So.

So, I'm actually starting to think at some point in this year, I might understand a full sentence. That would be an amazing change.

My French is getting better everyday, but that isn't really saying much, since it started out at "incredibly useless" and has since worked itself up to "speak slowly, and you have a 10% chance of being understood"...not to say that my French classes at school were in any way useless to me, because they weren't: they were great, in fact. However, the fact remains that you can take as many classes as you want, and you'll never be able to understand a language the way it's supposed to be understood. Big shock to my system, when I got here? You bet.

I've spent a lot of my time here adjusting to my host family. Coming from a family of three to a family of seven is understandably tough. So is having a little brother. (He can be adorable when he wants to be, which I think is the only thing keeping me from throttling him most of the time.) I like all of my sisters, though, which is great. I would hate to have disputes with them so early on, especially since we see so much of each other from day to day.

But enough with the boring stuff. Nobody cares about my relationships with people or my language skills, on to the fun facts!

Fun Fact 1: The keyboards here are ridiculous. (Every book about culture shock ever written is now screaming at me to rephrase that sentence positively.) Instead of the wonderful QWERTY system, they have an AZERTY system, which means that the W, the A, the Z, the M, and every punctuation mark ever are in the wrong place. Its amazing trying to type. Every time you want to use an A, a Q comes out instead.

Fun Fact 2: The Simpsons is translated into French and is officially the most popular television program among my family. It's actually easier to understand in French because I don't have to follow all the ridiculous political jokes. Also translated: Bones, House M.D., a few game shows...

Fun Fact 3: Weather doesn't always behave. I'm nearly sure I've mentioned this before, but the weather here can go from sweltering-hot-I'm-gonna-die to hurricane weather in an instant. It's crazy and great, since nobody here has air conditioning. Trust me, the wind blasting through your window is the only thing that keeps you sane some days. I am happy to admit, however, that it has officially gotten too cold in the nights to leave your window open. This is great, because it means that if you leave your window open in the evenings, you can close it at night, and not get too hot. I was getting so sick of waking up with millions of mosquito bites all over me.

Fun Fact 4: Today is September 11th. I wore an American Flag bandanna around my wrist the whole day. This prompted several question from my host family.....awkward questions from them. Yeah.

About time to go, now. I seriously need to make this headache go away...

~Josie Harris