A few average days

Hello there!
This post comes to you from the land of 16 degrees and sunny. I have been bombarded with Facebook statuses from home talking about all the snow you're getting, so I just had to share what our weather was. Although I love the white stuff, I can't say that I really miss the cold. Plus, I get to see snow when I go home for Christmas (just a little over a month now... where has the time gone??).
Anyways, this post is more or less a "hello" to everyone, as not much has really happened over the past couple of days. Life has been pretty regular! On Thursday, we had our regular class. Our language teacher kind of terrifies us all, because we don't really understand her marking. She marks really hard, and we can't tell if she's giving us a Canadian grade or a French one. We need to figure it out though...
The marking over here is very different. Everything is graded out of 20, but it is not a percentage like we have. For example, 10/20 doesn't translate into a 50%, it is a 70%. 12/20 is considered pretty good. So you can imagine our confusion... oh well, we're all doing decently right now, so we'll see how grades get transferred over.
In the evening, 2 other girls and I got together with 3 of the American girls from the big American group that goes to our church. We have been meaning to hang out, but at the beginning of the trip it was so hard to coordinate. Thank goodness we finally did though, because it was so great chatting with them! They took us to an Irish Pub, one of their favourites, and it was pretty fun. We just sat around and chatted. They told us all about their program, which is actually really neat. Most of them are engineers, from the Grove City College in Pennsylvania. Every first semester, the school sends students over here to live in France for a cultural experience. They take their engineering classes via webcam from home, and also take French classes with one of their profs over here. They live in 2 houses, with a married couple from the States who are also their professors, and who have been doing this for a few years. It is a pretty neat program.
Yesterday, I went for a run with my friend who I'm doing the half-marathon with, which was nice. I also went downtown for a bit, and then returned to do homework! I went over to my other friends' residence, because they were doing homework and I thought it might motivate me. We actually have a decent amount of stuff due soon: this week, we have a history test and a philosophy essay due, the week after that we have a philosophy test, and the last week of school we have a literature test, and sociology essay, and a language essay due. So it looks like I will be keeping busy!
It might be strange to say, but a part of me actually misses my history classes at Trent... even though I probably complained about the workload, I really did enjoy writing my essays and participating in seminars. And I loved lectures (I had the best history profs last year)! So it is strange for me to not have as intensive a workload as I'm used to. I should enjoy it though, because I'm probably going to die in a pile of books next year (one 3rd year history, two 4th year histories, 2 french classes, 1 con-ed class). Plus, I have been learning so much outside of the classroom this year... whether learning about history on a trip, learning about cultural differences just by living in the city, or learning about myself in new situations, I can't say that I haven't been constantly learning something over here. I think that's what makes it so exciting!
Last night was spent doing not much... I did more homework, hung out with a friend, and then curled up to watch an episode of Friends before bed.
This morning, I woke up and went for a run, and have now made an ambitious list of things to work on. Bring it on, philosophy essay! Around 5pm, I'm going to go over to my host family's for dinner. I haven't seen them in a while, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Have a great Saturday everyone... and if you have snow, ENJOY!!