One Week Left

Yes, you DID read that right.. I have only to get through one more week of school before having another two weeks off. I will never get used to the amount of vacations the Swiss have during the school year.. So far I have planned that I will go to Lucerne and maybe Bienne with Andréanne, go to Geneva myself, and now there are tentative plans for us to go to Europa-Park, this huge theme park in Germany (it's not very far into Germany though.) And also, of course, we will celebrate Easter and probably eat a ton of chocolate (Andréanne says that at Easter there is more chocolate than at Christmas, though I am having trouble imagining it.) It should be a very enjoyable two weeks and I am looking forward to making the best of it since it's the last big vacation we have before the summer vacation when I'll be preparing to come back home.

This last week was, you know, usual.

Monday I stayed home from school because I was feeling really tired. I still had a cough and runny nose, but I probably could have gone to school if it weren't for the tiredness. I am much better now though. I don't think I did much besides sleeping in, tidying my room, and playing with the cat.

Tuesday I went to school. We got our math tests back and I got 5.4/6 so that was nice. I have never liked math as much as I do now (because it's one of the few classes where I don't feel at a disadvantage and I can do just as well as not better than the others with a bit of studying.) In biology we watched a movie about genetically modified plants, sort of like a French and more sophisticated version of Bill Nye the Science Guy. For lunch I ate a cheese sandwich that was like a third of a baguette but they put one random tiny pickle in, I don't really understand why they did that. Gym was pretty good since we played badminton.

Wednesday I finished my April Fool's fish.. well no, I didn't finish, but we had to take them home because this Wednesday is April first. I had three hours of study (German, real study, and the English teacher being sick) and I spent all of them studying for the geography test which we took Friday. I have learned lots of crazy things in geography, like why there can be two solar eclipses within a month of each other, and why we always see the same face of the moon, and that we are actually closer to the sun in winter than in summer, but in 11,000 years the seasons will be inverted.

Thursday I studied more for the geography test during my free hours. The test was on everything since January, which was a huge amount of material, so that's why I had to study so much. The teacher probably should have split it into two tests, but he didn't so there you go. The last two hours of the day we went ice-skating (indoors) and that was sort of fun. I used to be okay at ice-skating (nothing special, but at least able to skate around fearlessly) but now I am terrible and I don't know what happened. It's not a big deal though. At first we got tested on this course the teacher made where there were seven things you had to do (making an effective stop, skating backwards at a reasonable speed, skating along a straight line on one skate, skating while dribbling a tennis ball in the air, and some other things.) I got.. ehem.. three out of seven. But that's okay. Afterward we split the rink into two sections and played hockey- the boys against boys and girls against girls (they aren't sexist, we requested it that way.) That was fun too, I was la gardienne de but (the goalie.)

Friday we had our geography test. It was pretty hard, and plus the second unit, which was about Swiss rail and transport projects (like the St-Gothard tunnel) and types of human geography, I hadn't studied as much. I also randomly realized on Friday the fact that we (Midwesterners and probably others) say "a whole nother." What? Yeah, I'd never even thought about it before. Why do we split the word "another" by putting "whole" in the middle? Why don't we just say "another whole"? And why did I never realize before that we say it? Also in English class I was talking, and I have to say that, weirdly enough, I can hear my own accent now.

Saturday was uneventful but relaxing. It really rained for the first time (usually it's like 90% snow) and that was nice since I like the rain. Everything is getting green here!

Today we switched into daylight saving's time.. it's almost eight and still sort of light out, which seems strange. Around eleven we left to go near Lac Noir, in the German-speaking part of Fribourg, where we had a gathering with Béatrice's side of the family at a restaurant. I think there were around 15 people in all, one of whom I'd never met and didn't speak French so we had to speak English together which was weird (since being here I have gotten used to being the one speaking a second language, and it seems weird that others should have to do it for me.) The one that didn't speak French is Andréanne and Nicolas's cousin of around thirty. His dad explained to me that for the most part the younger generation of Swiss Germans learn English much better than French or Italian (it's advantageous for getting work and such) even though other Swiss don't speak it (meaning that in order for the French and Italian speakers to keep up they must speak really good German.) After lunch we went to an uncle's house (the one that came over with his family around Christmas) and ate cake and had coffee with the family. Then we left around five, and came home, and now I am typing this.

This Tuesday my grade (around sixty students) is going on a ski trip in Valais which should be.. interesting. Luckily we get to go off with our friends as long as we stay in groups of four or more, and if my friend Bérénice is as horrible at skiing as she says she is, we will be staying on the small hills and it should be good fun. Well I hope to stay on the small hills anyway (from what I've seen of skiing in the alps, the small hills are like the hugest hills we have at home.) I'll fill you in on all of that next week!