So This Week In School is back for a new year and...hey didn't a miss a Week? *CHECKS CALENDAR* Ahhh yes I forgot to recap the last Week in School before the Christmas Holidays. And subsequently this Blog is nearly two Weeks out of date too. woops. Completely forgot about that. Nevermind, not a lot really happened to be honest apart from the Parents meeting and a few Test Results (Music 14,5/20, French 8,5/15, Maths 9,5/15). To make sure you're not missing anything significant I'll put a little description of the Parents evening (because I assume everyone wants to know how that went on) at the end of my recap for each of the subjects.
Now back to my regular recap: So how was the first Week back you ask? Well it started and ended horribly but the stuff in-between was alright I suppose, if a little boring. So here I was Monday night, setting my Wallace and Gromit alarm clock for the impending morning back (we had Monday off, presumably so the French could recuperate a bit after all the booze they had been consummating for the New Years celebrations...), tucked myself into bed and went straight to sleep feeling just fine. Tuesday morning? I woke up feeling ill, was coughing everywhere, had a bad head and my stomach felt like it was filled with a MILLION butterflies. Refusing to submit to my mortal body I promptly plodded downstairs to make myself a nice pot of tea. Normally Mum would wake me up and slam the mug of Tea onto my lap (I normally need resuscitating on early mornings) but seen as she left at 5.00am to pick Eliot up from the Ferry and wouldn't be back til' the afternoon I had to feed myself for once. I had just finished my second cup of Tea (still feeling dreadful) and was about to move on to the buttered teacakes when I suddenly had that feeling. I dashed to the toilet, and the moment I was through the door I quite literally puked/barfed/exploded EVERYWHERE. Of course I won't give a description of the sick, that would be disgusting (it was mostly the Tea that came up, but I did notice some white stuff that came up as well). So I was standing in a sea of puke, and only had 15 minutes to go before I was due in School. Great. And why didn't I just call it a day and simply not go into School when I was clearly not at all well? Because there was no-one in the house capable to explain my absence: If I take a day off without my mentors/parents explaining my absence then my School will have to resort to phoning the police and consult them on my absence. So basically unless someone from my house contacted the school, the police would show up at our doorstep and we'd be fined. I sure as hell couldn't do it, because that would be suspicious, Grandma couldn't phone the school either because she doesn't know a word of French and Mum was out! I had to go into School no matter what, and surrounded by a pool of sick with only 15 minutes to go was NOT a good start. So I woke Grandma up, which was odd considering that I had just barfed my guts out right next to her door and while she was cleaning up the suck (originally a typo, but I left it in because that's basically what it is) I was frantically trying to both change clothes, and eat SOMETHING, because I'm damn well not going into school on an empty stomach I can tell you, even if I had just puked my brains out all over the floor! Besides, if I'd already puked, then the worst was over right? It's not like I was going to puke again. So I walked into School on Tuesday morning, head pounding, still feeling a bit woozy and to be honest not at all myself. Good start right?
Maths: I'm continuing to do well in Maths, which I'm almost certain is down to the Teacher now. It's the classic start out small and then work your way up to the top formula. You start off with a calculation that is very basic, do several more until you've got every single one right, and then keep adding different elements of complexity to it until you are able solve very complicated calculations (that require a lot of steps in order to solve it) effortlessly. All while the Teacher is doing the rounds and making sure you're doing everything right. So while everything in Class is perfect, how did the Parents evening go? Well the Teacher said that my work is very detailed, very well laid out and generally 'very good' BUT I have a habit for making very simple mistakes for no reason whatsoever and that renders everything I'm doing instantly false. BUT (again with all the buts!) she thinks that I've been improving, and gestured to her log book that contains all of my Results. Seen as the Maths Teacher is also my Principal Teacher she also gave a brief summarisation on my performance in the first Trimester: 'I think you are very quick to learn, very observant, a very good listener and overall a very good worker, but when you don't understand something you really must consult your corresponding Teachers for help'.
English: We've now started a new Chapter that focuses on studying news reports. The news report in question this Week was on the infamous mass floodings that took place in England 2007. We had to describe a few photo's, study a BBC radio news broadcast ect... Again it was alright, but I wish the Teacher would choose our group more when it comes to answering the questions, because the Scores at the end of the Week are all based on how much we participated in Class! It's jolly fine to put your hand up twenty times in Class, but if the Teacher doesn't pick you then it doesn't count. As for the Parents evening, it was exactly what you expect: The conversation with the English Teacher lasted approximately 20 seconds and basically all that was said in those 20 seconds were 'You're brilliant, keep up the good work'.
History: On Monday we corrected the Geography Test I took in December. Because I didn't Blog about that particular Week I'll give you a short description: Revised for five hours, felt pretty prepared, did it (but barely completed it in time) and felt a bit 'meh' in terms of how I performed. And the Result? A poor (by my standards anyway) 13,75/20. Surprisingly my failure this time was down to the questioning part of the Test, which I only scored 4/8 on. The argumentative paragraph (on why America is economically powerful thanks to it's cities) gave me 7,5/10. To rub it in more the highest score in the Class for this Test was a 14,75/20, which meant that I was only a few spelling errors away from obtaining that award for the fourth time in a row. At this point what can I say other than I'll try even harder next time? The moment I fix one problem, another arises! IT'S LIKE A NEVER ENDING STRATEGY GAME! Tuesday was the start of a new chapter on the economic collapse of the 1930's and the path to World War II (rather interesting) and Thursday was the Teacher showing us the last 30 minutes of Schinders List, and I'm sure by now you've all heard of the joke: On the last afternoon before the Xmas holidays, the School decided to show us the Holocaust film 'Schinder's List' by Steven Spielberg. Why they thought that the film 'Schindlers List' and 'Christmas' went together is beyond me! I came back from School feeling uber depressed, and as a Result I was still thinking of the Jews being horribly murdered on the days leading up to Christmas, even when I was watching a repeat of Shrek 2! THANKS SCHOOL :)! Of course the irony now is that the Teacher was forced to cut the film (ran out of time) with about half an hour left, and now having finally seen the end I can without a doubt say...THAT THOSE BASTARDS CUT THE FILM OFF AT THE EXACT MOMENT SCHINDLER STARTED TO HELP THE JEWS! So in other words, THE BIT WHEN THE FILM GOT LESS DEPRESSING AND THE HAPPY ENDING KICKED IN! You'd think they did this on purpose, didn't you? Now for the Parents evening, where the Teacher basically said that I was really good yadda yadda yadda endless praise blah blah blah and it would be good if I could speak up a bit more in Class yadda yadda.
German: While I'm doing just fine in German, it's still one of the most boring things I've ever had to endure in my life (*joke* hashtag: moreboringthananything#). In the Parents evening the Teacher said that I was a 'model student', was more mature (read that again: MATURE) than the rest of the Class and works really hard.
Technology: We're making what the Technology Teacher likes to call a FAST diagram, which are used to prioritize the objectives or functions of a product. So essentially we have to do that but for a panel that educates people on the different wildlife of the lake. *SIGHS* Again, not the most interesting of tasks. Oh yeah, my group scored a 4/5 on a thing that we did a few months ago and a 4,5/5 on something else. Wish I could be more detailed about that but I find it hard TO GIVE A DAMN ABOUT TECHNOLOGY recently. The Technology Teacher expressed his belief that 'my group is quite disruptive' in the Parents meeting, and I should try to get my opinion voiced when it comes to the final say. Overall though the work from me is still good, I just need to be more aggressive if someone in my Team just goes 'I'm right and you're wrong, we're doing this' and try to come to some sort of compromise. Sounds fair enough.
D.V.3: Not a lot happened, we worked on our diaporama about a maintenance technician for a bit. Did a bit of this, corrected a bit of that, you know the usual flim-flam! The Teacher was more than happy with my work though in the PR meeting, and said that he could let me go off and do anything I wanted when it came to doing an interview with the technician or taking photos of the computer room/work environment for the diaporama. So basically he trusts me to work hard on the task in hand. Well there's another bit of praise ticked of my list *CHECK*
S.V.T: Didn't have an S.V.T lesson this Week, seen as we have S.V.T on a Monday and school started on Tuesday. The Parents meeting was...interesting. The Teacher Mme Gandon (having looked at my fabulous Report) wondered if I was slacking a bit in her subject. Which was understandable, it seems odd that I am good in everything apart from S.V.T, but I was insistent on the fact that I revised hard for both Tests, but the second one suffered because I couldn't make sense of a damn thing and muddled everything up. Of course she replied back saying that in future I should ask when I don't understand anything, which admittedly, is a major weakness of mine, although not one that occurs often. She gained a few points in my books when she said that: A) Her subject can appear boring, but she is doing her best and B) She is re-evaluating the lessons to make it more 'understandable'. So at least she is aware of how poor a job she is doing?
Art: Same thing as before, I made it seem like one of the silhouettes had fallen into a hole and hurt himself badly. The Teacher laughed at it so that should count for something. The Art Teacher was absent from the Parents meeting, but I assume (judging from my Score) that it would just be more praise lobbed onto my ever growing ego of confidence that had been steadily building throughout the evening.
Science: The new Chapter on renewable energy went down a treat: Did you know that solar energy makes up 10% of France's electricity? Well I didn't, but I'm really that bothered about it. So yeah, the Test on power stations and energy should be easy-peasy. The Teacher was again dumping praise on me when it came to the Parents meeting. He just said that I have been 'very consistent' when it came to my Results and I should keep up the good work.
Music: Still studying how music is used in various adverts to set the 'mood' of certain products. For example in perfume adverts it's the very classical stuff, like Mozart or *INSERT CLASSICAL COMPOSER HERE*. It was tolerable, though I'd be lying if I said that I was disappointed when the lesson ended! The Teacher's comments at the Parents evening were largely the same as the rest of the comments, which by now you can expect: You're brilliant, well done! At this point in the meeting I was all like 'Yeah yeah, heard it all before *YAWN*'
French: This Week we studied the first seven minutes of the film 'Un Secret'. It was interesting to see how the film translated the lines from the book almost word by word visually, each camera pan contributing to the overarching theme. And what did the Teacher say at the PR meeting? Again, hate to sound like a battered drum here but she said that 'the change in Tim since 6eme has been nothing short of remarkable, in fact I barely recognised him' and that 'I have put some serious effort into her subject this year' AND that 'his writing ability is clearly more matured than some of the students in his year' BUT 'Tim needs to overcome his problems with grammar if he wants those results to improve'. Need I say more?
Sport: One of the worst lessons I've ever experienced, full stop. Apart from the Tuesday barfing session, I thought that everything would be smooth sailing from then on but on the very last lesson of the Week everything came tumbling down once more. Why? Because I was horrible in Sport, to the point where it was embarrassing. And I mean EMBARRASSING. Seen as it was the first lesson of the New Year, the Teacher decided to give us the choice of what Sport we wanted to do, and this eventually came down to the girls all wanting to do Basketball and the boys wanting to do Football. Me, not wanting to wind up being the only boy NOT playing Football ended up on the Football side of the playground and was quickly allocated to being the goalie. They realised that I was the only weak link in both of the Teams, me not having played footie in clubs or even being semi-good at it so of course they shoved me to the other end of the field. I was fine with this, because normally I suck when I'm not in goal (and even when I am in goal, I lose more balls than I save!) and at least this way I won't be a sweaty mess at the end of the lesson, running around like a headless chicken for an hour. You can see where this is heading can't you? Yep, I missed EVERY single ball that came my way, and EVERY single time the other Team scored a goal successfully. By the end it was 24-9! THAT is how much I sucked at Sport! I might as well have just stood by the side of the goalposts and gestured to the player to shoot into the goal, it would have had the same effect! LOOK AT THAT SCORE! It wasn't a defeat, IT WAS AN ANNIHILATION! And it was all down to me! Thank GOD that it was the last lesson, I would have been ripped to shreds by my Team if the day had gone on a second longer. And my plight was made even more agonising by the fact that the other goalie on the opposing Team was brilliant. It was like a neverending pit of shame, a trend that I just couldn't shake off. OH WOE IS ME TO HAVE BEEN GIFTED WITH SUCH BIG FEET! Ugh, I was just begging to the gods for it to stop, for me to save ONE goal, but alas, fate was stacked up against me...So what did M. Radenac say at the Parents meeting? That I'm rubbish basically, but he can see that I'm at least trying to get better at Sport. He also caught me out for not knowing the different muscle groups in French, but I was THIS close to telling him that if the Test was hinted at beforehand then I would have known the different muscle groups!
So that was the first Week back. Next Blog is on Les Epreuves Communes so expect more of my ramblings coming up..
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