Yay

I love exchange. Long live "the honeymoon period." I'm meant to get into my Culture Shock stage in two weeks time, officially. Screw that, I say. I'm not going to expect it- because if I do, then that'll be my excuse always, and I won't try and be happy. I'm planning on keeping a positive attitude, talk to my friends, host family, and express how I feel as best as I can in French. Every day is a new day. Just because I'm in the time period of culture shock, doesn't mean I have to always be sad and upset and homesick. I'm expecting it, of course I am. But I want to be as positive as possible.


What else is there to say? Let's see.

My last week of the holidays was pretty good- mostly staying at home in pyjamas! But nice to have a break. Then it was back to school...oh joy, school. But yeah it was ok, I guess. I'm really starting to figure out who are my friends here and who aren't, and as well as that, I'm beginning to have closer relationships with people- they are 'amis' rather than 'copains'. I got my first ever 'bulletin', with and average of 14. 14!! Yay! People who don't know the French school system, 14 is good. Very good. I also got 19 in one of my English tests (which means FREAKING AMAZING work, like 120%), but then got 10 in another. But I did pretty damn well. It was a vocab test on all the words they had learnt from the beginning of the year (like over 600), then we were given 200 words to translate. They had to be the perfect word that the teacher wanted as well, he didn't want any synonyms...loser. And I was only given like, a week's notice to study. So yeah, I think I did pretty damn well.

Last weekend was awesome. I started off my singing in Spanish at my school's open day... yeah now that was interesting... We sang La Bamba and danced, and luckily I didn't make a total fool of myself. I think. My IC (as in the person in charge of me), Evelyne, came to the open day and afterwards, we all (as in her and her husband and me and my family) went to eat lunch, then I went home with her to wait at her house for Lily, her exchange student, Chelsea and Anna (two other exchange students). At Evelyne's house, there is no tv or internet and no phone signal either. It's actually really interesting to see the way that they live and how they entertain themselves...but still, I don't think I could stand it for a year, so here's to you, Lily. I was the only Aussie against three New Zealanders, which was an interesting experience! Haha. Oh, and Vegemite totally wins over Marmite. Anyway, we all bonded very quickly, as most exchange students do, because we understand what we are going through, I guess. Sunday we slept in... a lot! And then we went off to these gorgeous castle ruins on top of a hill, from the 13th century, I think it was! It was incredible. We took lots of photos and fell over in the mud and snow a heap. One of the best parts of tyhe weekend though, was when my host family came to pick me up and my sister ran over to me and gave me a huge hug... maybe she doesn't hate me after all! I think we are getting to have a real sister relationship now haha.



Then the weekend past was pretty cool as well. On Saturday, I went to Toulouse with a bunch of French and German people, as at the moment there are Germans at school doing a mini exchange. Didn't buy anything but had fun looking at clothes and being in the city again. That afternoon, I met my host brother, Gary, who's twenty five, at the train station and we went to Atyka... where I got the cartilage in my ear pierced =) Hopefully there'll be more to come! That night Gary, Stephenie, his girlfriend, her family and me went to see Holiday on Ice, and ice skating show, which was awesome- I love watching skating! It's so pretty. Then I slept over at his house, and on Sunday we drove back home and they had lunch at our place. All in all an epic weekend.

Cartilage in my hurt hurts like a bitch but so worth it =) Actually it wasn't too bad at the time, it's just the fact that I am a tool and keep on hitting it accidently when I'm doing things. Nice one Kirsty. I'm paranoid about getting an infection as well.

Basically life is pretty epic. Fracne is amazing, God is great.