A Day of Participation

Today was the first Monday of school I've had in three weeks!  We've had Monday and Tuesday off from school for the past two weeks, and I have to say, I've really gotten used to the four-day weekend thing. :)


First period was PE.  It was our last day of ping pong, and we did a big class tournament thing kind of like Queen's Court or Wave.  There were about fifteen ping pong tables set up.  You played your partner for three minutes, and whoever won moved up a table and whoever lost moved down.  I started in the exact middle, moved up all the way to the second highest table, and all the way back down again.  I ended up exactly where I started.  But it was fun, and I'm definitely not complaining about having ping pong in school. :)

After that was math.  I actually enjoyed myself today!  What a surprise! ;) We did word problems for the first time, which I was the most worried about because of the whole language barrier thing.  But instead, I figured out the word problems pretty well (I asked my table neighbor for help sometimes) and always finished before everyone else.  Yeah-yuh!

The last class of the day was French.  We read the beginning of a small story in the textbook.  For some reason, she has it read over and over again by different people.  Each person read the lines of a different character.  In this case, it went like this: "This time, Luisa will be Madame Bonin, Timon will be Monsieur Bonin, and Julia will be Antonin."

Crap.

I hadn't actually participated in French class like this before.  I did the homework and everything, but read something out loud in French?  No.  Just no.  But after I read the part of Antonin, someone actually told me they liked the way I spoke French, so that was a major relief.

I had to participate in class yet again when the time came to present dialogues to the class.  Writing them is one thing, but I really didn't want to stand up in front of the class.  I had done mine with the two people I sit between.  When the teacher asked for volunteers to go next, my one partner raised her hand.  I was like, "No, I don't want to go, no!"

 It wasn't quite this dramatic, but you get the idea.

Too late.  The teacher called on her and we had to go up.  Other than the fact that I wasn't quite loud enough, I think I did fine.

For some reason it feels like we did way more in French than in any other class, because I have one more thing to tell you about.  Our next assignment was to read an assigned paragraph of the story we had read the introduction of earlier.  The first time through with my group, we were all just like, "Uh, what did I just read?"  But going through it again, out loud, slowly, and working together we figured it out.  It was the strangest story I have ever read in French.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was even weirder than the stories we used to do in Park City.  It was about a boy who battled the Grand Tuna Fish and his tuna fish army with a fairy on the beach.

I was thoroughly enjoying how pretty my grandparents' garden is earlier today, so I thought I'd share some of the beauty with you:

This pretty tree is called Goldregen, which litterally translates to "Golden rain."  Fitting, huh?

And there's a picture of the sky, because sky is always in style ;)

German word of the day: Französisch.  Pronounced Frun-TSEU-sish.  Have I already taught you this word?  I don't remember.  Anyway, it means 'French.'

The Sunflower Project: They're growing!

Look how big it is!  My finger is there for reference.

One of the pots is still empty, but I think the sunflower is finally coming, just late.