Buttered Hope

"Just think about... strawberries. It's plastic!" I grinned over at Valen-Claire, my "lab partner", as she leaned over the white basin with a sickened expression on her face, prodding the soft legs with the shiny silver tweezers and knife.

"Ewww!!!!" she shrieks, and I glance at the poor frog. "It smells so bad!" She backs away, putting her hand over her mouth and laughing, and we both wrinkle our noses. 

"I know!" I said back, knowing I recognized the smell from somewhere, but wasn't sure exactly where. Towards the end of the dissection, I suddenly remembered that it was the same smell as my elementary school hot lunches. Gross.

I thought I wouldn't be able to handle dissecting the lower body of a French frog in SVT class today, but it went okay. In fourth grade, we had to dissect a lamb's eye, and I had to leave about half-way through to go into the hall with a queasy feeling. I just hated the smell, the look of that skin, the veins... Another student also had come out, and we kinda talked. My dad actually cut himself while being one of the volunteering dissectors, but he was okay. It was just a small cut on one of this fingers. He laughed.

If you hadn't found it out already, we're now studying the nervous system in that class. This slightly annoys me, because I kind of like already did it just last year. Which isn't to say I'm an expert at all of this, but still... good review I guess.

This has actually been a rather exciting week. On Tuesday, I had to sing by myself in musique class. Everyone had to do it, but I was just one of the last people. But actually, I hadn't even been all that freaked out by it. I figured the teacher didn't really expect much of me (me being in FLE class, etc) and I could at least try, right? And I mean, at least when singing with the whole class, I didn't think I was like... soooooooooooooooo terrible. I was only soooo terrible. 

But alas. It was harder than I thought. At first I was going to come up with my book, but then the teacher (Monsieur Pils) said I could do without it. I couldn't hit the notes really, my accent was probably horrid, and I didn't really have enough air. He kept telling me (and everyone else, really) to open their mouths like you're yawning. Lemme tell ya, I know that's the right way to sing and all, but French words that I'm not that good at pronouncing with an open mouth? As opposed to like, a slightly open one? Sort of unpleasant. I mean, one of the lines was "Je voudrais seulment dormir" (I would like only to sleep/I only want to sleep/etc) and that last "dormir" is pronounced like "dor-meer" so imagine having to do that sneery "-eer" with an open mouth. 

The teacher said it was okay, gave me a sympathetic look, and after giving me the "keep your mouth open because the sound is better, etc" lecture, proceeded to tell the class about my predicament. 

"No mais, imaginez- tu arrives dans un nouvel pays et puis dois chanter devant vingt-sept gens avec une nouvelle langue..." (Rough memory of what he said: "No but, imagine- you arrive in a new country and then have to sing in front of 27 people with a new language...") Claire, being her extremely nice self, immediately said "That was good!" in her special, sympathetic, caring tone right when I ran back to my chair, after I said "Well that was terrible", not looking at anyone. 

But after Faouzi, the other new FLE student went, and who actually sang quite well, we got to listen to some jazz, which I liked. I liked how Monsieur Pils (and basically the whole French language) uses the English terms like "big band" (which they pronounced like "Beeg bannd") and "le swing". That just makes my day.

But no, the excitement did not end there for my Tuesday. Directly after that, I had Spanish. Or at least, I was supposed to have it, but after we all were waiting for around 5 minutes, the idea started to circle around the French/English-speaking group of kids that we could all go to etude. 'Cause see, in this system, if the teacher doesn't get to the room by around 10 minutes, you can theoretically go to etude (free period). So half of us were all groaning for the other half more responsible people to come to etude, saying "Ugh you guys let's just go! She's not here! We can go!" and whatnot, with the other half going, "No I'm staying here. She might come and then we'll all have detention." Eventually we did get everyone there, but only about 9 minutes had passed. 

Then there was much confusion and uncertainty about whether or not the teacher was indeed there. I kept saying, "We're so dead," but with a laugh.

A few kids were stationed back near the room, glancing out the window to warn us if our teacher, Madame Martin, was coming. The rest of us had worried looks on our faces, asking constantly, "Is she there?! Is she here?!" to which we would all answer, "No." We consulted with one of the etude teachers, and brought up the fact that it had been at least 10 minutes and she wasn't here. It went back and forth, and then Faouzi came over and said in his joking but still legit voice, "She's here," after Jess again repeated her panicked phrase, "Is she here? Is she here?" Then we all groaned, and Faouzi immediately broke into his sneaky grin and laughed. "No, no... I was just kidding," 

In the end, we had a free period. And it was probably one of the best free periods ever. I sat around one of the tables with Claire, Jess, Sarah, Faouzi, Olivia and a few others. We were just sort of middle schoolers; that's all that happened. But I kept laughing weird and everyone got mad at everyone and started yelling and throwing around words and laughing. People stole people's backpacks and chased each other around the table and we even tried to explain what we were talking about to Betsida, the Portuguese new girl who knew some French, no English, and was naturally good at Spanish.

So yeah. 

We saw Madame Martin walking towards the building about 10 minutes till the next lesson. Strange.

And then, we have Thursday off, my dad bought the plane tickets home (we're leaving on July 1st), the Red Wings are up 2-0 against the Blackhawks, and I have some trumpet examen next Wednesday, as well as a bunch of math tests. But, instead of 44 days left, there's only 42!