I haven't updated for ages. :O

I just came back from the SCIS Cross-country tournament held at Frankfurt. And I'm so tired and my legs are hurting. The first race was 5km long and the second was 3.5km long. The results weren't that great - for the first race I got 3rd last and for the second I got last. Like really. I tried my best and still got last. D: Usually that doesn't happen for me. Oh it never did! So this is the first time I've been last for something which I tried so hard for. :( I was very positive about completing the race running throughout the 3.5km with the 1km uphill and I kept a really happy attitude in front of my coach as he kept saying I did well because my speed was constant throughout. Like I couldn't go sobbing to my coach because I got last. But the disappointment sank in on our way back to Basel. I sat right at the back of the group in the bus and I started crying to myself. I kept thinking how come I was last when I still ran all the way. I thought I was invisible enough but apparently I was not. Alie and Tom saw and they were really encouraging and comforted me. So thanks to them and good that they didn't tell the coach. :)I ran up the 1km "gentle" hill all the way and that was my goal and I achieved it. I should be happy. :)

Day 1: Arrived at the SBB (Basel train station) to board the 09:04 train to Frankfurt. We had 2 2nd class cabins and for 3hrs in the train we were playing all sorts of stupid games, chatting, snacking etc. I was the oldest in the group because the seniors couldn't come due to SAT practice. (Which was bad because the High School girls couldn't make and participate as a team.)Then the 7th-graders decided to go off into a cabin and play Truth or Dare (which is actually all Dare), and the Dares were to kiss each other on the lips or French-kiss. How lame. Fine they refused to let any of the older students see what they play because they are SHY. HAHAHA. But I was thinking, they're only about 12-13 years old. And they play this sort of game?? Aren't they kind of young? Apparently they're quite old and it's FUN. Whatever. So we reached Frankfurt, took the U-Bahn to Waldlust where Frankfurt International School is located and waited for our host families to pick us up.
My host was Katherine (Katie) Henke, and she came with her really cheerful mother. They're American with German ancestors. She hosted me and Raasika (the other High School girl runner) and we 3 are of the same age. :) She has a little sister, 10 years old I think. Her parents were thinking we should take this chance to look around Frankfurt town and so we went out downtown for dinner and took a walk to the river Main. It was getting quite dark so the pictures I took were either blur or dark. With flash it became too bright. They live in this neighbourhood where the guard scans your whole car for any bombs and then lets you in. Well-protected, I guess. It seems like lots of Americans live in that neighbourhood. They even have an American fieldhouse (convenience store) in their neighbourhood. :O

Day 2: The 5km run. We came to school and I found out Vedas' host mother ran over his foot with the car. And he's okay. :O It hurt a bit but after resting he said it's like normal. I MEAN HE COULD'VE BROKEN HIS FOOT AND HE'S OUR BEST RUNNER! (But he still did well - he came in 2nd for the Middle School Boys' 3.5km run) Yeah so we walked the course we had to run and my timing for this run is 30min 58s. 3rd last. Tom ran with me for the last bit to cheer me on until the lady marshall scolded him because he wasn't supposed to run and wasn't supposed to be on the track. :P And there was that stupid hill and we had to run up it twice. Urgh. It set me back a lot because I started walking. After the run, we were given shopping time and we went to Oberusel Altstadt (Oberusel old town). Raasika and I bought our host family a gift. :)

Day 3: The 3.5km run. Mostly what we did yesterday. Thankfully at least we needed to run the hill up once only. Oh yeah my goal was to keep running throughout and up the hill too. And I was afraid I couldn't achieve that goal so I asked Tom to give me a punishment if I don't achieve it. He came up with "If you don't run up the hill all the way then I'll smash up and twist and scratch your spectacles." (I mean it isn't such a serious consequence, but it still helped when I was going up the hill and thinking I'd better not stop running.)My timing: 20min 53s. Last. Thanks to all the people in my team who cheered me on though. :)And whenever I see my coach I just couldn't stop running. And he appeared at the right times when I felt tired. Wow he can read my mind. :O

Overall, ISB Middle School Boys' team got joint 2nd and took home the trophy. Our Middle School Girls' team didn't do that well because Alie (who got 1st in both the 3.5km and 2.5km races) joined as an exhibition runner so she isn't counted and couldn't get the 2 gold medals. Sigh. There was no High School girls or boys team as there were too few people. Oh well, at least we brought home 1 trophy. :D

I shall make a list of all the people who went to Frankfurt:
Tali, Marianna, Alie, Mareike, Dylan, Adam, Vedas, Tom, Peter, Emma, Trudy, Raasika, me. :) Yay. I had fun, I made new friends, I realised what I could and couldn't do well. ;D

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: SCIS Cross-country

School has been going okay...

Well I haven't actually found good friends whom I connect with very well and whom I can totally be myself in front of. But still, it's just 3 weeks into this new school. Hopefully in another 3 weeks I'll be posting something different. I feel the people in my class are quite motivated as they do al their work really quickly (even the boys), so that's good exposure. However, they treat me somewhat differently, like when the boys talk to me they use a weirdly formal tone. And the girls aren't particularly open to me, like they don't hug me every morning when we meet and say 'I love you so much' to me every day. Not that I want them to say it to me though, heh. So cheesy. There are 4 new students in my class, a German girl, an English boy, a Swedish-American boy and me. From what I feel, I'm the student who's taking the longest time to settle in and be one of them.

I know I stand out from the crowd, partly because I have the darkest hair colour in school anyway. Thus the teachers recognise me rather easily and have no problem remembering my name because it's a Western name and it's such an international name! 'Monica' is easy to pronounce and can be "translated" into many different languages without changing sound. Haha. Yay I love my name. ;)

Being in this Middle Years Programme (MYP)which is part of IB isn't that easy. We have to keep writing lots of essays and evaluation and pen down all our plans, thoughts and processes. There are lots of criteria to follow for each subject and you have to keep making sure you're doing the 'right thing'. Sigh, so now the easiest homework to do is either Maths or German, because Maths is solving problems and German it's learning conjugation or vocabulary. No essays YET. Yeah and PE is a graded subject - they give you marks for how well you perform, interact, and apply the knowledge learnt/taught. :/

The trip to Le Linge (French trenches) has been postponed due to bad weather that day. How disappointing. The weather's getting colder and colder, and the leaves of the trees outside my apartment have started to change colour. They're no longer green; they're yellow. Autumn's approaching. Time to get my winter jacket. I grew out of mine.

Oh and lockers in school can be decorated with magnets and photos etc. Mine's so pathetic; I only have one magnet. But well, I'd want my locker to be more practical than beautiful anyway.

The Enchanting Twilight

PS: French grammar is okay. French reading comprehension is so difficult! There're levels of response, like LORMS in History in Singapore. Sigh. D:

Labels: ISB