Saturday, August 18, 2012

Of Life This Lebaran Weekend

Hello guys! Selamat Lebaran!

It's been a real nice holiday break for Indonesia. It started yesterday with our 67th Independence day and people may take off for the entire of next week. My facebook friends in Jakarta have been commenting on how quiet the city is and of course they love it that way :) My mom herself is going to Bali tomorrow with some of my aunts and uncles. My other cousin and her parents will also spend next week in South Korea. Lebaran break can actually be a seriously stressful period in households which employ maids, nannies, and drivers. All those helps can be gone for a week or so and parents or teenagers who have never had to take care of the house found themselves having to clean after themselves, oh the horror for the rich. Of course if they are immensely rich, they will just get out of the city themselves and enjoy the break away in hotels where you get served. Anyways many people seem to be having a nice holiday break. I can't say much about me. I'm not sure what I will be doing. I think I will spend most of it in my room, watching a lot of stuff in my computer, a bad thing since I really should be learning french.

I had my last French class today. It's the last class in the advance level and I'm not continuing after this. Well because I am taking DELF preparatory class to prepare me for the B2 DELF exam. We had our first session (out of 12) yesterday evening. I'm not loving weekday classes at 7 pm to 9 pm, but we don't have a choice. I need all the help that I can get to tackle B2. Why B2? Because it's comparative to the CELI 3 exam that I did before I left my Italian class. So I want to leave my french education at the same level as my Italian one. We did the part on the listening comprehension yesterday and though I met the minimal requirement, I think I did poorly. I score 12 out the maximum 25. There are 4 parts to the test, each carries 25 points. As usual, I am approaching this strategically and I am having a hard time figuring out how to tackle the parts. The competitive me wants to get 90 and above but that does not seem attainable. So then I am eyeing on the 80 and above range and that also proves to be difficult because that would mean in each of the 4 parts I can only make a less than 5 points mistake. That is difficult because right now I think I can only safely hope that I'll get 15 in each part, which will make a total of 60. To go from 60 to 80 is hard and I don't know if this preparatory class will help :( By the way I only got C for CELI 3 but I studied on my own for it. The test will be in November. Considering this is August, it seems that we have plenty of time to get ready right? That's the thing though, one needs to put the commitment and effort and for anyone who has left the education system, one would agree with me, I think, when I say how we hate having to go back to the books and getting ready for exams :(

So anyway, yesterday we ended at 9 something and by 9 am today I was back at Alliance Française for a test that I totally didn't prepare for. Well of course I was late but I think I wasn't so badly late as compared to my usual self, I think I was less than 5 minutes late and that was because I went to the toilet first before coming to class. I heard Mr. N was being funny when he told the rest that I would be there even though I complained about having to have a test :D I think the test was difficult except for the listening part. Maybe Mr. N was being nice that he made it easy for us or perhaps there's some sort of trap somewhere there. When I saw the essay question, I did think how far we have come. The question was, what is spirituality for you and what is its place in the modern society? :) Smile, I can only smile seeing that. Imagine how you are going to answer that in your mother tongue and fill around 1.5 pages with your answer. Then imagine doing that in a new language that you are learning and at the same time trying to be sophisticated in your answer. In a way I like how my language lessons always progress into a point that got me thinking about stuff. I chose a similar topic about God and all for the orale part. Mr. N chose me to go first and XF to go second and the rest could go in turns as they please. Errr ... why me? He said because I was courageuse, that is courageous in French. We were given time to prepare but after some minutes I was like okay whatev, let's go and of course I blew it. I'm really not good in speaking. Not that I did well in the writing part, I think I was pretty sweet and idealistic in it but I think it was disjointed, repetitive, and not really putting much insight in adressing the question. As for the orale, I think Mr. N was being nice that at the end of it he said he got my point of view :P I think the best part of it was sharing about religion and my family and getting him surprised because he didn't know that side about me and perhaps didn't see that one coming :P Moments like this are some of the things I love about my classes, the fact that I managed to build connection and relationship with some of my classmates and teachers. Yes perhaps it's not long lasting but there were really moments, at least for me, in all those Saturdays when we are truly friends and we were having a good time for the 3 hours we spent together. So with that I was a bit kinda sad that this was the end of my Saturday classes. I don't know how I will deal with my Saturdays from now on. Yes, I complain about getting up early, being tired, about it being demanding and hard, yesterday and today were particularly so, but in the end I cannot deny that there were days when the classes were the best part of my week.

Movie this week was Brave which I watched because I really needed something to kinda cheer me up. I think it wasn't that amazing. The short animation before it, La Luna, was pretty smart though. Anyway, perhaps I was really not in a good place that I really needed more to amuse me and Brave didn't fulfill the task. I have to say that I didn't expect the story to be like that based on the trailer that I saw, so in a way I did get a nice surprise, but overall in the end I was feeling rather bored. So that's that. I guess perhaps I should talk about life but I don't really want to. If I can be honest, I am feeling pretty lonely, pretty sad, and of course God is nice that He gives me things or people to make me feel slightly better when I am feeling really down. I wish I can ask this and that to God but I think asking for this and that is also a form of complaining so I am trying to be strong. Maybe the universe knows me, perhaps Mr. N was right, that no matter how I feel I don't want to deal with something, when the time comes I will be right there and I will be fighting. I guess I've spoken too much. Perhaps if I shouldn't ask God to relieve me from the obstacles I have to face, I could wish for God to give me something amusing in my life, something that can be a good distraction and hopefully makes me smile. Alright, take care peeps. If you have a break in your side of the world, enjoy the holiday :)

:) eKa @ 10:58:00 PM •