Ok, time to write another blog! so in my last week and a half, i met up with all the other foreign exchange students in my are, 14 people, 7 boys 7 girls, and we all went rafting, to a hot spring, and finally to a ropes course in the woods. It was a really excellent weekend and everybody had a lot of fun. There are 7 Americans, 2 Canadians, 1 Mexican, 1 Brazilian, 1 Japanese, 1 South Korean, and finally 1 Bolivian! Everybody was really nice and we got to share some stories about our current situations with host families and such, and i'd have to say my situation seems to be one of the best! The only problem with our local Rotary Club is that they only want to have meetings around once every 3 months, and we, the exchange students and me, believe that is a little too little, so we have taken it into our own hands to arrange more frequent events.
The week after the Rotary Reunion was a lot of school, which i'm still getting used to. All of my teachers now fully understand my situation and they are all very supportive about it, but the classes are still quite difficult to understand and articulate into notes and such. Even though that sounds a little bit dim, i have found that i can understand much more French than when i first got here, not only from context now, and i can also speak more casually and with new and more useful words. One thing the classes don't teach you is how many different ways there are just to ask one question, and thus, my biggest piece of advice at the moment is just to think about the context of the question if you can't understand it, and answer accordingly.
Last Saturday i went into Aix-En-Provence with two of the other exchange students, Rebecca and Imelsy, and we got the chance to further explore the city. Seeing the huge market with all of the different types of soap was very interesting, and so was all of the old architecture and cathedrals. After eating at a small cafe, we took a promenade over to the shopping district, and then saw a movie named Killer Joe, which i have absolutely no words for. After Aix-En-Provence i went to a party with my host brother, and I've never seen so many 15 year olds with cigarettes! Yes mom i turned down every single one that was offered to me, i'm no sheep!
I'm really starting to get more relaxed in the lifestyle now, and i even have stuff planned for the next two week-ends, so there's bound to be some excitement coming up! Oh and as a side note, i translate just about everything i think into the best french i can now, just so you know! Soooooo bye-bye!
Thanks for writing, Bob. I'm so happy you are doing well and learning so much French. I know school must be terribly hard....how about PE? And English? What do you do in those classes and how often do they meet? Are you able to follow math at all? When are we going to start sky ping? You tell us the best time...love and kisses, mom
ReplyDeletePs:thank you for not smoking! You're a good boy...;-)
ReplyDeleteSo no origami or balloon design?
ReplyDeleteoh my gosh, take of the stupid spam filter.
ReplyDelete