I went inside with my dad and Zach. The architecture had like poles, swerves and stuff on the ceiling. It was pretty cool, but again just white and plain. The inside was sort of like a school and an office building put together. I could see a room across from the entrance which had chairs and lots of windows. We went up the stairs, which had little yellow feet painted on them. When we got up to the level we were supposed to be at (we could see signs) a familiar smell knocked on my nostrils. I hadn't smelled that smell for at least 2 months. School. I almost missed it. But not really. We turned the corner and saw several other kids waiting. I saw a door open to the left that said "English National Testing Waiting Room" or something along those lines. I wasn't nervous. That was the weird thing. Like, my stomach no longer had that distinct nervous feeling. I had eaten some salad without really knowing if I was hungry. My queasiness had covered it up. Before lunch I had watched some Homestarrunner and hung out on facebook. Zach had already taken like half of his tests. He was done after today.
Some tall guy came out of the room in a blue suit. Blonde hair, no facial hair and a slight pleasant look to him. He was definitely English. He talked to some people there and like gave directions. My dad confirmed which tests we were taking to me and Zach and we just waited.
It was a school, yeah. Walls were plain white. Floor was like reddish. Purple doors. I peeked inside the testing room and noticed the desks, white walls and white board. At the back there was a poster of some guy I had never heard of. His name sounded sort of like Latin-American or something. It was mostly boys waiting, I noticed. But then this one girl came up the stairs. She was that kind of girl with designer closes and she had her arms crossed over her chest, chin high. She observed the scene with a neutral expression, more with a "I have confidence and you don't" look. But she wasn't that bad. Her dad had a NASA polo on, which was cool.
At about 1:30 this medium-height lady with short black hair and an English-ish look to her opened her mouth and said, "Ok, if you are here for the English National Programme, could you please start coming in, so I can... I can tick you off the list," I smiled in my head at her saying "tick you off the list". Anyway. So then we all filed in the door, sort of making a line. I could overhear lots of people speaking English and this one guy was wearing a Golden Bear t-shirt for California. I was wearing my Slauson shirt. I also brought my jewel of concentration and eye drops, just in case my eyes starting spazzing.
The line was pretty short. There were only like 15 people anyway. After that "designer clothes" girl went, it was my turn.
"And what class are you applying for?" She asked me in her thick British accent, giving me a small smile.
"Uh, quatreme," I looked up at her face; she seemed pretty nice, but first impressions can be like worst impressions.
She looked down at her list, her pen tracing over her list, somewhat pursing her lips.
"What's your family name?" I leaned down to look at the list, telling her my last name.
"Do you see your name on the list?"
"Uh yeah, here it is," I pointed down at my name, and she seemed almost hesitant, as if she didn't want me here or something. Then she told me to find a place to sit and wait for the test, which I did. There were already a few people in chairs, and I found one at the very back against the wall. I put my case on the desk. I had brought like 5 pens just in case we needed a certain one. On the other side of the room I saw lots of graffiti. People had written random messages in pen. On this side there wasn't much.
There were still lots of kids coming in with their parents and mine were talking with a different teacher with Zach. I just waited, looking around.
Then my parents were talking with the first English woman, and I caught my dad's eye and I grinned quite big for some reason. He just smiled and nodded. I didn't really know why, but I was like.. happy. Or at least not sad. I think it's because I didn't know what the school would be like, so it was like a big unknown, but now I know what it looks like and stuff.
Zach was finally done with his registration or whatever, so he came around to find a chair. He was coming towards the empty seat next to me, but I thought, "Nah, he'd never sit next to his sis-" but he grabbed out the chair and sat down. Well. Ok then. I guess he doesn't have any friends here so he wouldn't be "embarrassed" or whatever. So then my parents left and we waited until like 1:50 until the English guy finally started asking for the 6eme students. Then the 7th graders, then my class. There were like maybe 15 or so people going into 8th grade here. We went around the corner into this other room that already had some kids in it; the 5eme class. Some lady told us to find our name in the two rows in the middle, and so I started looking.
Not there, not there... is that me? No. Uh.... not me, not me... crap- what if they don't have my name? Just as almost everybody else had sat down at their name, I found mine at the very back.
There was this guy in front of me, and to the right. I sat down my sack of pens and just sat. I noticed a stack of a few papers, the first one having a few lines to fill out my name, school, etc. The lady up at the front of the class told us something about how the tests will be timed, the full details I didn't really get, and then told us to quickly fill out the cover sheet. And I sure did.
So then she told us that we answer the questions on the blank sheet, and can use extra sheets for the essay. Crap, essay, I thought. But at least the test didn't seem that long. There were only like 2 sheets of paper.
There was a black board at the front, showing when the tests started and finished for each grade. Mine was supposed to last an hour and a half. Oh well.
We started the test a little late sort of. I just had to read this short story and answer 8 questions. So I started reading. I was sort of nervous, as I was normally with tests at first, so my brain was only collecting like 3/4 of the information. I was also sort of reading fast because I didn't know how long it would take. It was a rather depressing story. This guy, Richard Jordan (though they called him "Dicky" for some strange reason...) had to answer these questions from this machine, then was killed because his intelligence quotient exceeded the government rules or whatever. The questions were easy. I used the whole sheet and then asked for another one for the essay. I wasn't that nervous. I looked around at the other students, noticing that they had used less paper than me. This one girl had written so neatly. I looked back at mine and fixed an F that looked like an R. I have messy handwriting.
After I got another paper for the essay, this lady came over and sat down next to me. She had been going around, having little conversations with everyone. This was the oral test. She asked me what subjects I liked, stuff I do besides school, book genres I like, and then I had to sum up Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment for her. I told her I was here because of CERN, and she wrote that down. She wrote down a lot. She also told me to like, learn as much French as I could here. Like I have a choice. A lot of the other kids she talked to were Swedes. There were only one or two Americans there I think. So then she said thanks and I continued with my test.
The essay had like 5 choices; I could fill in the part where he answers the questions/gets killed, write about how I would tell my parents if I didn't get on a team or something, something else, another something else, or write an autobiographical piece or story or whatever entitled "The Teacher". I did that last one. It had to be between 300-450 words. I wasn't really sure if that was long. I didn't think it was. So I just started describing a RANDOM teacher. He would wear pins and give out a piece of candy to whoever spotted it first, he taught geography, no one really liked him except for this one kid who was telling the story, black hair, green eyes; he would look at you first with a glare then soften it. Looking back, it was one of the worst things I had ever written and it makes me sort of want to pull my hair out, because I wrote that piece of filth. It was disgusting. Eww. Eww eww EWWW!!!!!! No. Ugh. Stupid. It was like the stupidest thing EVER and I had written it. God. And then those English people would read it and like, discover what a horrible writer I am. Crap. I think I just started writing something, without really knowing where to go with it. I didn't know what I was getting at. Oh well. It was annoying to have to count each word, but I had enough. I finished a last sentence, which did not sum up the story hardly at all, and then got up and left after they collected everything.
I met my mom outside and we biked home. She just smiled me, and I smiled back, because I had actually had fun. I told her about the story, making it sound less stupid I guess. I was really really hungry. It was around 4 when we got home, and I had a carrot. Crunchy. So then I got on the computer again and stuff and yeah. Zach is like all done with his tests, but I have the French oral and math one to take on Monday. And then school starts.
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