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...

This Week In School

 
Because of Armistice day and some "other" Christian holiday the School was kind enough to let us off both Today and Yesterday. YAY! So I'm kinda in a 'mini holiday' right now which is pretty neat seen as I've only just come back from another Holiday! As much as they (arguably) overwork us you can't complain about all the Holidays. Good thing too, as Mon-Wed this week was a bit mixed overall. 

German is our first subject on Mondays, and remember that BIG Test last Thursday? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the catastrophe that was *SHUDDERS* 7,5/20 (or 15/40 either way its pretty hirendous)! My class didn't fare too well either...
I made practically EVERY mistake in the book, from spelling mistakes to bad grammer to, well everything! I EVEN GOT THE BLOODY DATE WRONG! The teacher was surprisingly calm with us, and she even gave us a second chance: we're going to have EXACTLY the same Test next week, so all I have to do is learn the corrected Test and I'm guaranteed to get a really good score. So lets just forget THAT travesty as if it never happened...
Next we had a Technology Test, and went spiffingly well (as usual), so no surprises there. The subject matter was boring though, we had to name 3 types of lamp bulbs (i.e LEDS...) and give a justification for each one (ex: LEDS don't take up alot of power but exudes alot less light ect......) so very boring but you just have to learn it and then your guaranteed a good result. After that I got the longly awaited Art Test Result: a good 15,5/20 which I think was the best in the Class! But of course Maths had to ruin it...
Although she hadn't yet corrected all the Tests, she assured us that so far, only THREE out of the NINETEEN people in my Class had a score above 10/20! She then said that she had showed the Tests to the Headmistress and, because the Results had been so atrocious that ANYONE in 4eme with terrible Results in Maths will be, as she put it: "Invited into her office, as well as being offered a place in the Homework class (after school, students who want to can stay behind for another hour doing their homework) and will stay untill they know their Maths off by heart, as the Class clearly doesn't revise enough! Also, because you refuse to work at home...you will now have a short Maths Test every day untill you get your act together!" So, as you can imagine...I was pretty much shitting my pants! We then had to write on a piece of paper why we have had bad bad Maths Results, whether or not we revise for the Tests, our attidude in Class and so on....
So as you can imagine the Maths teacher is cracking down very hard on our Class. I think in general, my Class hasn't exactly been top of the leader board on their Results. In short, I had better get my act together in Maths or I'll be stuck in Homework Class, ARGGHHH! Maths has basically become a living hell now for us!
After lunch, we had an English Test (another 20/20 no doubt), which is still the easiest thing alive.
History was mainly an entire lesson dedicated to preparing you for the big Test on Tuesday. Which was very handy, as the Teacher had said exactly what to learn, how to answer a question properly ect...
French was just doing a stack of French related-exercises and FLE pretty much the same.
So that was Monday, of course I was revising my ass that night as we had the Maths Test (I spent two solid hours alone learning Maths off by heart) and the big History Test.

Tuesday started (of course) with Maths, which simply consisted of us writting down on a piece of paper a Definition. Except she wasn't really that precise on what Definition we had to write (I can't remembeer whether she had asked for a precific definition) so I just wrote down one of (the many) I had leant the previous night. Fingers crossed that I don't get a bad Result. Cos if not...I just hate to think about it!
History was next (two Tests in a row...horay!), and I literary finished it SECONDS before the bell went! I didn't even have time to check if I had made any spelling errors but at least I knew that what I wrote was correct. Phew. No doubt she'll take a few points off for something but I know that I at least did good.
Everything else was fine, except in German we had an unusually sharp leaning curve! We have quite literary gone from learning the basics of the language to writing a full blown conversation that now has to be acted out (in front of the Class may I add) and pronounced correctly! And we weren't even allowed to use 'simple' words, it had to be a proper conversation and be at least 30 phrases long! I decided to write it in French first and then put it all into Google translate (which I have yet to do).


Wednesday was okay, in Sport we are now doing High-jump (so high jump on Wednesdays and bloody Ping-Pong on Thursdays) and was really easy because (obiously) I'm so tall and I barely had to jump (more like step) over the line! When the Teacher put the rope higher though it did get a bit difficult!


Thats Mon-Wed then. Maths is just a living nightmare now and I did make a mess out of the German Test, but overall I suppose it went well...
The end of the first Trimestre is nearly upon me, (two weeks time I think) and so far with the exception of Maths and French I think will be quite a positive report. Or at least it should be, because I've worked my ass off!

Last few days in School....

                     
                           Nice pic of me hanging out with 'Fluffy' last night.


Well It can't technically be called "Last Week In School" because we came back to School after the Holidays on Thursday....

Well it couldn't have started off worse to be honest, I have been suffering from a nasty sore throat and was pushed into School jacked up on painkillers and barely awake (I did not sleep well at ALL Wednesday night, had the highest temperature known to man and that god damn sore throat that hurt every time I swallowed). I hadn't left the house for five days and STILL somehow managed to catch malaria! Of course, the day had to start off with a Maths Test (seriously, whats up with all these Maths Tests?)! It should have gone fine (I had revised hard the previous night) but fell to pieces because I, like the IDIOT that I am revised for completely the wrong thing! I somehow had managed to write down in my book that I had to revise for Chapter 1 in Maths when you actually had to revise for Chapter 2. OOYS! I fell and hit the ground hard as you can imagine, another casualty for the already limping Maths, and the irony was that if only I had learnt Chapter 2 it would have been the only Maths Test that I could have had a good shot at to finally get a respectable score! Poor, poor Maths. Tears and throbbing throats aside, I then went into Sport. Now I hate Baseball and Endurance, but at least I'm good at them, Ping Pong (aka table Tennis) is just about the only Sport that I truely SUCK at. Trying to hit that pong ball is like trying to score 20/20 in a Maths Test (I pray for the day)! And why does it have to be table Tennis? Why not regular Tennis? We've got a Tennis court, so why do we have to do this crap? Trying to catch that ball after it bounces off the table is like performing an obstical course, with it bouncing under other tables, hitting walls and going in the other direction and its path just generally being completely unpredictable! Its hell trying to catch that thing! After that travesty, I went into S.V.T. That Test that I thought went well didn't end up with the Result I was expecting (I got a meagre 12/20, could have been 13/20 but of course I had to spell a few words wrong!), but at least the lesson was interesting (for once), we were studing volcanoes and had to write a short text about the infamous Pompeii fiasco. Volcanoes are cool, mainly because they make great material for Hollywood blockbusters (you only have to see 2012 to be blown away by those great special effects). 

After lunch (having spluttered down a bowl of soup, which tasted like acid with my sore throat and getting jacked up on MORE awful fizzy painkillers), we had another MASSIVE Test in German. Graded out of 40 points, it covered six pages and contained just about every single thing we have looked at in the past few Months, which just by sheer size alone made it impossible to remember EVERYTHING. I filled in a good portion of it, its just another one of those you-either-know-it-or-you-don't  Tests. I skipped a few things, with a few examples of that time when the answer is on the VERY tip of your tongue, but it just doesn't really form in your mind (its so faustrating when that happens! But you can't just write "It begins with a W" can you?). My multi-languistic brain was in overload, as when the Test asked you to translate the German phrases into French you mentally have to translate that into THREE differant languages. MULTI-TASKING OVERLOAD! A bit overwelming, but I should at least get 20/40, which wouldn't really harm my Trimestre Results because I already have a perfect 20/20 in German. After School on Thursday it was pretty much more painkillers and sleep! 

I had developped a headache AND a cold/cough by Friday, adding to my growing list of symptoms (both quite minor, and my nose is starting to clear up a bit now). I must have had every disease known to man by then! I STILL managed to walk into School, although I was careful to stay away from people just in case I infected anyone and turned them into a Zombie! I normally avoid them all anyway, so it wasn't a major change. Friday was okay, the only thing worth noting was my Science Test, which garnered a respectable (although the teacher could have given more) 16/20. I lost four points because I spelt kg and m3 with capitals when they were supposed to have been in lower case, not bothering to draw every single molecule in a syringe (which would have taken ages, and I only had 50 minutes to do the Test) and getting -1,5 because despite writing everying neat and tidy, screwed up on ONE question and had to scribble it out (they take points off if you write scruffy) and getting a Maths question wrong (you had to calculate the mass of air in a container). Apart from the Maths question, I consider most of the mistakes a bit nitpicky and could have garnered a well deserved 18/20. SIGH, Its almost impossible to get a 20/20 in France nowadays!



In other News, I have just watched the latest Episode of Merlin (with my dog Obelix pictured above and below, who enjoyed it as you can clearly see), and quite enjoyed it, and it seems to be really campaigning against Doctor Who. I now liken it to sort of a Medieval DW now. Although the hole "trying to kill the king with seemingly no reason" plot is really a bit tiring now! A bit of variety please?


Well this ends my recap, and I swear that if I see another 'GOD DAMNED PAINKILLER, I THINK I MIGHT JUST SCREAM!!!!'