The First Day of School

Where do I even begin? There has been so much that's happened since my last post, and it feels a bit overwhelming. I think diving right in is what's best, so here's my attempt:

Monday night was my last piece of summer vacation. This has been the first summer in a long time where I haven't had summer homework, and I was actually able to go to bed at a reasonable time the night before my first day. It was quite nice. Charlotte had to go to school a day before me, and I must admit, I was a bit jealous when she came home and shared that her class was going on a week-long trip to Greece in October. How come I couldn't have been an exchange student at her school? Life is just not fair. The rest of the evening was pretty calm except for when I went to the bathroom right before bed, I practically stepped on a scorpion! I could have died. Luckily, I didn't, and Manu was able to get it with his shoe.

The next morning, I was all ready to go. I left the house at about 9 and went to Mathilde's, where we hung out for a little while before school, which started at 10. Since Mathilde lives right next to our high school, we walked there with a few minutes to spare and stood in the massive crowd of people outside. The first thing I noticed was the size of everyone's bags. My backpack looked huge in comparison to everyone else's dinky little totes, although it's a perfectly normal size in America.

I was lucky enough to meet Marion, one of Charlotte's best friends, a week before school. We have the exact same schedule, and she helped me out a lot throughout the day. The first classroom we went to was on the second floor. It was basically an orientation-type class where we were handed our schedules. The schedule here is so different than back at home because each day starts and ends at a different time. In French high school, there are three majors: Science, Economics, and Literature. I was placed in economics, which is a lot of math and social sciences. I'm taking English (yay!), history, geography, math, Spanish, French, physics, and gym, in addition to my economics course. Wednesday is by far the best day of the week. I have gym for two hours, and english for one hour, and I'm finished by 11! Sadly, Wednesday is balanced out by Thursday, which goes from 9-6 with a three hour break for lunch. Another difference between America and France is that in France, there really is no bathroom pass. Rather, one gets a green, laminated smoking pass so they can leave class and have a cig when the urge arises.

Most of the day was honestly spent sitting in the sun outside. No one regulates who leaves and comes into the school, so most students spend their free time walking around and hanging out outside. Classes didn't really start until the afternoon, so we had a lot of time to socialize in the parking lot. A few people seemed pretty interested that I was a foreign kid, and I was asked a bunch of questions regarding my high school and life in America. After many conversations which went somewhat like, "No, Norwich High School is not like the movies," or "No, I don't actually live in the city," I think people were a little less interested, and they dispersed. I know this is kind of random, and it doesn't fit into the story all that well, but I was also introduced to this one girl who had a rat sitting on her shoulder like a parrot. Everyone thought it was so cute, but it peed on my backpack, so I saw it in a different light.

Marion and I finally headed to lunch at 1. By far, it was the most exciting part of the school day. I definitely slowed up the lunch line, but it was all so much fun! There was this big barrel of baguette slices with a sign that read "4 is the maximum amount", so of course, I took four. Then, as a starter course, I took this tomato and cheese dish that was covered with olive oil and creamy sauce. The main course was fish and zucchini. However, it was not breaded or deep-fried. It all tasted fresh, and the fish was covered in these good herbs. I also had an apple and a sugary-cottagey-cheese-like dessert. Everything was served on real plates, and we drank out of real glasses. I like France.

That afternoon, I had my first class: economics. I didn't understand a thing, and rather than taking notes, I decided to listen and write down the vocabulary I caught along the way. Until I learn French really well, I'm going to treat my classes as language classes because I really want to become as fluent as possible this year. Since I do enjoy learning things other than the French language, I've decided to use my computer as my own, personal teacher when I get home. I try to read the news on cnn.com frequently, and I spent yesterday memorizing all the presidents in order. Correct me if I'm wrong, but who even knew we had a president named Chester Alan Arthur?

Yesterday also happened to be my first Rotary Club meeting. My Rotary club in Privas is very nice, but I must admit it was difficult to get through the dinner. The main course had all my least favorite foods combined, including: a really large slab of gelatiny-fatty fish smothered with a mound of room-temperature butter carved into a flower, a prawn with its eyeballs and antennas intact, mushy, seafood-flavored vegetables, and wine. I tried to drink enough wine to numb the taste buds, but it didn't work. The whole time, I was thinking, "please don't throw up on your first really important dinner here." I'm usually not a picky eater, but for me, this was one difficult dinner.

Luckily, dessert (mousse and creme brûlée) was much better. After I was finished with the mousse, I was really excited when the person next to me told me that the bowl was made out of white chocolate, so I ate that, too. The creme brûlée was served in a large, silver dish. I was told to serve myself first, so naturally, I took a reasonable amount. However, when I looked around after everyone was served, I had about twice as much on my plate as anyone else. Whoops! Oh well - I ate it all. Just saying, maybe next time, they shouldn't fill themselves up on fish and prawns first.

M. Gousty, my French Rotary contact, drove me home at 10. He invited me to another Rotary event this Saturday: I think he was talking some wedding in Northern Ardeche and a church where Belgian people go? I don't know, my French isn't that good yet! I'll let you know when Saturday comes.

Today was my short day of school. The teacher for gym class never showed up, and apparently there's no such thing as substitute teachers in France, so we had two hours to sit around and wait for the next class. By far, English is my favorite subject: I feel quite intelligent, and am very capable of keeping up a conversation in English. Anne picked me up at 11, and I've just been hanging out around the house ever since. I haven't had any homework yet (I think), so it's back to my own French self-schooling for now. Sorry for the long post, although I'm sure you all secretly like it!