Vacances!

Christmas vacation is here!! I have 16 days to eat and not do homework :) So after Tuesday, I was pretty excited about the blocus...and the fact that we maybe wouldnt have school for the rest of the week. Too bad that didnt happen. There were some kids standing in front of the school on Wednesday, but not doing anything. Then Thursday there were more kids, but they werent keeping kids from going into the school...they just booed when people entered!! Then Friday the big gate was open (it was previously not open because the school authorities were afraid the kids would go in and set trash cans on fire, etc. like they did last year!) which meant blocus was officially over. Now, the reason for the blocus. Every year (this is what I understand, which may not make it completely true!) right before Christmas vacation, the French school authorities decide they need to change something about how the school is run. They dont vote, so if they kids decide they dont like what the authorities want to change, they strike, stand in front of the school and sometimes become very violent. Last year the whole school was shut down the week before vacation because a bunch of kids (some even came from other schools) stood infront on my school (Lycée Lacassagne) to protest, and they were so violent there were 10 police cars there. It was from this story that I got excited, thinking we might get an extra week of vacation. This year, the kids were striking because the authorities want to cut out the class of History/Geography in the Terminale year (senior year). They were also going to fire teachers who were getting ready to retire, and not hire new ones. I am not sure yet if this has passed, or if the blocus worked. So thats the blocus story.
On Wednesday I took a math test which I later got back and received a 1/20...oh well, I already have all my math credits I need to graduate from West:) Then we had gym, though the teacher decided we could do whatever we wanted, so I played soccer with a bunch of other kids for the first time in a very long while!
On Thursday, I read my paper on why I decided to come to France in French class infront of the class, and my French teacher read the one about my life in Alaska. It started snowing when we got out of school. Then Justine texted me later that night saying 'its amazing, everythings white, it never snows like this here!' so I excitedly ran outside to find there wasnt even 1/8th of an inch of snow on the ground!! Haha, I guess our definition of 'everythings white' is a little different!!
Friday we didnt do much in any class except Chemistry/Physics. We watched a movie for two hours in English class called Mississippi Burning. It was about the racism in Mississippi in the middle of the 1960s. Then we had two and a half hours of Chemistry/Physics which we took a quiz and I got 2.5/4!! Which is actually not bad at all, most of my friends got 3/4. Then in TPE we disected a mouse :( to look at the symmetry of the organs. In History/Geography we watched a play made up of a bunch of smaller plays for the first hour that kids from Terminale year did. Then for the second hour we watched a very old movie I didnt understand for about 10 minutes, then played hangman. Last night (Friday night) Laura, Michel, and I watched Ratatouille in French and then I slept in until 10:30 this morning!! It was wonderful! This afternoon I am going to Place Bellecours to pick up Sophia (another US exchange student with AFS) so she can spend a couple of days here in Lyon (she lives in a small town near Grenoble) with me.