Cinquante-six

Monday I had my test on twenty French authors from the 16th century up to the 20th century. It was pretty easy, actually, because I had studied for it. The questions were like "name three works by Victor Hugo", "identify the author that wrote these three passages", "identify the portraits of these authors", etc. Nothing on the test was a surprise so everyone had the chance to do well if they took the time to study. In geography we started a meteorology/climatology unit, that we will be spacing out through the rest of the year (probably a smart move on the teacher's part, because though he finds it fascinating, the rest of us would die of boredom if we did the whole unit straight through.) In history we watched the first part of a movie called "Le Roi danse" (The King is Dancing) because we had just finished a unit, and taken a test, on the 17th century (and lots more) in history. The movie was about King Louis XIV and a musician named Jean-Baptiste Lully.. Molière was in it too. It was weird from what I could tell, but also hard to understand what they were saying, so I only sort of followed the story. In math class we got back our math tests. I ended up getting 5.7, yessss. I am happy with that.

Tuesday we got our French tests, from Monday, back. I ended up getting 5.6, so I can't complain. In the afternoon we had gym, and it wasn't great. There were three classes (my whole grade) so we did a rotation.. first we practiced soccer then played a game for a while. After they taught us to do the high jump.. though of course it wasn't really high jump since the bar was pretty low (I mean it seemed high for us, trying for the first time, but it wouldn't for a jumper.) Then we had to do endurance running, which was no fun. In IT, Sylvain and I had to present a power point we'd made. The point is learning to use the software really well, so they gave us an easy topic: cities. We chose Minneapolis (his idea, not mine.) Anyway presenting was fine, for some reason I wasn't a bit nervous, though I still didn't talk fantastically.

Wednesday we kept working on our nature houses in art class. I moved on from my rough draft to the real (bigger-scaled) thing. It is hard getting the perspective right but I like the challenge. In math we are still working on functions and it's still really easy. In economy we are talking about the concentration of enterprises (vertical and horizontal, all that good stuff.)

Thursday was pretty boring in the morning. In the afternoon we had gym.. it was.. interesting. What we had to do was an orientation course, which apparently they do once per year. We loaded into a bus with two younger classes, and they drove us to the forest (like five minutes away.) I should specify that going to a "forest" doesn't mean the same thing in Switzerland that is does in Minnesota. Because this country is small, and very populated, you can't find the vast stretches of empty, undeveloped land that you can find in Minnesota. So a "forest" has lots of brush and trees and all, but it's more like a reserve of sorts, and not even that big. I bet we could have walked around the perimeter of it in an hour or two.. so yeah, not so big. There are lots of footpaths, usually some utility roads and some picnic areas and cabins for people to use. Even though it was the middle of the day there were some people there.. women walking their dogs or with a stroller, older couples hiking about, etc.

At the beginning we had to jog/walk to a cabin on the opposite side of the forest from where we started (it was kind of a long oval shape.) When we got there we split into groups of two (I was with Andréanne) and they gave each pair a map of the forest and all the paths and landmarks. On the map there were red circles marked, and some of them the teachers had highlighted. We had to go to the highlighted ones to find some markers. On the markers were written some letters and numbers- our job was to take the third letter, second number (or something like that. They change it every year.) The first area we went to we searched for maybe twenty minutes or a half an hour for the marker in the woods around the path (usually they are around the base of a tree) but we couldn't find it anywhere so we eventually gave up. We walked to where the second marker was but we weren't sure if we were in the right place so Andréanne went to go see if this cabin marked on the map was a little ways away- if so we would know we were in the right place. In the meantime I noticed the marker chained around the base of a tree right next to where we had been standing, so then I waited maybe five minutes for her to get back. We marked the number and letter down and then went on to find our third marker.

We decided to cut through the woods which seemed like a good idea until we were up to an area too thick with trees and brush to pass through, and which point we looked at the map legend that the color that part was on the map corresponded to "impassible area." Riiight.. oops. We should have read first. Eventually we found our way out to a path, heading in the right direction but still sort of far from the next marker. At this point I asked Andréanne how much time we had left, and when she checked her watch, we were horrified to see that we were supposed to be back at the bus... ten minutes prior! We figured out quickly on the map that we weren't that far away from the meeting point (thank god) so after four or five minutes of hard running we made it back. It was embarrassing being late to the bus full of younger students since they had had to wait for us to be able to go back to school, but thankfully there was another pair that came back just after us, so we weren't the very very last. After that the bus drove us back to school.. we were all gross and sweaty so we took the fastest showers ever in order to make it in time for the bus home.

About an hour or two after getting back from school, Béatrice drove Andréanne and I to Romont. I dropped off two rolls of film (all the pictures I've taken since coming here, so not a lot really) at the small photo shop. You know how I know I'm not in the US? They won't be ready until Wednesday, six days from when I dropped them off.. And I thought "next-day" photos were the slow option, but apparently that's only in a country where "hour photo" is standard. After the photos we went to the library where I got two new BDs of a series that Andréanne told me was good. So far (I'm about a third through the first one) she's right. Then after the library we went to the Migros to get something to drink because Andréanne had a watercolor class at seven but it was too early to already go. After, Béatrice and I went home where we ate a late dinner.

Friday was thankfully less stressful that Thursday. We kept watching "Le Roi danse" in history and did some more weather stuff in geography. In the afternoon I had two hours of study so I was able to get all my homework for the weekend done, and that's about it for the day.

Yesterday I went to Fribourg in the afternoon because Andréanne and Béatrice were going in the car, and I had wanted to go soon anyway. I had to buy a pair of pants because my favorite pair of jeans has a hole in it so that I can no longer wear them outside the house anymore, and on another pair I wear a lot the fabric is wearing really thin, and that could happen anytime now. I also bought some socks, and that's it.

Today we went to José and Tata's house for lunch. We ate on a picnic table outside and it was really nice. They had this spit where they made roasted chicken and it was delicious.. For dessert we had ice cream and strawberries. It's definitely starting to feel like summer is coming in Switzerland.