Last week of school already? Nah… not possible.
It’s my last week of school in France. I can’t believe it. It’s my last week because the next week is exam week for all the Secondes (Emilie’s grade) so I don’t go to school, and the week after that we leave for China. I’m excited about going to China of course, but I dont want this to be my last week, I cannot believe I’m going to have to say goodbye to some of my friends already, I still have 4 weeks!
On the bright side, this week has been and is going to be (I can feel it) the best week yet I think. Something changed at the end of last week, I don’t know what it is. But I can confidently say that after 2 months of being here, I am finally completely comfortable living here, and I do not want to leave. This week has been especially good for the language, getting along with the family, and talking to and making more friends. It is for that reason that I’ve decided 3 months is too short. I’ve just got completely settled in and am finally in my element and extremely happy, and now I’ve got to start saying goodbye!
I think the reason that I’m feeling so good this week is that I’ve been talking a heck of a lot more. Of course I was always trying to talk before, but, especially the first month, it was extremely difficult to be talkative and outgoing because of the language barrier. The first month, I couldn’t speak french well, it was always a struggle to understand and to form sentences and to talk to people I didn’t know that well. So I made acquaintances, but not a lot of good friends (besides the other canadians). The second month, I got a lot better at French, but it was still pretty difficult and I didn’t have the confidence I needed to be talkative and to make a big effort with acquaintances. I did feel more comfortable though, and I bonded a lot with the siblings and some friends. But now, at the start of the third month, I finally have the confidence that I lacked before, and I’ve had more and more conversations and I’ve started making close bonds with people because of it. I’m not afraid to talk anymore, and especially in the past few days I’ve gotten to know a lot more people. Making new friends and having a lot of people to talk to is the best feeling ever, and they’ve made me really comfortable and happy here. Which is kind of crappy because I have to leave some of them this week. But I’m having so much fun now, I don’t want it to stop! I love it here. I think exchanges should be a minimum of 4 months. That would be ideal!
Next week, Emilie and all her friends are going to be at school all day writing exam after exam (they have exams for ALL of their subjects next week, which basically means I’m not going to see her at all this weekend) so I think me and Jocelyn (another Canadian who I’ve become really good friends with) are going to do some biking and maybe go downtown a few times, and hang out with the other canadian girls sometimes too. I’m not really sure, we’ll figure something out, but since everyone’s going to be at school or work it leaves us to find things to do by ourselves. I don’t like not going to school here, I like seeing all our friends and hanging out! We go downtown all the time so there’s nothing really do discover there anymore. But biking will be good, we are in dire need of exercise (I don’t understand how the french are so skinny… there must all have amazing metabolisms) and if it’s nice we can maybe swim in our pool!
I don’t know what I’m going to do without Emilie, after spending 6 months with her I feel as if she is my sister and it’s going to be very bizarre being an only child again. We talk about everything, and I’m going to be so sad to leave her! I love her siblings as well, and I’ve learned a lot about having brothers and sisters from them. I have concluded that, even though there are fights and the little sister can get annoying a lot, I want to keep them! I sincerely hope that after this exchange me and Emilie keep visiting each other in Canada and France, because I can’t imagine it any other way!
Well, I’m going to go now, I hope you have gained a little insight as to how I am feeling and a little bit of how my life is going here, I miss you all! Ciao
