Ring Ring Ring

Well, the conference call was certainly an odd experience. As it turns out, my mom didn't think it was important enough to open the e-mails I forwarded to her from my CIEE coordinator, even though I told her about them twice, and we had to scramble to find a phone that could do long distance calls to Maine. Then, when we called in, the line told us cheerfully that our conference call would be starting in roundabout fifteen minutes, and hung up on us. Only after three tries at calling did we finally get in, and we had to wait another five minutes before the coordinator even called in.

Then, after about half an hour of talking, the coordinator suddenly hung up.

So me, my parents, and six other France participants sat there anxiously waiting for her to get back online. (It was the opinion of several of the girls and their parents that the coordinator, who is admittedly a tad long-winded, was talking to herself for so long that even after five minutes she hadn't even realized that she had hung up on us.) It took one of the parents calling her office to get her to come back. So, that was fun.

But all in all, it was a good source of information. She mostly went over the handbook with all of us girls (no boys this year...) and our parents, and we were allowed to ask questions. Of course, my parents immediately jumped in wherever the poor coordinator took a breath and asked dozens and dozens of questions, but they were all good ones that would have been asked anyway.

Long story short, she explained to us what would happen when we arrived at our last orientation at Boston, how we should go about getting our visas, how we should handle money while abroad, the ways we should treat our host family and the ways they would treat us differently than we expected, French customs and culture, and tons of other useful information. She also explained a lot about the typical French school system.

Which brings me to my most exciting piece of information...

My coordinator said we should be getting our host families sometime in the next two weeks!!

I can't even believe how excited I am. This is one of the most important parts of the exchange program. I can't wait to see who I'll be living with, if they have any kids, in what area of France I'll be staying, knowing their names. It's an indescribable feeling. I mean, how do you describe the feeling of gaining a whole new family? I can't wait to talk to them and e-mail them...I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the next week.

I'm studying like crazy for my finals, especially my French one. Well...and my Chemistry and Geometry. The rest I can pretty much handle without doing anything. It's the last week of school, I can't wait for summer, even if it does mean summer school. The ability to sleep in is worth even the most nasty of online courses. Five more days and I'll be free~

More when I get my host family information.

~Josie