time moves too fast

9 days since my last post! crazyness...time just flies by. I'm home alone now sat. afternoon, my host is at her tennis lesson, and my host dad is out shopping for something. So this week...

Highlights:

This weekend was relaxing, and Saturday night was super fun. We had Nadine and Antoine's friends from Nice with us the whole weekend, and we are visiting them at the Toussaint vacation (2 weeks!). We just did things around the house, but Sat. night we went to place de la Capitole to watch the match of the quarter finals of the world cup between N-Z "All Blacks" and France. It was an indescribable feeling being in the center of thousands of people screaming the Marseilleise. France won. It was so awesome. Tomorrow they play England.....Liza met us there. Here is us watching the game, and with some guys that dressed up like Chebal, the French star player who has a long beard. The other pic is of my host parents and their friends.

Mondays fly by, but also go slowly. It's the only day I have class from 8-6, so by the time you get home, eat dinner, do some homework, then it's Tuesday. I went to a collegue of my dad's for dinner, since he lives in Toulouse. I met him and his family for the first time. I receieved my ski jacket and snowpants that my parents had given him in Lyon. Their daughter Lou is my age so hopefully we can do things together.

Tuesday soccer practice was alright...much running but ok. So much harder playing on synthetic grass. Wednesday night I went to the Orchestra de la Capitole, the professional orchestra in Toulouse. It was a special preview night for Rotary Clubs, since the regular season of it opened on Thursday. Rotaract clubs were invited too, so I went with Fabian. The theatre was amazing, a hexagon stage, with seats coming up in every direction, so everyone had the same awesome accoustic experience. Half of the stage was for the musicians, the other half for the audience. We were sitting right behind the french horns, so that was awesome. The music was exceptional, and it's cool to see a professional orchestra live, I guess they are one of the premiere ones in Europe. Fabian had never been to any sort of band/orchestra concert ever, so I told him all the names of the instruments. It was kind of funny b/c I didn't get home till really late b/c the peripherique was closed in one direction, so he had to drive all the way around Toulouse to take me home!

I won a TFC jersey at soccer on Thursday night! All 3 teams were combined, and we did a scavanger hunt run. It was really fun, and I got to know some new ppl, there were 7 teams of 6 or 7 girls, and 2 of the women on my team are on France's national soccer team! We got a map of the area and had to find things. They do clues and make a sentance, and come back and do a soccer drill to get the next one. 6 different challenges, and we ended up running nonstop for 1h30! Our team had the fastest time overall and got the sentance first, so we got last year's pro jerseys for free! This is good b/c I don't have my own yet, but I'm going to a TFC mens pro game next sat, 10€ for women! so now i have something purple and TFC to wear.

My host parents went to the Opera last night, so it was up to me to find a ride to band. Soccer was cancelled because there's no game this weekend, so that made things easier. After 4 different phone calls I got hold hold of the English women who plays clarinet, and she was able to take me there and home, that was so nice of her. Band is really fun, the songs are nice and jolly. The chef doesn't really talk to me during the practice, but last night while he was looking down at his score he said (as much as I caught and understood), wow this french horn is so wonderful, you don't realize how much the sound adds until you have one...then 30 pairs of eyes turned and looked at me, and some of the flutes continued to look at my while I was playing. The horn part in all the music is usualy backup stuff, so I hope they enjoyed watching me play long notes! I had my english lesson yesterday, it was harder than the first time. This time I had both boys, so they goofed off more together, and it was friday so they didn't really want to be in more school...but I learned my lesson, need to prepare lots of things to do!

I got my first graded test back, 16,75/20 on the math test...3rd highest in the class! I told that to my host parents, so now they now I wasn't lying when I said I knew what to do for it. The scoring system is always out of 20, yet it's not the same numeric system as in the US, no I did not get 83%, it's more subjective, with noone getting a 20/20, even if you did get all the problems right...there's always something you did wrong. So I think my score is more like an A-.

Differences I've noticed in school..they want to participate more, and the teachers ask for the students opinion more, class time is more orientated on expressing your opinions and thoughts, than just covering the material. This depends on the class of course (this doesn't happen in science), but in English class WHY is asked more, so they can practice expressing themselves in another language, even if it is simple things. We started discussing the novel in French, and everyone just couldn't stop talking about the characters and everything....although I am in the Littéraire section, so my observations might be biased. We haven't written one in-class essay in french class, but many lenghthy outlines, I guess this shows that the teachers are trying to show them how to organize their thoughts, so they essay will be good. In the Civics class that is only held every 2 weeks, we are working on in groups a big project that is due in January, but as far as I can tell, we don't actually write a research paper, we just write the outline for it, then we will have a debate. My group is doing it over laws getting out of prison..or something like that.

I have not written about bisous on here...that is a big cultural thing, kiss everyone on each cheek when you meet them, before school, at night, for the first time (mostly me), basically anytime you see anyone. You are not obliged to stay and chat, it's just saying you acknowledge eachother's prescence and that you know them..like I see my neighbor on the bus home a lot, we give bisous, but I don't really talk to him. But other than that I've noticed that French ppl don't really casually touch eachother, like high 5s or pats on the back or anything. I really noticed it when I was with Anna Victoria from Mexico b/c she couldn't stop jus grabbing my arm or putting her hand on my back. When I was really happy one time I really wanted to hug someone so I said that to Nadine and we had this awkward like kiss/hug thing, but then I explained and we had a good conversation about things like that.

Also everyone here is skinny! All the girls at school would be considered skinny or really skinny in the US, and we heard that a French girl exchange student was sent home from Australia because she was anorexic. Liza and I deduced that the French's bones are just smaller b/c noone really does any sports, plus everyone smokes. I think its funny how half my class smokes a cigarette while waiting for the bus to PE. It's just weird, everyone has smaller hips, and the biggest size in most stores is equivalent to US size 10 (for women). Guys are all really skinny too, and you can pick the ones out that have played soccer or rugby out b/c they are more built up. Everyone eats, and a substantial part of the diet is white bread...so I don't know how it works. I do know that I've gained weight b/c I was weighed at soccer on Thursday. They weight all the players every month to keep track, a hint that I might actually be on the team since they made a point of me doing it.

I got 3 pieces of mail this week...yay! A card from my granparents, and 2 things from Marci!! Thanks! Gum and letter, then a cool word search puzzle with all our memories. The picture below is Liza playing with Sarah's crutches at school, with the guys laughing at us in the background. Sarah was on crutches for her ankle, now shes not, but we got to know the elevator and how the school is not all the way connected all the way around. Notice that the crutches are a different kind than in the US...weird.

Tonight France plays England for the Rugby World Cup semi-finals!! Allez les Bleus!! I'm going to watch it in the Capitole with Sarah and Franziska, a german girl who's on my soccer team and is an exchange student in a different program. We speak french together so it's slightly funny since we are still searching for many words. But I think my French has reached a new level, I now speak with out really stopping that much, and I even found myself mumbling...not good. And while I was writing this I had to delete french words, without realizing I had written them, bizarre.

bye for now

Love,

Lize (how they spelled my name at soccer)