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.

About Time

So... I figure it was about time to update my blog...who's still out there, following me? It doesn't seem like anyone really is, so am just writing this for myself, but you know... If you're following, drop me a line =)

So, what's happened since my last post? Well, MAJOR Culture Shock. Ha. That's fun. Not. But I got over it with a kick up the bum and major help from the best host family ever.

I finished off the school year by dressing up as a cowgirl and dancing YMCA, Bet On It and doing the Haka in front of the entire school, because I'm totally cool like that. I love small private schools... I actually think that Notre Dame is the best school I've ever been too. We might not have all the facilities and it may be old and whatever, but it's MY school, and damn, I love it there. Some of those people are incredible.

Then I did work experience at SNCF, the rail company here. I did it because everyone else in my class were on exams, but I didn't do them, so work experience was suggested for me. It was actually quite cool. I learnt a lot of things and talked to heaps of people =) i also had to do a rapport de stage, or a report, on it. This is not work experience Aussie-style. It's work experience French-style. Which means a report detailing everything that you've learnt and how the company works and the history and everything. Which ended up being 23 pages long. I spent hours and hours on it and I have to say, that I'm damn proud of what I've done. And if I don't get at least 10 I will cry, which is no joke. I also got a deal with my host mum, being that if I got 15 then she would come and get her belly button pierced with me, because she's scared of needles but I really wanted her to come with me. I love her! Coolest host mum EVER. So now we are playing the waiting game.

July was spent travelling Europe... I love the casual manner in which I say that! I flew out of Toulouse to London on July 2, to meet my mum and sister. The UK Border was very scary with the whole interrogation thing going on, but two hours later I was through and jumped on my sister in greeting. We went straight to Becky and Mike's house- my mum's friends who live near Gloucester. They live in a tiny little typically English village and it was lots of fun to see that =) Then it was off to London to be typically tourist. Truth be told, I think London could have been a lot better, but there you go. We also visited places Harry Potter was filmed and walked in amongst the rocks at Stonehenge... and I saw Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Chicago and Legally Blonde on West End. i heart Legally Blonde, talk about AMAZEMENT. And I met the main actors/actresses, which was pretty cool. (THE PACKAGE GUY! ...If you don't get this, get yourself to London or New York and watch the show). Then it was off to Paris, which was once again pretty awesome, especially EURODISNEY! We were really lucky because on the day we went there, it looked like it was going to pour down with rain, so there was no one there, but it didn't rain, not one drop. YAY! It was amazing, I love Disney. After that it was direction: Barcelona. This was my favourite place on the whole trip. I loved it there... the people, the culture, everything, and I can't wait to go back to Spain one day (hopefully) and be able to explore of the beauiful country. There were also some interesting experiences with the language, like when I mooed at the shop assisstant to try and find out of the meat was beef... it worked though! Kind of... After Spain, we returned to my house for a little so Mum and Sam could meet my incredible host family. It was really weird seeing them together and I think my mum and Evelyne got on really well, which was great. Then we headed over to the Cote d'Azur for a couple of days. We based ourselves in Nice and visited Cannes, Grasse and Monaco. This meant awesome times on the beach, lots of photos and an epic cactus garden. I cried a lot when I said goodbye to them at the airport, the blubbered in the train, but got over it after two or three days. So all in all, the best July ever.

In July it was also my 18th birthday, yay! I had a small party with my family, with pink, purple and pirate balloons, a pink tablecloth, pink glasses, pink and white napkins and flowery pink plates. It was awesome =) Two days later, the village party started up, which last for five days, and on the first night I had my two best friends here, Marie-Anne and Michele (better known as Kiki and Mimi) over to party the night away. And party we did.

August has been relatively calm... lots of work on my report and lots of going to the pool with the host mum and sis. And I'm not scared of water anymore which is pretty cool... It's actually the main way I've exercised in the past month. Yes, I did laps. Of a pool. Voluntarily. And I bought myself some pinkn goggles which are uber sexy, because the chlorine was killing my eyes. Weirdest thing ever here though... you're not allowed to wear board shorts in the pool because apparently it's "unclean"...

About four days were spent at Nini's house, who is my host mum's friend. She's absolutely adorable, Spanish and has a dog that waddles... I kid you not. It was incredibly relaxing just spending time there and sleeping, and I even got to hold a frog that we caught =)

Bryani from Sydney came and passed three days with me, which was quite epic to see and hear another Aussie =) Had lots of fun cruising Toulouse and Carcassone and watching A Very Potter Musical- only the best youtube thing ever. Watch it. Seriously. You will not be dissappointed.

And so now I'm on holidays at the beach =) My host family found another host family through EF for a week or so, so I could see how another family lives, so I'm here for about 10 days, and it looks to be great, they're incredibly nice =)

And that about sums up the last three months... waiting excitedly for the next exchangers to arrive (August 28!)

I LOVE my host family.

Culture Shock...

...is a gay piece of crap that I never want to see again. Go away please. I hate you. You're a bitch.

In case you can't tell, I'm well and truly into the 'culture shock phase'. Please someone... tell me that it gets better! I can't do anything in this country without wanting to cry or being anxious or stressing. Fuuuuck that.

Okay, rant over. Let's see what good things there are now... I guess it's been a while since I've blogged, hey? =S

I'll start with Easter. We (being my host family) went to this tiny little random country town called Boule D'Amont in the middle of no where (actually, near Perpignon) where my host dad's family have been for years and years. At the moment though, all that's left there is Claude, my host uncle, and his five year old daughter, Any (Annie). We left the Sunday at about midday day, taking two hours to drive down. It was gorgeous, really different to where I live, and like a mini holiday =) We walked around the village (taking us like, five minutes, tops... I'm not exxagerating) and met some old family friends. It was truly one of those French country towns, except there wasn't even a boulangerie (and you know that in France, a town is miniscule when there's not even a boulangerie!) The night was spent playing cards and Trivial Pursuit with my host family, equally more bonding with these amazing people and a very late lights out. At nine am on the Monday, we were up and searching for Easter eggs... in the garden, that the Easter Bell bought for us. Yes, Easter Bell. Not Bunny. I thought it was weird too haha. Then it was off to the village for the fete, as in celebration. Basically we ate, drank and talked a lot... I had my first Easter Omelette ever (a tradition in Ariege) and took a heap of photos so I would never forget.

I also recently had school holidays... again =) We have them every five weeks, once again leading to my love of France. These ones I spent in Strasbourg. I left on the Sunday early morning with my host dad taking me off to Toulouse because there were no trains going from Saverdun (the closest train station) to Toulouse... of course, SNCF were striking. Praying that this wouldn't cause any problems, I got on my train to Montpellier with no problems. I had a three hour stop in Montpellier, which I spent by getting lost, interrogated by a random drunk, getting really hot, finding where I wanted to go, trying to find a toilet (I love you Macca's) and then waiting and the train station paranoid someone would steal my luggage. All in all, three hours well spent (I'm not actually joking- it was beautiful and an awesome adventure). Then, my train to Lyon was packed- people were even standing in the isles... Thanks SNCF. I did have a seat though, luckily and wasn't too badly affected. The train station at Lyon was horrible... people EVERYWHERE. I simply walked out and sat outside for fifteen minutes, before going inside and finding my next train to Strasbourg. This one was luckily quite empty which meant quite a relaxing ride until 10.20 pm, where I reached Strasbourg and was met by Isabelle, by host cousin.

I had a fantastic time at Strasbourg... I stayed with Isabelle and her boyfriend, Jeremy, two of the nicest people ever. I was also taken out around Strasbourg by Elodie, Isa's friend, who was incredibly kind =) Strasbourg was so different to Toulouse. I saw the most amazing cathedrale ever, Alsacian-style houses, 'La Petite France," rode around on trams and learnt that it's actually not too hard to get around a city I don't know by myself. I even went to Germany one day =) Lots of shopping was done (read: WAY too much shopping was done), as well as lots of sleeping in and lazing around. Basically I had an awesome break and a wonderful time... I love Strasbourg and was so glad to get the chance to go. I was meant to come back on the Friday or Sunday, but due to the lovely SNCF strikes (still going!), I decided to wait until they died down a little to come home without a problem... so got back on the last Friday of the holidays. I didn't realise how much I missed my host family until I saw them again, and was incredibly happy... I love them.

The last weekend of the holidays was the first village festival. Basically it was a mini version of the Royal Show spread out around the village. They even roasted a cow on a spit (yes, a cow. I'm not exagerating). I rode around on a tractor for like two hours and there was lots of liveliness and music and talking and food. There was even a black swan (yeah Perth!!). And probably the best part of the entire weekend? It was warm enough for me to wear a dress =)

School was back to usual, with the only change being that I've actually understood French lit for the past two weeks.

May 1st was the 'fete du travaille.' I'm not exactly sure what it was for, but basically 'mugeut,' a type of flower, was sold and we ate and drank a lot at my host brother's house. We were up at 5.30am the Saturday morning to drive to Toulouse and catch the train to Bordeux, then to Angouleme, where Sebastian picked us up and drove us to his house. We spent the day talking around the table with the family which was great. I was freezing cold that night though so slept really badly... then got called silly in the morning for not waking someone up that night for a blanket... I was trying to be nice... oh well. Sunday we recommenced the eating, then at midday it was back to Angouleme, Bordeux, Toulouse and Mazeres . All in all an extremely tiring but fun weekend.

Next weekend it's off to Chambery to see Mini, a fellow Perthian on exchange... I can't wait =)

Bisoussssss

Some days...

Occasionally, as exchangers, there are days where things just don't go well. We can't communicate, have cultural misunderstandings, make mistakes, don't realise things, offend people... a lot of the time without realising it.

What we have to remember is that there is always something good that comes out of it. Take my worst day so far. Something great that came out it was realising how much my host family actually care about me. And maybe I really am starting to become a part of my family.

"Every day may not be good, but there is some good in every day."

A shout out to the ever lovely Lizz. She's probably my best friend that I've met over here...she's wonderful and funny and my twin and I love her, but unfortunately her exchange adventure finished up after three months. I miss her an incredible amount, but it sounds like she's having an awesome time back home in New Zealand. My next holiday destination...most definately Kiwi Land to see her.