A certain "Je ne sais quoi"

Alright, this has really been bugging me lately.

I'm in France. I'm in the South of France. It's warm and sunny. I live on the beach. I'm gaining weight because the food here is so good.

So why have I been so homesick and unhappy lately?? I mean really, what else could I want from life right now??

But I think it's a little more complex and nuanced than that. No, I'm not whining and packing up my bags because I'm quitting the program. When I sign up for or commit to something, I'm going to see it through to the end and try my best. That being said, I think I'm doing a fairly good job of teaching here. My students can conjugate verbs as complex as "to be" (I am/he is? that doesn't make any grammatical sense), which they aren't technically supposed to learn until middle school. Plus, on top of that they know all sorts of vocabulary. So I really do give a damn, even though it doesn't sound like I wholeheartedly am doing so.

But I digress.

I've come to the realization that being in France is only prolonging the rest of my life to come. What's wrong with that, right? Well, normally I'd say nothing. But I realized that I really don't know what I'm going to do when I get back in June. And I'll be 23, so in theory my professional life should have already begun well before then.

And I know, I know, who am I to complain about being abroad for a whole year and putting off other real responsibilities?? Well, usually I would never even think of doing such a thing, but it really is bothering me that I'm out of college and still spending all my parents' money.

So I think that's the root of my problems here. I can't have the time of my life and still keep a clean conscience about it.

Oh yeah, and being so far away from all the closest people in my life is kind of weighing on me. Having friends here is a bit inconvenient because we're all scattered in different areas of the city, working in different schools, with buses that stop circulating at 7 p.m. So only once in a while can we actually hang out when our schedules permit.

Maybe I'm just being a big baby. We'll see what happens when I go back to California for my winter break in TWO WEEKS! Maybe I'll get it out of my system and come back to France for my second half of this program refreshed and ready to go.

On verra...

...16 days until California!

Un dimanche à la campagne

Hands down, this past weekend was my best in France -- ok vacation in Tours was great, but this was different and more special.

After already speaking in French and eating food immensely yesterday, today continued on that same theme. But this time I hopped on the train to Toulon where some friends of family friends (confusing, huh?) drove me 30 minutes into the Provence countryside in a little village called Forcalqueiret. There, said family friends have a large eight-bedroom house that's been converted into a hotel. The second Sunday of every month, they invite all their friends over for an insanely large meal, with the principle of bringing friends together to enjoy French culture, gastronomie (of course!), and philosophy.

They'd invited me to the Galère in October, but I was too busy with moving in and sorting my life out to attend. So I picked November to come and I'm really glad I decided to. Interestingly enough, the guest speaker this month -- the philosophy part of the meeting -- was a fairly well-known and published lecturer on the degradation of the French language. Figures that his assigned seat was directly across from mine. A subtle hint on Jean-Claude's part?? But before I ever opened my mouth, he started talking about how foreign words were infiltrating the French language, mainly from the Internet and English vocabulary. I don't think he intended it in a rude way, then again he's French so he probably did, but he's very proud of his country and language and holds firmly to the old-school thought that it's necessary to preserve one's history through language. He actually took to me quite quickly the more I spoke because he's fluent in English, though not a single word was exchanged in English the entire day -- aside from his examples of words infiltrating the language.

One of his friends also latched onto my conversation very quickly because he had plenty of questions about the United States and my opinions on the comparisons between France and the U.S. Oh yeah, did I mention that the age of this group ranged from 55 to 98? So hence a lot of the very proud opinions on display in that room. Again though, they fondly labeled me "la petite Américaine," from which I could detect a hint of compassion in their voices.

Where I'm getting with this though, is the 98 year-old -- my great-aunt Yvonne. This is the fifth time I've visited her in France, however it was the first time I'd seen her in a wheel chair. She was another example of the elder French generation that I remember so vividly who was very proud of herself and her autonomy.

Me and my great-aunt, just after having stuffed our faces with white cake filled with fruit chunks and frosted with a maple-chocolate glaze, mmmmm. The cake was for another member's 80th birthday. To which Jean-Claude joked, "No one is allowed to die until after April 2009" (Yvonne's 100th birthday).

Every time I have to reintroduce myself to her, because she has a hard time remembering my family. She takes to my dad quickly because he's usually the one taking care of her and speaking to her the most. But today was my turn; I looked after her during lunch and tried to get her to speak a little bit when everyone else started having their own side conversations amongst themselves. Yvonne also is a regular attendee at these gatherings and supposedly she'd been a little down over the last few months. When I was leaving, they told me that she looked the happiest since her recent "pouty-period" and when I left to catch my train, she kept looking for me. That's really touching.

Speaking of touching, it really hurt to reintroduce myself this time because after Patrick seemed to have exhausted every connection between us, he finally remembered to tell her that I'm the granddaughter of her sister, Thérèse. Then Yvonne looked a little upset in that older-sister way I know all too well and asked, "How is she? She hasn't written me in a very long time."

I looked at Patrick blankly and was at a loss for words. We've told her time and time again that she passed away but it's a concept that she just hasn't been able to grasp. He could tell that I was kind of shocked by the question and quickly picked up the ball saying, "She's well," looking at me to follow suit. Feebly I replied, "She says to tell you 'hi.'"

And that was it. I even felt my eyes start to sting and well up a little bit during that moment. Even as they're starting to now.

But it was a great time and I can't stress enough how glad I was to have been invited. It's just really making me realize how much I miss my family.

Home is where the heart is

...So cliché, yet soon, my heart will be (partially) in France. The prospect of my dad moving out here to start up his new job in less than one month and coming for a visit in one week is a very, very exciting one! With that comes more visits from my other family members.

Here's a map of where he'll be living, that's Geneva, Switzerland to the northeast and Lyon, France to the west. Hope you bring some warm clothes, Dad :-)

Although he'll be about 5 hours northeast of me by car and 7 by train, it just opens so many more doors! He and I can travel to fun places one weekend a month. He can make his way down here and pick me up to visit our family and family friends near Toulon. I can go out there and experience life on the French/Swiss border! And did I mention I'll get to see my family on multiple occasions during the next seven months?!

Obviously, you can tell I'm getting pretty homesick. Now that the excitement of travel has certainly dwindled and even come to a lull, I'm left dreaming about the next school vacation in about a month and a half.

Don't get me wrong, everything here is still fun and different, but I'm starting to get into a routine that doesn't quite meet the expectations I originally had for France. But this weekend does hold the promise of meeting some local French boys. I'm meeting Ludo to go out on Saturday night, and perhaps I'll be having dinner with Sarah and her neighbor's friends just before that. If I can get into a groove and begin speaking French more frequently than I hardly am doing now, I'll start to feel better about things. Actually going back to teaching has helped me a little because it's forcing me to speak French since the little ones don't understand much English at all. It's better (as far as learning the language is concerned) than being on vacation with other Americans speaking only English together!

Oh and one thing I really missed about home was Grey's Anatomy! I can't watch it on ABC.com here, because those bastards have blocked free access for anyone outside of the U.S. But suddenly it dawned on me last night to full-out illegally download episodes through a file-sharing service. Like we used to do in the dorms when we missed out on our favorite shows. And it actually worked!! I've got the first three episodes of the new season on my computer and tonight ABC is airing Episode No. 6... so I'm not too far behind! Plus, I'm sticking it to the man (I've never said that and being a moderate-conservative, never really wanted to until right now... must be the liberal European sentiment winning me over) by illegally downloading a show they refuse to let me watch for free online. If I was back at home or still in college, I could watch on ABC.com to my little heart's content, so they're not really losing out on a future customer. I have every intention of legitimately watching once I return home.

Anyways, I'm hoping I made the right decision to be here for nine months.

...Did I do the right thing to sign up for the nine-month program instead of seven? Most of my friends leave in May, but I'll still be around after. Hopefully by then I'll be much more accustomed to living by then and already have friends here to keep me busy! So far I'm content, it just is a lot of work to go from day-to-day here!