So this week I had two exams--one in civilization, one in grammar. Civilization was pretty easy (got my grade back already--18/20!). Grammar was....not so easy. I'll get my results tomorrow, but I'm really expecting the worst. Oh well. I tried.
Wednesday (after the horrific grammar exam), Angela and I went to see The Hunger Games! Oh my goodness. It was so good. Granted, I'm not terribly critical of movies, but still. I enjoyed it immensely (and got to see it 2 days before everyone in the US!). After The Hunger Games, we were hungry (badum-ch!) so we headed out to the Rue de Borgogne for some food. We found a cute little place that offered tex mex, so I was all over that. Except their "tex mex platter" consisted of 4 onion rings, 4 things I thought were onion rings, but were actually donut-y, 2 chicken wings, 2 chicken nuggets, french fries, salad, and a couple teeny weeny crab cake things. Oh, with chips and guacamole. ....Not exactly "tex mex". But poor Angela decided to go with something she didn't know--well, turns out it was intestines. And it was disgusting. I honestly tried to take a bite just to try it, and it smelled so bad that I knew that there was NO way that it was going in my mouth. So, that was Wednesday's adventure--Hunger Games, "tex mex", and intestines.
Friday I had another intervention at the local middle school. So I ate lunch with the teachers again, then went and observed a French class just to kind of see how it worked. Then for the last two hours, I had two groups of students (mostly the same kids as last week, with a couple additions) and I got to try to get them to talk for an hour each.
The first group of students is pretty great. I had prepared a game that I had played in high school when learning French, and just reversed it into English. Essentially, I picked about 30 words (there were between 12 and 15 students in each group) and wrote them on little slips of paper. The students then had to come up in front of the class, one by one, pick a word and explain that word (in English) so that the rest of the class could guess. They were really good sports, and did extremely well. I know how hard it was when I was first learning French, so I imagine it was similar for them.
Then, I had prepared a couple theater games. One of them was suggested by a friend from Oakland (hi, Jessica!) and it's called "What Are You Doing?". Essentially, player one stands up in front of the class and mimes an action (like brushing your teeth). Player two comes up to player one and asks "What are you doing?". Player one responds with an action other than the one he/she is actually doing ("I'm brushing my hair"). Player one then leaves while player two begins miming the action that player one said (brushing their hair). And it continues. It took them a while to catch on. The first half of the class would make up their own action to mime instead of taking the suggested one, but eventually they got it. We ended up going through the whole class twice because they really liked doing it, but then they said they were out of ideas for things to do. It was such a blast! We were all laughing and having a really good time.
Then the second group came in. They went through the description game pretty fast. Same with "What Are You Doing?". They caught on right away, but only wanted to play it once. So then I taught them a game called "Questions". If you've seen Whose Line Is It Anyway, you probably know this game. Essentially, you have to interact entirely in questions. Example:
P1: When is your birthday?
P2: Why do you want to know?
P1: What, is it a secret?
Now, this game is hard for even native speakers of the language. So I wasn't terribly harsh in judging. A lot of the game with the students went like this:
P1: What's your favorite color?
P2: Blue, and you?
P1: What's your favorite food?
P2: Pizza, and you?
But I was just happy that they were talking. And I think most of them enjoyed that, even though I'm sure they found it super difficult.
So that was that. It'll be a couple weeks before I'm back at the school since I have theatre most Fridays.
Saturday was SO beautiful out. Maddie, Angela and I all went out shopping. I got hit on by some creepers (oy), but overall it was pretty fun. After getting back from Kiabi (clothing store just outside of town), Angela and I were parched, so we got a smoothie in the mall before heading home to change before dinner. Oh my goodness, that had to have been the best smoothie I've ever had. It was passion fruit, mango, and orange. Mmmm. Maybe I was just thirsty and hot, but it was perfect, and just what I needed.
So after that, I headed home to change before dinner (so as to avoid more creepers). I must have changed my outfit twenty times. Sometimes it's hard figuring out what to wear! In any case, Maddie, Angela and I met up again and headed over to the Rue de Borgogne. Angela led us to this nice little French restaurant and it was so nice out we even ate outside.
In terms of food: I had a tatin au tomates avec du crème mozzarelle. Essentially, this was a little pastry with tomatoes on top smothered in a creamy mozzarella sauce. This also came with a salad. After that, I had tartiflette--a traditional French dish that is basically scalloped potatoes with ham, smothered in cheese. It was delicious. SO good. For dessert, I had a fondant au chocolat. This is a little chocolate cake, filled with melted chocolate, topped with vanilla ice cream. I could just eat here forever.
After dinner, we decided to head over to a bar and have (another) drink (we shared a bottle of wine and had an aperitif before dinner). I had a Guinness (woo!). It was really good. So pretty much we just sat around outside and chatted. All in all, a very successful day.
Today it was gorgeous outside, so I ate lunch with my family on their patio outside, then sat with my host mom, my host dad, and the puppy outside and read for a while. Then I got to Skype with my parents, then I went back outside and read, played Uno with my host mom and Agathe, and then we ate dinner outside. Needless to say, I am sunburned. But oh well. It was just a gorgeous and relaxing day.
But back to school tomorrow--only three weeks left!
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