The First 6 Weeks of Semester 2
It’s already February 2023, which means semester 2! As fast as lightning, we just wrapped up our six week school period and are already on vacation! Here’s a reflection on the past six weeks of my semester semester in France:
The biggest change about semester 2 is that we had new students arrive! Ten semester students arrived and have joined our SYA community. They are all really awesome and are a great addition to our school. Some of my new best friends are even semester 2 students!
In terms of coursework, the only difficult transition was getting back into the swing of things from my trip to Paris and London. All of my courses are the same as last semester, but since we had new students join each class, we started on brand new topics in each course.
This semester I branched out to new people and met new friends, while still keeping ties with my yearlong friends. I’ve gone to a few new restaurants in these past few weeks and have explored more sights of Rennes I’d wanted to see in semester 1. Two notable restaurants were Monsieur Yak and Mezzelicious, and I finally visited the Musée des Beaux-Arts and the Alma Mall! Most importantly, I achieved a goal of mine for the new year: learning to let loose through spending more time enjoying the moment, rather than always being a workaholic. Surprisingly, little moments of fun such as enjoying a drink at a cafe and cooking class have helped me receive higher grades, serotonin through making happy memories helps the soul!
Some notable fieldworks we’ve had this semester were a trip to Château de Fougères and Château Des Pères, an interview workshop with a journalist, and watching a documentary apart of the film festival, Travelling. We’ve also begun Capstone work! Our grand oral presentation of semester 2 is a capstone project on the topic of our choosing. I’ve chosen to research the Rennais newspaper, Ouest-France! It’s just the beginning of Capstone so I haven’t started much yet, but I’m excited to explore the newspaper more into detail in these upcoming months.
Over the past six weeks I wrote my first article for NewsDecoder, a global educational news service for students around the globe who have a passion for journalism. My topic was the European Energy Crisis, with a deeper dive into the humungous subjet through a smaller perspective of French boulangeries and baguette prices. I am really proud of this article because it is my first published piece of work on a real news source! The process of interviews, editing, and writing taught me so much since these are my first steps into journalism.
All of my host siblings have birthdays in February, and we’ve gotten through two of four special days! Birthdays are a fun time in my house so it’s always exciting to celebrate. In the month of January we ate lots of Galette de Rois, a traditional king’s cake with a fève inside. Whoever gets the fève, or little figurine, inside their cake piece is the king or queen for the day. Since Galette de Rois is seasonal, our family took advantage of the specialty and ate them almost every night of January. Another sweet treat day of France we celebrated was Chandeleur, where my family and I made waffles and crepes for dessert!
As we head into our second winter break, my whole class and I are heading to Paris! I’m looking forward to the Paris trip because we have lots of freedom to explore the city and many of our activities are sights I wanted to see on my last trip but didn’t have time.
Life in France is moving by too fast, I want it to slow down so I can stay longer! But I’m cherishing every minute, every new experience, every challenge, and every achievement.
