What will they think of next?

Today is the day we have been preparing for all year: the day of the AP French test! I don't know who was more nervous, my students or me! This test is a brand new test this year, actually! They decided to get rid of the grammar portion, from past tests, and focus on listening, reading, speaking and writing about authentic sources. I am pretty excited about the change--who likes grammar after all? I hope my students feel good about the test. It finished about an hour ago now. I guess I will find out tomorrow morning how they think they did. I passed by the testing classroom several times, hoping to find the counselor who was administering the test, so that I could drop off some brain food (granola bars and Gushers snacks! Mmmmm...I don't remember the last time that I had a Gusher.) I hope those helped keep their brains working. My French 3 students told me later that the best brain food is dark chocolate and mint gum. Those things are shown to increase brain activity. I wonder what class they learned that in. Is this true? Well, I guess I will put that on the list for next year.

It has been rather exciting preparing for this new test. Our new AP French textbook has given us lots of readings from newspaper clippings, brochures and magazine articles to discuss. One of these articles talks about a soap museum in Paris, dedicated to all different types of ecologically friendly products. One such product is shampoo bars! Have you ever heard of those? Would you really want to wash your hair with a bar of shampoo? It seems like a pain to me. Funny, though, I was walking around City Creek a few weeks ago and I saw a little soap store myself. They actually had shampoo bars inside! I was so tempted to try one out! Who would have thought??

Another new invention is called Le Whiff! Has anyone heard of this one? Le Whiff is "a new approach to eating by breathing." You use it like an inhaler whenever you have a chocolate craving! Guess what, folks? It is less than 1 measly calorie per serving!! What do you think of that? Would this really replace a rich piece of chocolate, though? I wonder how popular this thing has become...

Any takers for a shampoo bar or Le Whiff?