Struggles

Struggles:

Exhaustion. You are fine one week, and then all of a sudden it knocks you over the head. The adrenaline that has been feeding you for the month runs out, and the exhaustion comes charging in. The first day I was tired enough to have trouble keeping my eyes open, I figured it was just because I'd had a difficult day and gotten more exercise than I have in a while. Then, after two more days of the same feeling, I realized that this exhaustion may take a while to shake off (and it doesn't help that I just woke up at 8:30 after going to bed near 3 AM). To understand French, I have to pay attention. Once I stop trying to understand, I stop understanding. I can let my mind wander when someone is speaking English and still register what they are saying. Not in French. And paying constant attention, struggling to separate the words in the sentences my teachers or friends say, that's tiring. When I take notes, I will focus on writing a word and then realize I have missed five more words that the teacher said while I was writing. And then, if I have overcome the struggle to keep up and take notes (or just copied my neighbor's notes), there is the new struggle of trying to understand them and learn about the Industrial Revolution. That's tiring too. I'm tired.

Homework. School work in general. The teachers don't write assignments on the board or hand you a typed sheet of important dates. They tell you once and then it's up to you to remember. And you can't go in and ask them after school, because they change classrooms every period and you don't know where they'll be. Many times I get to school and there was an assignment I had never heard or a test I didn't know about. You say to yourself, "oh there is a half day on Wednesday, I can catch up then." Wednesday comes, and you look at your assignments, and you realize you don't understand 9/10ths of the work. Pretty soon, you realize that in Economics you have about a thousand uncompleted work sheets.

Eating. It may not sound hard, but switching up the main meal of the day is really confusing. Lunch is the huge meal, not dinner. Breakfast is not really a full meal. But I get hungry at breakfast, really hungry. I'm used to my dad's huge weekend breakfasts of popovers and waffles and homefries and eggs. So I end up eating about four bowls of cereal. Then lunch comes along, and I am barely hungary. But lunch is when all the delicious food is served! Dinner will probably be leftovers from lunch the day before; this is my chance to enjoy French cuisine. That is a dilema. My lactose intolerance hasn't actually caused me that many problems because my family understands and is very willing to help me out. They don't always understand what I can't eat, but I have never gone to a meal and found nothing to munch on. When in doubt, there is always bread. No, the real problems come from the schedule. I better get used to it soon.

Missing my family and friends. When I am talking to people or dancing (had my first hip hop class this week, too early to tell if I really love it or not) or working or watching gossip girl with Alice I feel fine. It is when things slow down, when people stop trying to talk to me, when there is nothing to do, that the missing feelings come out of the woodwork. I start to think that if only this person was here, they could cheer me up and make me laugh. If only my parents were here to vent to, and give me words of encouragement. It hasn't been too much of a problem, because most of the time things are happening and I am caught up in marveling at France and all things French. But there have been a couple days where I really feel it.

Rain. Cold. More rain. Wind. Maybe snow this winter. And rain. It is not a good sign for your health when your toes start to turn blue. And it is not a good sign of your intelligence when you are wearing shoes that allow you to see your toes in weather that can turn them blue.


But don't worry, it's not all bad. Not even mostly bad. Just a little bit hard sometimes. Mostly, I love it here. I feel like I am really starting to make some friends. Comprehension is slowly becoming easier. Speaking is still hard, but it looks like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I love going into town and browsing the shops and buying a crepe or a pastry to snack on. Karate is fun, and it feels great to get exercise. Art class was more interesting this week (there was a lot of doing nothing in the previous classes). I got 100 percent on my math test, which is a rare score in France. The grading is really different here. It is on a 20 point scale, and a 10 is like a C. 14 is a great score, and higher than that is hard to achieve. Not in math, because there is always a right and wrong answer. But in other classes, the grading is pretty subjective. If everyone gets an 8 in the class, 8 is good. If everyone gets 16, 8 is awful. Passing depends on weather the teacher wants to pass you. I'm not sure exactly how the grading is going to translate to the American school system...

The French school system has given me an appreciation for the American school system. Not to say it is bad, there are a lot of good things about it. The languages are way superior to the way languages are taught in America. It annoys me that all the French kids are able to speak better English than I am able to speak French. They are probably even reading this right now. But here, by your junior year of high school you have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life. You have to choose between S (sciences), ES (economics and social sciences--I chose this one) or L (literature) and that choice will effect the jobs you can get later in life. If you want to be a doctor, you absolutely have to choose S. That is a lot of pressure for a 16 year old. All the teachers (with the exception of maybe my English teacher) really know their stuff, though. They are all definitely qualified to teach, which I can not say about some BHS teachers. But the myth that the French are way ahead of us isn't really true (I heard that about the school system before I left); I have already learned everything in math class so far and lots in history. I guess I'm saying I expected it to be a whole lot better hear. It's not better or worse, just different. There are things I prefer in America, and things I prefer here.

Quickly, before I go make pancakes for my French friends. I love learning the slang here. They say "C'est chaud!" which literally means "that's hot!" here to say "that's hard" or "that's difficult." I told them what "hot" was slang for in America; they found it pretty funny.

That's all for now! Au revoir!!