We're doing a food unit in class right now, so we're learning about restaurants, and the French culture.

     Apparently, they don't tip in France! It's not because they're selfish, it's because the waiters and waitresses already get paid plenty! In France, food is taken very seriously, so working in a restaurant requires training and professionalism. It's an actual job with good pay, so it's considered odd to tip, unless you had incredibly good service, and maybe you wanna give a euro or so.

     Another thing; it's considered rude to take your food home. You're supposed to just eat it in the restaurant, and if you don't want it, then just leave it! It's hugely socially unacceptable to ask for a box to bring things home in!

     Although I love learning about France and the French language, I have to admit, they're strange!

French french french french frenchy-french! 

I feel like talking about sign language today, instead of French. I've never taken the class but I've always been interested in it! I learned the alphabet when I was little and recently some of my friends in ASL (Anthony and Michaella) have been teaching me things. It's fun! 

I want to be able to communicate with the deaf kids in my World History class. They seem really cool to me for some reason. One girl got a new haircut this year and I really liked it and wanted to tell her, but I didn't know how! That was weird for me, and it made me want to learn how to say basic things... 

Maybe in college I can take multiple language classes and become trilingual! Fun fun fun

   
     So now I've heard that we might not end up having a French III class after all. If not, I would have multiple choices. I could be scheduled into a French II class, but then study by myself on the computer and be able to work with my teacher if need be, or I could have a free hour where I take it on the computer.
     The thing is, I don't want to have to take it on the computer! I would want to participate with a class full of students and be able to work with them and ask questions and laugh and have fun while I do it. Taking it by myself on the computer would be boring and lonely... :' (    Now I don't know what to do!!

     My favorite thing about French class is speaking the language. It's like it feels good on my mouth or something, I don't know. But I also really like hearing about the culture there. I can't imagine what in the world it would be like to move there suddenly because everything would be so different. There are social differences, educational differences, political differences... Okay, you got it, it's DIFFERENT. I wanna go there so bad!!!!

So I've been having this problem lately where I mesh french and english when I'm writing, so simple words like "salute" are confusing for me to spell because there's a similar french word, "salut". I can't think of a better example right now, but it happens all the time and it's kind of embarrassing because it's like I don't know how to spell. 

Ugh, french problems. :D

We spent french class last Friday, yesterday, and today watching Frozen in french. It's fun to just listen to the dialogue without reading the subtitles and see what you can catch. Usually I can't catch a lot of it, but I'll pick out certain words I know, and can get the gist at least. Especially since I've already seen that movie in english like, five times!

I hope we go back to actually learning french soon. We haven't done much lately. There were uses of imperfect past-tense verbs (or something like that) in the dumb story we read, so I really wanted to learn how to use it, but we haven't looked at that yet…. sigh...

     We're reading our first french book in class. It's called Le Nouvel Houdini, meaning the New Houdini (as in the magician (good job)). The book is more difficult because it uses past tense verbs, but it's pretty simple to get the gist. And anyway, once you learn what the words mean, they kind of tend to stick with you for the rest of the book.
   
     The book itself is INSANE. It's about a seventeen year old named Brandon who's parents are leaving town, but instead of letting Brandon stay home alone, they call his grandma in to stay with him and tell him he can't leave the house except for school, and he can't hang out with friends, and he's not allowed to drive his dad's crazy awesome car.

     So of course Brandon tricks his grandma into letting him take the car to school by messing up his own car and saying it stopped working. He immediately drives past the house of some beautiful girl and  they make a date... TO MCDONALD'S. Wooooooow. Brandon asks the girl, Marianne, to pass him the ketchup, but somehow she made it explode all over the car! (Just... What?) So Brandon freaks out and calls his horrible friend Jake, who tells him to clean the ketchup with vinegar, so Brandon tries that. Nope, doesn't work. Instead, the car now smells bad.

    Brandon ended up paying hundreds of dollars to get the car cleaned, and it was sparkly and new and wonderful again, so Brandon and Marianne go on another date, but on the way home, the car gets hit by some other driver and ends up with a huge gash in the side. It's too expensive to fix, so Jake (that horrible friend again) tells Brandon to color right over it with sharpie... Voila! Good as new!

    Brandon takes Marianne on yet another date to a fancy restaurant, but when they get there, Brandon's grandma walks in, so Brandon and Marianne have to run out of the restaurant before they're seen! Too bad, it's a torrential downpour out there, and Brandon, being the imbecile that he is, locked his keys and his phone in the car. 

This is a frustrating story.

Since I'm doing French III next year, I decided to search types of jobs in America that use French. I found a list of careers one with a French major could pursue, and here are some that interest me most:

 

Social Worker

French Teacher

Military Translator/Interpreter

Speech Therapist

Writer/Journalist

 

Other jobs that I'm not so interested are in the field of business, since that's obviously a worldwide field. I'll definitely have to look into these things if I want to go on with this awesome language!

 

French III

This year I'm in French II, as a sophomore. I didn't think there would be a French III class next year, but I guess they're trying really hard to pull one together, and I'd really like to do it! I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in my class who wants to go on, but there are also people coming back from French II last year that want to learn more.

I don't really have a whole lot of time left in my schedule for this class. I'm actually going to have to take U.S. History as a zero hour to fit it in, but since French is one of my better classes, I feel like I should stick to it. So hopefully they have the class!!

French Olympic Standings

 

The Olympics are such an important part of our worldly culture! This huge compilation of sports really brings people together to share their pride and to make memories.

 

Although I am a proud American, this blog is about France, so here are their standings:

France has gathered a total of 15 metals, 4 gold, 4 silver, and 7 bronze.

 

The country of France has participated in every Olympic Winter Games, and it was the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin who founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

More Fun Facts!

France is the most visited country in the world.

Napoleon was not short--he was actually taller than many french people.

The french government gives medals to parents who raise their children right.

In the entire city of France, there is only ONE stop sign.

In France, you can marry a DEAD person. 

So I get kind of sick of school sometimes. We come here every week day from early morning to mid-afternoon, and just sit and work, with only a half-hour lunch break. It's just so... boring!

Then I hear about foreign schools who have to learn for the entire day for morning until night with hardly any breaks. I guess compared to that I can't complain at all!

In France, the school system is, to me, a happy medium. They attend school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and skip Wednesday. Each day they get about an hour and a half for lunch, which means they can get lots of late work done and be able to turn it in in time, or work ahead on projects. It's such a fabulous idea, and I wish we did it!