Three types of girls

There are three types of girls in collège: the Clones, the Chaffs and the Unknown. There are more perjorative names for the first two, of course.

The Clones have identical, strictly fashionable wardrobes but fashionable in a grown-up way: cardies not hoodies. Definitely not leather jackets. They hang about in big groups gossiping and bitching. To them it’s a huge joke and though they don’t mean any harm, they do hurt people. This is the most popular order.

The Chaffs (as I call them) hang around at bus stops drinking and smoking - and bitching. Their fashion in the extreme is: mini-shorts, high heels, bulky coats and make-up. (Maybe a leather jacket.) They don’t quite pull it off and just look vulgar. Their bitching isn’t a joke - they mean harm and they are good at it. This is the hated order, although also popular because people are scared of them. Strangely, the Clones and the Chaffs get on quite well.

The Unknown are just that - unknown. Not worth knowing, in other words. The Unknown are anyone who doesn’t belong to either the Clones or the Chaffs. Most Unknown hang about on the fringes of the either group, usually the Chaffs, hoping to become Chaffs themselves!

Indeed, I could join the Chaffs if I wanted - if I go and buy their alcohol for them. I look older, apparently.

It’s different for boys. They hang around together playing football or basketball. It’s harder to tell which order they belong to, but it’s usually the one their girlfriend is in.

© Published in December 2008 issue of the Rendezvous magazine

Being good, bored of being good

New school bags, piles of stationery, hair cuts, excitement - yes, it's the school rentrée. And for me the critical exam year, troisième.

Really glad to have left quatrième behind. It's amazing just how horrible some people, especially girls, can get at thirteen. The ones who had been bitches became outright bullies. Previously decent girls turned nasty. What is it about this age?

I got badly picked on although I don’t think it was anything to do with being English. Worse still, I wasn’t very nice either. Anyone I could, I put down.

I got bored of being good, too, in quatrième. So I was bad. I was rude to teachers. I played truant and started smoking (and stopped again, luckily). In fact I behaved like an all-round complete idiot.

I wasn’t the worst, though. There was a boy selling drugs in the corner of the playground. Two girls in my class spent one day getting so drunk and taking drugs that they ended up in hospital. The friend who was with them broke down when she came into school the next day. I don’t think I want to get into drink and drugs yet.

Anyway, being bad didn’t make me happy. My results plummeted, I was always falling out with everyone, especially my mum. In the end I just got very depressed.

This year will be better. I am going to respect the teachers (the ones who deserve it) . Get good marks. And be nice. And good. -ish!

A definition of cool: ubi bene, ibi patria

October 2008

Safely settled back into school. A few good teachers, a few bad ones and a couple of new ones (who look suspicious). But so far sticking to my new regime of being nice to all of them, doing homework etc.

The Latin teacher started the year by giving us proverbs to translate. Like nihil est tam munitum quod percunia non oppugnari possit - nothing is so safe that money cannot challenge it. So, the complete opposite of (as our parents are fond of quoting) “money can’t buy you happiness”. My parents often fight about money so I guess not having it does cause unhappiness. And money bought my ipod and I would be very unhappy without that.

The next one was unde habeas curat nemo sed oportet habere - no one cares where you get things from but you have to have them. So, it’s OK to steal an ipod then? Actually, for some people it is: gangs in our school do care where you get stuff from - it’s only cool if it’s stolen.
But my favourite was ubi bene, ibi patria: where you feel at ease, that is your homeland. Interesting one for people like us (British kids growing up in France) - do we feel more at ease here or in England now? If we are more at ease in France does this make it our homeland now?

But back to money. My favourite version of the money/happiness proverb is Basil Brush’s: “money can’t by you friendship, but it can hire you some cheap substitutes”. Boom Boom!

P.S. managed to grab a seat next to that cute boy in class; turns out he’s a complete idiot and now stuck with him all year. Typical!

November 2008

Help! I need advice. Last week in English we were doing irregular verbs and my teacher taught the class to pronounce “sew” as “sue” .

One of the dilemmas of being English in French school is listening to the English teacher mutilate your language!

I bite my tongue when she says “repeat, please” and “finish, please” even though these are transitive verbs and you need to say repeat that or finish this.

And some mistakes are ones that English people make too, like confusing can I? and may I?
At least these won’t stop my French classmates being understood in our future anglophone world. Sue and sew, however, have completely different meanings!

But this is my teacher we are talking about. She is weird, fun, like a kid at times. When the girls disagree with the boys in class and they are right, she sighs and says “not surprising!” I like her.
So, I can’t say anything in front of the class and humiliate her. I can’t say anything after class - she’d still be humiliated. But if she finds out later that she was saying it wrong and I’d said nothing, she might be hurt. If I tell my classmates it’s wrong they won’t respect her. If I don’t, they’ll learn something that’s wrong. What do I do?

We also elected the délégués de classe (class representatives) last week. I voted for a girl I had quite liked - despite her showing signs of belonging to the clones (more next month). But when she lost, she sneered at the “ridiculousness” of a class that could vote for “that” (the winner). Even after revealing her true colours, she still couldn’t understand why she had not, as she expected, been elected.