Welcome back mon amis. Today we are discussing the events of the past 7 months of my life in Switzerland. That means mainly school wise, but I’ll also dive into some goals, things that I’m proud of, and things that I would like to maintain. Just like my last MPOL post, which you can find here, except this time, I’m the one holding myself accountable instead of the deadline. I’m going to skip some of the fat in my writing today and focus on the lean meat that is the chaos of my life. I hope you enjoy and make sure to check out some other MPOLs from my PLP classmates!
To start off, let’s discuss music class. It’s been a blissful 5 years that I haven’t had any obligation to do music class. I did choose to put myself in band class during grade 5 and 6, (alto saxophone player right here baby,) but as well as crushing my will to live, Switzerland has broken my, “No Music Class” streak. This year I started getting back into what can only be described as, “My Own Personal Hell”. It’s a class of 23 French children who think I’m a bit of a basket case continually making noise. It’s exactly like in elementary school except this time, we learn the xylophone songs in French instead of English. It’s amazing as you can tell. Grade wise, I’m the top end of average. Not my best, but very much adequate.
Next, history. I started French class with the other students recently and it’s been quite dense. Our theme for these next few months is about the impact the book called, “Cyrano de Bergerac” had on French people. Psyche! It’s just writing countless paragraphs about the book. The current project is to rewrite Cyrano of Bergerac’s long speech about love, but with modern words. If you care to see what I’m talking about, you can watch the play in English here. I have done a project similar to this countless times but never in French. The story is quite interesting and I admire Cyranos intellect much like everyone else in the book does.
History class. We are looking at the revolutions of the world in both classes, that being PLP and 10VG. We are mainly focusing on the French Revolution and Swiss history but I’m more interested in what the PLP class is doing. The PLP class was looking at all of the Impactful revolutions and making summary videos while I sat in my class wondering if I could get a guitione through airport security.
Gym class is either my favourite 45 minutes of the day or a gruelling, disgusting, and/ or idiotic period where I am subjected to mainstream humiliation. It’s a 10/10 efficient way to distort your view of your entire species. Moreover, it’s a class and I have to get through it. I try my best and sometimes that best is trying not to break an ankle.
Formation Générale, otherwise known as, “Get a Job You Country Bumpkin” class. This is the class that I am writing this in because I have mostly finished the assignments and we have the computers. Thank you google docs. Anyways, FG is the class where we learn to write CVs and letters of request. This class is supposedly going to help us get jobs and eventually find a career but for now, I think it’s just training the kids who sit in the row in front of me how to hide the fact that they’re playing video games.
Art class: It’s a class! The way school here in Switzerland works is that the year is split into 2 semesters. The first semester, we had art on Tuesdays and now it’s sewing or kind of a diy project class. Art here also means that we have art technique on Friday. Art technique is drawing shapes on accurate angles. It’s hard to grasp at first but if you pay attention and focus on the task, it’s pretty easy.
Geography is also a class. It’s most likely the driest class I have ever taken. No fault of the teacher but it’s all stuff I know already, but in french. If geography class was a piece of loaf, Gordon Ramsey would be hurling it across the kitchen. The first term we learned about where the oceans and the contents are. Then we learned about forgin tribes. Fun story, one tribe was called the Zoe’s and Every. Single. Person. Turned around to look and laugh at me. So naturally when french Neanderthals mock you, you mock back. I pushed out the fakest laugh I could and pointed at the screen to show how advanced their humour was. That did not go over well with the teacher.
Books books books. I’ve never considered myself much of a reader but here I am, reading as much as possible. Because I can have a little escapism, as a treat. I’ve read books about Natzi crime, why we dream, the stock market, and I’ve gone as far as reading about Taoism, but with Winnie the Pooh. Books are great. I often opt to go read in the presence of screaming elementary school students instead of trying to be cordial with the kids my age, much to my teachers dismay. Why waste my time with children who have not been kind to me in the past? If you don’t believe me, then why would you put me, a book addicted liar with the nicest students you’ve ever met? …I think too much don’t I.
Blogs! I like writing. I know that my writing doesn’t always make perfect sense and I’m aware I can’t spell, but I try. Blogging has helped me develop my writing into something that I feel confident improving on my own. I hope to keep working on writing and always be improving. It’s going to be amazing in grade 12 to look back on my blogs now and realize how much I’ve grown.
The 2020 Student Blogging Challenge was something that I chose to do out of my own self destructive habits. I did all of the challenges and you can see them here. It’s something that I felt confident doing and I feel better now having done it.
My vlogs are one of the things I’m really proud of. I wrote a post on my vlogs for the aforementioned STB and made a video on them for my PLP re-application. Find the links here and here. In essence, I am really proud of my progress and commitment to vlogging. I’m glad I started.
German is both a language and what I would imagine the original name was for a man with rabies. Unfortunately today I am talking about the language and not the.. thing. One of the most challenging things I have ever had to do was to start to learn German, in French. As of now, I know how to say, yes, no thanks, and count to 20. If you’re ever in Germany, call me up and I’ll be your translator.
French… golly gee where to start. Over the past 6 months I have gone to school in french. Hot take; It’s very hard. I hate having things to say and not being able to. It sucks a lot sometimes and I’ve never felt so full of ideas and words. While this might seem lovely, it really is exhausting. My brain is working harder than it ever has. It’s building new connections in my head and working on learning how to speak french.
Of course after 7 or 8 months here, I can understand almost everything in french and can muster a vaguely coherent response. It’s been hard work and a lot of effort to get here. I started in a class of 4 students learning vocabulary and sentence structure. Now I’m in almost all the same classes as my peers. I’m very pleased with how far I’ve come.
Math is also a thing that I do, with my very meagre amount of time on this planet. It seems silly but alas, I press on. This class is the source of a good chunk of my stress. I believe that my teacher does this on purpose, but I do my best to give the man the benefit of the doubt. It’s essentially a review of last year which is quite easy but I never know what’s going on. It’s all context clues and prayers at this point. Mental calculation is admittedly my biggest weakness. For 20 minutes a week we answer complicated questions that should be done in our heads. I am trash and my highest score so far is 2.5 out of 6. I did know before that I am rubbish at mental math and will always be. It’s not a dedication thing, it’s a mental disorder thing.
Online math is just as stressful, but in different ways. Mainly because I have very little time to do it. It’s new stuff to learn but it takes forever. I’m working hard to understand it and doing it when I have time.
Science in school is very average. It’s better than most of my other classes because it is the smallest bit challenging and my brain longs for any stimulation. It’s still back to grade 5 with the systems in the body, but a bit more advanced. This class doesn’t make me sad. Good job science.
Science online is actually pretty interesting. I enjoy learning, believe it or not, and this is one of the only ways I learn things in English. I’ve been working on mitosis and meiosis for this first unit. I’ve done some projects which you can see here! I’m quite proud of them! The concept of reproduction from just one organism is fascinating. It’s hard to wrap your head around but it’s quite easy from there. My abbreviation for the stages of the cells reproduction is Pass Me A Taco (Chief). Feel free to use that.
Goals for the next few months:
- Work as hard as you can without overdoing it.
- Finish learning the french skills needed in daily life.
- Be as polite as possible to the children in my class.
These are purposely vague because I know that I will do whatever I can to achieve them, and at the moment, I’m focused on maintaining my few remaining brain cells.
In conclusion, Switzerland has not been great for my mental health but I will always try to make the best of the situation. School is hard and being bored is even harder, so I try to find other ways to engage my very tired brain. Sometimes I’m proud of the results and sometimes I’m not, and that’s ok. I’m going to continue to work hard and try to achieve my goals, even if they are vague. Franchement, a cette moment, je n’ont fiche. The end.
(Side note; I’m very sorry that this was so pessimistic. I’m working on it.)