Life

I love these girls.

Life currently consists of:
Waking up at 6am then staying in bed until 6.40, when I jump out of bed and begin racing to be ready.
Getting to the school bus ten minutes early so I'm not one of the unlucky few that arrive last that have to squash up three to a seat or have to wait for another bus to come. (This happened twice in my first week. This will not happen again).
Arriving at school dead tired although super excited to see my amazing friends, and listening intentively until 10am, break, where I eat Speculoos with Mimi and Kiki.
More intense concentration until 12, where I eat some postively disgusting canteen food.
And yet again we get some concentration from 13.45 until 15.35... where I once again eat Speculoos with Mimi and Kiki during break.
More work! Until 16.45.
Bumming around/studying, depending on my mood, with whoever is there, usually the epic Florian.
Bus time.
Dinner/being annoyed by my host parents (lovingly).
Study for about three hours.
Bed.
And occasionally some horse riding and dancing.

In other words, my life consists of school work.
And for the first time, this makes me happy.
I love school here.

First EF meeting this weekend with the new exchangers... YAY!
Oral exam tomorrow for my work experience. No yay.
15 on my exam? Belly button done with the host mummy. YAY! For having a super cool mum.

12,5

One very short post to say:
TWELVE POINT FIVE, BITCHES!

This week I had my first ever test in which I was marked equally to the other students (not just on the way I wrote, but on what I wrote). And I got 12,5. Which was better than a fair lot of the class.

My life is now complete.

=)

Amis

What I love in French is the way we speak about friends. There are two words for 'friend' : copain(copine) and ami(amie). Well, there are technically four words due to the masculine and feminine versions of both, mais bon. Two words. Copains are the people you know, you like, your friends, but they don't play a particularly huge part in your life. But they're great to have. Amis are the people close to you, the people around you that you love very strongly. I guess you'd describe them as your 'best' friends, but more as the group of best friends that you have... in Australia, I'd say that my dance family, or my clarity group, are some of my 'amies', for example. But there are also your 'meilleur(e)(s) ami(e)(s)', or 'best friends'. (The 'e' and 's' are there because of the whole male/female/plural thing). This are the people that you could never let go, ever, and they are an integral part of you that you couldn't stand to lose.



I find it hard to have meilleur(e)s ami(e)s in Australia. I have ami(e)s, that is for sure, but most of them have a meilleur(e) ami(e), who is not me. I guess my sister is my meilleure amie over there.



Over here, however, I have somehow managed to find three people that make my life amazing (and my host family, but I'll talk about them another time). These are Marie-Anne, Michele, and Florian.



Marie-Anne (otherwise known as Kiki)
This girl is INSANE. She is unique and special and I absolutely love her. I don't care what anyone says, she's amazing. Kiki has this joy for life that just shines out of her and it definately shows when she laughs. When she laughs, you do too- it's contagious- and also very... interesting... you start off my laughing at her (in a loving way) but end up laughing with her. Apparently when I first met her I had an expression on my face as if to say... oh crap... she's MAD! But we talked and she wowed me with her amazing flute-playing skills, and I'm proud to say that she is without a doubt a meilleure amie.



Michele (Mimi)
Oh Michele, what can I say about you? You always bring a smile to my face and you always let me hug you. Your explanations when I don't understand a word can be highly amusing but always make sense. She's the one ready to help me when I'm about to kill myself because I don't understand l'Odysee or philo or maths or Spanish or or or... Mimi was one of the first people in my class to really be friendly to me, not to her gain, but because she's just adorable like that. And she is always there to discuss our nutty philo teacher (Devil: Do that! It's good! Angel: Don't do that! It's not good!) or to hurry up Marie-Anne and Henri and discuss the possibility of throwing water/mashed potato on them. Je t'aime TROP FORTE Mimi.



Florian
When I first met him, I didn't know what to think. He was the dark silent one that never said a word in class, but I got to know him because of the ever-awesome Flora and Salome, and we both took the bus which meant that there was someone that I was able to hang with and annoy =) As I got to know him though, I realised that Florian is one of the most awesome people I have ever met in my life and my year wouldn't be the same without him.

And I have a lot of other awesome amis that I've made, French, Kiwi, Aussie... from everywhere. Thanks. You guys made my year.

Closeness has nothing to do with distance.

Carpe Diem

YAY! For people actually reading this thing =) And a shout out to the best sister in existence because she never stopped reading and waiting.

I have a host niece! Eight weeks early and born by caesarean, she's in the neo-natal clinic but going well. Sarah Geraud, 11-09-2010.

Time is getting on. I've been here for eight months and nine days. I leave on November 26, which means that I have no desire to count the number of days left. Why? Because it is too short.

In our philosophy classes, we've been discussing time and existence. We ask WHY, not how. Why do humans try to contol time? Notions noted : Time is one of the only things that humans can't control. We live either in the past or the future- by dreading or looking forward to things in the future, or by looking back to the past, with regret, or holding onto it and refusing to let go because it was better then. But it's kind of stupid of us, because we can't change the past, and it's not sure that we'll be around for the future. You could die. Tomorrow. Today. In two seconds. You don't know. I don't know. And we never live in the present.

This year, I lived in the past for a long while, constantly thinking of Australia, holding on, refusing to let go or change. My host family picked me out of this, shook me off, and changed my life. I lived in the present. But now, stupidly, I can't stop thinking of the future. Why? Because I can't control it.

I've changed. Let me just put this out to everyone in Australia, right now : I am not the same girl I was when I left. This means I refuse to put up with all the shit that goes on. And if you annoy me, you'll know it. Things like saying hello and goodbye are important. I am my own person and I do not apologise for who I am. I hate being told what to do if it's not in a respectful way. I live my life the way I want and I don't make any apologies for it. I know that I'm slightly repeating myself, but exchange involves a lot of repeating. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think many people are going to like the new me. I think I'm going to lose a lot of the people that I was once close to. I don't know how I feel about this. All I know is that I'm a better person than I was when I left Australia. I hate who I used to be. I'm finally good in my skin. I owe everything to my host family. They gave me my life back and I don't know how I will ever be able to thank them. And I wouldn't change that for everything.

So I'm trying not to think about saying goodbye. I'm trying not to think about the fact that my year is slowly drawing to a close. I'm just making the most of each day. I'm dancing through life with some of the best, most amazing, wonderful, incredible people I have ever met.

Carpe diem. It'll change you forever.

La Rentree

Apparently I have two people reading this... Sweet... Oh well. I shall keep on writing for you two =)

Sorry if my English is a bit crappy at the moment, I'm definately in French mode at the moment. But I'll try!

All of the exchange students have arrived. It's great to see their excitement, their smiles and happiness as they realise that their lives here are only just beginning. I keep on telling them, make the most of your time here and value every second, because before you know it, your time will be up.

I only have three months left here. Time passes quickly and I don't know how I'm going to handle it the day that I return to Australia. I'm good here. I'm not stressed, I have an amazing family, wonderful friends... life is good. I've grown a lot. No longer am I the shy baby that wouldn't speak her mind and lived to make everyone else happy that I was when I left Australia. I live differently. I'll tell you what I think, what I like, what I hate, I'll speak to everyone and everyone, make my own decisions... and most importantly, I don't live for other people anymore. I live for myself. Does this sound selfish? Perhaps. Maybe it is. But I need to be good in myself first, and then if it brings me pleasure, I can make other people happy. So I made the concious choice- my life is mine, and it's me that chooses what I want to do with it. And that is why I think that upon going back, people will not be impressed by me. But do I care? No.

La rentree de classe was yesterday- in other words the return of the school year. I'm in Terminale, or in other words, senior year, and my timetable is really quite insane...

• Eight hours of philosophy
• Four hours of history-geography
• Two hours of English literature
• Two hours of exams (per week)
• Four hours of French literature
• Three hours of Spanish
• Four hours of English
• Two hours of sport
• German classes when ever I can fit them in (which needs to be discussed with the teacher)

What exchange has taught me is to NEVER complain about the work in Australia... My mindset is now, think Aussie work is hard? Try doing senior year in another language, where you are at school for at least ten hours a day. Now that's hard. By senior year in Australia was a breeze compared to this.

It was great to see all my friends again, and surprising to see who out of them I was excited to see the most. I think I have got the most amazing school ever and really will be sad to say goodbye. But for now I'm just going to value the time I have with them.

Biz.