the french story (part 1)

I am very sure many of you are very interested in knowing how YL and I are faring in our French adventures, being two of the bravest boys to take on H2 French right in its full glory. After all, French is a rather beautiful language, and since we are so non-buaya, we decided to search for beauty somewhere else. French seemed like the perfect solution, and so that brings us to Shaw Foundation Library (again) in the aftermath of failing Diagnostique Test.

YL was released from class at 2pm, while I had class up to 3pm. When I arrived, YL was already waiting for me to begin our corrections for Texte B of the Diagnostique Test. If you can't remember what that was, it was something which we both failed very badly, and our teacher called M. Chan didn't hesitate to write one big fat "F" right on the piece of paper. Oh, he also bothered to write a "0" in front of our mark, as if to emphasise that he didn't mark wrongly, we were that stupid.

Boy, weren't we demoralised. But then again, despite being stupid, we still believe that we are model students who are very passionate for French. And at precisely 3:15pm, I sat down on the seat opposite him trying to complete our French corrections.

By 3:16pm I got up to do some spying around the library. Not my fault, there were some suspicious characters hanging around the place and I just had to check them out. Plus, if I didn't check them out you wouldn't read the shit that I usually blog about. Sure, it's trash and gossip, but this is a talk-cock blog, not your local GP bulletin. So if you're here trying to pass GP, I'm not sure if I actually care.

But back to the point, I wasted quite a lot of time while YL passed his time a little more productively talking to his ex-classmates. I say a little, because when I got back that dumb fagut hadn't even started on his essay. I mean, the least he could do was to read a bit of the passage right? Well, no way. He was just talking trash with his two friends, waiting for me to do all the work for him. Tsk - see what I mean about being unfocused? The moment I sat down, I started working feverishly on the passage.

And I'm very proud to say we managed to complete a summary of approximately a hundred words in exactly an hour and a quarter of solid concentration. Though we definitely spent more time than we wanted to in the library. See what I mean about being French enthusiasts? I think YL and I certainly deserve accolades for working that bloody hard. I don't even see any other people taking H2 French doing corrections in the library, tsk. What's happened to the passion? We were so engrossed in doing our work that we even forgot about the time.

So we had to quick-march to the MOELC in order to prevent ourselves from being damn late. I bought some fries on the way to consume in class, though we had quite a lot of it on the way. And according to plan, we were exactly five minutes late for class, the rationale being that the first five minutes in class is usually wasted in talking rubbish and taking attendance. By coming just a little late, we were maximising our time in school.

Coming in from the classroom door, we said "good day" to the teacher in spectacular style.

Me: "Bon.."
YL: "..jour!"

The teacher wasn't exactly amused. But we just sat down and began a session of intensive French, with debating coming first. Which day were we to have French lessons? Now thanks to some inconsiderate people, we've had to skip our training (today) just specially to come for French. Totally disgusting - and although we have a fiery passion for French, the teacher was just too lazy to come teach us on Tuesday. Like what the heck, he claims he's got a "social life". Why couldn't we just get a French teacher who was like us? (However, I'm very glad to know that my Econs lecturer, Mr. Lagman, doesn't have a life like me - he said it himself.)

So we wasted quite a lot of time debating. After which we went on to do some grammar. And if you'd really like to know, famous entrepeneur Tea Zhi Hao was also in our French class. I'm featuring him this time because he's really an integral part of the French Front Row Gang (FFRG) whose part in the French class is basically to sit in the front row and just prepare to be bombarded with whatever the teacher has to offer. Often without understanding.

Before I go on to what we were discussing in class, let me give you a brief introduction of Tea Zhi Hao, commonly known as Été. He plans to build a HUGE business empire after he leaves school, and hire his former FT, commonly known as Chausette Chia, as his personal slave. That's quite an ambition, isn't it? Nevertheless, he's another guy with a fiery passion for French and so we three (him, YL and I) wound up all dying together.

In any case, the lesson was pretty interesting. We managed to discuss everything from Zhi Hao's crushes to Hongkies.. and about the usage of the masculine and feminine nouns in French (see, I told you we love French). Zhi Hao was saying that Le Hongkie (masculine) could refer to YL, while La Hongkie (feminine) could refer to someone else from the same country as him but I will not name due to the sole reason that I still want to live for many more years to come. But thinking back on it, I think the discussion was rather futile. Hongkie, starting with a silent "h", really shouldn't have any sort of verb. It's just "l'Hongkie". Sorry to those non-French people who don't understand this, it's really a French thing.

And plus, I composed a song during French class! Here it goes:

(sing to end of "You Are My Sunshine" tune)
Baudelaire C,
en Hackett C.A.
Anthologie
de Moderne Française

Beautiful, don't you think? What was more, I just simply koped it off the bottom of the worksheet. Hell, care to join me in French MEP dans la classe de M. Chan? I think I'm going to sing it everyday in school as part of my effort to push for an A grade in A level French. We also made lots of sentences to show off our lingustic ability, especially Zhi Hao. Here is a selected quote from him, mixing Hokkien with French:

"Je veux HOON KEE." (I want cigarettes)

Professional mixing of both languages, eh? I think it's excellent. Basically, after a useless debate in French class, we started working pretty hard on our grammar - what with nouns and proper nouns. The teacher very cleverly asked us "what is a noun" and expected us to tell him in French. As if it wasn't hard enough in English. Well, I must say I put in a whole lesson of really hard work (I laughed really hard) and it paid off (it paid to screw off from the stuffy classroom).

And the teacher forgot to collect the Texte B summaries which we spent so long doing in the library. What the heck.

I think we're going to ace French. I know this entry sounds pretty trashy to all of you who does not take French and for you who are not in our French class, but trust me, if you do come to our French class for just one lesson, you'll see the vibrance of the FFRG.

We're the French revolutionaries, man. Revolutionary in the sense that we must have been the three worst students to ever take H2 French. Of course, no prizes for guessing who is the worst among us three. The one who didn't even meet the recommended mark for French prelims but still wanted to weather all storms bravely. Heard the winter's pretty bad in France.

But then again, no one's forced me to quit yet. So if you're thinking that I'll be bidding French goodbye soon, I'm sorry, no French kiss to H2. I'll just continue with composing songs in French class, and eating French fries that I bought from Macs (I liked today's eating session). And though it's evident that my French is far from the desired standard, I really think that my enthusiasm for the language is unrivalled by anyone.

YL can testify to that. Don't we all love French.