Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Grades

Who has the best overall moyenne in Première L? Yes, that'd be me. Your moyenne is your average grade, and my overall average is the best in the class- though everyone says I don't count because so many of my assignments didn't count. Whatever. I love the system though! It's very difficult to explain the French grading system, but I'll attempt. First off, all scores are out of 20. And anything over a 10/20 is passing. And considered very good, its really hard to get high scores- if you get a 14/20, you are overjoyed. I got a 12/20 in PE (EPS) and I am thrilled. Its practically impossible to get a 20/20. Its hard for an American to grasp why someone would be happy with getting a 12/20 (60%), but its just SO HARD that that's great. To get your overall grade, they just take the average- so since I only really did one assignment in French class and got 20/20 on it I have a perfect grade in that class. Anyway, here are my first trimester grades:
Anglais Lv1: 19.1
Anglais Renforcé: 19.3
SVT (Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre): no grade, i didn't do anything
Pysique-Chimie: no grade for this one either
Maths Informatique: 14, 4 points higher than the best French student!
Français: 20
Espagnol: no grade
Histoire-Geographie: 13,3
Education Physique-Sport: 12- AMAZING! I'm so proud, I'm the fourth worst ranked badmitton player in my class and still managed to pass my final!
Overall Moyenne: 17,1

Job well done. I love my teachers for being so nice and not giving me 0s for all the work I didn't do.

Andy and I keep finding more issues we need to get over, but we're getting through and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Monday, November 29, 2004

Ain't No Mountain High Enough...

Just when Andy and I thought we had all our problems figured out, a new, huge one came- Mont Blanc. We assumed the hardest part of all this would be securing all the permission necessary, transportation would be easy. There is a woman in Andy's rotary club with a chalet near Mont Blanc in Courmayeur (might be spelt wrong) and her family was going to go up there for the weekend. Andy would ride with them, spend a night there, and then take the train to Annecy. Its a fairly easy train ride from Chamonix (the city on the France side) to Annecy, with only one stop over. Then we found out that there are no trains through the tunnel under Mont Blanc, and there are no buses that Sunday through the tunnel. There is no way that we can ask my host family to spend their day driving to Italy. After hours of work, we came up with options. One is that the woman would drive him the half hour from Courmayeur to Chamonix, where he could get the train to Annecy. This may work out, but we aren't sure, its pretty expensive (36€, I think) to go though the tunnel. The other is that he would get a train from Lecco where he lives to Milan, to Chambery, to Annecy. Whatever happens, he is still going to get here.

Today was a good day, I only had one class, from 8-9 am. After that I set off with the three Mexican girls to Annecy-Le-Vieux. We took the bus to Tannia's house, grabbed a dvd, and walked to Tere's. At Tere's house, she rang the doorbell and waited a second, I heard the door being unlocked, and then Tere pushed it open. I saw a dog in the hallway, but no people. Who would run away after opening the door for us? I asked who else was home, and they all said "just us". And then I asked "but the door...?" "Ohh, the dog opened it." What? No one is ever home to see how it happens, but apparently the dog can unlock the front door by himself. Though extremely impressive, he wouldn't be a good watchdog. He'd just open the door for burglers. After we watched part of the dvd we were getting ready to go back to town for lunch with some other kids when we realized that someone left the backdoor open and the dog had run away (the dog can't open the backdoor apparently). This dog never leaves the house, unlike my family dog who comes and goes all over the neighborhood as she pleases. Tannia and I left to go into town as the other girls combed the area for Pudge. The two of us met up with some other girls for lunch at a church, then I went to the Gare to find info for Andy and then took the bus home. It was raining, so I couldn't run and spent the afternoon drinking tea and going online.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

Busy-ness

My week has been extremely busy, I'm sorry I haven't had time to write anything in a while! I had a second Thanksgiving at my Gospel choir teachers house on Wednesday, then a rehearsal for gospel on Thursday, and now my gospel concert today. The concert is in a church up in some tiny town called Heri-Sur-Alby, and the church is cavernous and cold. Actually, there is some heat given off by heat lamps, but that creates more of an issue for me. At the rehearsal my eyes were burning and watering the whole time, and so were several others. Apparently the church had been washed recently and the heat reacting with the cleanser on the foor was causing the chemicals to go into the air or something. Hopefully that'll have worn off by tonight, because it wasn't pleasant. I'm also going shopping with two French kids this afternoon, which'll be nice.

I'm very excited because next Sunday my friend Andy, will be coming to visit for a few days. Andy is an exchange student in Lecco, a town in the Alps in Italy, and we really aren't very far apart. It looks like everything'll work out and he'll be able to come. Ever since I've got here I've just wanted to SHOW people things (stores, places, people) but I haven't had anyone to show it to. Now I finally get to, and I get to see my friend.

Monday, November 22, 2004


Yum. They don't celebrate Thanksgiving in France, so my friend Molly and I decided to do it ourselves. I spent the weekend up at her house in a nearby town and we made a huge feast together for our host families and two other exchange students and their families. None of the recipes we had were followed exactly- we couldn't find some ingredients and measurements were off in others, but somehow, everything turned out great. We have amazing luck (or lots of talent). Posted by Hello

The turkey before we started- laughably small for twelve people, only 4 kilos (8ish lbs), and 24€! Très cher!!! Posted by Hello

Cleaning our little turkey! I'm so proud that i can say that I did my first turkey at age 17- by myself (while Molly was hard at work with the gravy, potatoes, stuffing, etc)! Posted by Hello

Sunday, November 21, 2004


Molly peels potatoes Posted by Hello

Eating appetizers Posted by Hello

Carrying the turkey Posted by Hello

cooking food Posted by Hello

Carving up the turkey Posted by Hello

The turkey carcass Posted by Hello

My first Turkey! Posted by Hello

Everyone getting ready to eat Posted by Hello

Our beautiful desserts Posted by Hello

Eating dinner! Posted by Hello

Cleaning up our mess. Posted by Hello

Friday, November 19, 2004


Today at 6:30 the Mexican girls at my school (Tannia, Yolanda, and Teresa- all hiding in the shadow on the left) threw a little Mexican Party, I think a teacher convinced them to do it. Anyway, it was lots of fun. I stayed and helped them prepare guacamole and quesadillas and decorate the cantine, then later all their host families and a mojority of my class came. They gave a powerpoint presentation and then everyone dug into the food, it was a great way to spend the evening. Posted by Hello

William eating a chip. Posted by Hello

French people discovering the wonders of guacamole and salsa. Posted by Hello

Tannia eating quesadillas. Posted by Hello

Tannia explaining something to Colombe. Posted by Hello

Friends of mine hanging out at the Soirée Mexicaine Posted by Hello

The Paquier- lots of green grass where all the lycéens in the city eat lunch when its sunny out. Posted by Hello

Buildings on the river in Annecy, Palais de l'ile on the right. Posted by Hello

The Thiou, the river that runs through the canals from the lake.  Posted by Hello

Rue Royale, a main street in Annecy. Posted by Hello

Le Palais de L'ile. The old town jail, now a museum. Posted by Hello