Showing posts with label A Christmas Carol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Christmas Carol. Show all posts

Saturday, 11 December 2010

This Week In School: Christmas is a comin...




Its been somewhat of a slow Week, all the Teachers have been swamped with School meetings, bad weather, Brioches and Xmas trees. But I digress...


The Week was off to a heavy start with the previously delayed German Test that was supposed to have taken place last Thursday but seen as half the School didn't show up it was cancelled and was then scheduled to Monday. The Test was on the time, and was fairly easy to do (which was surprising, although I did have an extra four days of revision time). She showed you clocks and you just had to write the time correctly, after that you had to relay the corresponding times with the correct phrase: so for example if you saw 9.20AM then you drew a line from that to Neun Uhr Zwanzig (or Zwanzig nach Neun) and so on...I got a deserving 18/20, which is nothing to be sniffed at.
Technology was ok, we were still on the hunt for a mouvement/light detector sensor that would turn the lights on or off depending on if you were in a room or not and also switch's lights off if there was natural sunshine shining in the house.      
Art was a cool lesson, our task was that we had to take an ordinary photograph or still of anything we wanted and just distort them in any fashion we want on the computer so that it wouldn't resemble reality (I came up with the idea to photoshop in a picture of a barren desert with a School classroom, but later scrapped that idea and just drew in a bloody big black hole that would start chucking out demons onto a field of cows...the things I come up with...)
Maths was essentially one big bore fest with the Teacher just giving us a boat load of Maths exercises to do (at least it was easy).  And by the way for those of you that had spent time on my Maths conumdrum from last Week, the answer is 12 minutes.
My Brochure was coming along well in Geography, really well in fact. I hate to chuck praise up my ass, but I think its the closest thing you can get to an actual brochure with Microsoft Office!
French was okay, you had to create a story out of a picture (I didn't really have anything to work with, the picture was a painting of a woman crying).




Tuesday was fine, albeit I cocked up a bit in a Maths exercise that you had to hand in to the teacher (so she could evaluate our 'level' or something) and French was hard, the Test on Le Passe Simple didn't go well at all, and the pictures I had to create a story from got EVEN worse (this time we were presented a field of Poppys!) and  there was quite a few barriers made in the whole English-French language thing that stopped me from writing 'a vivid description'.  
In English, (god the English Teacher is funny, god help the kids that can actually understand what he's saying, which is pretty much a form of English but maxed up to 1000mph! He's all over the place doing weird sounds coupled with odd body language! Quite frankly he needs to calm down a bit, I would recommend him as a stand up comedian!) We had to fill in a form about what we have and what we don't have and make a survey out of it covering the whole Class! So for example, 50% of the class don't spend more than half an hour on their Homework! 
German was full of weird pronounciations that would give even a tongue twister specialist a twisted tongue, which led to some awesomely hilarious results (luckily the finger of doom didn't pick me out to say a few tongue twisters, but it would get me next time).
Also the Brioches came today (the ones that we had ordered from the School to help raise a charity fund or something nice like that) and boy do they look D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! I say they're at their best when toasted and buttered, YUM!




Wednesday, isn't really alot to comment about other than the fact that I still can't get past Level 4 on the High Jump, the Teacher just puts it up so ridiculously high, ARGGH! And the Technology Test went well, I'd be shocked if I get a low score. And I did fail in the French Test (at least the one on Tuesday anyway), a crap 7,25/15. I made up for it though, getting 9/10 in the Dictation from the previous Week and 9,5/10 in the Geography Test.




Thursday was so faustrating! Maths was fine enough, but Sport was just two solid hours of PURE FAUSTRATION!!! Now, I'm sure that everyone who reads my Blog already know of my pure hatred of Ping-F*CKING-Pong (or table tennis, but Ping-Pong sounds much funnier), but here it was just awful. Do you know what my problem with Ping-Pong is? Is not that I'm crap at it (although I admit that it would be more enjoyable if I was brilliant at it), its that I'm ALMOST good at it. Today was the perfect example of that: 1ST Match: 12-13 (I lost), 2ND Match: 14-15 (I lost), 3RD Match: 16-19 (I lost), 5TH Match: 12-14 (I lost), 5TH Match: 15-14 (I won!), 6TH Match: 16-17 and finally on the 7TH and final Match I won with 13-10. Notice a pattern there? I ALMOST won every single time by just a mere 1-3 points! I'm under 3 points away of winning EVERY single match. Isn't that just UNBELIEVEABLE?! Sure I started off crap but now I'm pretty good, but I still somehow manage to lose EVERY single Match? It's almost like the referee cheated! EVERY SINGLE TIME! But every Match has a new referee so how is that possible? They ALL cheated? Or am I really just ALMOST there? I don't believe in things like 'Bad luck' but here it seems to be exactly the case! I CAN'T %$£&* BELIEVE IT! And S.V.T hardly improved either: I had revised sooo hard on Wednesday night for the Test (on volcanoes) and out of all the things I could have forgotten I forget TWO words that were almost FATAL to the Test! What were these two words you ask? Well an effusive volcano eruption has what the French call 'Lave Fluide' (fluid Lava, much more fast than the other type of Lava) and an Explosive Volcano Eruption has whats called 'Lave Visqueuse' (much more gloopy, like porridge) and I (of course me being me) mixed them up! I put on the Test that an Explosive eruption has 'Lave Fluide' and a Effusive eruption has 'Lave Visqueuse'. OUT OF ALL THE THINGS TO FORGET, WHY THIS??? And this question was asked THREE times during the Test (If you think this volcano is a ????? volcano then it has ????? lava and so on...). *SIGHS* 
So the morning was terrible, the afternoon was fine, in Music we are now currently studying an exerpt from the Hunchback of Notre Dame musical (you can catch the exact same vid here: http://youtu.be/Of1SGJesmlE). Mme Jouet our Music teacher has been in our College for years now, and while she started off acting all nice she now holds our Class under an Iron Grip of Silence. If you so much as breathe right now, she'll cut your head off! She told off a girl in my Class: 'You talked...would you say this was normal? TALKING in Class? I should think not..." *GULPS!* No wonder we never put our hands up in Class, shes so bloody scary!



Friday morning was much calmer, we spent 3 hours on the computer that composed of either doing Maths exercises (the website is Mathenpoche.com if your interested), coloring in a map of Europe (that we found online) or finishing the Diaporama about what job do we want to do when we grow up (IF that day ever comes, which I'm assured that it will). We had a French Test in the afternoon, which was (surprisingly) the 'look at picture, create a story from it' Test, which went pretty well (hardly surprising considering we have been practising all week). Science was pretty cool, dare I say interesting, we are basically preparing to do one big science experiment, which involves studying carbon dioxyde, a big heater, a cool glass bowl-type-thingymajig and alot of Test tubes full of liquid. Monday is going to be a proper mix-liquids-together-and-hope-they-don't-blow-up-in-your-face-type-of-thing! And we've got to bring our Science jackets. Now why can't we do this all the time? For once I'm hoping the snow doesn't fall...    


This Week had a few ups and downs, but we've got Christmas coming up and School is a good way of passing the time...as long as theres no F*CKING Ping-Pong involved. NOTE TO GOD: PLEASE MAKE IT SNOW NEXT THURSDAY, PLEEEASE! DON'T LET ME ENDURE PING-PONG ANY LONGER!!!


P.S My Report for the first Trimestre came in the post Today, will post a Blog about it soon...

Friday, 10 December 2010

ITS CHRISTMAS!




In order to really decompose Xmas we have to split into two seperate groups, both the positives AND the negatives (I don't think any kid has any...). Of course me being me lets start with the negatives:



LONGEST MONTH OF THE YEAR:
God, December MUST be scientifically proven to be the longest month of the Year (Every kid out there would agree, while the Parents can't wait for it to be all over)! Although not really a bad thing about Christmas, I really wish Xmas day was on the 1rst of December! For me this has been the longest Week of the Year! all the other months feel twice as short as one Week in December! But why is it so long? Well in December, every day feels like a step further to acheiving your ultimate heaven...YAY, PRESENTS! AND ITS FREE! ITS EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED AND MORE! THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF THE YEAR!! December is the longest month of the Year because it represents every kids dream all rolled into one (I'll never forget the day when I saw the Peter Pan Adventures: Hook's ship advert on T.V)!



CHRISTMAS = ONE BIG MARKETING PLOY:
While Halloween represents everything dark and instinctive about the Human soul, Christmas is like the complete opposite of that, aimed at giving and loving and everything nice and innocent about the human soul...and its also a great marketing ploy for practically every business and retailer out there to squeeze just about every spare penny you've earnt (with ridiculously overpriced presents) and to give it to your spoiled and undeserving kids (I'm not complaining at all though, but I dread the day when its ME that buys the prezzies and not your overly giving parents)! MERRY CHRISTMAS  (SMALL PRINT: WILL BANKRUPT YOU. IS MAKING YOUR KIDS SPOILT. MAY LEAD TO BEING NICE FOR ONCE)! Heck, Christmas is such a money-maker that pretty much every economy sky-rockets on Christmas Day. The Coca Cola Xmas advert, while being a bit of a silly family tradition for us (we don't officially call it Christmas untill we see that advert), is just Coca Cola's little marketing stategy to make you want a Coke. Father Christmas drinking Coke? His Teeth must be revolting! 




And now for the Positives:


ITS THE SEASON OF GOODWILL:
You can always count on Christmas to bring the best out of people, Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol is not one of the most famous pieces of storytelling for absolutely no reason you know! Despite mainly being wrote as a Victorian Ghost Story, it's a book about a man who's heart was so cold that nothing could cure it...except Christmas (and maybe a few bottles of Whisky that might lead to a few hullucinations, what can I say, Scrooge was either mentally ill or drunk!). Christmas is the symbol of all goodwill, the whole concept of gift-giving is to symbolise the good-ness in all our hearts. Either that or its just an excuse to give your kids presents so you can shove you arse full of "I'm a great Parent!" delusions. Remember all the Christmas movies we've seen over the past 50 years of cinema? Sure its a cliche now (you see one Xmas film, you see them all) but the main theme out of all of them is just getting into the holiday spirit and forgetting about all your troubles (ex: Its a wonderful life). They all have happy endings, and even the coldest, most evilest of men, is shown to have an Xmas tree. Ultimately Xmas is a representation of what we would all like to be, a season of much fun (decorating the tree, being given presents, watch the annual Doctor Who special, having fun with the family, all the Xmas dinners...) and showing the purety of the heart. Yes its a great sales booster and a ridiculous excuse for the Catholic church to shoehorn in a birth of a guy that probably never existed, but its also one of the best things to come out of the Human race (well that and Doctor Who, and maybe Capt. Hook...).




GETTING PRESENTS IS FUN:
What is the best thing about Christmas? Anyone that doesn't say Presents is quite frankly lying. What is the first thing you do in preparation for Christmas? Make a Wishlist, of course (or as what I would call it: This is what I want and I'll be VERY unhappy if I don't get it list!). Its easily the best thing about the season, a chance for kids to live out the ideal life: endless piles of toys just waiting to be played with! The hardest part is choosing whether you want to play the new Call of Duty first or Mass Effect 3 (TBA but come on 2011!). God, so many gifts, I don't know which one to choose! I couldn't give a crap about celebrating Christ's Birth or admiring the Christmas tree once i've got my grubby hands on that gleaming pile of gold, those things were just fillers to waste time and make Xmas day come ever closer. Not saying that those things are boring, its just that without Presents Christmas wouldn't be the phenominal celebration that it is today, billions of kids all over the world right now are just waiting for Xmas day and to chance to release the Doctor Who Blu-Ray boxset out of its prison of wrapping paper. BILLIONS! 




What it all comes down too is that Xmas is a great Holiday to celebrate. Winter is a cold, lifeless time and Christmas turns it into magic, its the one time of the Year when everyone can forget their troubles and the onslaught of oncoming Tests that await them and just relax and have fun! Its Christmas time, everyone, lets put the Music in the player, snuggle down and watch T.V and enjoy playing with your new gifts. It truly is the best time of the Year...


Sunday, 28 November 2010

Our Christmas Tree!

Take a look our Xmas (Is it that time of year again?) Tree: 





We tried really hard this Year, and I think it looks good. Although the picky side of me thinks this festive Tree suffers from a bad case of TMSOI (Too Much S*it On It!). We had a great time putting it up though, we had the Disney Music on and everything! Too bad the Snow didn't hit though, I looked on the Weather forecast and while  everything around us is a Frosty/Blizzardy (not an actual word I know) mess, we're pretty much in the cold sun for tomorrow! Check it out here: http://france.meteofrance.com/france/meteo?PREVISIONS_PORTLET.path=previsionsdept%2FDEPT56%2F. So still no SNOW! GOD Dammit! Once we out up the Tree, we all sat down to watch Robert Zemekis's retelling of that good old Xmas Carol! It was pretty good actually (Lets hope Doctor Who can do it better!). Then of course Dad got all tempered with me, I put the Xmas lights on the Tree up BEFORE he could play the Disney Xmas Music (He likes the lighting of the Xmas Tree to be a 'Traditional' Ceremony! 



....But other than that it was quite an entertaining evening!