Le Bilingue
Special Summer Edition Student Journalism
Ecole Jeannine Manuel PAris
Letter from the Editor Dear readers, Many of you might agree that is as much a time of change and growth as it is a period of pure relaxation. Ever since I was little, I’ve often viewed and experienced summers as a time of radical change, whether it be because of a move across the ocean or the common feelings of anxiety that come with the passage from middle to high school. As international students, most of us have had the chance to travel to, and sometimes live in, a multitude of new places and cultures that have not only pushed us far beyond our comfort zones, but have also given us an appreciation for the unfamiliar. In this year’s summer issue, Le Bilingue’s student writers have channeled that energy and appreciation for travel, either through the telling of a recent trip to New York, or an analysis of the recent success of K-Pop in Western culture. They’ve also broadcasted their creativity through our sister publication, Bilingue&Artistes, and shown that their knowledge spans behind that of a four-walled classroom. This, as well as all of the publications and meetings we’ve had over the last year, has reinforced my belief for the need of a student-run publication more than ever. In the last year, members of the Student Journalism Club have gotten the chance to grow closer, and interact with other students with whom they might have otherwise never come in contact, bridging the gaps between separate grades and uniting us all as one student body. Despite their ever-growing piles of work and increasingly difficult courses, our team members kept showing up on a weekly basis and working hard on producing high-quality content to entertain their fellow students. Now, as we go off for a well-earned period of rest, I would like to encourage not only this smaller group, but all EJM students to use those occasional moments of boredom (because you will get sick of Netflix) to channel your energies into whichever creative activity you enjoy taking part in the most, and realizing the extents to which your talents can take you. And, hey, if you find that your talents have anything to do with writing, editing, or photography, why not join our team next year? Whichever way and wherever you might choose to spend your summer, I just hope you find the time to explore your interests and passions a little more, and that you experience the joy that comes with reaping the benefits of all the hard work you do both in and outside of school. Have a great summer and thank you for sticking with Le Bilingue this year! Sincerely, Chiara J.
Table of Contents
Welcome to New York kpop kraze summer suggestions Recipe: watermelon Slushie Bilingue&Artistes
my lovely anna to my best friend
Welcome to
By Lau
During the Easter vacation of 2019, a cultural student exchange was organized with the Chapin private all girls school. Twelve girls from 3eme and 2nde classes in the Ecole Jeannine Manuel were taken to New York City by Mme Lefrère and Mrs Brown, with Mme Herreman’s help, to stay twelve days with an exchange student from Chapin. We got to live in this beautiful and very diverse island, while getting the chance to discover what the daily life of a student in an all-girls school looks like. Similar to what the exchange students did when they came over to Paris in March, we stayed in our exchange person’s house and accompanied her to school every other day. The rest of the time, we toured the Big Apple with our chaperones, and explored the city on a deeper, more intimate level. To be honest, what was most surprising for us at The Chapin School was the huge self-service cafeteria, offering deluxe breakfasts and lunches, where the students could go whenever they wanted to, either to grab a snack or to have a complete meal. The breakfast options included cereals, bagels with different fillings, oatmeal, fruits, coffee, juice etc. As for lunch, it was composed of a warm dish, different salad ingredients, yogurt, dessert, fruit, etc. Everyone on the trip was amazed by this wide selection, and made sure to make good use of this cafeteria. Chapin has class grades expanding from kindergarten to senior year, like our school does. However, it differs from us in that there are only about 60 students per grade, no ‘homeroom’ classes, and no more than 15 students in each subject-separated class. Due to this small number, every student is very involved and contributes greatly to class discussion. Chapin is also located in one single pre-war building, and not in a campus-like structure, like Ecole Jeannine Manuel.
Photos by Laure
New York
ure S.
e S.
Moreover, the school days of the Chapin ladies are much shorter than those of French students. They start every day - from Monday to Friday - at 8:30 am, and end at 3:00 pm. As the American educational system values extra-curricular activities much more than the French one, these short days allow them to have time to concentrate on these activities, as well as on homework. A student at Chapin, and in other schools, can do their activities for extended periods of time, such as 10 hours a week. The ladies also only have about 5 subjects at school, as opposed to more or less 10 for us at Ecole Jeannine Manuel. This means that Chapin students have rather big projects in every subject, to do in a shorter period of time, whereas we have more smaller homework, and if longer, we are given more time to do them, as we have more subjects to concentrate on. The tours around New York City, with our chaperones, were equally as exciting. We visited the most famous museums of the city, such as the MoMA, The Met, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim or the Tenement Museum. We also went to admire the view from the top of the Rockefeller Center and the Highline, an old elevated train track, now converted into a green pathway for people to have a walk on. Places like Times Square, Wall Street, the 9/11 Memorial or Brooklyn, were thoroughly explored as well. Lastly, some of us had the privilege to go see a Broadway show, like Hamilton or The Book of Mormon, with our exchange students: an unforgettable experience. This trip to New York City enabled us to get a genuine impression of how life is for a New York high school student, while still being emerged in city life. After falling in love with its atmosphere, some of us are convinced more than ever that we want to one day come back to study or live there. Our escapade to New York City truly turned out to be a meaningful and remarkable opportunity.
BTS, Korean pop titans who conquered the West - Japan Today
Blackpink are the new K-pop act making history in the US - south china morning post
K-Pop
by J
It has now been a while since Kgenre in itself. Before further exp has become, it is important to go what this genre entails. There are m but it is most commonly defi
Nothing is perfect from the begin Pop industry. This music style, ch tines and quirky/flashy outfits, di the last 30 years, until it blew up Psy released his 6th album, with th tremendous success: it remained i chart for 7 weeks. After this big su today’s most affluent groups, BTS more than 9 billion Yo
But how did people start accessin most common way is through Yo K-pop resources such as music vide covers. If you want to discover mu can watch a Korean music show n every Friday at 8 AM GMT on KB period, they introduce the latest K stars. If you are a spotify user, ther troduce you to the genre in a
It is impressive that many peopl K-pop music even though not ev and this just goes to show that ev they languages they speak, can u
Kraze
Joonyoung P.
-pop was first recognized as a music plaining the phenomenon that K pop back to the roots and look at exactly many interpretations of what K pop is, fined as Korean Popular music.
nning, and the same stands for the K haracterized by complex dance rouidn’t earn any recognition at all over in 2012. In July 2012, Korean singer he title song 'Gangnam style' earning in 2nd place on the Billboard Hot 100 uccess, many artists, including one of S, broke records of their own, earning YouTube views to this day.
ng K-pop music? The easiest and the ouTube. On YouTube, there are many eos, lyrics translations and even dance usic that came out more recently, you named 'Music Bank’, which broadcasts BS world channel. Over a 90-minutes K Pop music and the industry’s rising re is now a K pop section that will inmore general and complete way.
le around the world listen and love veryone speaks the Korean language, verybody, despite their nationality or unite through the medium of music.
LA K-POP, UN PHÉNOMÈNE CULTUREL EN CORÉE DU SUD - voyage.fr
Le groupe de K-Pop BTS a rempli le Stade en France - huffington post
summer s by the Ejm Student Body
What song best represents summer to you? Lullaby of birdland Party in the USA Live while we’re young Sunset lover Emotionless Teenage dream School's Out for Summer
ella fitzgerald miley cyrus one direction petit biscuit drake katy perry alice cooper
What movie truly screams “SUMMER” to you? Call me by your name The Last Summer High school musical 2 Grease Wet Hot American Summer There’s no time for movies in summer
2017 2019 2007 1978 2001 error - does not compute
suggestions What groovy location do you want to spend your summer in? Beaches Tahiti
Costa Rica
Santa Monica USa
Italy Vietnam
Chicago
Greece St. Jean de luz (Biarritz, France)
What literary masterpiece symbolizes the coming of the sunny months? We were liars A Midsummer’s Night Dream Holes The Great Gatsby The Catcher in the Rye i dont know
e. lockhart w. shakespeare l. sachar f. scott fitzgerald j. d. salinger creative ejm student
RECIPE
Homemade Watermelon Slushie By Laure - P S.
Ingredients ½ watermelon ½ orange melon ½ white melon 1 tablespoon of grenadine syrup
8 mint leaves Materials Preparation 20 minutes Freezing 45 minutes Serves 4 people
For a fresh & sweet summer treat!
1 mixer 1 freezer 1 melon baller
Preparation
1
Cut the ½ watermelon into pieces, in order for them to fit in the mixer.
2
Put all the pieces in the mixer, dd one tablespoon of grenadine, and mix the watermelon until it starts to become liquid. ( Be careful not to mix it too long! )
Put the watermelon mixture in a large bowl and put it into the freezer for 45 minutes.
3
4 5 6
Meanwhile, with the melon baller, carve about 12 balls from each of the orange and white melons, and wash the mint leaves.
Once the watermelon mixture has the same texture as a slushie, remove it from the freezer and serve it fresh.
Add 3 balls of each melon, and 2 mint leaves for each bowl. Your Watermelon Slushie is ready!
I’m an old man now. I have lived in this cave for the past fifty years,
alone, in the wilderness, bearing on my shoulders a weight, so important, that it is what wore me down and brought me here.
My Lov By Valentine
Fifty years ago, I left all those I loved, and all that I knew because of the fear I felt, the fear that tormented me in such a torturing, awful way it nearly made me mad. So I came here, in this dull cave and brought just the necessaries to live. My mind here is clear, at the top of this hill over a cliff which plunges into the cold waters of Ireland. Every morning, I wake up at dawn to see life begin its daily routine and stretch from a long night’s rest, to hear the birds singing sweetly and the sun rise over the sea, shading it with soft pastel colors. I always leave the cave and walk on the cool grass, embedded with drops of dew. But my past errors still come haunting me and those are what I want to tell you about. I confessed them to the wind, but it did no good, and the wind came back, whispering in my ears the terrible secrets I told it, spinning around me, slithering up my spine, cruelly letting the ceaseless remorse slowly drive me to insanity, to my death. As I was saying, it was fifty years ago. I was on my third year of college, a proud young man with all his life ahead of him. My life seemed perfect: my family loved me, I had a diverse and exciting group of friends, I was a talented and bright young man, and then there was my girl, Anna. She was an incredible young lady who never ran out of ideas, strange yet brilliant ideas. She always had the right words and was probably the smartest person I knew. I first saw Anna on a Tuesday afternoon. The sky was a mad dark grey shooting out torrents of water. I was hurriedly walking home from an interview which hadn’t gone as I had hoped, with a newspaper over my head, drenched from head to toe. I had already been rather unnerved, but the weather only made it worse. I was grumbling to myself, rushing home, my rather long dark hair in my face when I came across an exquisitely strange vision. Now, don’t believe that it was like in the movies and she was a beauty, I went up to her and it happened just like that; it didn’t. She was more wet than I, if even that were possible. I saw her standing, as if waiting patiently, like time had stopped and she was controlling it. I will never find the proper words to describe it, but that’s the best I can do. I was in a sort of trance. That was the first time I saw her, and I walked by, as though I had never seen her there in the first place, and something always told me that I shouldn’t have. The second time I saw her, it was at my college, on the first day of my third year. It was the first day back from the holidays. I went to find my friends who were laughing about a story Jimmy, the prankster of the group, had told them. I joined the conversation and we told our summer stories, each crazier than the other, each further from the truth than the previous. They were all deep in conversation, debating about whether or when I raised my eyes and they landed on the odd mysterious girl from that stormy day. She was dressed in dark clothes, looking stern, against a wall, observing. I excused myself from the group and slowly walked over to her.
vely Anna S.
“Hi, I’m Matthew, are you new here?’ I knew she was, but it never hurts to check. “Anna, yes, nice meeting you.” She said in an uninterested low voice. “if you need any help finding your way around or anything like that, I’ll gladly be your guide.” And that’s how our first encounter went. I went back to my friends and later on that day I saw her, and she asked me for help. At first, she was rather timid, but the more I got to know her, the more I found how incredible she was. We became close friends very quickly, and more than that not too soon after. There was always something about her that I could not clearly pin down, like I was missing a part of her. There were moments when I felt like she was somewhere else, or was meant to be somewhere else, like a calling of some sort, but those moments always left as quickly as they came, and the charm that made me feel that way, also made me forget I ever felt like something was wrong. We went on mind blowing escapades as well as simple walks in a park when suddenly she would stand on a bench and start reciting Shakespeare with all her might. Anna was an outstanding girl, good at everything she did (I cannot tell for the things I never saw her do.) With her I did more things than during the rest of my life before her combined. We went kayaking, painting, on a weekend alone in the wilderness; my life with her was like a fantastic rollercoaster, I never knew what extraordinary idea of hers we’d be doing next. She was unpredictable, and I loved it. Her radiant, enigmatic smile, which lit up those delicate lips of hers, which I was lucky enough to see all the time, made her elegant features even more beautiful, even more mystical. One day we were in my car driving back from a swim in underground grottos, beneath a cliff where a blue light had tinted the rock walls when I pulled over on a deserted road. I turned to her, watching her glowing features, as I gently took her hand and told her three words which sewed our destinies together forever, three words which were meant to lead to the best moments of my life, but which doomed me. “I love you.” She looked away from me, but I caught a pearly tear rolling from the corner of her eye to her pink cheeks and fall on her lap. I tried to take her in my arms, I wanted to know why she was crying when I had just given her my heart. Anna turned towards me with a sad smile on those soft lips of hers when a horrible flashback of that stormy day came back. There was no need for her to tell me, I already knew; maybe I had always known. by uttering those three sacred words my fate had been linked to hers and doomed for eternity. Six months earlier I had caught her selling her soul to the grim reaper in order to not die the abominable death which had been destined for her, but instead would be given to the one who loves her.
I fled, leaving everything and everyone, not even looking back, running away from her, from Death, from the awful destiny that laid ahead of me. I have been waiting for that horrendous day to come, fearing it, trying to keep in touch with humanity, trying to remember why it is given to us when it can be ripped so violently from us.
To My Be He had never understood the concept of a best friend, had always been confused by the insinuation
that being a friend was something you could be the best at, like it was a competition. Personally, he had never had, or been, a best friend. What confused him even more was the notion of best friends, as in more than one. How was that possible? The word best, at its very root, implied that there could only be one. So he stayed away from that world and everything in it. He spent his free time figuring out the things he could understand, things that science and clear-cut definitions had made attainable to him. He had an inquirer’s mind, but viewed the world through a very selective vision. If he didn’t understand or see the potential in something, he discarded it. He had no space for useless things. This attitude is what he relied on to get through life to avoid having to deal with the unpleasant moments. Thanks to his dedication to the sciences, he made it through grade school and secondary education without a problem, and came out with an impressive amount of diplomas to hang on his wall. Everywhere he went he inspired admiration and curiosity; who was this man who could pretend the world around him didn’t exist so easily? How did he paint the people and the things around him black and white like it was nothing, like doubt was not also part of a rational human experience? But the biggest question remained this: why? What had happened to him to cause such deep refusal of anything and everything “illogical”? When they couldn’t understand this strange man, when their own ability to block out the irrational failed, they turned to ridicule. It’s much easier to mock what you cannot understand than to confront your own shortcomings. He, however, remained oblivious to their snarky remarks. He got along very well with artificial intelligence. As a young engineer, he spent most of his time in a lab, perfecting any and all forms of artificial companionship he could fathom. After all, he was not heartless. The longing for human company remained, but he decided he would be better off with the next best thing, considering his past experiences. Human companionship had proved itself to be fruitless, and he left no space for fruitless things in his life. He continued to live like this for a long time, until his bones grew weak and his skin started sagging. He had skipped the whole wife and kids things, had never found a girl that made it worth his while. He was always better off alone. They gave him a blank tombstone when he died. Putting him in the ground had been enough of an effort, and to be frank they didn’t have a clue in the world what to write for the cranky old recluse who cared for no one but himself.
By Chiar
est Friend
ra J.
He probably wouldn’t have cared. In fact, he most definitely did not care. To be completely honest, his death didn’t really change anything.
But it seemed he had gotten stuck. Stuck in a form that went beyond the human body, he roamed the same places he had stayed in as a living being for a while, before essentially settling on the cemetery. He saw no use in roaming, so roam he would not. He sat, or floated, and wasted time like he didn’t have a care in the world. And isn’t it ironic? The man who probably belonged the least on this planet was the one who was to remain on it the longest. Every day was the same. Every day was the same. Every day was the same. Until it wasn’t.. He met Henry on the day on the 30th anniversary of his passing. Henry was everything he had never been; he was popular, well-liked, handsome and curious about everything around him. He saw the world through a multicolored lens that stopped on the smallest details and scrutinized them until there was nothing left to see. That might be why he was so interested in the tomb with no name. He had begun coming to visit regularly, and he always did the same thing. He sat down, crossed his legs, and began to talk about everything and nothing. He told anecdotes about his days, never skipping over even the smallest of things. In the beginning, our friendly neighborhood ghost was less than pleased, to say the least. He saw no use for all this information to crowd his head, and this little boy had proved to be nothing but useless. He watched the boy grow up. He saw him grow a beard, get some glasses, and eventually a cane. Through all the changes of his life, never once stopped coming. So the spirit knew, the day Henry did not come, that these daily visitations had reached the end of their statute. He felt the urge, for some reason, to look for the frustrating little boy turned into a man, but he found nothing. Upon his return to his now solitary tomb, he noticed something he had never seen before, a change he had missed noticing in all of the moments he had been lost in his thoughts. All of a sudden he started feeling light, lighter than before, and he began to dissolve into the air around him. He could not help but feel relief and satisfaction at the perceptively coming end, but this feeling was tinged with a hint of nostalgia. Yes, that’s right: nostalgia. Because, as he smiled for probably what was the first time of his life, he looked down at the tombstone that no longer remained blank and went out like the flame on a child’s birthday cake. His spirit hovered for a moment around the words now etched in stone, the words that read in unmistakable print,
to my best friend.
Our team Chiara J. editor in chief Laure S. food editor Isabella A. writer Valentine S. writer Joonyoung P. writer Massimiliano A. writer Maxen W. graphics Sofia M. writer Diya B. writer Special Thanks to: Ms. Elliot Ms. Stathopulos
Le Bilingue is a monthly publication produced entirely by students of the EJM Student Journalism Club. The club holds weekly meetings in P23, and is always looking for new additions! If you have talents in writing, editing, art or photography, don’t hesitate to stop by or send and email to studentjournalism@ejm.org for more information!