Letter XV: Something with the French Class and the Preparation of IELTS

Hello, Tim!

This week is the beginning of the first official letter of the semester, which the other students will rejoin the routine of writing weekly responses; I hope some certain people do hand in their assignment on time.

The weather was unstable this week, for there were days that were quite humid and sunny, but also were there days with biting wind and needling rain.

I don’t like the weather this week, that is for sure, even though it’s just halfway through the week.

IELTS

Two weeks ago, my mom was talking to my cousin about what I should prepare if I want to enter a school in Germany. She mentioned something about IELTS, and my mom, who was as initiative as ever, told me to go online and sign myself in the nearest IELTS test possible.

I had no idea how the questions on IELTS are going to be, nor have I ever taken any IELTS-related courses like Doris does, but yet there I was, online and paying 7000 NT Dollars with my mother’s credit card. I call that not brave, but an imbecile.

I was holding the same attitude when I signed up for TOEIC the first time, four years ago, but that was different. TOEIC was generally thought as the easier one among the international English proficiency tests, and from all the people I’ve asked, you either look for mock tests and write them on your own or you attend IELTS classes and they would GIVE you mock tests to write.

I began panicking also for the price. TOEIC was only 1500 NT Dollars when I first attended it, but this…. is basically four times the price of it! How can I not stress out? If I get a score that doesn’t look good, it would mean a waste of a large amount of money!

I started to look up and down for help. Then I remembered that my former cram school teacher, Villy, has a lot of reference books of this sort. I texted her online, and she asked me if I was crazy (yeah) and said she would leave a book of mock tests at the security of her building, and told me to pick it up yesterday after school (today is the 228 Peace Memorial Day, so I am using this day to do all sorts of work. It’s rainy anyway. Not going out.)

The listening and reading were very attention-taxing. I took the mock tests an hour after I woke up, and it was difficult. Both the listening and the reading sections had 40 questions and respectively I got 36 and 37 correct. It doesn’t sound bad for the first try, but the thing is that there were only half of the questions that were multiple questions, while the rest were questions that require your written answer. However, you don’t have that much freedom when answering. In the answer key, it is said that the answers would only be marked correct when it is absolutely corresponding to the answers given. It gave many alternative answers, but still, it disconcerted me. It wasn’t as much to read as TOEIC offers in their test, but in two pages crammed with words, you must find out answers to 10 to 14 questions. There are tons of parts that were put to misguide you and lead you to the false options.

The part that truly made me cringe was the writing. For the writing, it requires two essays written: one chart analysis, and the another an argumentative writing. I can do descriptive, but when it comes to argumentative or something else that requires an outline before you write anything, I would furrow my brows, for I am the person who doesn’t do outlines. I write whatever comes to my mind, and I think first of what to write for the next paragraph when writing this paragraph, but sometimes when I write like this, the links between paragraphs doesn’t make sense, and the whole structure would crumble and it would be awful, like what I did today. I still have some topics to write about in the book; maybe next time, I can at least try to make an outline first.

The official test will be on 3/10 the Saturday, which means I still have a weekend to try.

German Reading-out Competition

I have no idea what has gotten into me when I did the sign up for this. I saw the information of the “Foreign language reading-out competition” in the back of the classroom on the bulletin board, and the next period break I was in front of the door of the teaching affairs office, wanting to get myself into the competition. I had thought about going to Germany for my university degree, and recently it had slowly formed into my solid ultimate goal. Maybe winning (perhaps) this competition would be of benefit. The article we are asked to read is a story about a city mouse and a field mouse. The whole article wasn’t long, but as what common knowledge and my German teacher said, it requires more than just the correct pronunciation. The intonation, the volume, the emotion, etc. are important as well. I’m more than just a little behind schedule with the practicing, so maybe I won’t be getting anything physical reward, but simply the experience would be enough.

The full text.

Le dernier cours de français

It means "The Last French Class".

Yesterday, Friday, I was more than a bit upset, for this is going to be my last period before the long-term halt of French classes, for that is what my mother advises me to do, just to have an early start for the preparation of the college acceptance exam. It was not quite as an advice as it sounds like, though.

I understand.

I know what she wants is to let me get into the school I want (abroad), and even I can feel the stress of the test weighing in bit by bit as time marches on, now that our seniors' scores are out. I understand that I would need all the time I can muster to revise whatever I've learned in the past 1.5 years and in this semester. Still, it doesn't make anything feel better.

Last week when the notion struck me and I was so disturbed and disheartened by the fact, I wrote a small article in French and posted it onto my Instagram account, saying that all my classmates are incredible and the year has been a memorable one significantly because of them and the teacher. I said that if I had the chance, I would most definitely have classes with them once more, picking up from where I've stopped for a year. Not very likely would that be happening, but I would try.

With my pace still heavily thumping, I made my way to the McDonald's near the language center and munched on the burger without actually tasting anything. My eyes were glued to the screen of my cellphone as it plays the videos that are supposed to be funny; only that it loses the magic they usually have on me. With me was a box of donuts with four different flavors, one I bought as snacks for the classmates.

I didn't feel the need to cry or something dramatic, but the sadness was genuine.

Upon entering the classroom where one of the classmates was already there, he gave me a small owl bookmark for me as a gift.

The bookmark and the book I have just started reading

The class started, and I was more attentive than ever, knowing I won't be having another one in a long while.

During the break, our teacher got a book out of her bag and gifted me with it! OT was a book entirely in French, "Petit Nicolas s'amuse", it was the biggest surprise of the day, and she said I would still be able to improve my French though I'm no longer going to join them, and also that she would be able to help me with my French if I were to have any problem with it. 

Being the last course of this session, Mme. Solène (our French teacher) asked if we wanted to play some board game in French in the last thirty minutes of the class.

This was not the end, though. One of my classmates brought a Polaroid camera with her and we spent another forty minutes or so fumbling with the camera until everyone's got their own physical group photo.

Three of the digitalized Polaroid pictures.

Gosh.

I am so going to miss them.

I was grateful for all my adult classmates and the teacher who were always so welcoming and playful, even though I was the youngest in class. They formed memories that I know won't quite possibly fade.

Harry Potter Sequel 2 Finished

I did say I had practically watched the whole movie of The Chamber of Secret, and there are some praises to be made.

Normally, I try avoiding watching the movie adaption of a novel I like, knowing that it would ruin everything due to the restricted time limit of a movie ever since I had tried out the first and second movie of Percy Jackson. But after reading the book, I found that the movie had actually managed to fit a lot of the details from the movie, with just a single strand or two of the details missing. It was more than a decent job done when you need to describe and relate the whole magical universe with people acting and even with the help of special effects.

Now back to the books.

When reading the first installment of the series, I was focusing more on the traits it shared with Percy Jackson rather than the difference. However, when I read the second book, I began to note differences.

In Harry Potter, most of the adventures happen in or around Hogwarts, the campus of wizard and witches: a secret entrance with a three-headed dog; a locked door that leads to a magical mirror; a secret chamber; here and a private office of the principal there. There were always new places in the campus to find, while in the Percy Jackson series, the protagonists go on quests in places literally anywhere on the world map, meaning the lives in Camp Half-blood (place for the demigods) are less mentioned. Go to Canada and you see some unfriendly cannibalistic giants; find the gods of Olympus on the six-hundredth story of the Empire State Building; go to Hollywood and find the entrance to the Underworld. Go to Italy for this and then back to New York for that. It was just a comparison and neither is the inferior since both authors excelled their own ways to enhance the fascinating-ness of their universe.

I understand now why people who like Percy Jackson would very likely be enjoying Harry Potter and vice versa: They are sharing similar traits, but at the same time you cannot say that they are “the same”, and hence you would not feel inclined to put down the books since the plots and the twists are not so easily detected beforehand and the excitement would keep piling up and build up until it goes ‘pop’ and gives you a scare.

No wonder people are imagining what will happen if they two somehow meet.

Also Checking the Letters of the Others

This is the first in-class assigned letter, and it means that my fellow classmates are also updating their blogs. I saw Candy’s article of she and her friend going to a karaoke and her being scared by a cockroach music video (I would be, too) and how Sabrina managed to cram 61 movies into a month-long vacation (‘Incroyable,’ we say in French.) I agree with you, Tim. She’s still writing amazing letters.

I guess this is the end now. I had started writing the letter since Wednesday, but since I knew there would be something to write with during the French class, it had to be the weekend for me to write the story down.

Sincerely, Hugo