Tuesday, June 3rd's School Day
Sophie and I, along with her friend Jacky and Jacky's sister, take the bus from St. Ingbert to Blieskastel in the morning and board the bus around 7:10 am. Today, we stopped in the bakery on the way to von der Leyen and got warm rolls with chocolate chips in them to eat during a break.
The hill up to the school is quite long and very tiring for my out-of-shape body. Usually I'm breathing very hard by the time we crest the hill. Our first class today was Latin, and the teacher was wearing the same outfit she wore yesterday, oddly enough. The Latein Lehrerin thought that we would be able to understand her explaining a brand new language to us in a language we are very limited in and she gave us a workbook so we could follow along. Although Anna and I tried to follow along as long as we could, it was a hopeless cause. Anna read while I wrote in my journal about what happened yesterday.
After Latin was over, Anna, Jordan and I went to the bathroom and discovered when we arrived back at the classroom that we were locked out. Two major differences I noticed about von der Leyen and BHS are: the same people remain together and the teachers change and that teachers lock the doors during class. We waited outside the classroom on a couch until we heard the door open and a whistle.
History class was interesting because they were talking about WWII. The Lehrer in the class spoke some English and gave us and our partners pretty nice soccer jerseys. While we are able to chew gum during class at BHS, they are most definitely not allowed to do so here, another difference. Also, students here do not have lockers and are able to carry their backpacks around. Plus, students have easy access to their food and can eat in the classroom during passing time. Speaking of passing time, the bell here is really different than our bell at BHS; the bell here consists of three varying tones while our bell is only one tone.
After history class, all of the GAPPies met on the third floor to discuss what to do for the talent show and to bask in the fact that everyone was speaking English. We rejoined our class after homeroom and the subject was English, our favorite. Herr Drexler, the teacher, was super nice and included us in the class activities. Not many people were participating, however. Drexler said it was because they were nervous to speak English in front of native speakers. Jordan, Anna and I came up with a title he used for a passage and words when he didn't know what they were called.
"Maths" was the class after a 10 minute break and was a whole lot more sombre than the others classes were. Workbooks were a big part of that class, another thing you don't usually see at BHS. Then we were off to chemistry, where we actually knew what was happening. Thanks, AP & Honors Chem! The Bio teacher also doubles as the chemistry teacher and is very friendly. Regardless of how easy or hard the class is, though, we always make an effort to follow along and to show the teacher we are paying attention. After chemistry, we had a 30 minute break and headed over to the Orangerie to have a quick lunch before our last two classes.
Sophie, Robin, Carol and I had a double period of art together. The Lehrerin was quite kind and came over to me and asked many questions auf Deutsch. I could understand the gist of the questions and Robin translated the rest, as needed. The class had been studying pop-artists such as Andy Warhol and were given a storefront to redesign using pop-art techniques. Sophie's group was creating a hair salon and I helped Robin with his jewelry store.
When school ended, we all met up and walked to the bus stop together, where we hung out until our respective busses came to take us away.
No comments:
Post a Comment