WWE, etc.

Monday was the first day back at school after two weeks of vacation. As you can probably imagine, that was a bit of a drag. We changed places, and I think we will keep them for the rest of the year. I now sit in the front row facing the teacher's desk (worst spot ever) next to a boy named Dusan. Bérénice is just across from me, and Andréanne sits behind me. It's not a terrible set up but I miss sitting next to Sylvain because he talked all the time and that was entertaining, haha

Tuesday was uneventful.. we played soccer in gym class and that is about all that is of interest.

Wednesday was sort of a strange day. It was the school sports day which they have every year. Me, Andréanne, and some other friends had signed up for the 15km walk activity, which took place in the afternoon (well there was a morning one too but that was already full when we signed up.) So we were able to sleep in that morning, (which was amazing, and made me wish I could sleep in every Wednesday.) In the afternoon we took the bus to school and had to sign in for the walk. There were probably at least 100 others doing it too. We walked through Romont, then made a big loop through the countryside before coming back. The time limit was 2.5 hours (if you didn't finish in the time limit you'd have to come back on Saturday to do it again) and I think we finished in a bit less than that, keeping a fast walking pace the whole time. Afterward my legs and feet were really sore but it was better the next day. We took the bus home at the normal time.

Thursday was pretty boring for most of the day. We watched a movie in biology about clones that was cool. It was sort of like a more sophisticated French version of Bill Nye the Science Guy I guess. We had gym on Thursday this week but luckily we didn't have to do endurance training (everyone was sore from the day before) and we actually played soccer and then baseball. I have to say, it is really funny playing baseball with school here. Nobody besides the teacher (and even then..) understands all the rules (it was the first time, so he explained a bit, but we played a dumbed down version of the game.) They catch with the hand that doesn't have a glove on it and use a tee to hit the ball. I mean, I have been playing baseball and kickball in school forever, I think baseball is the only sport I ever really played as a kid with Emily, Luke, and my dad (besides croquet..), so I never really thought about it as complicated. But it sort of is, if you aren't used to it. My host sister says that she has watched baseball on TV before and didn't understand it at all. I hope we play again sometime because it was really entertaining.

Friday was an average day in school. We talked about the preference to have boys in India in geography and in history we learned about French society under Louis XIV. After school Béatrice went to pick Tata up from her house, and then we all went together around five to go to the WWE wrestling event. We drove to the stadium in Geneva where the event was being held. Béatrice and Bernard parked the car at the stadium and then took the bus to go out for dinner in Geneva while Andréanne, Tata, and I went to see the wrestling. At the beginning we had to wait outside for maybe a half hour before they opened the doors. There were some food and merchandise stands, much like in the US. It took a while to get through the doors once they opened because they searched in everyone's bags and frisked everyone too. Eventually we got in and found our spots, which were fairly good ones. We had to wait about 40 minutes until the event started so Andréanne and I played hangman.

And then it began! What can I say? It was WWE wrestling, exactly like on TV except with less of the long speeches (you know, the arguments that set up the matches.) Every wrestler had their entrance, there were different kinds of matches (normal, no disqualifications, tag-team, etc.) and all of that. I found it entertaining, though I'm no wrestling fan. In pro wrestling each wrestler has their own story, and in basically each match there is the popular figure and the one everyone wants to lose, so it was easy to know who to boo and who to cheer on. I definitely liked The Undertaker, who had the coolest, scariest entrance, and also Dave Finlay, "The Fighting Irish Bastard", with his midget "son" (it's not really his son, that's just the story) Hornswoggle, the best. It was stupid, but highly entertaining, as it's supposed to be. When the wrestling was over we went to meet Béatrice and Bernard at the car, and then drove home. I think we got home around midnight, and I was exhausted so went straight to bed.

Yesterday I woke up, showered, cleaned my room, finished writing a letter, etc. After eating lunch I went to Romont at three. It was really nice out so I walked around the town and took pictures with my film camera (I've hardly used it since coming here), visited the cathedral, and toured the ramparts (last time I went it was snowy so it was a different experience.) Everything is so green here, the cows and sheep have come out of their barns, and everyone was out walking or gardening so it was just fun to walk around the town. At 17h30 I met Sakshi at the train station because she was coming to spend the night here. We took the bus home fifteen minutes later. After eating super my host sister went to babysit and my host mom and dad went to play cards at the neighbor's house, so Sakshi and I watched movies that she had borrowed from her neighbor and brought over. First we watched "La Cité Interdite" (known as "Curse of the Golden Flower" in English) which was a Chinese movie about the Tang dynasty and this horrible guy who wants to become king and all of the bad things that happen because of that. We watched that one in Chinese with French subtitles (there weren't English ones but we understood the French ones fine) because we agreed that watching movies in the original language is a million times better than dubbed. Afterward we watched the Sex and the City movie.. it was so so stupid but I expected that. When the movie was done it was midnight or so, so we went to bed.

This morning I woke up around 10h30. Sakshi and I ate a small breakfast. Then my host mom and dad went to the annual stockholder's meeting of the village bank of which my host dad is the director, so they weren't around for lunch. Andréanne made chicken, fried potatoes, salad, and steamed spinach and then Sakshi, Nicolas, and I cleaned up afterward. After that Sakshi read my "Stop in the Name of Pants!" book that I got from Aunt Amy because I had to do some IT homework (making vectorial drawings in Powerpoint!) Around three I walked Sakshi to the bus stop and then she left to go back home.

Nothing big is coming up this week, besides two tests on Friday.. more school is all! I am planning the huge excursion of maybe buying a new pair of jeans next weekend (my favorite ones have a large hole in the crotch and are now suitable only for gardening) and that's about the most exciting thing on my schedule.