La Brocante

Another awesome cultural event yesterday!  Here in Montbrison, the whole town has a massive flea market/ yard sale type of thing every fall.  The whole main street is lined with tents and stands where people and local clubs sell all their cool old stuff.  It might not sound terribly interesting, but it's actually amazing to see all these trunks of ancient things that have just been lying around in people's attics until now.  I loved looking at all the old clocks, cameras, records, luggage, and so on.

 

I spent most of my time helping out at the Rotary booth (my main job for the day), but in the afternoon, I had some time to wander around with my exchange student buddies.  I even got the chance to buy my own little token of French history.

 

^ A high school science textbook from 1888

 

^ "The History of France" from 1909

 

All in all, an awesome day of culture and history, and a really unique French experience. :)

 



School Days... :)

So sorry I didn't manage to post last week!  I've decided to post twice this week to make up for it...

Anyway, this is the long-awaited post about French high school!  Definitely very different from high school in America...  For starters, students here have a ten-hour school day. That's right, TEN HOURS.  School starts at eight in the morning and ends at six p.m.  That being said, we're not actually in class all the time we're in school: we have a long lunch (at least one hour, but often 1.5 or 2), a two-hour gym class (since we have to walk across town to the gym, track, etc., and free periods galore!  French students are typically surprised (and jealous!) when I explain that high school students finish school around 2:00 or 2:30 in America, though they're typically more understanding when they realize that some of us (cough, cough, HB) spend our entire afternoon doing homework, after-school activities, sports, and studying until we go to bed at night. ;)

On that same subject, homework and out-of-school studying is actually really different here, too.  Students almost never receive work that is due in the same week it is assigned.  They're pretty much expected to study in the evenings (after school), and do written work on weekends.

Also, French students don't have nearly as many options in choosing their classes as American students do.  Each grade of French school is split into three tracks (the literary track, the physical/biological science track, and the social science track) which students are placed in based on their ability, interests, and what they want to pursue as a career.  Within each track, there are a couple of classes, each with about twenty students.  Students in the same class stay together for all of their core subjects, and split off only for their electives (foreign language, music, etc.).  People are pretty shocked when I tell them that American students (in high school, at least) kind of choose their classes a la carte.  That is, a student in high-level math can also be in high-level English; they don't have to sacrifice one for the other.  A girl named Zoe, who is on exchange in America (and whose place I've taken in my French school) filled up her American class schedule with things like cooking, theater, an English class, and so on, and people have asked me if American students are really allowed to choose a schedule like that.  My answer is always kind of a "well, yes.... but, no."

Anyway, my current school classes (after being suddenly switched from class to class.... twice...) are: Philosophy, French literature, History/Geography, English, German, and Gym.  I'm considered a senior in my school (though I won't technically "graduate" and I won't take the bac) and I'm in the literary track, since it's the most culturally-oriented.

Overall, I'm enjoying school.  It's not easy, but I like my classes, friends, and teachers, and I'm understanding more and more every day. :)

Swimming!

Hello again!  Yeah... still not a post about French school... next week, I promise!  Anyway, while that whole situation is working itself out, I decided to write about another new experience I've had this week: going swimming in France.  All my swim team(s) friends at home will appreciate this one :)

(My local pool)

Anyway, on Friday morning, I packed up my bag with a suit (not my own suit, of course, which was supposed to arrive on Wednesday.  Thanks a lot, postal service...), a towel, and swim cap, and headed off to school like usual.  Then, for gym class, we walked over to the pool (yes, we swim in gym class, and yes, I can walk to the pool.   Just some of the amazing things about this country) and got ready to swim.  Some observations: locker rooms in general seem to be really nice in France; on the other hand, public restrooms aren't really very nice at all...

So, with that out of the way, our gym teacher split the class in half, and paired everybody up, so that one partner was in the water while the other one was on deck.  Then, half the class swam down the pool and back, while their partner watched.  Then, we switched, and the other half of the class swam while the first half watched.  We did that for a good portion of the class, and then worked on things like streamlining off of the wall, and diving.  Interestingly enough, almost every swimming term seems to be a direct translation, including the things that I had imagined wouldn't translate well (like butterfly stroke, flutter kick, dolphin kick, etc.).  The one major exception to this is breaststroke.... which suddenly became arm-stroke.... as if it was the only stroke that involved the use of arms... ?

It turns out that the bac (the big, standardized test that students take when they finish high school) involves a swim test!  This really surprised me, and my classmates couldn't understand why- the bac is meant to test everything they've learned in high school, including, well, swimming.

Well, that's my spiel on French swimming.  Not terribly different from American swimming, except more suited to be a gym class activity.  Oh!  And I should also mention for the sake of my swimmer friends: you know that little I'm-trying-to-change-into-my-swimsuit-in-a-crowded-locker-room-all-while-maintaining-a-relative-level-of-modesty dance we do?  Yeah, that seems to be a pretty universal thing.

Pictures and Updates

This isn't really a cultural post, I guess.  It's sort of just an update on what's been going on lately... and some pictures!

I started school on Wednesday, and there's quite a lot I could say about that, but at the moment my schedule is a bit of a nightmare and is currently (hopefully!) being fixed.  So, I'll write up a post on that as soon as I actually get settled in :)

Anyway, here are some pictures of what my life's been like for the past two weeks:

A nice sunrise, a little bit south of Ireland.

Meet Pinky le Pieuvre, my travel buddy, sitting on my window at my first home in Sorbiers.

A bridge designed by Gustav Eiffel

Beautiful church in Ambert (these are the sort of things I run into while accompanying my host sister to her ophthalmologist appointment :))

Because everyone needs a little reminder some days :)

 

Bisous!  I'll write again soon!