Christmas Is Coming

I write my blog posts on Microsoft Word before publishing online and as I write, I can see that since the very post in July, I have written over 25,000 words. Wow. A lot has happened and there has been a lot to say!

There isn’t much to say this week as not much has happened. After weeks and weeks of trips, events, birthdays and other fun things, I’ve had to sit down to make notes, revise and sit exams. Monday afternoon we had a second grammar exam, as snow poured down outside. Unfortunately there hasn’t been any snow since. I thought the exam was OK but we were all a little annoyed as the lecturer had told us the exam would be a dictation (she speaks and we write down what she says.) However there were actually 2 of these and lots of Grammar questions which seemed a bit weird as the topics were exactly the same as those we were examined on merely 2 weeks earlier. We had our Histoire De La Langue exam at 8am on Thursday – I thought it went quite well but I later discovered that nearly all of the French students in the class were cheating, whether it be with notes or using their phones to research but despite this, many still seemed to be unsure of what to write. One thing is for certain – Exams are a much more serious affair in the UK. Otherwise, my time has been spent working for the 2 exams I have this week: Perfectionnement and Civilisation and I think both shouldn’t be too bad.

Over the last few weeks, I had been arranging for everyone to go for a Christmas meal together, along with organising Secret Santa between us all. 2 weeks everyone picked a gift tag out of a bag with a name on and since then, everyone has been on the hunt for the perfect gift. Sarah’s idea was to have a random budget to really challenge everyone and make them think of how they could spend as close to that sum of money as possible – The amount was 5.74eur. Yesterday evening, 23 of us made the journey to La Taverne, near the train station, for our meal.

 

Presents!

After ordering our meal, I, in the role of Santa Claus, distributed out the tons of presents to everyone and we went around the group opening them, seeing what had been given and guessing who had bought it. My Secret Santa was Alex who had bought me a set of 365 post-it notes (due to my organisational nature) for each day of the year. Each one of them has a proverb or famous quote written in French and I thought it was a truly thoughtful idea! I was Beth’s Secret Santa and I had bought her some chocolate and also a small piece of jewellery that is attached to the two corners of a collar on a shirt to add a decorative motif – I knew she already have one or two and so I thought it’d be the perfect gift for her. There seemed to be 2 types of gift: something funny or something thoughtful and there were lots of laughs as some people opened their gifts. The food was wonderful and everyone had a lovely evening and it was a great chance to see everyone before we all head home for Christmas.

Me with Lauren & Alice

 

Beth, Han & Alex

 

My last exam before Christmas is 4-6pm on Wednesday and then I will travel to Geneva airport on Thursday morning to fly back to Bristol. I’m so excited to go home for Christmas, to see friends, see family, eat so many good foods, to go back to work for some shifts and to enjoy a bit of British Life though I don’t think I’ll be happy to see the rain which will no doubt fall, it’s a rarity here. After Christmas, I have 2 weeks in Chambéry with 2 exams, 2 weeks back in the UK to unpack and repack and then... ESPAÑA.

 

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année à tout le monde!