.png)
Hey everyone! I am so, so sorry for missing another week. My schedule is turning out to be a lot more packed than I had anticipated and last week it was just impossible to get something out. Don't worry, though, I've been thinking about it all week and I have time today to get one out! I hope I can be more consistent but to be honest, there will probably be some weeks I just have to skip due to the sheer volume of homework, tests and rehearsals for the play.
Anyway, without further ado let's jump right into my first few weeks of french high school, or "lycée"!
*This is my school guys. Seriously.
So our first day was basically a half-orientation-day. We went to the school and had to find what class we were in off this giant bulletin board with a million names on it...it was chaos. My friends and I were really scared we were all going to be put in separate classes and be totally alone. Thankfully, I got lucky and my friend and I are in the same class, not alone. But all our other friends are all spread out, which is kinda sad.
Then, they brought each class to it's "homeroom" with our "prof principal" or our homeroom teacher of sorts (basically it's the teacher that is in charge of your class specifically and they handle all housekeeping, important info, etc.) There was then a lot of talking, the usual back to school stuff. They passed out our schedules (!) and we spent a good amount of time making sure everything was correct (they forgot to put Spanish classes on mine, but we straightened it out). After all the boring French monologue, we got to take a tour of the school.
*My school is literally history
Now, I wish I had pictures to show you, but as I don't, I will describe it the best I can. Basically, you walk in the front gates and enter a big courtyard area in front of the building. If you continue in the courtyard straight, you'll find a door to the building. If you go right, you'll be walking towards the lockers (stacked in rows down the wall) and then you'll reach the other "petit cour" or the small courtyard that divides the main building and the science buildings. If you walk left, you'll head towards the administrative wing, which for now is under construction or something. In the middle of the locker area, there's a part of the courtyard that is covered (like it has a ceiling over it, but it's outside) and there is another entrance to the main building and the bathrooms. Now, I would like to take a small moment to complain about the CO-ED BATHROOMS!
Yes, you heard me right. We are high schoolers and our bathrooms are for both boys and girls! Is that not totally outrageous and inappropriate? Like, hello? If we were in kindergarten, or heck, even elementary school, fine, whatever, nobody cares. But we are freaking high schoolers and if you think it's okay to still have shared bathrooms there is something vitally wrong and demented inside your brain. (There are literally urinals just there, for everyone to see ((YES GIRLS TOO, excuse me while I never go to the bathroom again))). Obviously, this really upsets me and was kind of a dissapointment. Thank you for listening to my mini-rant.
Anyways, once you're inside the main building, there's three wings. The main wing is the longest and has a main set of stairs right by the bathrooms that lead to all the classrooms on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floors (keep in mind, we're talking European floors, so you have to account for floor 0 *eye roll* ((that could inspire another rant but I'll save you from my whining))). Then, if you walk left you'll reach a T shaped intersection of sorts. If you turn left, there's the administrative wing where the secretary and vie scolaire are located, as well as offices and such. If anybody is wondering, the vie scolaire is an aspect of all French schools that I actually think is pretty cool (although most French kids are scared of the vie scolaire). Literally, it translates to "school life" and they're basically in charge of handling anything pertaining to our school life, such as absences, punishments, etc. They're supposed to deal more with social aspects as well. Basically, any problem you have, go to the vie scolaire and they'll handle it. There's another main stairway up in that wing.
*Sorry it's a vertical picture, but I had to show off the inside of Ponto. It was the only picture of the inside of the school I could find, but it shows off the German-inspired architecture and decoration.
Finally, if you turn right there's a more obscure wing with more classrooms. I don't have any classes down there, so I've never really been that way and therefore can't tell you what lies down there. Then, on floor 0 in the back on the left side of the building is the gym and an area just outside the gym to sit, complete with vending machines. Yep, vending machines, although sadly they are closed due to COVID. Finally, in the back next to the small courtyard there is a big building that is the science building slash library slash hangout area.
One cool thing about Ponto (people call my school Ponto for short instead of Pontonniers so don't get confused. Also, fun fact, "Pontonniers" means deckhands in English, so there's that.) is that during free periods and breaks, you can do whatever you want! This means that you can literally sit in the courtyard on a bench for a whole class period and nobody will come and scream at you to get to class. Plus, we're allowed phones anytime outside so we can listen to music and scroll through our social medias at recess or during free periods. So, if you don't feel like sitting outside, you can go inside the room below the science building that's filled with tables and do homework, talk, read, basically whatever you want. There's nobody (aka no adults or teachers) there to watch us or babysit us, so we are basically left to control ourselves. If you don't feel like going to either of those places, you can go to the CDI (what they call the library in France, and don't ask me what it stands for, I still don't know, probably something something informations). It's a quiet zone, so the perfect place to work on projects or presentations or simply sit and read.
And then, obviously, the science rooms are above all that. So that's basically the verbal tour of my school.
*The brown building all the way on the right is the science building. Obviously it's more modern than the rest of the school.
So, what are my teachers like? I figured it would be fun to list all my teachers and give you a brief little description of each of them (and then pray they never find this blog). Mostly I have good teachers, but here we go:
(PS: all the classes are in French unless otherwise indicated)
-Madame Lemler (French): I wouldn't say nice, but she isn't mean. You get the feel that when you're in her class, you're here to work and nothing else. She was understanding when I told her about my ~situation~ though, so points for that I guess. Plus, she said we are going to take some field trips to the theater at night, so that's cool.
-Mrs. Purcell (English): Mrs. Purcell is very nice and welcoming and very sweet. I think she's Irish (?) but she seems very abstract (if that makes any sense). The tiniest bit scatterbrained (I mean that in the nicest way possible) but I think we'll do some good work with her this year.
-Madame Ecanvil (Spanish): I'm scared of her. Not terrified, just like "I'm going to sit here and be quiet and only speak when spoken to". She seems to like me though, so I guess that's good, but she does seem very annoyed and stressed out, probably because there's like 35 of us in her class.
-Mr. Yobe (History-Geography ((in English))): Mr. Yobe is the best! I'd already heard great things about him before I even got here and I was so thrilled when I found out I got him. He's hilarious, calls us "people" and really knows his stuff. He can be scary if you misbehave or talk while he's teaching, but as long as you focus, you'll have fun.
-Monsieur Coppens (Physics-Chemistry): So great, so amazing and super nice. He's just nice period. Super understanding and determined to actually help us learn, a rare trait in French teachers. I'm really glad because I suck at chemistry and physics and bad teachers just make it so much worse.
-Monsieur Regourd (Math & "Prof Principal"): Nice enough, seems very business. He definitely isn't mean, though and is encouraging (another rare French teacher trait). I'm kind of neutral on him, really.
-Monsieur Beuve (EPS): Haven't really spent much time with him, but he seems kind of indifferent. He tells us what to do and then leaves us alone. Seems nice enough.
-Monsieur Logel (SNT): He's a little bit strict and very much into what he teaches. He does check on me sometimes to make sure I'm keeping up, so that's nice, but I'm totally scared of him.
-Monsieur Kielmann (EMC & SES): Okay, he's really nice but, and I'm just going to say it, his nipples are so distracting and it's embarrassing. He also has major sweat stains. However, he is nice and explains everything clearly, so I guess that's good.
-Madame Pathenay (SVT): Scared of her. She's very physically French, and by that I mean petite, with a chic bob and a super high voice. However, she is nice, just same thing, she's here to teach and that's it.
So now you may be wondering about a few of the subjects mentioned above. Allow me to explain. "EPS" stands for Education Physique et Sportive, or Physical and Sportive Education. Basically it's P.E. "SNT" stands for Sciences Numerique et Technologique, or Numeric and Technological Sciences. It's basically a class where we learn about technology (specifically computer related) and the history of technology, plus some coding. "EMC" stands for Enseignement Moral et Civique, or Moral and Civic Teachings. France has this really cool class where we learn about basically being a citizen in France and what it means. I think it's a really cool thing to teach kids this and teach them how to behave and about their society. "SES" stands for Sciences Economiques et Sociales, or Economic and Social Sciences. We learn about economists, socialists and politicians and the differences/similarities in how they view the world. "SVT" stands for Sciences de Vie et de la Terre, or Life and Earth Sciences. Pretty self-explanatory. Hopefully that clears a few things up.
*This is a word cloud of all the components of EMC class that are important as a citizen in France.
As you can see, French high school has some really cool classes, and I find it super interesting and fantastic that they include all these different options so kids can really have an opportunity to try everything before they choose their "specialités" next year. "Specialités" are options you get to choose in 1ere (junior year) that focus you more in the direction you want to work in. For example, if you want to be a lawyer, you can take Math, History and SES and not take any more chemistry/physics and SVT. (Which basically means next year I'm free from those!) I also think this is such a cool aspect of French school, because you're basically starting more of a focus on what you actually care about, and it probably prepares you much better for college. They also have a bunch of extra options you can choose, like Latin, History of Arts, etc, but the con is that you will probably have school Saturday morning, so that sucks.
Now, let's have a look at my schedule:
Pretty nice, right? I mean, Mondays I start at 10am! One thing that will be changing is that the Spanish block on Tuesday nights is moving to Friday mornings, so that will be different this week. But otherwise, I finish early most days and have a few lazy mornings to sleep in. We do have A weeks and B weeks, so some weeks we will have a certain class and then switch the next week. Honestly, I'm not mad at this schedule and I'm going to count it as a win.
Anyway, I can't think of much else to talk about. I'm thinking about possibly doing a Q&A next week from you guys of any questions you have about my life here or anything else. In order to do that, I need questions from you guys! So if you would like to see that, don't hesitate to drop me a question below or at my email, lorelei.el.clarke@gmail.com.
It probably won't happen since only a few people read my blog, but I'll answer any questions I get.
Thank you for your patience with me this month and I'll see you next week!
Loreleixx
Comments