School

I go to school at l'ecole de Commerce in Monthey. I'm in the class 3D which means I am in the 'senior' year of high school. I'm the youngest in my class, with most others being 18 to 22. We have four boys in my class and all the rest girls, but that doesn't really bother me too much. All of my classmates are really nice and I'm happy to be in the class 3D.

My 13 Classes:
Economy, French, English, German, History, History of Art, Visual Arts, Ethics, Gym, Media Information, Administrative Knowledge, Psychology, and Math

My schedule will be changing after Christmas though and I won't have english or german anymore. I'll be taking more french classes and I will have to start taking all of the tests for all of my classes. Pray for me!

Class Descriptions:

Economy: This is a required class for every single student at l'Ecole de Commerce. Quite unfortunate for me though because I know absolutely nothing about economy in english let alone in french. I try and translate some of the vocabulary to english and I still don't understand what's going on. Then there's the fact that it is all Swiss economy, which I know even less about. Let's just say the class is a little on the frustrating side.

French: This class is really hard for me. Most of the time the teacher reads a text and you have to write down every word she says without grammer mistakes. They also correct grammer in texts which isn't any easier. When we are looking at texts, we are reading and analyzing extremely advanced books. This class is not too much fun and it doesn't help that the teacher absolutely hates me.

English: The one class that I actually succeed in...too bad it's going away after Christmas break. It's almost a little boring though sometimes which is the reason that they are changing it. The teacher loves me and gives me 100% on everything. It's pretty funny learning British english instead of American english. Some of the expressions I've never heard of before. I also find it funny that I speak english better than the teacher. :)

German: For this class I have two different teachers. I have no idea why, but one of the teachers is really nice and the other one is mean. The nice one is almost a little creepy though because she is always smiling, every second of every day. The nice one gives me easy german to work on, so I don't have to do 6th year german which I would epically fail at.

History: This class is like a half and half. I always know what we are talking about, but sometimes I get the details and sometimes not. I don't always understand all of it. We've mostly just been talkinga bout Hitler and the Nazis so far. I've already studied quite a bit of that, which is probably why I understand.

History of Art: This class makes me sleepy! The teacher is absolutely crazy and makes girls cry all the time. He always says if we are good and calm then we can watch a movie on Friday. Too bad his movies are more boring than his lectures. (I have no idea how this is even possible)

Visual Art: Atleast I understand and am able to take part in this class. I've never been that big of an art fan though so it's not really that fun. The teacher is kind of insane too, which doesn't really help. I passed this class though which makes me happy. :)

Ethics: I really like this class and this teacher even though I don't understand evreything that we are talking about. I feel like I'm actually doing something in this class though because the teacher writes all the notes on the board. I never thought that ethics would be one of my favorite classes, but the teacher helps quite a bit.

Gym: Gym is definitely different here than in the U.S. You actually have to sweat which I find rather disgusting. In the U.S. gym is one of my favorite classes, but here it's one of the classes I dread going to. The other day we ran suicides in gym. I don't even think that's legal in the U.S. haha. Well actually the only bad day is Mondays because we have a Nazi teacher. Fridays are so much more fun. It's kind of funny because all we basically play in gym is volleyball. I'm the only one in my whole class who got a 6 in volleyball. (6 is the highest grade you can get) My teacher told the class that in order to get a 6 you had to be as perfect as Nicole is. I don't really find this fair for all the other kids because I've been playing volleyball my whole life, but that's just how hardcore they are with grading here. We've also played pingpong, floor hockey, football, and frisbee.

Media Information: This teacher is really relaxed, but this class is sort of weird. We only have it once a week for an hour. Each week a different person in the class goes in front of the class and presents three recent news articles. They explain the articles and then the class discusses different issues in the news. I haven't had to go yet, but I don't think it should be too difficult.

Administrative Knowledge: I'm not sure I translated the name of this class very well, but I'll explain what we do in the class anyway. This is another class that we only have once a week and it's really not even a class. We've learned about different types of insureance coverage which is sort of hard for me to learn in french, but it's definitely not the hardest class.

Psychology: My calss is taking 2nd year psychology and it's difficult. The tacher is really nice and all, but she is really smart and uses really difficult vocabulary that I don't always understand. I've never taken psychology at all before, so that doesn't help much either.

Math: I thought math in english was horrible....well here it is five million times worse. The teacher is super weird and never writes anything down. He just sas out loud the problems and how you do them. He also refuses to answer any questions of anyone in the class if you don't understand. My class is doing some form of advanced calculus and I've never seen any of it before. Instead of being easy like it should be because it's just numbers, its harder than learning chinese...

I'll update how shcool goes after Christmas break when I actually start taking tests and school starts getting serious. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little intimidated and scared...

Friends!

I love all my friend's in Switzerland, they are amazing and I will never forget them. I thought that people at home might want to know about my friends because they will probably never be able to meet any of them.

Camille:

Camille is my host sister and my best friend. :) I'm with her almost all the time because we are in the same class and we live together, but surprisingly, we never get sick of each other. We've had so much fun together, I could never forget her.

Zoé:

Zoé is my host sister too, and she is also one of my best friends. From her obsession of karacs and ducks to her huge heart, she's an amazing friend. We are a lot alike and we get a long really well. I love you Zouzounette Craquinette!

Albesa:

Albesa is my desk partner at school and that probably wasn't the best decision our homeroom teacher could have made. Its so hard for us to not talk to each other because we get along so well. She is one of the funniest girls I know and can always make me laugh. We have so many ridiculous inside jokes: fellas boys mixed let's elope, have you ever seen it? yes i have, tu fais quoi avec ça? mais tu mets sur la table!, thé pomme cannelle!...just to name a few. I love this girl sooo much and I'm definitely going to miss her a ton when I leave Switzerland.

Maliç:

Maliç is one of the first friends I made in Switzerland. He quite enjoys making fun of me, but he's never serious about it so I haven't hit him for it....yet. ;) I know I can always depend on him if I need a ride somewhere or if I'm lost anywhere in Switzerland, he would come and find me. He's just that nice of a person. He's one of those true friends you can depend on for anything, anytime.

Jérémy (aka Kobe or Kobifle):

Jérémy is one of the funniest guys I've met. He enjoys imitating my horrible english accent when I speak french, which sometimes bothers me, but it's impossible to be mad at him. He's super nice and is like a brother to me here in Switzerland.

Adrian (aka Adri)

Adrian is also like my brother here in Switzerland. I know I could always depend on him for anything if I had a problem. He's really good at giving advice and he's really funny. He reminds me a lot of my guy friends in Wisconsin.

Neelu:

Neelu is my neighboor here in little Choëx. She has a big heart and I'm very jealous of her 'year round' tanned skin and her gorgeous hair. She shares my love of hip hop music and has amazing shoes!

Cushla:

Cushla is one of my friends from AFS who is also on a foreign exchange. Cushla is from New Zealand and has a pretty killer accent. She's made this experience a little easier for me because both of our native languges is english. We understand each other's sarcastic humor which is a nice get away from all the mind boggeling french 24/7. Cushla is such a fun girl, ahhh I love her.

Susan (aka the Finn):

Susan is another AFSer who is from Finland. Even though she finds Finnish useless, I think it's pretty cool that she's from Finland. She's really smart and fun to be around. She speaks amazing english too, probably better than I do actually.

AFS

AFS: American Field Service. AFS is one of the world’s largest community-based volunteer organizations dedicated to building a more just and peaceful world through international student exchange.


I'm going to try and explain my exchange year in Switzerland and how I perceive my experiences.


First off,


AFS: Another Fat Student. :) All of the exchange students have gained quite a bit of weight. I blame it on all of the amazing chocolate here. I also blame it on my drive to taste and eat every single new food that I encounter. I'm only going to be here once in my life, so why not?


General Information:

City: Choëx

Closest 'big' city: Monthey




Language: French

Canton (state): Valais (the big yellow one at the bottom)
School: L'école de Commerce et de Culture générale (school of commerce and general studies)

Host Family: The Michaud's

Canton's I've visited: Valais, Vaud, Fribourg, Bern, Zürich, and Luzern. (refer to map)