Let's be real: a rant

Before reading: I realize that this entry is has a negative attitude, just what I've been trying to avoid, but I was having a bad day when I wrote it so, as you should with everything I write, take this with a grain of salt. Also know that I am posting it with good intent: to be honest with myself and others about the fluctuations of emotion in the study abroad experience. Our program coordinators call it culture shock. Also, I know I make it sound like my life at home is less than optimal which is untrue. However, I felt like I was lyon to everyone when I wasn't including the bad days as well as the good.


There are 117 days left until I leave France. Of those days, 41 are vacation (aka I won't be in Rennes, not even counting a few 3-day weekends).

That's not the point of this entry. Today I'm having one of my homesick days and I want to make sure whoever reads this has an accurate depiction of the study abroad (and host family) experience, at least for me.

I just wanted to say that it's not all fun and games. Sometimes it can be very frustrating, confusing and, in a word, heavy.

Usually when things are frustrating, they're little things that could easily be handled on a normal day but if I'm tired or hungry, forget about it. Examples: the overly crowded university restaurant, people literally pushing me out of the way in stores, silly French ways of doing things that are different from American, and using a fork and knife properly.

Things that are confusing usually stem from cultural misunderstandings. For me, that happens a lot in my home. I like my host family and I enjoy the time I spend with them, but according to my friends some of the rules I have to follow are weird and not typical.

Examples: 

Only showering between 5:30pm and 9pm (honestly I hate that rule and I won't ever understand it)

Not being allowed to close the bathroom door in the morning when I brush my teeth

Not being allowed to eat breakfast after 10am because that's when food for lunch is prepared (even though I've never seen that happening...)

The regimented-ness of the chore lists

Doing certain things on certain days (like every Thursday trash from the bedrooms is taken out. once I told my older host sister that I didn't have much in it so it was fine. I heard her talking to my younger sister about it and she was very unusually bent out of shape about it. It was bizarre, but I feel like maybe I'm missing something...?)

The style of "talking" that my host mom and sister sometimes have: they yell at each other, like at the dinner table...and then a millisecond everything is fine. I know that isn't that weird, but I just don't like yelling I guess. 

My host parents are anti-gay marriage. They said that they don't want gay people to be able to marry because then they could adopt a baby, and babies raised by gay parents will be "psychologically traumatized."

Every Sunday my host dad jokes about how I'm not wearing a dress and that's what girls are supposed to wear on Sundays...and my host sisters and host mom actually do it. He's joking, I know, but there is a small element of seriousness to it. He's kind of not joking...but I'm not going to follow a rule like that, it's sexist. It's not a matter of dressing up, it's a matter of wearing a dress.

My host mom says my youngest host-sister, who turns 13 tomorrow, is too young to do the dishes. At 13, I think I was helping with just about every chore in the house. 

When I talk to my friends about these things they all agree that it's just a very traditional French family, despite the nontraditional family structure.

Since I'm making a point of being honest, I'll throw it out there and say that sometimes I just don't want to be here. The rules, the schedules, the routines, they make me feel so stressed and uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong: I have no problems with doing chores, following loose schedules, and following rules.

And I'll be honest, again: I don't spend as much time as I'd like to with my host mom in the evenings. I just don't know what to talk to her about; I don't like what she watches on TV, I don't like being preached to about what's right and wrong in this world. I enjoy dinner time because I can just sit and listen to conversations and pipe in sometimes if I need to, but a good 25% of the time I am zoned out, in my own head thinking in English. If I lived in a dorm, I might actually have something to talk to the other residents about.

I'm slowly making French friends though, it's just taking some time.

Sometimes I think I've gotten over the culture shock, then I have a day like today where it all bubbles up and I think "what I wouldn't give to be at home on the couch watching tv with my family right now." It's funny though, because literally just this morning I was walking around thinking, "wow, I'm in France. This is so awesome, I can't believe it."

But again, in all honesty, I'm not immersing myself in the language as much as I should be. However, I'm not sure if my brain could handle all of this emotion without being able to process it and de-stress in English. Speaking is a difficulty for me in English, so when I try to do it in French sometimes it's just a train wreck. If I'm with people who I know aren't going to judge me, I'm fine. If I'm with professors or my host parents, not so much. Sometimes it's also hard for me to understand people, like store workers or whatever, when they're talking to me. A way to help that would be to watch French movies at night but my brain just can't handle it. I know my limits and what I'm capable of, I just need to take this at my own pace. Another part of it is that when I don't have something to say, I just don't say anything (in English or in French).

And that contradiction right there, that's what's so confusing and heavy. Luckily I don't feel this way that often though.

Living in a host family is hard, and to anyone considering doing it I would greatly advise you to think long and hard about who you are as a person and if you could actually handle living in a new house with new rules and new people.

Living here really is helping me get to know myself as a person though, so I'm glad I did it and I'm trying not to let the little things bug me too much. It's not worth it anyway, cause I'M IN FRANCE!

I'm not trying to give the impression that my host family isn't nice, they're all very nice agreeable people. Monique has done and continues to do great things for other people, including me by allowing me to stay in her home and learn from her family, but she's just not the type of person with whom I get along on a deep level. I'm sure some of it is cultural, some of it is generational, and some of it is just human nature.

What's important is that I'm learning what I like and don't like in other people and their lifestyles, which will (and is) helping me figure out and define who I am based on what I'm not.

I just wanted to put it out there, that I'm not trying to give anyone the illusion that my life here is all sugar-coated chocolate-filled French pastry, sometimes it's the crappy kind that you get out of a vending machine.

Valentine's Day!

So as I'm sure you know, today is Valentine's Day.

My friends and I decided to do a sort of "secret Santa" except for choosing our Valentines! I really love coming up with gifts for people so I was pretty happy :) And for some reason, I decided to take a picture of my breakfast.

As usual, I had cereal. Here you can see our cloth napkins and the different containers that milk and orange juice come in! And also the REAL CHUNKS OF CHOCOLATE in my cereal. So good.

I had Tanya for my Valentine, but I forgot to take pictures of what I got and made for her. I'm sure she'll post them soon enough so I'll update soon. However I'll just tell you now: I got her an 8-pack of Bueno bars, a candy bar she really loves, a Brittany shot glass (don't worry people, she's 21 :p) and I made her a coloring book :)

Amanda had me though, and this is what she got:

On the left is a card all in French. Then there's chocolate (soo goooood), dried fruit (because she and I have bonded over our love of pruneaux!) and almond paste..aka marzipan. She got that because one day we were walking around the store and I told her how much I love to eat it. So she got it! I wasn't expecting the gift to be so thoughtful so I'm very very thankful to have such a great friend :)

This is the other side of the card that she made me.

And this evening, we went to go see Cyrano de Bergerac at the Theatre National de Bretagne (missing some accents, I know). I'm not in that picture, by the way.

The play was...different. It was a modern version, so all of the action took place in one big room...the setting was a mental hospital, and the inpatients put on the play. It was weird, but interesting. I would have liked to have seen the original version, because it's more romantic and it is, after all, Cyrano de Bergerac, but this was free so I'm happy with what I saw!

Le dimanche

Sundays can be pretty boring here, being the "sacred day" and all...

However, today was not too terribly bad! I was La Reine for the first time when we had our galette des rois today. For those of you who don't know, it's a pastry in which there is a little figurine inside and and whoever gets the figurine gets to be the king of queen. So I wrote a cardboard crown while we ate dessert :p But I got this little spiderman out of it! And the galette was delicious, it had almond paste in it mmmmm.

And I also ate rabbit for the first time! It just tasted like dark chicken meat. But it had a white wine/cream sauce and was delicious.

Minor Adjustments

I've been looking through what I've posted and realized that there is A LOT that I'm missing. I'll try to post more over the next few days, but I figured I'd start now.

The plan (since it's been drilled into my head here in France that you always start by telling your reader your plan):

Go through the series of emails, one by one, and add more description/tell what has changed since then.  Starting with the post A Series of Emails

My 15 year old host sister Monica is from the Congo, but she's been living with Monique for 7 years. This weekend I met her older brother, Vincent. He lives in St. Malo and he's nice enough to take the time to talk to me :)

My 13 year old host sister's name is Morgane; she's been here for 2 years but she goes home on the weekends. Apparently when she came here she could hardly write and wasn't very good in school, but she's improved drastically (with the help of Monique) and I never would have guessed that she ever had difficulties like that.

My 12 year old host brother's name is Aurelien; he's partially blind and he also leaves on the weekends.

Sleeping is still a weird-ish thing here, or at least different from at home. I have classes at 8:30 three days a week and I always hear Monica when she gets up in the mornings around 6:30 because she lives in the attic above me.  I usually go to bed around 9:30 or 10, and every single night I wake up between the hours of 3:30 and 5:30 for no reason at all, so I usually check my email on my phone and respond to any new ones I get...I'm well aware of how weird that is.

The preliminary language course that we had for 2 weeks was a bit of a joke...but it killed time and I met some interesting professors. At the end we got to taste all kinds of Breton specialties (aka cakes with 10 pounds of butter in them and cidre --mildly alcoholic, carbonated apple cider is how I would describe it) and it was allllll freeeeee!

How'd I do on the placement test? I got into the C2 level...which is the highest possible. So woohoo! Speaking French is still pretty hard, but I'm realizing that I just have to let go of the notion that I need to speak without making mistakes which is difficult for me to do, but once I get past that I know I'll be fine.

Like I said in the last email, I still don't understand how the French are so skinny. I do feel like I might have lost a few pounds, but still how that happened is beyond me.

I'll dedicate an entire post a little later to the French traditions (that I've experienced) surrounding food and meals.

And now for your entertainment, let's play a game of find the Frenchie! Hint: there are 4. This should be rather easy for you since you may have already seen pictures of my friends...

Think you've got it? The only boy in the photo, that's Matthieu. Then behind him on the left with the black and white scarf is Pauline. To his right with the glasses is Lola, and to her right is Lise. They're the program monitors.

You can't really tell in this picture, but Pauline is adorable and very French. Matthieu is hilarious, Lola is super classy and sarcastically funny, and Lise is sort of quiet and sort of a hippie if you can't tell :p

Email Series #2

January 15

 Today I'm making a point of talking more with Monique even though I know my French isn't perfect. I have to remember not to stay in my room too long because then I end up just isolating myself. Monique is really nice about letting me (and the other kids) do basically whatever we want. I don't know how they did it, but they placed me in the perfect household for me. 

Hm, what makes Pauline French? Well first of all she just looks French (aka she's absolutely beautiful, she's pretty thin but in a healthy way, he dresses very fashionably but in a normal kind of way, like a normal person, she has a short haircut) she speaks the French way -- which is both nasal and comes out of the front of the mouth at the same time...don't ask--and she does the bises very often which a lot of the monitors don't because we're american and they know it's weird for us. I'll take a picture with her and put it on the internet eventually, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Oh and also she smokes sometimes. I think almost everyone here smokes, at least sometimes.

The Monaco doesn't taste like beer, it tasted like sugary pop. So I'll still say I don't like beer.

Monique does know I like cooking but she's pretty darn sick. I think once she gets better life here will change a bit, but in a good way. I like it this way though, it's very laid back.

I'm not sure what exactly is going on in Mali either, but the USA is actually going to intervene along with the UN. I don't know exactly what the shootings in Paris were about, but it was surrounding Kurdish people so I don't think it was the same thing. That was the day I left Paris though, so I was happy for that.

Today we had a meeting about the teaching practicum, the teaching English as a second language in schools like I told you about, and I decided that I'm 100% going to do it even if I don't end up getting any credit through Pitt. I've heard that the classes here won't take much time or effort and the teaching English will actually only take up 3 hours a week, which is WAYYYY less work than I do for any class I've ever taken at Pitt. I think I definitely should become a teacher because it's one of the only things in life that I get really really excited for.

And after the meeting my friends and I went to a cafe and I got a white hot chocolate and we shared a sandwich. I got a small hot chocolate and that was 3.10, so about 4 dollars. Things here are EXPENSIVE but they drink coffee very often nonetheless. The coffee here is very good too.

I think I might know part of why the French are thin: they eat HUGE meals and then hardly snack in between. It might also be the walking they do, since it's not necessary to have a car. Every day I take the bus and the metro, I really like it here. 

I think you might like living in France because of the cafes and all the food is good, I'm pretty sure you'd eat everything I've eaten so far. Also the news is TOTALLY different here. The newscasters talk in depth about issues, not just tiny little stories, and everyone knows what's going on pretty much all the time. The French are very educated and they like to talk politics. On Saturday I'm going to go to a protest, something that happens pretty often in France, to support gay marriage. There was a huge one in Paris on Sunday against it...France is generally pretty divided about that. And other than that you'd like it because you can get delicious food to go, like sandwiches, so you'd never have to cook if you didn't want to :p

I'm pretty excited for our language course tomorrow. I feel pretty good about spending more time with the family today; at dinner the kids were telling jokes and I understood some of them. French jokes are often just a play on words, so if I don't know one of the words the joke is completely lost. 

I feel like I have put a language-blocker on my brain because for some reason I can't get myself to think in French. I'm trying to write in my journal in French, I've actually written a lot. I think it's probably normal to think in English because if I didn't, I would have too many pent up thoughts and emotions. Writing emails to you helps me sort out my feelings about France and remember things I did, if you couldn't tell :p I'll probably end up printing them all out when I get back because I've been finding that I tell you things that I forget to write in my journal because I'm not surprised by them but you would be since you haven't studied French culture as much as me. 

Oh and I'm getting used to the whole shower at night thing, I'm going to go do that now. 

January 23

Cool thanks, I'm glad that worked out. Everything's going well, getting settled into the routine of my preliminary language course but if course that will change in less than a week, then it'll be all hectic and crazy again! On Friday we have a wine tasting though, so that will be cool.

Yesterday Monique was telling me about all the places she's been; all over the place, really. Africa, Taiwan, China. When she was in Africa she got a really bad infection and actually had to be sent back to France, and Pierre's sister (I think she said his sister?) actually died there from what I'm guessing was smallpox? I don't know the word in French so I really do have to guess :p it was something that can kill you in a matter of a few days. Anyway, I have been afraid to ask Monique questions because I don't know whether to "tutoie" or "vousvoie" her. Since you don't know French, tutoie is when you use the subject "tu" which is informal, used for people your own age or those you know very well and vousvoie is when you use the subject "vous" which is formal, more respectful, used for superiors like professors and such. Pierre told me right off the bat to use tu with him, but Monique hasn't said anything. I have accidentally used tu before because I hardly have to vousvoie anyone, and she didn't say anything. The other kids use tu with her. But I'll probably vousvoie her until she says otherwise.

Anyway, she has a lot of friends who also went to Africa and she says that when you return, your immune system is weakened so that's why when she gets sick, she gets really sick. But she's better now so that's good.

Yesterday I wrote in a xmas card for her in English to a student she had here 14 years ago. She told me about a lot of the other students, one girl is in Africa right now and a few others are ambassadors. I have a lot to live up to :P

I don't think I want to go to Africa though, after hearing those horror stories...although I think she would still advocate going even so. I've been thinking a lot about what I'm going to do after I graduate. I think I will probably major in French and English Literature and then do the MAT (the 1-year masters in education program at Pitt) and then after that I want to move somewhere else in the world to teach english/something else to do with education. Teaching english is a really great option for people like me though. 

Something else about France: for women here, bedhead is not frowned upon. People here are allowed to have crazy hair...so tonight, I'm not going to put any product in my hair and we'll see what it looks like tomorrow morning. Hopefully the look will suit me :P

My friend did give me a coupon for 15% off a haircut, but getting your hair cut here is ridiculously expensive and, for some reason, the French think it's perfectly justifiable to charge more to cut long hair, even if you only get an inch trimmed off. For some reason, that strikes me as something that is sooo French, even the French hate it. My friend Amanda said she'd cut my hair for me, just a trim, so I might let her do it...free is free. If it's uneven...well oh well, the French don't seem to care anyway.

We have a 3 day weekend next weekend, so my friends and I are going to travel further into Brittany. (I say further into it because we are on the very edge of the region.) To really see Brittany, you have to go further into the peninsula. I'm 100% it will be a cold and very damp trip (since it rains here EVERY DAY! and if the sun comes out you're lucky...) but it's a neat region with a lot of culture. 

(this section grandma will like) Breton culture is very celtic. here are a few links to videos with a traditional and more modern/fusion examples

the instruments (the flute and bagpipe like thing) are really popular and the language they're speaking is the regional language here, Breton (but there's also gallo in the western part of brittany, where I am)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUw6Ce66yT0   the lady in this video is very famous for this (you don't have to listen to the whole thing...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB8Nim4JBNk   and this woman won the french equivalent of american idol, she's from this region so she made this song. if you listen you can hear the similarities to the traditional song --- i hope this link works, if not search in youtube "nolwenn lero tri martolod"

In february there's going to be a "fest-noz" which is a traditional breton party with the music and dancing and food; also in Rennes there are bars you can go to and hear the music played live. I'm really excited to delve into the Breton culture, if it wasn't evident...

A Series of Emails

I don't have much time to write (or rather didn't want to take the time to do it) so I'm going to post the emails that I sent to my dad. They're disorganized, poorly written, and may not make sense at points (because I'm not including the emails he sent me first) but it's better than nothing!

January 10

[answering the question "why do you hate the Paris metro?]Because my stupid tickets got demagnetized and then I almost got separated from my entire group and lost in Paris on my own, that's why! 

I just met my host family tonight and they're pretty cool. They're older, about 60, and they remind me a lot of Darren's grandparents. They also do foster parenting which is awesome! A girl named Monica, I think she might be African and she's 15, another girl named Aurelia, she's 13, and a boy whose name I forget but he's 12. Monique owns the house and Pierre, I guess he's her boyfriend or whatever, they're really really nice but the French do things differently.

I have to wear slippers in the house and I can only shower from 5 to 9pm because of water and what not.

But Pierre likes to joke and is really outgoing and Monique loves to cook and they only have one cat. The house is old and really big with a spiral staircase and a big garden in the back but I haven't seen anything during the day yet. It's only 4pm there now right? I would call but I don't want to wake anyone up so I'll send this and then try to get my phone hooked up to wifi later. (Yes I have wifi too!)

I really like being here, there are monitors who are students around 25 or 26 years old and they've helped me a ton. Tomorrow I have to get myself to the university, so I have to take a bus and the metro but it sounds really easy. I live in the "centre ville" which means center city where all the government stuff is so I think it's a really nice area.

Luckily we left Paris early today because there was a taxi strike (aka traffic everyone) and 3 militant women "kurk" I think were shot and there was a lot of craziness. But I think that's typical of France.

I'm pretty tired but my sleep has been totally messed up and I don't have to be out of the house till 8:50 tomorrow and it's only 10:19 here. But everyone's in bed so it's quiet.

Pierre isn't here a lot, apparently, I don't know why but maybe it's his job. Tonight I got here and they showed me around and we had dinner. They were glad to hear I'm not a picky eater though! And then the kids went and did their thing and I sat and watched the news with Monique and Pierre and we drank "tizane" (I think that's how it's spelled? its just herbal tea) and they had yogurt and I had a piece of chocolate. Also they host students alllll the time. There's some kid who's my age who lives in their basement, it's like an apartment I think? But I'm excited to meet him because he'll make it easier to transition. All in all I'm really happy I got placed here, I think we'll get along really well, they're a really neat family.

Oh and Monique does have kids of her own, two daughters, and also she has four grandchildren; 3 babies and one who's 4 or something.

January 13

I can understand them when they talk to me because they slow it down and use simple words. I think it's probably like having a conversation with an intelligent five year old :p

I talked to the kid in the basement today and he was super hard to understand. Usually that's how it goes. But I can understand the monitors well enough, but again they're all people who know that we don't know french.

I think you mean to say you met dj and natalie.

Tomorrow is my placement test for my preliminary language course, which will last 2 weeks. then after we take that we get reevaluated and placed into our regular classes. i'm planning on working my butt off for the next two weeks to get my french back up to where i want it to be. 

Yesterday we toured Rennes and went to le marche de lices, the second biggest market in france. it was like a dream come true. i'll take pictures and post them soon enough but i figure i have plenty of time to do all that so i'm just trying to take it in.

i ate two galettes yesterday, which are buckwheat crepes that originated in brittany. they're good but a lot of the food here sits in my stomach like a rock (i'm sure it also has to do with the constant state of anxiety of being in FRANCE)

but we bought our cell phones and metro passes yesterday so now i feel a little better because its easier to get around and not get lost, and if I do i can call someone.

January 14

His [the university student who rents the apartment in our basement] name is Jean-Baptiste. A lot of the Americans here don't like to speak French when we're together, including myself, so it's hard to transition when I get home. I think once classes start people will start speaking more French.

The market is huge, I'll take pictures next Saturday. I haven't been taking many, I'm just taking it all in for a while. 

January 15

I think I just get too nervous that I'll make mistakes, but that's my main problem when I speak.

Today was really fun; we went to this pub where all the bartenders are English/Scottish/Irish for "english night" where everyone speaks english. Three of the monitors were there, they're like chaperones. It was Lola (who I think is really cool and chique), Matthieu who's pretty funny and nice, and Pauline who is very very very French but she doesn't talk that much. My friend Amanda and I talked to Pauline for a while and got to know her a lottt better because we could speak in English and actually say what we wanted. It was pretty great.

I also tried Guinness. If there's one thing I've learned from being able to order drinks in bars, it's that I don't like beer of any sort. However here there's this drink called a Monaco and they add grenadine syrup or something to your crappy beer. It turns it red. I tried one of my friends' and it actually just tasted like a really sweet soda. Interesting enough.

I also tried "Apple Frost" today which was a cider, a thing that's pretty popular in Brittany. It tasted like apple juice beer. Interesting enough, I'd order it again probably but it was a little expensive...not really much more than beer, though. 

Being in France and going to bars is cool because people here don't go to bars just to drink, they go to socialize. I've already met a lot of French people and nobody's really been mean to me at all thus far. By Wednesday I'll know how I did on my little placement test that I took this morning but I'm pretty sure I did fairly well.

Tomorrow we're doing random crap again. I don't know if I'll go out. I like to stay here and they say we're supposed to spend time with our families, but I'm really enjoying exploring the city and Monique really encourages me to go out.

Oh and have you heard about all of the stuff with Mali? France is on a high-orange alert because of it.

From what I've had of Monique's cooking it is VERY good but she's been sick so she doesn't cook that much. But even just the little things she makes up for dinner are really good. Tonight I tried four different types of cheeses. The food at the university is pretty good too, but it the bread doesn't really match the quality of whatever Monique buys.

I really don't know how the French are so skinny though. It's hard for me to finish what's put in front of me sometimes, but the French literally wipe every plate clean with their bread. I just can't do it!