test on Le Subjonctif, which for a grammar Test went as good as it could be I suppose. I got a 6/10. FLE was me studying the French news, only problem was that I couldn't understand a god-damn thing because they all talk so bloody fast! Itwasquiteliterallyalllikethis!  

Tuesday was nothing remarquable. Maths didn't spark anything in me at all. To be quite honest I don't really give a damn about Maths at all now. We had that 'Re-catch' Test on equations, which didn't go terribly well (I just don't get this, I'm really good at it in Class but how come I make just SO many mistakes in the Test?): I got three out the eight calculations wrong earning me another measly 5/10. At this point my head had slouched all the way to the ground, I seemed to be really getting on top with Maths in the 2nd Trimestre and now I'm just plummuling to the ground faster than the speed of light! Guh, I feel like a big fat failure everytime I walk into Maths now. The Teacher did say that it seems like my Class has 'lost the plot entirely' in this Trimestre, but said that 'We shouldn't just lie there, pick yourselves up'. That was nice of her to say that I suppose. History was the longly dreaded Test on the Revolution, but I was more than ready for it. I know I'm going to get a good score, I quite literally wrote the entire history of the Revolution from start to finish. In a History Test thats the only thing thats required, surely? At least she can't say that I don't know my Revolutions! French was the us studying the last part from that 'possessed jacket' Story, and boy did it SUCK. He came back to his house to find all the stuff that he bought with that stolen money gone...and that was it! Great way to F*CK up the ending author! The final hour was me trying to write my second Story for French (a different one from the 'Living Statues' one), applying everything that we had learnt so far in the goal to create a gripping four page suspense thriller. In exercises like this I should have shined but because we had to continue one of three already-set stories (I chose the one where someone switches on his Computer, but things 'Didn't go as normal' and you had to write from there. Seriously how boring is that? Thats a bit unimaginative isn't it, I could write a better premise than that with my hands tied) and that I had to do it completely in French meant that my abilitys were somewhat restrained. In Short I chose to rip off the Story from Poltergeist where the electricity in the house was haunted and it was causing electronic devices to malfunction and kill a few people. Crap, I know but what else can you do with a starting line as boring as that? It would have been better if the Teacher would just let us create our own stories, but oh well. In fact I can create a better Story in less than ten seconds: Girl wakes up in Wood, doesn't know where she is or who she is but she has to survive somehow as half undead creatures attempt to kill her. There, done. The afternoon started off with English, where we studied the Present Perfect (much to the groaning of my Class, who apparently hates English grammar as much as I hate French grammar for some reason...). German was a tongue twisting affair, in which we had five minutes to perfectly pronounce a German text and would then be evaluated out of /5 for it. I got 5/5, but everyone did so that was no big deal. 

Wednesday was fine, Sport was just as brutal as ever. This time I lost 2-1 against a guy probably a head shorter than me (his tactic was to us my weight against me and swing me around on the spot and then push hard when I slowed down). The Second fight was against the shortest kid in my Class and man did he try (he grabbed one of my legs and sledgehammed my chest so I would fall), but in the end I won with 0-4. Next Week is the last round of the Test, and hopefully I can pull in a few more 'wins'. Technology was more of me fiddling with the 3D model of my maquette, which has been a bit of a task because I'm trying to understand what all the different icons on the toolboard do. French was more of me working on the Story about the Weeping Angel statues. Its funny because I write like a page and then I give it to the French members of the Team who a) Try to understand what the hell I wrote and b) fix any grammatical problems, of which there are MANY. Its a Team, of sorts. 

Thursday was the worse day of the Week, but it wasn't the WORST DAY EVER or anything like that. Maths was okay, I didn't mind it so much. Except what baffles me is that a simple question like: 'Prove (AB) and (FE) are parallel' leads to about a page of complicated text full of maths symbols and different propositions. Why can't I just put: 'Well they're two lines that will never cross each other?' Because they're clearly parallel I just have to prove it! Dammit I'm confused with this crap. Sport was a disaster, yet another member of our Team was off ill so AGAIN we had to work assuming he could do most of the figures! And there isn't any 'fluid' routine moves or flashy entrances, in fact I came onto the mats doing two roly-polies in a row while everyone else has a well choreographed routine involving back flips and somersauts! How are we going to campare to THAT? I've no doubt whatsoever that the actual Test next Week will end in complete and utter flames. S.V.T was even worse, we studied the genitals of a man. Me (and everyone else) was barfing all over the place! I really don't want to know what the insides of my testicules look like okay? Or for that matter know all about Sperm! Someone tell me this is a dream, please? The afternoon started out with me walking into School with sweat dripping down my face, cos' it was blazing hot! Most of the School was outside rehearsing for the big celebration the following day, celebrating 100 years of this Sport organisation known as USGEL...that I've never heard of till now. My School was planning something big for the event, they had a stage built with people playing the guitar, drumkits and the 5eme's and 6eme's singing full blast into the microphones. Although they were all totally out of tune and it was more like shouting than singing. It was funny to see the Science Teacher play the flute! It got worse though when I was told the big 'news': basically all the primary Schools from around the area will be coming on Friday and someones got to take charge of all the little kids running around doing the activities so this task will be given to the 4eme's and the 3eme's (aka US). Thats right, last Friday I was assigned to a group of five eight-year-olds and was their 'Team Leader'. As you can imagine, at the time I was willing to pull a sicky because taking charge of a bunch of moaning kids doesn't sound that fun. Anyway German was kinda boring, and we had to close the windows twenty minutes in because a) They were singing FAR to loud outside and it was breaking everyones ear drums and b) Wasps started to fly in and sting everyone...cue a bunch of screaming girls and we have this lesson. Extra Maths wasn't that bad, we got to go on the computers and work with the tool Geogebra to make weird geometry figures. Much better on a computer than with a pen and a ruler, sooo much easier. Why doesn't Maths get with the times? Music was technically Art because we had to lend a helping hand to the celebration by making signs that indicate where all the different Sport activities were going to be. 


Friday was the day of the big celebration, and I've NEVER seen so many kids in our School playground before. I mean my College is small by most standards, containing less than 143 kids on an average day but here I saw that number TRIPLED. Heck you could barely walk without stepping on a little one! I mean quite literally everyone was there, from parents to Teachers to even people from the retirement home! Everyone had to come in wearing their Sports attire and neither of us could wear white because it was colour coded and only the small children could wear white, for some reason. It didn't really matter to be honest, it was just a swaying mass of white anyway! And at 8.40am in the morning all you could hear was that bloody hip-hop music from the 80s, which no doubt sparked complaints in our village. We couldn't actually participate in the event til' the afternoon so it was lessons for most of the morning: because the Technology Teacher was helping out with the mics I was treated to Extra French for once, and to be honest it was exactly the same as Extra Extra Maths so its sorta like pick your poison at the start of Friday mornings! After that was the great Mass where the preist would get up on stage and give everyone a 'rousing' speech. I chose not to participate in this event because the last 'rousing' speech from the preist resulted in me snoozing, so instead me and the six others in my Class who didn't go watched the end of Nosferatu. It got surprisingly bloody I can tell you! In short nobody got a happy ending. They either died, went mad or turned into a vampire. Hardly a fairytale ending then. Apparently Mum said that there were people running around the village with Olympic Torches that united in the Playground to light a giant candle or something. Seems a bit like Overkill to me.
After an extended playtime it was History where we looked at Robespierre and how he played an influential part in the French Revolution but eventually went insane and beheaded everybody! Nutcases the lot of 'em. Then in S.V.T we studied Sperm...underneath a microscope! Okay now this has gotten TO FAR I SAY! WHAT'S NEXT? WATCHING TWO PEOPLE HAVE BLOODY SEX?! What gets me is WHERE they got the Sperm from. ..And then we studied the all inclusive 'vagina'! The schematical drawings made it look like a sideways jaw full of teeth that wanted to eat you so it was pretty much like a horror movie for us boys. It didn't help that the song 'Oh Sugar Honey Baby....' was playing in the backround of the lesson either! I had to restrain myself from laughing the entire time. 
I went back at the same time as I always do in the afternoon but apparently I was late for some reason. It sent chills up my spine when the Teacher said: 'Your Children Are Waiting For You...' And I was then thrust into a seeving pile of kids and was given five of them to look after (if you're interesting their names were Ludovic, Erik, Baptiste, Thec and Rachel). And as I had feared they were all on sugar and couldn't keep bloody still. Apparently we had to come up with a Team Name and a 'Battle Cry' to chant and after much debate they decided that our Team would be called E.K.P and the Slogan would be 'We are the Ninja's from the village of somethingorother!' Okay...we was then assigned to different Activity's like 'Jump like a Kangoroo' or 'Guess the Riddle' and of course the classic 'Capture The Flag'. Basically really simple ones that the kids could all do. The Activities were all run by the 3eme's so it was nice to know that we weren't the only ones having a hard time with these kids! Our Team was a bit unfair really, as I had some of the older ones from the pack. Quite alot of the other Teams didn't have that many kids over six years old so it was a bit two-sided. There was one Activity were you had to find the answer to a riddle and could I get one right? Somehow my group got 10/10 right and they seemed to be some of the hardest riddles ever! Maybe its because I'm not French? I don't know. In the end we won most of the different games, which was no doubt due to how old most of my kids were. It could have been worse I suppose, they didn't tug at your hair or scream or say 'I need poopy doopy' or anything like that. They did keep asking me the same question again though: 'Why are you so Tall?' to the point where it got seriously annoying but at least not to the point where I lost my temper with them. In fact I played it 'cool' for the most part. The last two hours saw me say goodbye to the kids and was basically one great big party with Music, Dancing and Refreshments. By the end of it we were all SERIOUSLY sunburnt (it was like 50 celsius!) and I just collapsed into Bed at the end of the Day, completely and utterly exhausted. Those kids can really take the stuffing out of you.

Well that was everything that went on over here last Week, I hope you enjoyed the part with all the 'Hyper-Active' kids that I had to follow around. It was quite an experience I can tell you! Til' next Week...