one week left

wow. this year has gone soooo fast.

everything has flown. I am so ready to be home. to be in my house, in my car… the SLEEP in my own bed! to see all my friends. and to play soccer!

im excited to show them how i’ve grown, and how i’ve been. im just excited to start living my normal life! to have power to do what i want. and when i go back to school in september, i’m going to take everything head on. im going to join as many clubs as i can and do everything i wish i did.

im ready to see my sister and brother for the first time in 10 months. it will be amazing to see them, and my parents and my dog!

its weird to think how this year apart from them, i’ve gotten a lot closer with my sister and my mom. i hope it continues that way when i get home.

well  i will be in spokane at 11 at night on june 12th. i’m soooooooooooo ready!

opps i got to go, catch a train to meet my friend in strasbourg for the day.

and friday i’ll have my frenchies over for dinner and cake for my birthdya. and then sat, all my exchange friends are coming over and we’re going to sleep in the yard in tents! im sooooooooooo excited for the second part but not the first one. wiht the frenchies i’ll have to pretend to be reallllly sad to be leaving soon. which is not true at all, and i dont know how much longer i can put up this act.

its not like i wont be sad. i will, but my closest french friends, i’ve laready made plans for them to come to montana and visit me. i am just READY!

Easter Vacation :)

well yesterday was the last day of school before my 3 week vacation! 

we had the fete du lycee= high school party.  and each class dresses up as something, we were babies= lame i know. but i did my hair really weird, with a bottle in my hair and the covered it up, so my hair looked kinda hooish from the grinch. but everyone loved it, and i had sooo many people just stare at me and whisper to eachother=

“elle a mis une bouteille de-dans” or “regard ses cheveux… bizarre” 

no lie, i had more creepy pics taken of me that day than i have ever taken of men with mullets in wal-mart. i wanted to just be like” what!?!?! got a prob wiht my hair??” i swear the french have no idea what it is to be weird or even original…its almost a disease to standout for something other than being good looking, and sometimes thats even bad, you get the glare down from tons of girls u don’t even know.

also, i have realized there are more and more people in the school who don’t even know im an american, yesterday i had 3 come up to my friends when i was in the middle of talking and be like ….

” elle est quoi?? pas francaise?” “Americaine”  “ohhhh wow”

so yeah, and after school i came home and skyped with denae and kaleigh and hannah, that was sooo nice to see them, had some good talks, it feels weird ill be seeing them face to face soon, and between last night the last time i talked to them on skype was the same amount of time that i have left before ill be home. 

i cannot explain how weird it feels to say that ill be home in less than 2 months. im so ready to be home and pick up where i left off, and get ready for my senior year.  

i feel really proud of the the things i’ve done and accomplished with being here. and i feel changed, myself and i feel my horizon has definitely broadened, and i have a whole new sense of myself, that i never could of acquired otherwise. 

when you take on an exchange, you always hear how in the beginning it sucks, so badly you want to quit, then half way your language is all of a sudden amazing and you feel more and more at home, your acquaintanceship with school friends turns into an actual friendship of value. and then you get happy… really happy with everything you’ve accomplished. after being int he happy amazing phase you begin to think of home and everything its holding for you to grab when you get home… everything you’ve been starved of during the months away… and you count each day till you’ll be home silently while everything you’ve  built here becomes all of a sudden so immense. all the memories flood back, bad and good and reflection is obligatory. 

thats where i am in my head right now…. right now as i waste a morning before i have a soccer game with my horrid team. this saturdday before i leave for greece on monday! i cant not even explain how excited i am for this trip and how many beautiful pictures i am going to take.

In GREECE were going to stay in athens in an apartment for 6 days and the weather is going to be amazing.  and im really excited to use my lomo camera that take 4 pics in one sec on the same photo(piece of paper) in greece!

then after the week in greece i have a week here and then after that one week in paris with my class! 

and then 2 1/2 weeks till mom and dad and grams and gramps will be here and we’ll head down to Tuscany and Rome and Nice and Antibes   all within about 15 days! and then I’ll be on my way home the June 12th… so nice to say and know what date i’ll be home in my house, in my bed, to see my friends and my brother and sister………. cannot wait

STAGE at a professional high school

This week I am spending my days at a por high school hear Strasbourg. I am staying with a new host family that live jsut next to the town that the school is in. Monday I did Boulangerie.  Thats mostly breads like brioche and baguettes. I didnt really do anything because the other students were being noted so I could interfere. But today= Tuesday I did Pâtisserie which mostly the sweeter or buttery stuff like croissants and  ginger bread. So I made some pain despices which is the french version of gingerbread, but its much more fruity and less gingerbreadish. and so i ate some of the stuff I made, and theni ate a croissant a kid in the class gave me and then a petite pain au chocolat and a bit of brioche later. might not sound like alot if that was all i ate of the food i made, but if you saw the amount of butter they threw in that puppy, you would understand while i feel quite explosive right now. ahhhhhh i hate feeling so fat all the time!!!! i need to stop eating and taking everything that these people give just to be nice!!! i think by now ive gained 10 or 12 pounds. and let me tell you it is not a fun feeling, especially when you know that in a month your going to be in a bikini and shorts and tank  tops in Greece soaking up sun and athens….. so Now i think it is time to cut back on the cream and butter and hte carbs! when iget back to thann I am being very strict with myself, no more sweets!!!! and i NEED TO RUN MORE! even if i dont like the feeling of the creepy old men creeping on me….

Changing HOst Family

today at 5 I am changing my host fam. at first i thought i would be happy to change, but now i am actually pretty sad and emotional. I really love this family, and i really feel like a part of them. I am not worried about not going well with the next fam at all. its just after 4 months with one family, i got really attached. It just shows me how hard its going to be to leave in june.

I always thought my exchange was going well, but not really AMAZING. i think this shows how good it is actually going, it feels so normal right now, like i am home.  of course i still miss my parents, friends, home and missoula. but right now, everything is good. good enough. that doesn’t mean that I am going to keep diong what I am. I want to keep testing myself anf doing something new each day. Thats a rut I don’t want to fall into.

Less than 4 months left here….. so weird, i remember when i made this blog, i made it at least 5 months before I left, now I don’t even have that much time left.

 

where did all the time go?

well if everything goes ahead to plan, i will be able to play soccer this coming friday, and that will be GREAT! and one of the great things about my new family, is that they eat way healthier than my fam right now, so i’ll be able to shed off some of these less than welcome kilos. i hope.

well in 2 weeks  i am going on a 9 day trip in spain with rotary exchange students! I am soooo excited, i hope the weather will be nicer, and maybe i can get my tan on! hhaha

lately crystal (taiwanese exchange student in my school) and i have been visiting some of the local cafés and bakerys. i have really enjoyed discoverying more and more of thann, but lord this is doing nothing for my already buldging waste line.

if it was impossible to gain weight on exchange than it would definately be 100% the best thing ever. but as that is definately not true, and i have the thunder thighs to prove it, sometimes i feels incredibly self conscience here. i just hope i can loose some of it before i have to come home and get my senior pictures taken…… haha thats a project!

 

4 months….?

today the day after christmas exactly is the day that marks 4 months for me and my time here in france.

i feel pretty happy about it. i feel that i have made loads of progress and i think i have matured a bit ( albeit teensy tiny). i dont necessarily feel sad that its gone by really fast, because it doesnt really feel that way. i feel that its gone maybe a bit slow, the only thing thats changed between the horribly boring months is… my french has gotten loads better since  day one, i have been to paris and prague!, i have made tons of friends, i have survived a christmas without my family (thank the lord for skype) and  i have made lots of friends.

i have only one more month in  this family, i leave at the end of february. right now at this moment i am happy for being able to change families, i think (especially with a hos sister the same age) that changing families really helps along the exchange especially in the cold winter months. i have NOTHING planned in jan with rotary, so i am desperate need to mee up with some exchange friends and chat.  its not like i dont like my host fam, i love them to death but little things, the things that would bother anyone that was staying with a family who wasn’t their real fam, just kill me. and i know that its just that way i cant do anything. but i already know my second family and i am completely confident that it will be smooth sailing to that finish. the thing that really hits home for me is the host mom cooks SUPPPPEEERRR  heathly food!!!!! yes i hope that it has a semblance of my mom and dads cooking so i can sneak off a couple of these un welcome kilos before i had back home to see all my friends, who are all convinced i am going to come back as a goddess! well thats not going to happen if i got these suckers stuck on my thighs! plus i just cannot stand this hearty food and so much of it throughout the day!

and i think it will be nice to be the only girl in the family, ill have 3 bros one i think 9 and the other 14. i am just super excited to move because i think it will open up a new chapter of my exchange. ill be able to play soccer and i think since i will be the only girl i can start having my own friends over from school and it wont be weird that they are hanging with me and not my sister.

well bof (new favorite french word) i am sooo proud of myself for finally blogging…. nice to see the cobb webs swatted away!

 

hanna

If asked the most monumental discovery of 2010, I’d say my newfound value of perfection. The pursuit of perfection, or even the pursuit of the perfectly imperfect, is a tiring tarnish on the soul. There is something incredible about imperfection… for the moments in life that take our breathe away or leave a special fingerprint on our hearts are rarely perfect but messy and stunningly riddled with imperfections

i wish  could say i wrote this, but no it is my best friend here in this beautifully and complex country who wrote this. i just felt i needed to save it and have it to look on when times are running rough.

well as of now i am sitting in my rented apartment with my host  family in PRAGUE!!!!  yes you heard right, i am in the czech republic for 4 days durring the christmas vacations.

my family is sooooo nice and so great and also luckily enough at the same time they LOOOVE to travel so were here just checking the place out for a couple of days before returning on the 22. prague is ververy pretty and historically beautiful and interesting and ahhh i want to live here some day, or at least come here with mom and dad. i have taken sooo many pictures, which reminds me i need to put more on here and blog more, i am such a shitty blogger and i have also been slagging so much with writing in my notebook too. i ammm going to get on that too! whenever i am borred in the CDI(school library) i am going to post a random post. i really want to remember my feelings, and the things i see and experience… i think i just want to see how i have changed and how my thought have changed and formed and reformed.even though this year is really hard at times, i am just sooooooo excited for to see how far i have come and all the adventures a long the way….

honestly i think the hardest part is behind me.

first, out of that hell hell that i stayed in for 6 months

second, have the best host family i could ever ask for

third, my french has improved a lot, but there is still loads of room for improvement

i have really made tons of friends, and have, i think, started to fully take advantage of this.

ok gotta cut this baby short, my host sister wants to sleep, gotta turn out the light!!

 

 

 

birthday!

today is my host sister, juliette’s birthday, i am going to go and make a cake with her best friends after i finish with my crap english class.

This las weekend was amasing.

i just tried spelling orange 8 different ways until i remembered how…….; what the heck

Rotary Weekend:!!

so recently i moved families! yes thank the lord! I now live in the same city of my school, which is a god send, i have one host sister the same age as me, and two brothers 14 and 12. I love my host parents to, so much. everyone here is so nice to me and really treat me great. i lvoe my room and everything, the first day i moved in, at dinner i felt completely at ease, and i could just feel my unhappiness and stress fade away. and believe me that is really needed in a host familt, especially if your going to stay with them for 5 months.

So little to say, i am feeling great, and this weekend all the exchange student in my district are meeting up in strasbourg and then going on a bus trip in the north of alsace! I am sooo excited to meet up with all my friends, but i am also supremely bummed that i am leaving my host family, i just love it here, i want to stay with them and not miss a moment of anything. and if i did not go i could meet my host dads brother from LA. but nope i gots to go. Well at lease it is something that i know i will definately enjoy, and i have yet to see strasbourg!

well everything is pretyt much going good, except i feel like i have hit a brick wall with my french, and i think i have already gained weight,,,,,,, ugggggg. friends are coming along, but i think i really need some times with my friends from the states and hear about their experiences.

why do i always do crap like this??

at a prime opportunity to fully show my grief and unhappyness i go and fuck it all up. tonight was the meeting of my rotary club that is sponsoring me. a lot of them come up to me after the meeting and ask how i am diong and how i like my family and such, i tell them its not so good, they ask more about why, i tell them i am an only child, my host dad creeps me out and is weirdly bizarre and he makes me feel really uncomfortable. they prod on i give explanations and examples for my feelings. until my counselor jumps in and says to me to stop talking about it, he does not have another family for me and i need to stop talking about it. i wade over to the edge of all of the people with my tail between my legs and almost start crying. god i was so embarrassed, oh my god why do i always do this time of stuff. just when my french is almost nearing proficient i go and screw it over with talking about how much i hate my host dad and how every thing is soooo hard and such, i need to stop complaining all the time. its so hard because its all i think about. i mean even though there are tons of things i love about my time here, i cant express how i feel when i have such a hard time coming home day after day. and the hardest part is the people who are in charge and in control of making something happen dont really seem to understand how much of a toll this is actually taking on me