Alex' Big Day

We all got up early this morning (Desney at 06:00 and Alex and I at 06:30). I took Alexandra to Honoré de Balzac for her written exam at 08:15. This was the beginning of the entrance exams our whole family has been dreading for months if not years. I was there as a nervous prospective 6ème parent like any other. However I had stupidly forgotten that I was also the President of the Anglophone Section Parents' Association who everyone had seen at the Open House. I was certainly not there with my President's hat on but rather the hat of any other prospective parent. I was obviously bombarded with questions about how the whole thing runs. Once the kids were in the exam, which lasts an hour for collège and about 90 minutes for lycée, we went to the café to wait. There I spent my time with the other parents, like any other prospective parent, but ended up passing the time answering questions and explaining how things work in more detail.

I was there outside the door when the collège children got out of the exam and Alex came running to my arms to tell me how easy the exam was. I was very pleased. They used Stig of the Dump as their literature choice which us old parents know from when Jessica was in 6ème. Apparently the exam went very well and Alex was able to give even more information than was requested.

After the exam we met Jessica quickly who was on her way to her 10:00 class and grabbed a quick coffee. Alex and I then hung out at the café to wait for her oral exam which was at 11:10.

At about 11:00 we headed up to the International Library in the collège for her oral exam. They were only running about 10 minutes late, which was a good sign, and Alex was in and out of there in about 5 minutes which was another good sign. This too apparently went very well.

Now that she had gone through all of the hard work we got in to the car and left. She was very happy and very pleased that it all went so well. Now is the time for the endless waiting to find out whether she was accepted or not...

To celebrate a bit we headed off to La Défense to go to the movies. We found the cinema, bought our tickets for the 15:15 showing and called Desney to see if she could have lunch with us. She works up in one of the towers and she came down and we had a very nice, long lunch at a brasserie-style restaurant. Alex rather enjoyed the ice cream sundae at the end more than the meal itself...

Desney headed back to work and Alex and I headed off to the cinema. We went to see Mission Impossible: III in the new cinema at La Défense. It just opened today in France and it was the classic enormous action film, with a ridiculously unbelievable and flimsy script, which ran like a very long episode of the Alias television series. This was probably due to the fact that the director of the film was also the creator of that series.

Popcorn: I made the rather depressing discovery that I can't eat popcorn any more. Those who know me are aware that I find it almost impossible to watch a film without copious quantities of salted and buttered popcorn. There are certain fattening American childhood habits which die hard. We bought a big tub of salted popcorn to share. I had about half a dozen and realised that even with litres of water there was no way I was going to be able to eat this. First it just tasted like rolled up pieces of paper. Then the popcorn shells made me cough. I gave up not much longer after that and was amazed to discover, at the end of the film, that Alexandra had actually finished the tub by herself.

It was a long movie and we headed home afterwards rather exhausted. Today was an absolutely beautiful day outside and so we had dinner outside. We had carpaccio and salads and opened a bottle of Crémant d'Alsace from our favourite winemaker which we tend to prefer over Champagne.

It was a very long and very eventful day and the culmination of many months of preparation and many years of discussion of Alexandra going to this school like her big sister. She did an excellent job today and now it is purely the very difficult job of waiting for the school's decision...