Tuesday was the oh so dreaded first day of school. And man was it hectic.
This blog will be an explanation of a normal french school day.
I woke up at 6:30 to catch the bus by 7. School mornings are alot easier than in NZ, we don’t need to pack lunch and lots of our school suplies stay in our school lockers over night. I was basically sleep walking getting ready, but by the time the bus pulled into school at 7:40 I was completly awake and freaking out. I left my host sister Elisabeth to go and check the board for which class I would be in. Unlike NZ’s senior students, you stick with the same class for every subject so I was praying to the Lord above I’d be in a class with my friends. God must have busy though, because I only knew about 4 people in the class, but couldn’t really count them as friends. It was more a “Hey, I think I’ve seen you around before” thing.
I had a panicky moment when I realised I’d be alone, but throughout the day I got to know my class and realised they weren’t that scary. However, that’s not to say that my maths teacher wasn’t (shudders). When you reach premiere in France, it’s the equivalent of year 12 in NZ. This is when the school program changes and starts preparing you for the BAC (France’s exams), you must chose to go into Liturature, economics or sciences. Which ever one you chose, all your subjects will be focused around it. I chose science, so my subjects this year are a little different of that of last year’s and I have less hours doing classes such as French or history. New subjects have been introduced and the work load for science and maths has increased by a ton, my first school night was spent buried in a book doing maths exercises that made me question existence. I think it’s safe to say that this year won’t be as tranquil as last year:(
Each day you can have 8 hours of classes, not including a one hour lunch break. This seems really long but it’s not too bad after a while, I normally have 1 or 2 free periods a day and if a teacher isn’t there then we just don’t have that class, and Wednesday’s are half days!
Over the school week I made some friends in my class, it’s not the same as being with my very close ones, but I think I’ll survive now. The canteen food is as good as always, but unfortunately my friends and I can’t eat together because we all have lunch scheduled at different times and our free periods don’t match either.
On the bright side, I understand nearly everything going on in classes now, which makes the day so much more interesting and a don’t fall asleep all the time like last year. Everyone has been commenting on how greatly my french has improved over the holidays, which is awesome as!