Hey everyone!

Sorry I've been such a lazy-butt and not updating for 2 weeks....not going to soccer has given me so much less energy. Moral of the story..don't get injured so you can exercise and have lots of energy! Some highlights...

I got my grades from the the first trimester in the mail! No matter what you have out of 20, "good" is if you have above the class average, which I do in math, physics, and PE! Go me! Don't really know how that happened in physics since we have it once every 2 weeks and I don't really remember any of the assignments. And then in both English classes I have the highest grades in the class! Woot! About 2 weeks ago we wrote our first "dissertation" in French class, a four hour time period to write an essay. Although this words gives me chills, here in France it just mean in-class essay. In this case we were given several excerpts from texts and a prompt, then expected to answer it using the texts and also things we've read. I actually wrote the same amount I wrote for AP English in-class essays last year, except we have 50 min. Funny, in France we are given so much more time to do things. I guess the finished product will be better, since you are given lots of time to plan it out and organize your thoughts. So does that mean that in the US we are being trained to think faster and just gets all our thoughts on paper, even if not the best? I mean, that was the whole goal for the AP test last year, 3 "quality" essays in 1 hour and a half. Here it was one essay for 4 hours. But, somehow, I did spend the whole time there, and was rushing at the end. Granted I did spend the first 2 hours (8 to 10am) waking up and reading and rereading the texts over and over. But it was the most I'd ever written in French. We got them back today, I guess my french teacher grades hard, b/c there were tears from some students. But I guess they'll be happy when their Bac grade comes along. The teacher graded mine, didn't give me a grade though, kind of wish she did. She said and wrote on it that I made enormous progress in French, stressed by the waving of the hand, a common gesture, and that it was good, although my "plan", or outline was lacking.....figures haha. I think I'll ask her to start giving me grades. The first page had lots of corrections, then there was less red pen, either b/c she got tired of correcting everything, or my writing improved. But actually most of the corrections wasn't about word choice, just according the adjective with the noun, things like that. I guess I need to write slower so I don't make stupid mistakes. But I seem to do that in English too.

I went to some TFC games, saw them finally win at home. Haven't gone to practice, will after break. But I did get my uniform, and since I've part of the club now, I got in the mail today my little summary from the first half of the season. Mine's not too interesting, but there are 3 graphs on it, one with how many practices I attended and missed per month, the other with my weight and one with my VMA result, the beep running test except in a circle. They they tell you where they want you to be. I think it's pretty cool. Stupid sprained ankle.
Last Saturday was the Rotaract Christmas dinner, an excuse for many of the Rotaract clubs of the district to get together and eat, also all the exchange students to get together. My counselor seems to have a problem or predicting clothing attire, as every event (which is every rotary event I've been to) I've been to with her she's told me to wear something, like a dress, then I get there and everyone else is in jeans. I thought I would give her one more try. When we were walking around the city one time she pointed out Homecoming dressed like and said that's what the xmas party is. My attire was more beach party like, and I was content with it, but other exchange students came in nice formal dresses...when there were people dressed in jeans, and my counselor was in something similar. Oh well, what can they expect, when you are obviously the exchange students its fun to live of to your name and be a little crazy. This fact was affirmed when we were threatened to sing Christmas songs. It was going only mildly horribly and only in the top 5 most humiliating moments of my life, until we started singing Silent Night. I would say that only about 3 of the girls could actually classify themselves as singers....yeah there's a reason I chose to be in band. It was utterly horrible, but I was just laughing most of the time, so ppl didn't have to hear me sing. The worst was for Vincent, the only male exchange student....yeah, he kind of stuck out, to say the least. It was kind of fun when we sang Rudolph, because it was only the 2 Americans and Canadians that knew it, and I realized that they don't shout "George Washington!" at the end of the Canadian version... It was fun spending time with everyone, and especially the south-hemispherers that are leaving in less than a month....so sad.

There is the very cool Christmas market at the Capitole now. So we walk around there some after school. We are making a video blog, well we've been talking about it for a while, finally did it yesterday, so maybe I'll post it on here, if I can figure it out.
They are leaving soon :(
All of us that got here in August!!! except the Russian, but she didn't come
At the Christmas market...with THE MOST AMAZING HOT CHOCOLATE IN THE WORLD!! No joke! It is amazing, plus I have it on my nose.

Christmas is in only 5 days! Thanks to everyone who has sent me stuff! So far...3 cards, 4 boxes, and 2 giant envelopes!!!

Peace and Love

cheville..

Hey oh
Since last monday started off on a bad foot.....I sprained my ankle Tuesday night at TFC practice...We were playing like 5v5 keep away and I cut the ball behind me and somehow all my weight went over my left ankle. It hurt like the 1st time I did it like a year and a half ago, but still a shock. They carried me off and then my host parents came and got me and we went to a clinic. Clnic = private hospital. My experience on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning with socialized health care was interesting...lots of waiting. The emergency room at the clinic was empty but we still had to wait like an hour. I got crutches and an x-ray, all free. Then on Wednesday I got a sonogram. I had to pay for it because I'm not actually French, but I can get it reimbursed my insurance at the soccer club. So Wednesday was kind of slow and I was bummed...I wasn't in that much pain, I just don't like being hurt...I'm never hurt or sick. Thursday was better, then Friday I didn't go to school either because for only 2 hours with cruthches, I didn't see it as necessary. I did do my english lesson in the afternoon and then we went back there for a dinner party. They were hoping to introduce me to new cuisine my making a tagine....then they were very surprised when I said that I had, in fact, spent 3 weeks in Morocco, and knew very well what tagine was. Then it turned out that my family's trip was almost exactly in the same places and the same time as their's! Crazy! Saturday it rained and I saw a movie...Christmas festive lights and things everywhere. I was happy to see my friends again...3 days seemed like a long time. It was also our 100th day here! Sunday was fun..Liz from Central visited. She's studying abroad in Nancy. She brought 2 others from U of I who are at the aerospace school there. It sounded like they were having a good semester...way different than mine though. Living by themselves and difficult schooling. Unfortunately after finding the correct bus stop, I guess it changes on Sundays, we were told that the Cité de l'Espace was closed this weekend. So that was a bummer...that's why they came to Toulouse. But we filled the rest of the day walking around... the weather was absolutely beautiful..they have been filled with cold and rain by living in the North, Southern France is nice. It definitely wasn't my normal December weather.
I have to leave soon to go to the stadium to see the TFC doctor. Hopefully I can play soon. It rained today...I got totally soaked. If only it was colder it would have been snowing. I have above the average in physics class..13, and the highest grade in the 2nd english class..18. I thought it was unfair on the last test how she took off one point for each of my 2 puncuation/spelling mistakes...when french kids would have only gotten like .5 a point off. Also the last question was opinion, so it bugged my when she took off because I didn't answer the question, when it was my opinion. The other english teacher and I had an argument because she thinks there's 54 states in the US....yeah. Also she thought prom was just walk around didn't believe there were dances. In physics we started doing chemistry...Ozenne has all this super nice equipment and each lab is really nice. We used all this (it seemed) fancy equipment to find the amount of salt in like 5 different brands of mineral water...but there was no "don't break the equipment or else..." speech, or instructions, so that was a change from Central. Liz and I both agreed on Sunday that it was fun talking to someone who came from the same place as us..it was really cool and kind of weird too. But fun. We'll always remember that day. It was also cool showing someone around Toulouse, I didn't get them lost.

Toodles!
Liz