Light Men and Dirty Soap

This morning I woke up at 8:15 to meet Cassandra to go to the markets at 9:30. I woke up and decided to skip the shower because I am not sure what time is like okay to take them on the weekends. I went and had breakfast and during it Madame came to me with a little micro SD card and asked if I could put it in my computer to see the pictures. I said yeah of course I have an adapter for it but it should have come with one as well when she bought it. She went away and I finished breakfast and she came out and was like is it this thing? And I was like yep. Do you want me to put the photos on your CD? And she was like oh wow you can do that? And I was like yeah it is really easy! So I did that and she was like wow I didn’t know I had that many pictures on it! And I was like yep and you can move them to your new phone too. She thinks I am magic now I swear because I figured out how to do that. She was very happy and I came up with this little gem of Beebow and his mom (who lives downstairs) before he became a meanie cat.

After that I went and met up with Cassandra at the Rotonde. I decided it was cold enough to wear my hoodie which I love! J I also wore my red scarf and felt very fancy. We met up and then walked to the markets. The markets like this are open Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and they have like everything. Lots of clothing and then there is also extra food as well. I bought a lot of gifts today which was good to cross a lot of people off of my list. I only have 12 people left! Unfortunately they are like the hardest people… :-/ But I think it will be good. When you think about how many people I have been able to knock out so far? I think I am doing well! J I found a tiger poster painting thing for Madame that I am hiding for her Christmas present. I think she will like it. I just have to remember that I have it or else I may forget where it is! I also bought a painting poster thing for myself. But I might change my mind and give it to someone else. I dunno! The opportunities are endless! But it was really fun to just look at things. Sometimes we would say HECK no are we going to pay that much for that and then we would just walk by. I also bought myself a 2 Franc coin. They are the old currency of France and it was only a euro and I thought it was cool. So I am happy about that. It was actually my first purchase of the day.

We walked around for probably about two hours looking and poking around. There are a lot of booths. I found some cute hoodies that I was going to buy that said Marseille but then they were actually US Marshall and only the sweatpants were Marseille. So I didn’t do that. It made me kind of sad. Most of the cool looking things here are in English which makes it hard to find cool shirts or anything because they are all US or in English. I want a cool French hoodie but they are really hard to find apparently. But it was still a very successful trip. I had fun.

After the market we went and found lunch at Simply Food. I got a ham and cheese sandwich and tea and a white chocolate mousse with blueberries and speculoos cookies. It was all very good. The tea was nice with the cold. The mousse was also very delicious! After lunch we went to a couple other weird stores including some baby stores. I may or may not have bought something for the Barnetts new baby. The baby stores are really cute here and it was nice to have a reason to go in, because they are some of the nicest laid out stores. We also went to one of the Cathedrals in town and got stuck inside because a couple was christening their baby on the front steps. After that we went home to relax before going to dinner later.

I came home and started to do some homework, first and foremost to get caught up in History. I did most of it but then was like I’m tired of history. Then I got online and talked to Thad before he had to go to work. Madame came up and I helped her set her phone to vibrate and ring together and she thought I was like Steve Jobs or something. She showed me a connect four game that she found at the Red Cross for Paul which I think it like goodwill? So there must be one around here somewhere. I could probably Google it. She told me that on the 19^th they will get internet downstairs so I will have internet that should work through the floor. YAY!!! That is sooner than I thought! Win! 

After that she went grocery shopping. I took a shower. After that I did more history and then finally got through it. I After that I went online to see what was up. I talked to Megan and then Skyped my parents. They seemed in good spirits. Mom and I talked about the cruise ship problems that are going on right now. On the news when I got here was one that had hit the shore and flipped over in the water and just recently one was on fire and one was struck by lightning or something. Mom was telling me about some friends that Grammy knows who had to stay in Monaco for a while because they were on the cruise. But I was in Monaco and it isn’t too shabby of a place to be! There was also one from I think Syria or had people fleeing from Syria and so the boat was way over booked and over capacity by like 5 times and then capsized or something and like 41 people died because there wasn’t enough life boats and lifejackets. I mean you’d think they would learn from Titanic!? After that I said goodbye and went to go meet up for dinner.

I was the first one there and I always feel weird sitting by myself but then luckily Patrick showed up not two minutes later. He was like well it may just be us because I didn’t see if anyone else responded. Then Cassandra showed up and while we were waiting I check with my wifi to see if anyone had responded and Jonathan had so we waited for him. None of us had a preference of where to go so after walking around for a while we ended up going to the 24hour place close to the Rotonde and at the end of my street. It was really good. I had breaded chicken and fries and some sort of vegetable… thing. It was good I think it was carrots and someone said spinach they thought but it looked more like celery but it didn’t taste like it. Jonathan had shrimp salad thing with a frightening shrimp on it, Patrick blindly ordered something that he didn’t know what it was just because it said à la style Provenҫale, and Cassandra had muscles. Patrick and I traded bites and mine was the clear winner. His tasted like what I would imagine wet socks to taste like. The texture was fine but the flavor was just not something that I would want to eat. He seemed to like it though which is good. He is much more adventurous than me.

We got the dessert menu afterward but didn’t get dessert. They had an ice cream with alcohol thing that looked interesting but it was very expensive. Plus then I think it would ruin perfectly good ice cream. But it sounded interesting. We then made the joke that we could go buy some ice cream and a bottle of wine and do the same thing. But we decided it would not be the same and that would be really disgusting. We paid without any trouble such as difficult splitting the tab ourselves with weird change and exchanges going on and then left. Jonathan left but Cassandra wanted a can of beer from somewhere so we set off to find an open convenience store. But then I heard music and was determined to find it. I turned the corner and saw lights moving on a building and being me obviously went to go see what was up. So we went there and on the side of the library were these like people made of stick lights and then with the classical music it made like a little show. We came in at the end of it and stayed to watch it run again.

It was pretty cool and got me all warmed up for the fete des Lumieres in Lyon in December! Speaking of warmed up I also approached Cassidy about the idea of going to the spa together when she is here because I think that might be more fun than going alone and she totally said YES which I wasn’t expecting! So that makes me really excited to have someone to go with! Plus I am excited that I get to go at all!

After that we walked back up towards the school and found a convenience store that was open and Cassandra got her beer. Under the impression that we were going to meet up to climb Mount Sainte Victoire tomorrow, we all decided to call it a night for our early wake up tomorrow. I walked home on the popular streets so as not to be in danger which is nice because all but the last street is totally non-sketch so I feel safe walking home alone. Plus it isn’t too late at 10 so there are still lots of people out. But I be careful and tuck my main card and cash onto my person anyways just to be sure.

I came home and the hallway light was on which was odd so when I went up the stairs I was like this light is going to go off and I’m going to be stuck in the dark. But then Laurence was there smoking out the window in the hallway but she was around the corner and scared the crap out of me! Now I know that she will be there if the light is on. She was like sorry I thought you would know because the light! It was okay though just a little scary after walking the last sketch road home. Paul came out and made fun of his mom for smoking and how it is bad and then she had him go to bed like he was supposed to of twenty minutes ago. I said goodnight and went upstairs. Also I saw her and Jean-Claude walking home today and they didn’t notice me. I think they don’t recognize me out of context of the house. Like this morning Laurence didn’t really recognize me as I was leaving through the main door. Or maybe it is because my hair was down today and I have been wearing it up… Ooooh I bet that is it! Yep. But maybe it was both (though mostly the hair!).

After that I came home and Madame was asleep at the TV but I talked to her for a bit. I looked on Facebook and we decided to move the mountain trip to another day later. Which is okay by me because now I can sleep in and maybe write my paper tomorrow for lit where I have to take one angel and devil from the stories we read and have them have a dialogue. Which is a great assignment if you are into creative writing but I am not… And I don’t really have a good idea of what to say so it is going to be hard… Then we both went to bed and I stayed up and wrote this even though I am not sure I get internet in my room…. But I am so tired I may wait until tomorrow to post it anyways so I can get the video and pictures and everything up. Goodnight!

Cold Heat

I had a lot of fun today.

This morning I got to sleep in a lot. I went to bed at 12 and woke up at ten. It was awesome. I loved it. I could literally have laid in bed all day. Then the construction started being loud. Le Sigh. So then I got up and had breakfast, and after that I went to school to meet up with Cassandra and Patrick. We all were like we have things to do before we leave. So then we went our ways. I went upstairs to check the mail and found nothing in the H box. But really I was like this package should have been here a long time ago! So I looked in the K box… YEP. Some dummy had put my slip in the K box because they wrote Helwig, Kacy and someone thought that Helwig was a good first name. WHAT. So yeah then I was like well that was stupid. After walking up the stairs I was hot so I went to sit outside in the cold. FINALLY! It is cold enough to wear a sweatshirt! YAY!

I yelled at Patrick down the street. I started getting chilly so I went back downstairs and started talking to some people. Then we all met back up. We went to the card shop so that Cassandra could look for Cards against Humanity. Though I don’t really know why because she told me her mom was printing them out for her to bring when they go to Amsterdam… Sooo… Okay whatever. So then we went to get some Crepes. I had chocolate and banana. It was very delicious. We walked to the Bus place to try and buy Cartreize cards. Which was fine but then We learned that we had to have a passport like photo in order to do it. So that was a hassle.

We ended up going to MonoPrix in the shopping center to get pictures done. The security guard saw us looking like we were lost so I asked him where the photo place was and he showed us. He was VERY nice. So then we did that. We thought that we could just buy one photo for 2 Euros instead of five for 5 but it turned out that it was a like whole photo size photo which would not work. So now I have this big unsmiling passport like photo of myself. (Last time that I listen to other people… I was just going to buy 5…) But whatever.  Then we went back and got the cards. I still am saving money as I will use the card for going to the train and aeroport. After that we went back to school. We went and stopped at a convenience store and I bought a water and then I went and got my package in the building across from the cathedral. I happily carried my package down to the cave where there were like a lot of people for a Friday. It was impressive. I opened my package and was happy to find candy and vitamins, bandaids, motion sickness pills, some things for Paul, Tums, Peanut Butter, and a heating pad. I was most excited for the heating pad.

I sat in the cave for a while. Patrick left after inviting me to join him and Dan for happy hour in a few hours. I said I might. Then I sat in the cave for a while longer. Cassandra was looking at going Paddle boarding tomorrow in Marseille. I was like I’d be down but send me the plan and I’ll be in. So then she left and I sat there a while longer downloading the end of project runway season 11 which I think I have seen… Yeah turned out that I had. I imed THad at his early morning before work in San Jose this weekendI watched Spencers new minecraft video. It looks like a fun easy simple game. I think that I would like it when I go home. I talked with LaSia and Jonathan who had bought this like sausage that was made from Bull and Beef. I was going to try it but then I smelled it first and that immediately put an end to that thought. They said it tasted better than it smelled and I said well dang I hope so! But I couldn’t get past it. But we had a good talk until they went to go watch a movie for their class.

After a while I decided to go home and lay on the heating pad. But it didn’t get hot. Or work like the directions said that it would. So then I looked a the directions and it said it needed to be plugged into a 120 volt thing. So I sighed and told mom it wouldn’t work and she told me to go buy a convertor. Which was expensive… While I was walking around the electronic store I literally ran into Kelan. Like neither of us were paying attention to our surroundings and we ran into each other. It was funny. He was looking at movies to buy so we helped each other out. I helped him look for movies and he helped me look for a convertor. Most of the things that they had though were all adapters so that was a bit obnoxious. So then I went and bought it. The lady was really confused by my id because I had to use a card to buy the converter. She was like umm where is this from and I was like USA and she was like well where and I was like Oregon and she was like what is that. It was funny but she was really nice.

After that I came home and plugged it in and tried to get it to work… But the thing wouldn’t like TURN ON. Like the light would come on and I would pick the temp. level but then it wouldn’t like stay there it would start blinking like it was in auto-shut off mode. So that was frustrating. I finally googled the problem and found that the heating pad had bad reviews online of people buying them and them not working… So… Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown away the box…. Maybe that’s why mom put the box in there… So that is not so good. So I’m assuming it was the heating pad that was messed up this whole time and now I just bought this stupid transformer thing…. That was stupid…

Madame came home and she had bought a new phone, for only one euro! She was very excited and it is her first new phone in ten years! She got a Samsung Galaxy. She likes it a lot and was thrilled that it was so cheap. Wish my phone was that cheap… So then she left and I left to go meet Dan and Patrick. I met Patrick first and tried to go to the school to get the box out of the trash but it was locked.

We sat down and were joined by Michael. We got our drinks and started talking and after a while Dan showed up. We had a nice time. Patrick and Michael talked about pretty intense topics like religion and Politics. Michael is Armenian Orthodox and wants to be a Priest so it was cool to talk to him about that. Dan and I spent most of our time talking about how the other two were talking about very heavy stuff. Dan said dang we are not drunk enough for this. I laughed and continued sipping my little red drink. We had a really nice time though. It was nice to talk to some different people than who I usually talk to. Michael and Dan invited us to hike Mount Sainte Victoire with them on Sunday and I told them I probably couldn’t because I would have to go so slow. They said well we got all day! So I think I will go just to have something to do plus I had a good time with them. This was probably one of my favorite parts of my day though.

After it started to get towards dinner time I went home and after a while Madame and Paul came up for dinner. Paul wanted to look at Pokemon on Tumblr so I opened it up for him. I also gave him the silly teeth (that took 5 times to figure out how to spell) things that mom had sent and he thought they were awesome. They are just like plastic things to put over your teeth. They were pretty amusing though. I also gave him the Pokemon cards. He liked that. For dinner we had Cordon Bleu and French fries. They were very good. We played a guessing game during dinner with animals. I am only totally disadvantaged for having to pick basic animals that I know the names of and to only be able to guess when I know the French word. It would be a fun game for a classroom though. After that we had bread and cheese and paul kept eating his dinner slowly and then when we were done Madame gave me a mandarin orange. She said that because they are the first of the year we can each make a wish. So we did. I wished it would snow here before I leave. I hear it is cool because the whole city shuts down. But it never happens. Though it is starting to get cold enough!

After dinner I went and got the reeses that mom sent and let Madam and Paul try them. Paul refused as he doesn’t like anything but Madame tried it and really liked it! She says she likes Peanut butter but she never buys it. But she seemed to really like the chocolate. But whether she liked it because it was like a gift or whether she really liked it? That is a hard one to figure out. She tossed out the idea of sending a box back to my parents thanking them for all the things that they are sending. So maybe that will happen? I dunno but then she would know more about sending things back and I could ask her about it.

We started trying to watch Lilo and Stitch but the DVD wasn’t working so I went and cleaned it and then it worked and Madame thought I was like magic or something. Then I helped her get the DVD player to work. She thinks I am a genius now, so that is cool. After that I got online to see what was up with tomorrow and Cassandra was being wishy washy about what we are going to do. So that was only really annoying. It was like pick to go or choose to go to the markets. And she just wouldn’t make a decision but kept like saying reasons why not to do both. So finally I cornered her into picking so we are going to the markets tomorrow and then I think the plan is to go and have dinner with Patrick and some other people. So that should be fun. 

Mom just messaged me saying she sent me a convertor *facepalm* no mom I need a different heating pad so now we both bought convertors! Oops… Oh well. What is life without these crazy times?

Also the pictures today are the rest of the stairs to get mail, the outside of the school, the building where I go to get my packages and those stairs, and then Beebow eating Yogurt.

Castles and Stairs

Today was way better than yesterday but it would be pretty hard not to be. I woke up at ten to my alarm after my usual 8 o clock window fixing. Then I went and took a shower and used my new shampoo/conditioner that I bought at Carrefour. It smells much more like me so I like it. I wish I had different body soap because it smells weird. It was good. I have started putting on music when I get ready in the mornings and have the house to myself. It is nice. Then I got dressed and went to do my hair. My bangs have gotten long so I decided to cut them. I think I did a pretty good job. They don’t look freshly cut which was the goal but they are definitely shorter which is good. I should have cut them just a tad more but they suffice for now. You may be thinking why didn’t you just go get all of your hair cut? Well because that’s 30+ € that I would rather just save and let my hair grow out so I can take it to my friend Joe and he can have a field day with it when I get home. Plus that is pretty steep for a hair cut! No wonder everyone has long hair here! ;-)

After I did that I packed up my stuff and went to school. My plan was to finish the last 30 pages of my Game of Thrones book but then Mom was on Skype so I messaged with her instead. That was good and then pretty soon Cassandra came in and was like what did you think of the reading and I was like what? And she was like the homework for this class? And I was like oh I didn’t do that. I was so done with school by the end of class yesterday I just didn’t even care. So she filled me in on what I missed. I didn’t miss much judging from what e talked about in class but I’ll get caught up this weekend. I just needed to not do any more work yesterday after all the horribleness that happened. But class was interesting. We are talking about the German Unification now.

 After class I climbed all the stairs (all but one staircase I got pictures of for you Mom, and then was sad there was no slip of paper saying I had a package. When I got back down my backpack was ringing. I was like what Is that? Turns out it was my phone and I missed a call from some number that I did not recognize. I tried calling them back but go a machine that was about 10 seconds long in French and there was no way I could understand them they were speaking so quickly. So I decided it was nothing. After that we went to the new building and sat for a while before going to our classes. Kelan noticed I cut my bangs. He won the prize and was the only one who noticed.

Literature was alright. We had read A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings : A Childrens Tale. It was a good little story but I feel like the class discussion just went WAY too philosophical that like I was wondering if the professor got our class confused with his next philosophy class in the same room. It was just like too much. I understand like analyzing but it was too much.

After that I went down to the convenience store for a juice and the cashier lady was not in a good mood. I went back and sat in the cave and finished Game of Thrones. It was very good. Except now I have to read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky which is not going to be nearly as exciting… But I have to finish it before I can read the fourth book. It was good though I liked it a lot.

After that I met up with Patrick and Cassandra and we went to Happy Hour at Woohoo. The pigeons kept coming over because I kept looking at them and because we have peanuts on the table they thought I was going to feed them. Cassandra is araid of birds though so Patrick and I would just not tell her and then she would like turn around and it would be like RIGHT there and she would freak out. It was pretty funny J. Or at least we found it very amusing. It was chilly so after we were done, we went back to the school and I grabbed my big B.K. book and we parted ways. I came home and bought 5 days of internet because I am going crazy. Then I started reading. I am about 30 pages in. But it starts on page 16… So really I’m like 15 pages in and so far it is dreadfully boring. But it is just back story at this point so hopefully it will pick up. 

I stopped when Madame came home and asked how my day was and then immediately if I went to talk to the internet people. I told her I didn’t need to because this morning the internet started working again! A little white lie but it saves me the stress and her the stress and I knew the internet was a risk when I bought it. So this way is best I think. But then we had dinner which was 2 croque-monsieurs each, (Grilled cheese with ham) to be eaten with a fork and knife, we also had salad. Toujours salade, jamais Malade, as Madame says whenever we eat salad. It was a lot of bread and afterwards I got hiccups. Madame laughed at me. It is pleasantly getting cold here which I love. Maybe tomorrow I can wear a sweatshirt! I am meeting Patrick and Cassandra to go for crepes tomorrow for lunch. Then I can check my mail again.

I have my Skype date soon with Thad which will make it just under a week since we have been able to talk. It’s at 11 my time so pretty late but Madame says she doesn’t care as long as I’m not screaming or being obnoxious. She says it’s like if I had a TV on I can make that much noise.  But I am excited. It has been too long. 

 I got online and talked to dad about my test. He said that I need to have FUN storming the castle. :-)

 

You know what I liked best about today?

The end of it.

Today was probably my worst day here….

It started off fine. I woke up and had breakfast and talked to Madame. Kristine the housing lady was coming today at 11 but I didn’t have to be here. But it is nice to know that they do at least check on where you are living, that is a good thing. We got a stellar report I hear. I took off about 45 minutes early to go and study some more. There were a couple girls who had the same idea so we bounced ideas and concepts off of each other. I was feeling pretty confident.

Class started and we got the papers with the images. They were mostly ones I had studied the most so I was very happy. I felt pretty confident. The girl next to me finished in not even 10 minutes and went to the professor who pretty much was like ummm no. This should take you longer you are going o fail if you turn it in this fast. This is because they are like you need to write an actual paper on them. I felt pretty good though and remembered all the vocab and dates mostly (iffy on one of them) but overall I think I did about as good as I could and I think I did pretty well.

I was exhausted by the time I finished though. I turned mine in when about ¾ of the class was done which I feel pretty good about. Usually that means that I knew more or put in more detail, so that was good. But my brain was pretty fried afterwards. So after that I went and got a baguette and an apple for lunch, as well as a Kinder egg and some smurfs. Kinder eggs are cool. Mlle Pearman gave them to us once and told us how they are illegal in the US because they are edible eggs that contain like little games or prizes on the inside. But that our government doesn’t think we are smart enough to realize that the plastic inside the chocolate egg isn’t edible. I got a puzzle with cute animals in mine.

After that I watched some youtube videos that Spencer had made of him playing Minecraft. I really liked that. It let my mind take a break and I got to watch my brother play a game which I always like. After that I had about 4 hours before class. I did my Literature homework for tomorrow which didn’t take too long and then started studying for my French test of 328 verbs and adjectives which all have to do with the 5 senses. So yeah they are all in a way either the same definition or almost the exact same. DO you see a problem with this? Do you also realize the caliber of 328 words? 328! Trois cent vingt-huit mots. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of accent marks to know, and definitions and a lot of words to distinguish from one another. THAT’S A LOT!!!! Do you see a problem coming?! Well you should…

So I studied and made flashcards and wrote the words out and looked up all the definitions (Because they weren’t all discussed in class and there were no definitions on the sheet.) This took quite a while and with over three hundred words it was really hard to keep them all straight.

Pretty soon study time was up so I went to class. I talked to everyone else and they were totally lost too. But I mean a lot of people say that and then are not… So I dunno. We were all hoping when the professor didn’t show up after 5 minutes that class was cancelled but then the secretary came and told us she would be there in ten minutes. I was happy for the extra study time… When she got there though she handed out the test right away.

Okay here we go. First part the 5 senses I knew this would be on it what are the names of them. Uhhh okay la vue (sight), le toucher (touch), ummm crap. What are the actual names for the other two. L’oeil? Or is that eye? Umm it is something like that though. Crap. Okay what body parts are they that do those? Okay easy done. Second part: Here is a sentence now give a synonym. Ummm what? Okay… SO a word that means admire but isn’t admire in French umm…. Yeah nothing blank completely blank. Really? Of the 150+ verbs I just studied for hours I can remember none!? Okay skip okay.

Third part: Here’s a bunch of words put them in the box from one of the 5 senses. Okay so I know some of these so put those ones in. Oh crap these are mostly adjectives and I didn’t study those as much as the verbs because I figured they would be more useful. So I literally have no clue for like 6 of these… Okay well I think the best chance is to put them all in the same box because then at least maybe one of them will be right.

Fourth part: use sentir (smell) , se sentir (to feel) ressentir (feel for someone else) Is that how it works? I think so. But how do I conjugate them like this? She didn’t even tell us that this was going to be on the test! I could have had this easy but I didn’t know it was going to be on here and has not been on the forefront of my mind!

So Literally I did not have a clue for over half of this test even though I studied because there were just too many words. Awesome. Turn paper over put head down and try to forget this ever happened.

After a few more minutes the professor came and took our papers. I didn’t even lift my head when she took mine. I knew I did horrible. I know that I completely failed it. There is no well maybe I will get a C. No. I failed. I have never felt more horrible for a test than that test ever before in the history of my life. What a failure. How could I remember nothing? How is that possible? I know I wasn’t absorbing much when I studied because of having a test earlier but REALLY KACY!? REALLY!? You can’t remember a single verb for admire!?

We started class and the professor was saying she was going to grade us easy but I just new it was so bad. I started tearing up and was trying o not make a deal about it but the professor when she looked at me was like do you want to leave? And I was like Yes. And then ran out. As soon as I hit the hallway I broke. And probably the class of only like 8 of us all heard it and I was embarrassed. I knew it was going to be horrible so why am I having this reaction. Everyone else probably did badly and they aren’t freaking out. It’s because I’m me and I can’t handle failing. I just really cannot. So I ran downstairs to go to the bathroom but it was busy so I just went down the hallway and cried. And I knew I needed to suck it up and go back but I just wanted to cry. I miss home. I miss my family. I miss Thad. I miss talking to someone who knows and likes me and who sees me for the person that I am and cares about what I say and think and do. I miss feeling heard and feeling comfortable with where I am. I miss not having to pretend that I fit in. I miss my friends who I know support me. And I miss the professors who find me interesting and who listen to my opinions and thought and care about if I am having a horrible day. I miss the security of knowing my surrounding and not feeling like a complete outsider all the time. I miss everything and I miss not failing tests because I can’t comprehend and learn 300 words at a time.

About two minutes later the school secretary came out of the bathroom and came over to see if I was okay. I toke her I was just sad because I just failed a test and that is 100% unusual for me and I was homesick and haven’t been able to talk to anyone for almost a week. She asked if I wanted or needed anything and tried to comfort me and she was helping but I told her I just needed a minute to put myself back together so I could go back to class. I just kept sitting there saying if Mom was here she would tell you there isn’t a way out and you just need to suck it up and go back and do it. You can’t leave. You have to go to class. So just suck it up put it behind you and go back to class. There’s nothing you can do about it now. So once I got myself together I went back. I came in and sat in my seat and avoided eye contact with everyone and started translating the text we had. The professor came over and asked if I was okay and I said yes in a very choked up voice. Stupid vocal cords.

We went on with class as usual but the professor didn’t come check my work as usual and kind of just let me be. I kept getting choked up and teary during class as I kept getting reminded of the test and how bad it was. Even now I’m choked up writing this. But also when I get stressed like that my vocal cords tighten up a lot and it hurts so I cry because it hurts but then that doesn’t help either. So it was just all a bad combo. My friends infront of me kind of were avoiding eye contact as well which I was glad for. Nothing worse than crying in class and then having everyone staring at you. Finally and not a moment too soon the class was over. I figured the professor might want to talk to me and that was something I’d rather avoid as I would just start up again so I left with everyone else. When we got outside Kelan asked what was wrong and I told him I was homesick and failed that and my internet hasn’t been working and all that. Christelle said she would ask her roommate for the free wifi city code so I could have that as an option. I started crying again which I hate because my crying sounds so fake I feel like so I hate to cry in front of people. But they were really cool about it. My professor walked by and said she hopes I feel better. So that was enough for me. I got myself together and then walked back home stopping to send Thad a text of what sort of happened.

I came home and was glad for some me time. I started reading so I could get my mind on something else. Madame came home about 20 minutes later. She asked how I was and could tell I was upset. I told her my morning test had gone well but my second one hadn’t. She’d seen the sheet I was working with and after I told her sort of the layout of the test she was like that sounds super hard. And I was like yeah hence why I did really badly. She gave me a don’t beat yourself up speech and that French is a hard language even for her and it is her native language and that I’ll get it next time but shouldn’t beat myself up. I said yeah. Then we went downstairs. Madame told Paul I did badly on a test so I was sad. He didn’t understand what a test was because they don’t have them t his age yet so we had to explain it. He sort of got it. Then we played balloon and he showed me his new Skylander dude and then we played throw th basketball in the little hoop from across the room which was difficult. Madame did it on her first try. Too bad I suck at throwing things. But it was a good game for a while. Then Paul wanted to know what my headbad was so I took it off and showed him and then he had me hold it while he tried to throw the bll through it and into the basket. He couldn’t, but I could. After that Laurence and Jean-Claude came home and we went upstairs. Madame explained how to tell if the mood is waxing or waning which was cool. If it makes a P with a line it is starting to be full if id is a d then it is ending being full. So that is cool and easy to remember! Cool trick.

When we came upstairs I started reading again and Madame made dinner. We had salad and her honey and lemon chicken. YUM. It was really good especially because she didn’t put anything on it that I don’t like! Win for once today… After that we talked about what Kristine said, and about astrological signs and birthdays of different people and stuff like that. I feel like we are a good pair her and I. We get along really well. I think some of the people at school would really not get along with her. There is a level of graciousness and politeness that a lot of people here don’t have that I feel like is required…  like that we are good at communicating.

I am so glad that today is over though. I wish it was Thursday so that I wouldn’t even have to go to school tomorrow… I am so like done with school right now…