I know what you're thinking: "Wow, hey, that one France girl finally updated her blog. How long has it been, a few years since the last post?" and I'll just come out and say it, you're perfectly justified being a little annoyed. Sorry. I did have an excuse, but even excuses have time limits...
My first excuse (just to sate your curiosity) was that, in December, I was forced by some pretty awful circumstances to change host families. I don't want to go into any details, or incriminate anybody, I just want to say that my new host family is better than amazing, and everything is fine now. I've also changed towns and schools, but that was mostly because my old coordinator really wasn't all that great, and I wasn't making too many close friends at my old high school. No harm done there, and I've already made tons of new friends at the new high school.
That's life.
But, anyway, back to the awesome super-cool blog posts you guys are always looking forward to! (Right? ...Right.)
So, I know all of you are just dying to know about Christmas, here. And so, twenty-two days late, here goes every little detail.
I had actually arrived in my new host family n the twenty-third of December, so Christmas was just a little bit awkward. I had brought a gift for them and everything, but there was still that kind of "new person" feeling lingering about. (For reference: It's about the same type of feeling as when you have a new pet, but like...times ten. New exchange student. Ooh.)
As it turns out, Christmas Eve here in France is just about as important as Christmas Day: it's when you get your presents. I gave out my little box of expensive chocolates (you gotta love those French Chocolatiers), and was surprised in turn to get some presents from my host family; namely a scarf, some awesome leg warmers, and a CD from a popular French singer. We all sat down for an hour long aperitif, a sort of snack before a meal to whet your appetite, usually including alcohol, and I was allowed a tiny glass of champagne, just enough for a taste. (It was surprisingly okay, but I don't think I'm a huge fan.)
And then came dinner.
I've come to understand that, in France, Christmas Eve dinner can be...extraordinary. Every stereotype I'd ever heard about French dining (foie gras, escargots, lots of wine, staying at the dinner table for several hours, tons of baguettes) seems to come together for that one spectacular meal. It's really quite a sight. Thankfully, my host family dialed it down a few notches. There was still the foie gras and some traditional mushroom-and-fish type of stew (I didn't like it much, to tell the truth) but there was absolutely no staying at the dinner table for hours on end, for which I was extremely grateful.
After spending an extra hour or two gushing over presents (notably my host sister's new cellphone, which didn't leave her hand for the next several weeks) we all went to bed at a reasonable hour so that we could wake up at Dark o'Clock and start driving up to visit my host mom's family for Christmas. (Don't ask me where they live, because I don't know. I completely forgot to ask. I have no idea if we went north, south, east, or west. I just know we all crawled into the car and bored ourselves silly for two hours listening to the radio and looking desperately out the window for something amusing to engage our attention.)
We finally arrived at the family's house, I had a small heart attack trying to kiss everyone hello and pretend like I remembered names and faces, and then...
The Meal began.
The Meal was unlike any meal that I, even as an American, have ever undertaken. The Meal is not to be joked around with. The Meal is a sacred and time-honored tradition.
The Meal is eight hours long.
It consists of several courses, each with about an hour in between to rest your stomach and allow you time to digest the food you've already eaten. Adults will stay at the table the whole time, talking. Children will very quietly get up out of their seats, sneak over to the door, and go wreak havoc on the rest of the house, playing board games that they've been given for Christmas. They will, however, return for every course, and will eat just about as much as the adults.
I'll just say this now: I have no idea how the people in this country stay so skinny when their stomachs can be like bottomless black holes. Seriously. I was full to bursting after the first course, and I only ate half of it!
(Did I mention that after The Meal is over, about an hour later you're supposed to eat dinner? Yeah, I don't think so. I passed.)
I don't think there's very much to say after that, though. After dinner we all crawled upstairs to try to sleep with our upset stomachs, woke up in the morning somehow hungry again, ate a small breakfast, and sat around lazily for the whole morning. I think the adults were in the dining room talking some more: I personally was tucked up in my room trying to read a little bit in English to get rid of the awful headache I'd gotten from speaking and trying to understand French for the entire day before. (You can think what you want about learning another language, but it's sure painful sometimes.) We all dragged ourselves down to the dining room at around 12 to have a small lunch, and then packed everything in the car and went home, spending the next few days getting up at eleven in the morning and doing absolutely nothing. It was recovery time, I swear.
And that was Christmas.
There is, however, a reason the French say "Happy Holidays" more than "Merry Christmas", and it's not our sissy American reason, either: The French, from what I've seen, really couldn't care less about offending someone's religion by wishing them a Merry Christmas. It's because, in fact, they have two major holidays around this time of year, one of which I was woefully ignorant until a few days before it took place.
The French call it the "Réveillon", and it takes place on New Years Eve.
(This is, actually, the second day of the year to be called the "Réveillon": Christmas Eve is the first. The word, as far as I can tell, comes from the verb "se reveiller", which means "to wake oneself up".)
My host mom gave me the best description of the two holidays: "Christmas is high-strung, very noisy, and it takes a lot out of you. You spend it with your family. Réveillon is whatever you want it to be, because you spend it with your friends."
On the day of New Years Eve, I got all dressed up, put on more makeup than I'm strictly used to, and went to a party.
It was so. Much. Fun.
There was dancing, food, a few "name-the-song" contests that I was awful at, and even some karaoke, which was amusingly awful. I was forced to stand on my chair and wave my paper napkin around for one of the songs, an action I still don't understand, and learned the lyrics to an old 80's French song with some of the most clichéd words I've ever heard. The DJ made me come up and sing the only English song on the Karaoke CDs ("Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King), I sucked spectacularly at it, and I danced until my back and feet were on fire. (I was, of course, the only one that knew all the lyrics to "YMCA" by the Village People, and I belted it out proudly.)
At exactly midnight, everybody started counting down, and as the clock hit midnight, a gigantic wave of sound exploded over the room as noise-makers went off and people started yelling. There was no ball dropping in New York, no Auld Lang Syne, and I have to admit, I didn't miss it. The energy going around that place was absolutely overwhelming. It was all I could do to stay awake for the next few hours, and when we left at around two in the morning or so, I was exhausted. When we got back home, I tumbled into bed almost without changing into my pajamas.
And then, of course, I woke up early in the morning to celebrate the proper New Years. (Those silly French people, nine hours ahead of the rest of us.)
~Jocelyn Harris
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Kiss Kiss
So, when you think about France, a lot of things comes to mind.
Cheese, wine, food. Pretty nice country, very food-y. There are, of course, the stereotypes: generally unclean, the unfortunate side effects of owning pets all over the sidewalks, snobby, American-haters. (Remind me to go over stereotypes in another post.)
It's also pretty likely that within minutes of hearing the word "French," an image pops into your mind of a skinny twenty-something fashionista dressed mostly in black, wearing a beautiful scarf, kissing all of her friends on the cheeks. (Warning: Subject of blog post.)
So, living in France for two plus months, I've had to do a lot of greetings, and therefore have kissed a great many people of both sexes and varying ages.
At first, this seemed like the height of elegance to me. Let's face it, when an American is pressed to come up with the most chic and elegant country they know, a fair few of them will mention France at some point. The European-cheek-kissing-thing has always impressed that dark little part of our souls that tells us living in Europe automatically makes you more awesome as a person. When I was suddenly allowed--nay, expected to take part in the most elegant of elegant greetings, that same tiny part of my soul automatically readjusted my self-worth a notch or two in the good direction. (I'm a shallow, shallow person. So sue me.)
The only problem is, after two months of trying to deal with it, France has hands-down the most annoying greeting system in the entire world.
I want you all to just stop for a second and imagine yourself, as an American, with our perfectly sculpted little space bubble, trying to kiss someone else casually. Or touch their face with yours. The thought kind of made you cringe for a second, didn't it? Admit it, it did. To us, the thought of touching someone else's face with ours is very intimate, saved for interactions between family or very close friends.
But even that can be gotten over. I mean, the whole French space bubble (read: non-existant) thing kind of gave me the creeps for a week or two, but then I sucked it up and told myself that people bumping into me and standing a little too close on the bus was just the price I had to pay for living in France (read: coolest thing ever).
Then you get to the mathematical problems associated with kissing.
Right now, as you're reading this, you've probably read the above sentence a few times. But no: I mean mathematical.
In Paris, you kiss the people you meet twice; once on each cheek. In some parts of France, the number changes to four. In Provence (where I live), the number is three.
But even though that seems pretty easy (if you're in Paris, kiss twice, if you're in Marseille, kiss three times, right?) it turns out all those rules are really just to confuse the heck out of us poor foreigners. The thing is, that's just a guideline. As in, if you live in Provence, most people will expect the usual three-kiss deal. But then they're just not telling you about all the unspoken cultural rules that, as the French, they've been learning since birth.
For instance, when you're greeting a large group of friends, like your classmates at high school, you can abbreviate the greeting to just one kiss on the cheek, and others, realizing that you've just arrived into a big group of people, will expect the shortened greeting and just kiss your cheek once.
(Actually, you really just kiss the air while your cheek is touching theirs. It's complicated, don't expect to get it right the first few times.)
Of course, in every group of friends, there's always the person that wasn't paying attention, or isn't very good at seeing things from the perspective of others, and they'll go in for the two or three kiss thing. This is where things start to get awkward.
You've gone in for the first kiss, everything went fine. Except now you're pulling back, thinking the greeting to be finished, and your friend is leaning in again, going for the second kiss. At this point, you realize that they wanted a full greeting, and go in again (a little late) to try and salvage it, but at the same exact moment, they've realized you wanted to end the greeting there, and begin to pull back.
When was the last time you ran into someone in the hall going the opposite direction as you, and had an awkward little shuffling side-step war trying to get around them? It's like that, but with your face. And instead of that awkward running into each other thing that happens when the two of you in the hallway try side-stepping the same direction and confidently moving forward, the ultimate risk in this situation is accidentally kissing someone straight on the lips, which would be horrifying for all parties involved. Thankfully, I haven't yet seen this happen, but there have been more than a few close calls.
Granted, once you get good at knowing the cultural norms and expectations, it's relatively efficient. I'm not giving it a complete thumbs down, it still makes you look like a movie star. No matter what you're wearing or how your hair looks, when you kiss someone on the cheeks you'll look like one of those hoitey-toitey "I'm-so-fashionable-I-go-to-sleep-wearing-Prada" girls, the ones that everyone pretends are so annoying and everyone secretly wants (to have the resources) to be just like.
So, coming to the end of the review, I figure I should give you all the how-to. (Trust me. It looks simple, until you accidentally go for the wrong side first.)
First step: Get closer to the person than you would normally be comfortable with. I actually had the experience of greeting another American exchange student here very early on into our stays, and we, being both American, automatically opted to try the greeting from the usual American space bubble distance. It was a disaster. Realizing after the first very difficult kiss that it wasn't going to work from a distance, we both tried stepping closer at the same time, which led to us nearly bumping into each other. You're going to have to step out of your comfort zone (literally) and just get close to the person initially. Console yourself that after just a few kisses, it'll be over and you can step back. (Generally, if a French person sees you step back into what they feel is too large of a space bubble, an they know you're American, they'll repect it. I can't say the same thing for the lunch line or the bus, though.)
Second step: DON'T LET YOUR MIND WANDER. I don't care if it's your best friend, that cute guy in your class that you really like, or the President of France, concentrate more on what you're doing than who you're kissing. If you freak, you'll blush, which can either make you look cutely American or just plain stupid, depending on the situation. Remember that the French have been greeting people this way since they were toddlers. It's no big deal to them, like a handshake would be to an American. (Side note: Generally boys don't kiss other boys unless they're family. So, if you're a man, don't freak the French out by going in for the traditional French greeting with another man. A handshake will suffice. You should, however, still use the kisses with women, who won't find it creepy at all.)
Third step: Start from the right. YOUR right. Not much to say about this, it's just the side that some Frenchman long ago decided would be THE side to start on. Your left cheeks will be touching.
Fourth step: Pull back just a little and change sides. This is actually a little trickier than it looks. You have to pull back enough that no part of your face touches when you both move to change sides, but not enough that they think you only wanted one kiss, and the awkward shuffle of accomodation starts (see above). It really just takes practice.
Fifth step: It's basically the same as the first step, but with the other cheek. I figure now would be a good time, however, to bring up technique. First of all, don't slam. I've greeted a lot of people over here, and the people I tend to avoid greeting are the ones that slam their cheeks against mine so hard I think they're going to break my cheekbones. It actually kind of hurts, and it's usually Americans and other foreigners who do this, since the French were probably scolded out of it when they did it as children. You don't need to attempt to merge the molecules that make up your face with theirs, just lightly touch your cheek to theirs and kiss the air by their ear. Which brings me to the next rule: lightly kiss. Don't make this gigantic sucking noise that close to their ear, it's startling. No huge smacking of the lips to demonstrate your affection, or something. Just a very light kissing noise is all it takes. I've met some people who skip the kiss entirely, and just press their cheeks to yours noiselessly. Generally, everyone will have their own special technique, but try to keep yours down to a dull roar.
If you're in a region that requires more than two kisses (PLEASE, research this before you come), repeat steps 4 and 5 until it's done.
Wearing high heels, a scarf, and all black clothing is optional. (For both genders.)
~Josie Harris
Monday, November 1, 2010
Ça Tourne!
Naturally, French school is, to me, ten different shades of awesome. This opinion was justified this last weekend, when I went on the most amazing of all field trips.
Montpellier Film Festival.
As an American, the idea of cinema as an art form is dodgy at best. Film to me, at least two months ago, meant entertainment and possibly a fun trip to the movies with my friends. There were good movies and bad movies, but their worth was mainly assigned based on their plots. If a plot was well done, it was a good movie. I understood that movies took a long time to make, and that things like camera angles existed, but they didn't mean anything to me, the viewer, watching the film. If a film was well done, I thought, I wouldn't notice the camera angles, because they would look natural to me.
The French would have been horrified.
Their idea of film is much more tasteful and artistic. A film is a work of art: no less. It shouldn't have to stoop to the low expectations of pleasing an audience, and its sole purpose is not entertainment. It's an expression of living art. Through the camera, the artist can make his work live, breathe, and flourish. The film tells a story, yes, but much in the same way that a painting does.
The only downside to this: imagine looking at a really boring classical painting. It takes a few minutes to appreciate it, and unless you're an art fanatic, you're very quickly bored. It's nice at first glance, but you don't really understand the message the artist was trying to convey, so you give up pretty quickly.
Films are two hours of art.
So, as I sat on the bus in a parking lot next to the school with about thirty other kids, all of them French, waiting for it to leave and take me to Montpellier and the Mediterranean Film Festival, I was understandably a little wary of the films I expected that I'd be forced to watch as part of the Baccalaureate curriculum. No later than five minutes into the bus ride, my fears were confirmed when one of the Cinéma class teachers grabbed the microphone from the front of the bus and handed out sheets of paper with all the films and their times and locations on it, detailing very rapidly in French what we were supposed to do.
Naturally, no matter how hard I tried to listen, none of what he was saying made any sense to me, so, trusting that my classmates had enough of a conscience not to let the poor stupid American girl get completely lost in a foreign city, I instead spent the bus trip deciphering the list.
(It wasn't very complicated, in the end, although the letters VOSTF continued to confuse me until day two, when I realized they must stand for "Version Originale, Sous-titres Français"...which is pretty much just "Original Version, French Subtitles", if you were having any difficulty translating that.)
We got off the bus about an hour and a half later, walked a mile or so laden down with suitcases to get to the hotel when the teachers mistakenly had the bus driver drop us all off at the wrong one, and then spent an hour or so (I may be exaggerating.) waiting for the incredibly slow elevators to cooperate and take twenty kids and their suitcases down a couple floors, because, of course, there were no stairs.
It didn't take very long after that to get our bags deposited in our rooms, however, and then we were off to the place where they were holding the festival, and the films began!
The first film was, as I feared, a film that was on our school curriculum, and was incredibly boring, though I'm not sure if that was because it was a documentary, or because I could hardly understand a word being spoken. It was all about French-speaking Africa, and if you think French is hard when actual French people are speaking it, you've never heard it with an African accent.
Later, all of the students had been invited to the opening night movie, which was held in this gigantic hall with about a million seats. Every single one of them was full by the end of the night. As a special treat before the movie, a few of the main actors and actresses (none of whom I could identify, but then, I'm not very well-versed in French films) came out and spoke to the audience for a little while. If the reactions of my classmates were anything to go by, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
And that was the first day.
The second day went much like the first, without the long boring bus ride. There was a required film in the morning, which...okay, I sort of slept through it. My roommates kept me up until three o'clock in the morning, and it was incredibly boring. I know that's no excuse, but really. I just couldn't help it. The theater was dark, the chairs were comfy, the movie had music that was kind of soothing...it was impossible to keep your eyes open. I know I saw one or two adults sleeping too.
After the movie, we were required to attend a three-hour discussion of the movie, which, if not incredibly entertaining, was at least a little bit of listening practice for me. After that, my roommates and I went outside to hunt up some lunch, found a McDonald's, and ordered something there.
The afternoon was free choice, and we were allowed to see the films we wanted. It was nice, really, having the choice. I ended up seeing three films before I and the rest of my class ended up calling it a day and going back to the hotel. Sunday morning was also free choice, and I ended up buying a pack of chips for lunch and walking around with a few of my friends, eating in the park and making general fools of ourselves trying to climb monkey bars made for four-year-olds. (What's a few funny looks when you've got monkey bars to play with?)
All in all, I was kind of sad when we got back on the bus ( and not just because the skies had opened and unleashed a torrent of rain on us just as we stepped outside with our jackets all packed in our suitcases.)...
But now, let me tell you, I'm really glad we had a week and a half of vacation after it. I was so exhausted when I stepped off the bus it's not even funny. I spent the next few days spitting out random chunks of unconjugated verbs as attempted speech, my brain just so sick and tired of having to try so hard to understand movies all weekend. I'm almost completely sure that the night I returned home, my host parents asked me about my day, I said the French equivalent of "Liked I did the festival, I to sleep soon please?"
I must have sounded like a drunk French Yoda. Probably not one of my best moments.
~Josie Harris
Montpellier Film Festival.
As an American, the idea of cinema as an art form is dodgy at best. Film to me, at least two months ago, meant entertainment and possibly a fun trip to the movies with my friends. There were good movies and bad movies, but their worth was mainly assigned based on their plots. If a plot was well done, it was a good movie. I understood that movies took a long time to make, and that things like camera angles existed, but they didn't mean anything to me, the viewer, watching the film. If a film was well done, I thought, I wouldn't notice the camera angles, because they would look natural to me.
The French would have been horrified.
Their idea of film is much more tasteful and artistic. A film is a work of art: no less. It shouldn't have to stoop to the low expectations of pleasing an audience, and its sole purpose is not entertainment. It's an expression of living art. Through the camera, the artist can make his work live, breathe, and flourish. The film tells a story, yes, but much in the same way that a painting does.
The only downside to this: imagine looking at a really boring classical painting. It takes a few minutes to appreciate it, and unless you're an art fanatic, you're very quickly bored. It's nice at first glance, but you don't really understand the message the artist was trying to convey, so you give up pretty quickly.
Films are two hours of art.
So, as I sat on the bus in a parking lot next to the school with about thirty other kids, all of them French, waiting for it to leave and take me to Montpellier and the Mediterranean Film Festival, I was understandably a little wary of the films I expected that I'd be forced to watch as part of the Baccalaureate curriculum. No later than five minutes into the bus ride, my fears were confirmed when one of the Cinéma class teachers grabbed the microphone from the front of the bus and handed out sheets of paper with all the films and their times and locations on it, detailing very rapidly in French what we were supposed to do.
Naturally, no matter how hard I tried to listen, none of what he was saying made any sense to me, so, trusting that my classmates had enough of a conscience not to let the poor stupid American girl get completely lost in a foreign city, I instead spent the bus trip deciphering the list.
(It wasn't very complicated, in the end, although the letters VOSTF continued to confuse me until day two, when I realized they must stand for "Version Originale, Sous-titres Français"...which is pretty much just "Original Version, French Subtitles", if you were having any difficulty translating that.)
We got off the bus about an hour and a half later, walked a mile or so laden down with suitcases to get to the hotel when the teachers mistakenly had the bus driver drop us all off at the wrong one, and then spent an hour or so (I may be exaggerating.) waiting for the incredibly slow elevators to cooperate and take twenty kids and their suitcases down a couple floors, because, of course, there were no stairs.
It didn't take very long after that to get our bags deposited in our rooms, however, and then we were off to the place where they were holding the festival, and the films began!
The first film was, as I feared, a film that was on our school curriculum, and was incredibly boring, though I'm not sure if that was because it was a documentary, or because I could hardly understand a word being spoken. It was all about French-speaking Africa, and if you think French is hard when actual French people are speaking it, you've never heard it with an African accent.
Later, all of the students had been invited to the opening night movie, which was held in this gigantic hall with about a million seats. Every single one of them was full by the end of the night. As a special treat before the movie, a few of the main actors and actresses (none of whom I could identify, but then, I'm not very well-versed in French films) came out and spoke to the audience for a little while. If the reactions of my classmates were anything to go by, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
And that was the first day.
The second day went much like the first, without the long boring bus ride. There was a required film in the morning, which...okay, I sort of slept through it. My roommates kept me up until three o'clock in the morning, and it was incredibly boring. I know that's no excuse, but really. I just couldn't help it. The theater was dark, the chairs were comfy, the movie had music that was kind of soothing...it was impossible to keep your eyes open. I know I saw one or two adults sleeping too.
After the movie, we were required to attend a three-hour discussion of the movie, which, if not incredibly entertaining, was at least a little bit of listening practice for me. After that, my roommates and I went outside to hunt up some lunch, found a McDonald's, and ordered something there.
The afternoon was free choice, and we were allowed to see the films we wanted. It was nice, really, having the choice. I ended up seeing three films before I and the rest of my class ended up calling it a day and going back to the hotel. Sunday morning was also free choice, and I ended up buying a pack of chips for lunch and walking around with a few of my friends, eating in the park and making general fools of ourselves trying to climb monkey bars made for four-year-olds. (What's a few funny looks when you've got monkey bars to play with?)
All in all, I was kind of sad when we got back on the bus ( and not just because the skies had opened and unleashed a torrent of rain on us just as we stepped outside with our jackets all packed in our suitcases.)...
But now, let me tell you, I'm really glad we had a week and a half of vacation after it. I was so exhausted when I stepped off the bus it's not even funny. I spent the next few days spitting out random chunks of unconjugated verbs as attempted speech, my brain just so sick and tired of having to try so hard to understand movies all weekend. I'm almost completely sure that the night I returned home, my host parents asked me about my day, I said the French equivalent of "Liked I did the festival, I to sleep soon please?"
I must have sounded like a drunk French Yoda. Probably not one of my best moments.
~Josie Harris
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
What Do We Want?!
So, there was a strike yesterday.
A BIG strike.
Like, as in, I had eight hours of school. And two hours of class.
Why don't we strike like this in America?
Okay, it was something called a "blockage." Now, when I hear "blockage" and "strike" in the same sentence, I get this unpleasant image of some high-schoolers stuffing the toilets full of toilet paper in some sort of awful rebellion. When the French hear it, they think of a very special type of strike done by students.
What happens is this: students gather around every single gate into the school grounds, and they close the gates. So far, so good. Then, they take every single dumpster and trash can and road block they can find and shove it up against the gate. This, my friends, is my idea of a strike. This is the theory: you can exit, but once you've exited, you can't get back in.
And it would be great if it actually worked like that, but in reality they let you in and out. It's just that most students choose to remain out. All. Day. Long.
And of course why should the teachers miss the fun? They don't necessarily take part in the blockage, but they stay home all day and don't come in to teach their classes.
Thus: eight hours of school, two hours of class. I had to go to English and Cinema. I was heartbroken. (Best. Day. Ever.)
The only problem is that they closed the cafeteria too, but that's easily solved by going to a grocery store and buying nothing but junk for lunch.
When do we get to do it again? Keep messing up, please, French government, because it's like a holiday when you do...
A BIG strike.
Like, as in, I had eight hours of school. And two hours of class.
Why don't we strike like this in America?
Okay, it was something called a "blockage." Now, when I hear "blockage" and "strike" in the same sentence, I get this unpleasant image of some high-schoolers stuffing the toilets full of toilet paper in some sort of awful rebellion. When the French hear it, they think of a very special type of strike done by students.
What happens is this: students gather around every single gate into the school grounds, and they close the gates. So far, so good. Then, they take every single dumpster and trash can and road block they can find and shove it up against the gate. This, my friends, is my idea of a strike. This is the theory: you can exit, but once you've exited, you can't get back in.
And it would be great if it actually worked like that, but in reality they let you in and out. It's just that most students choose to remain out. All. Day. Long.
And of course why should the teachers miss the fun? They don't necessarily take part in the blockage, but they stay home all day and don't come in to teach their classes.
Thus: eight hours of school, two hours of class. I had to go to English and Cinema. I was heartbroken. (Best. Day. Ever.)
The only problem is that they closed the cafeteria too, but that's easily solved by going to a grocery store and buying nothing but junk for lunch.
When do we get to do it again? Keep messing up, please, French government, because it's like a holiday when you do...
Saturday, October 2, 2010
May You Have an Interesting Life
Well played, little brother. Well played.
He's been nothing but irritating for the five weeks I've been here, but today he was showing his mother his school notebook, and she asked him about the family picture he was supposed to draw for homework. "Are you gonne draw all of us?"
"Yes. Alexia...and Mama...and Marjorie...and Sandrine...and Papa...and Josie."
And I was floored.
Besides that, there's nothing much to really say. My life has become so interesting that it's actually incredibly boring. I've settled into the closest thing to a routine France offers. Great for my life, bad for my writing, but you can't have both, and frankly I'd choose a routine over having interesting things to blog about. (Wasn't there a Chinese curse to that effect? "May you have an interesting life.")
There's nothing much I can really talk about except for school, I suppose. How boring is that, I live in another country, and my whole life still revolves around the most boring thing possible. The irony is bitter.
Well, let's jump right into it.
The funny thing is, I'm typing this, and you would never know if I didn't tell you, but my handwriting is changing pretty drastically. Teachers still use blackboards over here, and their handwriting is so inexplicably French that I was completely flabbergasted my first week of school. It's hard to describe for anyone that hasn't seen it themselves: a sort of half-cursive, half-print scrawl. It manages to look messy and perfectly sculpted all at the same time. I think the best way I can word it is that half the letters are in cursive and half of them aren't, but the half that is and the half that isn't changes with every individual person. With that sort of influence, it's all I can do to stop myself from outright writing in cursive. I would, if I thought my cursive lettering was in any way legible. So I've settled into a sort of loopy print, using all of the little loops at the ends of letters that my Kindergarten teacher always called "monkey-tails" and my third grade teacher always called "childish". Well, whatever. My handwriting has become French-y and therefore requires no explanation. (And trust me, they really can't explain it to you.)
That is, however, only when I'm using a ball-point pen or a pencil. The second I try using one of the very popular fountain pens everyone seems to have here, my handwriting resembles the chicken scratch I used to have in sixth grade. I'm so incredibly glad we never turn in assignments, we just read answers out in class, because if I ever had to turn in my handwriting, they'd deport me. Nevertheless, I continue to write my notes with the fountain pen, in the hopes that someone other than me will be able to understand them someday.
Trust me, though, we take a lot of notes, and by the end of the year, I'll likely have made some improvement.
I suppose as long as we're talking about school supplies I should mention my organizer, which is the oddest and most convenient thing I've ever seen in my life. It's sort of like a binder, only it has about twelve different plastic tabs sticking out of the sides. When you pull back the cover, there's a whole bunch of sturdy plastic dividers connected to the binding. On the front cover is a bunch of little write-in windows next to each tab, where you write the names of your classes, and then you take your class papers, pull back the tab that corresponds to the correct class, and stick the paper in. It's almost like a file folder, except that the pieces of plastic aren't connected to each other, the whole thing opens like a book, with two pieces of elastic at each open corner to bind it together. Before I go home, I'm going to buy a new one for my senior year and use it in America. It's the most handy thing I've ever seen in my life.
Keeping on track with school supplies, here are a few more things no French kid would ever be without:
-A pencil case. This isn't necessarily true in my high school, but in other American high schools I've been told that carrying around little pencil cases can make your popularity suffer. Here, people look at you kind of funny if you don't have one of your own to put your miscellaneous writing utensils in.
-Ridiculous lined paper. This stuff is like graph paper on steroids. There are lines everywhere for absolutely no reason that I can figure out.
-Planners. Some of the cool factor in your planner is revived here in France because you buy it yourself, and therefore decide what you want it to look like. Some of the more expensive planners have a whole bunch of interesting things in them. The cover of mine is Harry Potter. (I saw a scary goth boy running around with a Hello Kitty planner in his bag.)
-Glue stick. I can't see that many people in America using this. It's more of a second grade thing for us, but for teenagers here, they're incredibly convenient for when you want to paste a handout into your notebook.
-About a million notebooks. Every single one of your classes must have its own notebook. It doesn't matter how incredibly insignificant the notes or how little you have that particular class: if you know you don't have that class a lot, you use a smaller notebook. Using loose paper is branding yourself a loser for eternity. Or something.
There are other classes that require more specific things, like a calculator in math, or your gym clothes for sport. And you have to bring your own gym clothes, there's no uniform. This sounds totally radical until you realize that there are no lockers in the whole school, and you're stuck lugging around a plastic bag filled with gym clothes every Tuesday.
Speaking of gym, though, you'll never guess what sport we're working on now. (I'm actually so convinced you'll never guess that I'm just going to tell you.) Rock climbing. The entire end wall of the school is littered with those stupid colored rocks. Last week was the tutorial for how not to kill yourself with your own harness and how not to kill your partner with the rope, and this week we actually got to try it.
My partner and I each got about three feet off the ground before agreeing that we were both incorrigibly terrified of heights. We snuck off to watch the jocks instead of actually doing anything. It was pretty fascinating, although my neck kind of hurt from looking up so much.
Turns out I really don't need to worry much about sport, though. I weighed myself this morning out of morbid curiosity (and also because I could swear none of my clothes were fitting anymore) and after doing some really tedious conversions, found out that I've lost twenty or twenty-five pound here. Jeans that were fitting perfectly a month ago now are too big by like five inches. I went and bought another pair yesterday, though I'm not sure if I like French jeans more than American ones. There's not much variety, it's either skinny jeans, or skinnier jeans. Ouch. Tight much?
Oh, and the toe situation is fantastic, as usual. He burned it again today. Ouch. All I can say is, if that man ever comes near me with a caustic chemical and says the word "Brûlée" (burn) again, I'm heading for the hills. France is not worth this, seriously. I'll go back to the land of painkillers and anesthetics in a heartbeat, don't think I won't. Back where chemicals are more theoretical than medical.
I'm torn between wishing I had more to write about and being incredibly thankful I don't. Coolest part of the day so far? I checked out the seventh Harry Potter book from the school library's English books section, because I knew I had to go to the doctor again today. The thought of holing up in my room reading it is making me way more excited than it should. Finally I can hold a book in my hands and not want to throw it against the wall for lack of comprehension! I almost did, with the first Harry Potter book. This morning I was reading it and every single name is different, it seems like. It's driving me up the walls trying to remember the difference between Filch (Rusard) and Snape (Rogue)...
~Josie Harris
He's been nothing but irritating for the five weeks I've been here, but today he was showing his mother his school notebook, and she asked him about the family picture he was supposed to draw for homework. "Are you gonne draw all of us?"
"Yes. Alexia...and Mama...and Marjorie...and Sandrine...and Papa...and Josie."
And I was floored.
Besides that, there's nothing much to really say. My life has become so interesting that it's actually incredibly boring. I've settled into the closest thing to a routine France offers. Great for my life, bad for my writing, but you can't have both, and frankly I'd choose a routine over having interesting things to blog about. (Wasn't there a Chinese curse to that effect? "May you have an interesting life.")
There's nothing much I can really talk about except for school, I suppose. How boring is that, I live in another country, and my whole life still revolves around the most boring thing possible. The irony is bitter.
Well, let's jump right into it.
The funny thing is, I'm typing this, and you would never know if I didn't tell you, but my handwriting is changing pretty drastically. Teachers still use blackboards over here, and their handwriting is so inexplicably French that I was completely flabbergasted my first week of school. It's hard to describe for anyone that hasn't seen it themselves: a sort of half-cursive, half-print scrawl. It manages to look messy and perfectly sculpted all at the same time. I think the best way I can word it is that half the letters are in cursive and half of them aren't, but the half that is and the half that isn't changes with every individual person. With that sort of influence, it's all I can do to stop myself from outright writing in cursive. I would, if I thought my cursive lettering was in any way legible. So I've settled into a sort of loopy print, using all of the little loops at the ends of letters that my Kindergarten teacher always called "monkey-tails" and my third grade teacher always called "childish". Well, whatever. My handwriting has become French-y and therefore requires no explanation. (And trust me, they really can't explain it to you.)
That is, however, only when I'm using a ball-point pen or a pencil. The second I try using one of the very popular fountain pens everyone seems to have here, my handwriting resembles the chicken scratch I used to have in sixth grade. I'm so incredibly glad we never turn in assignments, we just read answers out in class, because if I ever had to turn in my handwriting, they'd deport me. Nevertheless, I continue to write my notes with the fountain pen, in the hopes that someone other than me will be able to understand them someday.
Trust me, though, we take a lot of notes, and by the end of the year, I'll likely have made some improvement.
I suppose as long as we're talking about school supplies I should mention my organizer, which is the oddest and most convenient thing I've ever seen in my life. It's sort of like a binder, only it has about twelve different plastic tabs sticking out of the sides. When you pull back the cover, there's a whole bunch of sturdy plastic dividers connected to the binding. On the front cover is a bunch of little write-in windows next to each tab, where you write the names of your classes, and then you take your class papers, pull back the tab that corresponds to the correct class, and stick the paper in. It's almost like a file folder, except that the pieces of plastic aren't connected to each other, the whole thing opens like a book, with two pieces of elastic at each open corner to bind it together. Before I go home, I'm going to buy a new one for my senior year and use it in America. It's the most handy thing I've ever seen in my life.
Keeping on track with school supplies, here are a few more things no French kid would ever be without:
-A pencil case. This isn't necessarily true in my high school, but in other American high schools I've been told that carrying around little pencil cases can make your popularity suffer. Here, people look at you kind of funny if you don't have one of your own to put your miscellaneous writing utensils in.
-Ridiculous lined paper. This stuff is like graph paper on steroids. There are lines everywhere for absolutely no reason that I can figure out.
-Planners. Some of the cool factor in your planner is revived here in France because you buy it yourself, and therefore decide what you want it to look like. Some of the more expensive planners have a whole bunch of interesting things in them. The cover of mine is Harry Potter. (I saw a scary goth boy running around with a Hello Kitty planner in his bag.)
-Glue stick. I can't see that many people in America using this. It's more of a second grade thing for us, but for teenagers here, they're incredibly convenient for when you want to paste a handout into your notebook.
-About a million notebooks. Every single one of your classes must have its own notebook. It doesn't matter how incredibly insignificant the notes or how little you have that particular class: if you know you don't have that class a lot, you use a smaller notebook. Using loose paper is branding yourself a loser for eternity. Or something.
There are other classes that require more specific things, like a calculator in math, or your gym clothes for sport. And you have to bring your own gym clothes, there's no uniform. This sounds totally radical until you realize that there are no lockers in the whole school, and you're stuck lugging around a plastic bag filled with gym clothes every Tuesday.
Speaking of gym, though, you'll never guess what sport we're working on now. (I'm actually so convinced you'll never guess that I'm just going to tell you.) Rock climbing. The entire end wall of the school is littered with those stupid colored rocks. Last week was the tutorial for how not to kill yourself with your own harness and how not to kill your partner with the rope, and this week we actually got to try it.
My partner and I each got about three feet off the ground before agreeing that we were both incorrigibly terrified of heights. We snuck off to watch the jocks instead of actually doing anything. It was pretty fascinating, although my neck kind of hurt from looking up so much.
Turns out I really don't need to worry much about sport, though. I weighed myself this morning out of morbid curiosity (and also because I could swear none of my clothes were fitting anymore) and after doing some really tedious conversions, found out that I've lost twenty or twenty-five pound here. Jeans that were fitting perfectly a month ago now are too big by like five inches. I went and bought another pair yesterday, though I'm not sure if I like French jeans more than American ones. There's not much variety, it's either skinny jeans, or skinnier jeans. Ouch. Tight much?
Oh, and the toe situation is fantastic, as usual. He burned it again today. Ouch. All I can say is, if that man ever comes near me with a caustic chemical and says the word "Brûlée" (burn) again, I'm heading for the hills. France is not worth this, seriously. I'll go back to the land of painkillers and anesthetics in a heartbeat, don't think I won't. Back where chemicals are more theoretical than medical.
I'm torn between wishing I had more to write about and being incredibly thankful I don't. Coolest part of the day so far? I checked out the seventh Harry Potter book from the school library's English books section, because I knew I had to go to the doctor again today. The thought of holing up in my room reading it is making me way more excited than it should. Finally I can hold a book in my hands and not want to throw it against the wall for lack of comprehension! I almost did, with the first Harry Potter book. This morning I was reading it and every single name is different, it seems like. It's driving me up the walls trying to remember the difference between Filch (Rusard) and Snape (Rogue)...
~Josie Harris
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Honestly, Now
Cue startling revelation: (why did God invent denial?)
I made it through the first month.
I made it through the first month.
Read it again.
Read it again. You're not thrilled enough.
In celebration, I've had a rotten day and the heavens have opened to pour water down upon the earth in what I can only surmise is nature's way of laughing at me.
Well, you can't have everything.
In a tangent completely unrelated to happiness of any kind, I could begin mentioning school now. Mind you, this is going to sound a lot more interesting than in actually is. I wish my life was as cool and neatly compressed as my blogs are. You read through them and I sound like some sort of French-American superhero. Battling culture shock, one villainous emotion at a time!
(Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Oh. Um. Yeah, it's a plane. Nevermind.)
Anyway, school.
I suppose the first thing I should mention is that no matter how much sense it doesn't make to you, it's even worse for me. The exchange students here sort of have a motto: "Just go with it." You're not going to understand it right now, if at all, but you'll probably have a blast doing whatever it is. If it's not illegal, that is.
So the first event that springs to mind is how my entire class, boys included, ended up in the girls' bathroom. There's a story to go along with this, I promise.
So what happened was this: yesterday there was a strike. A big, fat, whole-country kind of strike. Naturally, everyone in my high school loves it whe this happens. About half my class was "on strike" themselves, but the half and I attended most of our classes that morning, with the exception of French class, which, as luck would have it, combined with our free periods at 1 to give us a three hour lunch. (I went down to the bakery with some friends and bought cheese pizza. So doing that again soon.)
Naturally, none of us wanted to stay for the afternoon, but our math teacher wasn't on strike, and we were obliged to stay. After math, a few kids went down to the office to ask if we had our next class, TPE, after the free period we were on at the moment, and they told us yes. Cue collective groan. (That class starts at 4 and goes until 6. Yuck.)
So, being the good kids that we are, we dutifully stuck around until the class was supposed to start. Then we waited in the hallway. And waited. And waited. Finally we all decided that enough was enough, and everybody was just going to go home. This worked out splendidly until we got outside, stopped to say goodbye and talk for a little bit, and saw our teacher walk out the front doors. Before he could see us, the twelve or so members of my class that were still there crammed ourselves into a stairwell that has a door leading to the outside. We booked it up the stairs and ran out onto the second floor, then quickly hid ourselves in the first bathroom we saw, and closed the door. After about five minutes of waiting, we decided it was safe, and snuck our way down the stairs, checking around every corner and looking through every window. The second we got outside, everyone broke out into a run to their bus stop.
And nobody thought it was at all strange.
-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-
It's tomorrow, and I've had an even rotten-er day. (Proper spelling and grammar have no place in my mind today.)
So, it's medical. And if you're squeamish, go away. Seriously. Go away.
I had this bump on my toe, which turned out to be a wart (which takes its place as number three on my list of totally gross words). It hurt like crazy, to the point where I was starting to develop a limp so I wouldn't have to walk on it. So, I finally pulled up the courage to tell my host family about it, and we went to the doctor this morning. He took care of it, and can I just say OW. I can safely tell you it will take a broken bone to force me back into that room.
The ending to it all is that I'm lying in bed cursing my misfortune and my body's inability to stay whole and healthy. My toe is throbbing, and I have a newfound respect for chemistry and why my teacher always told us not to let the chemicals touch our skin. Unless, apparently, you've got a PhD. But seriously, not doing that again without either anesthetic or alcohol (which I'm assuming from books and movies preform the same general function.)...
Oh, and I'm not walking anywhere any time soon. Hopefully this will get in the way of my school plans? (Not likely. Irony hates me.)
I made it through the first month.
I made it through the first month.
Read it again.
Read it again. You're not thrilled enough.
In celebration, I've had a rotten day and the heavens have opened to pour water down upon the earth in what I can only surmise is nature's way of laughing at me.
Well, you can't have everything.
In a tangent completely unrelated to happiness of any kind, I could begin mentioning school now. Mind you, this is going to sound a lot more interesting than in actually is. I wish my life was as cool and neatly compressed as my blogs are. You read through them and I sound like some sort of French-American superhero. Battling culture shock, one villainous emotion at a time!
(Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Oh. Um. Yeah, it's a plane. Nevermind.)
Anyway, school.
I suppose the first thing I should mention is that no matter how much sense it doesn't make to you, it's even worse for me. The exchange students here sort of have a motto: "Just go with it." You're not going to understand it right now, if at all, but you'll probably have a blast doing whatever it is. If it's not illegal, that is.
So the first event that springs to mind is how my entire class, boys included, ended up in the girls' bathroom. There's a story to go along with this, I promise.
So what happened was this: yesterday there was a strike. A big, fat, whole-country kind of strike. Naturally, everyone in my high school loves it whe this happens. About half my class was "on strike" themselves, but the half and I attended most of our classes that morning, with the exception of French class, which, as luck would have it, combined with our free periods at 1 to give us a three hour lunch. (I went down to the bakery with some friends and bought cheese pizza. So doing that again soon.)
Naturally, none of us wanted to stay for the afternoon, but our math teacher wasn't on strike, and we were obliged to stay. After math, a few kids went down to the office to ask if we had our next class, TPE, after the free period we were on at the moment, and they told us yes. Cue collective groan. (That class starts at 4 and goes until 6. Yuck.)
So, being the good kids that we are, we dutifully stuck around until the class was supposed to start. Then we waited in the hallway. And waited. And waited. Finally we all decided that enough was enough, and everybody was just going to go home. This worked out splendidly until we got outside, stopped to say goodbye and talk for a little bit, and saw our teacher walk out the front doors. Before he could see us, the twelve or so members of my class that were still there crammed ourselves into a stairwell that has a door leading to the outside. We booked it up the stairs and ran out onto the second floor, then quickly hid ourselves in the first bathroom we saw, and closed the door. After about five minutes of waiting, we decided it was safe, and snuck our way down the stairs, checking around every corner and looking through every window. The second we got outside, everyone broke out into a run to their bus stop.
And nobody thought it was at all strange.
-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-
It's tomorrow, and I've had an even rotten-er day. (Proper spelling and grammar have no place in my mind today.)
So, it's medical. And if you're squeamish, go away. Seriously. Go away.
I had this bump on my toe, which turned out to be a wart (which takes its place as number three on my list of totally gross words). It hurt like crazy, to the point where I was starting to develop a limp so I wouldn't have to walk on it. So, I finally pulled up the courage to tell my host family about it, and we went to the doctor this morning. He took care of it, and can I just say OW. I can safely tell you it will take a broken bone to force me back into that room.
The ending to it all is that I'm lying in bed cursing my misfortune and my body's inability to stay whole and healthy. My toe is throbbing, and I have a newfound respect for chemistry and why my teacher always told us not to let the chemicals touch our skin. Unless, apparently, you've got a PhD. But seriously, not doing that again without either anesthetic or alcohol (which I'm assuming from books and movies preform the same general function.)...
Oh, and I'm not walking anywhere any time soon. Hopefully this will get in the way of my school plans? (Not likely. Irony hates me.)
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Sound of One Hand Clapping
It's been a whole month since I left home.
In honor of this terrifying event, I've decided to answer a question every single one of you (Yes, you're all guilty.) has asked me at least a few times.
"How do you feel?"
There is, of course, a reason for my requiring an entire blog post to explain the simple matter of feelings. (Other than my melodramatic side being perfected by my current location.) There's no possible word in either of the two languages I'm able to manage that describes even half of my current feelings.
I'm afraid you're just going to have to settle for a lot of little words that describe pieces of it. Sorry. ("Aw, we have to read a whole blog post from a kid in France! Gosh darn it.")
Buckle your seatbelt. Most of these emotions are not at all pleasant.
The first feeling that I have here in France is (obviously) curiosity. Believe it or not, I didn't come here for nothing, or to get away from Washington for a year. I came here because I was curious about the language, the people, and the culture. I came here because I wanted to learn things, I wanted to learn the language. There's a reason I'm here.
The second feeling directly contradicts the first (of course, because what's life without a little conflict?): homesickness. I want to go home more than I can possibly say. I want to go back to where people speak my language and understand me when I speak. I want to go back to the place my friends and family are. I want my mom and dad worse than a fourth grader faced with summer camp. Every single thing here reminds me of home, because it's not home.
The third feeling ties in: guilt. I am here for a reason. I'm wasting my time whining when I could be spending it having an excellent time. This is a new country, a new experience. Hundreds of kids would die to be able to be in my place. What am I doing being such a baby when I'm so lucky?
The fourth feeling is uncertainty. I'm not sure of myself here. Every basic assumption I've ever had needs to be rethought and redefined. Am I a part of the family, or am I a guest? Am I reacting well in a situation, or am I showing my ignorance? Did the teacher just ask me a question? What did that girl just say to me? What is the teacher talking about? I don't know how to move or act in any given situation.
Next. Exhaustion. Speaking a different language for a good portion of your day is tiring. Having to rethink everything is tiring. Having to act like someone you're not for a whole day is tiring. Having to be around dozens of people at school and then six other people at home when you're an introvert is tiring. Doing all those things at once while battling chronic homesickness and culture shock is absolutely exhausting, and it's really no surprise that I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow nowadays.
After that comes denial. The catch-all, denial is, and it's hard to squash. You never know what you're going to not believe next. Nothing has really sunk in yet. In Europe? Nah. Not going to see my parents or friends for a year? Yeah right. Nine months to go? Pull the other one. There's absolutely no limits to what your brain with block from your consciousness.
There are probably more I'm not thinking of. There probably always will be. It's very hard to put this feeling into words. But I suppose you can fit it into at least two:
"Exchange Student"
~Josie
In honor of this terrifying event, I've decided to answer a question every single one of you (Yes, you're all guilty.) has asked me at least a few times.
"How do you feel?"
There is, of course, a reason for my requiring an entire blog post to explain the simple matter of feelings. (Other than my melodramatic side being perfected by my current location.) There's no possible word in either of the two languages I'm able to manage that describes even half of my current feelings.
I'm afraid you're just going to have to settle for a lot of little words that describe pieces of it. Sorry. ("Aw, we have to read a whole blog post from a kid in France! Gosh darn it.")
Buckle your seatbelt. Most of these emotions are not at all pleasant.
The first feeling that I have here in France is (obviously) curiosity. Believe it or not, I didn't come here for nothing, or to get away from Washington for a year. I came here because I was curious about the language, the people, and the culture. I came here because I wanted to learn things, I wanted to learn the language. There's a reason I'm here.
The second feeling directly contradicts the first (of course, because what's life without a little conflict?): homesickness. I want to go home more than I can possibly say. I want to go back to where people speak my language and understand me when I speak. I want to go back to the place my friends and family are. I want my mom and dad worse than a fourth grader faced with summer camp. Every single thing here reminds me of home, because it's not home.
The third feeling ties in: guilt. I am here for a reason. I'm wasting my time whining when I could be spending it having an excellent time. This is a new country, a new experience. Hundreds of kids would die to be able to be in my place. What am I doing being such a baby when I'm so lucky?
The fourth feeling is uncertainty. I'm not sure of myself here. Every basic assumption I've ever had needs to be rethought and redefined. Am I a part of the family, or am I a guest? Am I reacting well in a situation, or am I showing my ignorance? Did the teacher just ask me a question? What did that girl just say to me? What is the teacher talking about? I don't know how to move or act in any given situation.
Next. Exhaustion. Speaking a different language for a good portion of your day is tiring. Having to rethink everything is tiring. Having to act like someone you're not for a whole day is tiring. Having to be around dozens of people at school and then six other people at home when you're an introvert is tiring. Doing all those things at once while battling chronic homesickness and culture shock is absolutely exhausting, and it's really no surprise that I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow nowadays.
After that comes denial. The catch-all, denial is, and it's hard to squash. You never know what you're going to not believe next. Nothing has really sunk in yet. In Europe? Nah. Not going to see my parents or friends for a year? Yeah right. Nine months to go? Pull the other one. There's absolutely no limits to what your brain with block from your consciousness.
There are probably more I'm not thinking of. There probably always will be. It's very hard to put this feeling into words. But I suppose you can fit it into at least two:
"Exchange Student"
~Josie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)