Spring and Spain

I'm super glad that Spring is finally here . . . it can still get a little chilly, but it's beautiful to see the flowers and the sunshine and eat outside and take walks by the river.

Today was the last official day of class before our trimester break. Our break lasts about a week and a half and the new trimester starts April 7. Tomorrow we have a little breakfast where everyone says goodbye . . . some people aren't coming back after the break. I got my final grades. Not bad.

I'm going to Spain! We're leaving Saturday. Everything totally works out, too. There's an older gentleman in our class who's got a summer house in Spain and he just happens to be driving there, and offered to give us girls a lift. I have a friend from Barcelona, who's riding along as well, and she's letting me and another girl crash at her place for free while she's vacationing elsewhere. Super awesome! I've been to Spain 3 times and still haven't been to Barcelona, which is ridiculous. Here's my chance. We're also going to spend a couple of days in Madrid . . . (sigh) brings back so many memories. Hopefully I'll get to see some old friends and former host mom. I may spend a few days in Paris on the way back, too. This is probably the last time I'll get to do any major traveling for a long time, so I'd better make the most of it!

Pictures and Such

Me and friends at a cafe Saturday afternoon:

I volunteered with Rotary and Rotaract (young people from 18-30) for this little fundraiser called Chocolat en fête. I got to try all kinds of chocolate and I helped out with the little kids. They got a tiny cake and got to decorate it with melted dark and white chocolate. So adorable.

The Rotary Club Tours Sud (my host club) did a tiny write up about my presentation on their blog. Check it out here.

I sent out a batch of postcards . . . I have to buy some more because I have a lot more people on my list than I anticipated.

Next week is our Easter break before the new trimester starts, and Saturday, I'm going with one of my friends to Spain for a few days! I've been nominated as the translator.

Ordinarily

the rain depresses me and I hate the smell of my rained on hair.

I nearly die inside when I forget my umbrella in a downpour.

But things are different when you're walking with someone else who's getting wet too.

I passed the DELF B2!

Someone told me that I'm good at moving between worlds.

That I'm good at adapting within worlds. An old, knowing ache rises up in me when I realize I can never realistically be a part of a world, that, at least for the moment, I feel contains some of the many things I lack. I recognize that a part of my constant frustration is the fact that there isn't a world that exists that I will ever be able to fully embrace or call my own.

I walk to school with a nun sometimes. I told her of my test anxieties, my insecurities in the language. The next day she told me that in her evening prayers, she remembered me. She asked the saints to help me not to be so worried. I barely managed to hold back tears as I watched the world shrink. A thread materialized between us, and I wanted, more than anything, to understand her life. She and the other sisters are planting a vegetable garden, she told me. I want to help. I want to be there, to dig in the earth, to leave with some essence of her world.

Waiting for a friend, I sat on a bench in a main plaza backed by a cylindrical movie advertisement when they spotted me. The kind of men that exist everywhere. Old, down on their luck, whiling the day away with spotty, temporary work, soothing their misery with a smoke and a drink and wishful words to young strangers. My friend texted to say he'd be late, he was stuck in a traffic jam. I tried to pretend I didn't know any French. I laughed in spite of it all. After all, the same men have tried their luck with me in other places and languages in the past to no avail.

I explained to a young man about the fact that 10% of all words in Spanish have Arabic origins. Veiled women sitting nearby listened. I listed words and phrases in Spanish, but if you dusted them off a little, they went back to where they came from. Ojalá, I mentioned, basically means "I hope." They nodded. Yes, we say law sha'allah. If God wills it.

Normandy

Before I go any further, it must be said that today is the Ides of March, and I've bewared them. I've been such a blog slacker. I went to the cities of Bayeux and Caen this past weekend in Normandy. It was a very lovely, history-filled trip. Enjoy!

One of those posts I'll probably regret later but that I won't delete because it would be inauthentic . . .

I have a hopeless crush on a fellow classmate. He's not technically a classmate because he's not in my class (thank God, because that wouldn't bode well for my concentration in class) but he goes to the Institut, so I see him every day.

We speak to each other in French. His English isn't the best and I don't know a word of his native language, so French it is. This afternoon we sat alone on the big red couch outside the library and talked about the DELF (we're both taking it), I made copies of his list of connectors and argumentation phrases to help with the oral production section, we talked about learning French, what gives us trouble, our goals, homesickness.

It's absolutely, positively impossible. In my rational mind, I know this. In my rational mind, I wouldn't even want to have anything to do with him. In my rational mind, he is worlds apart from anything possible, desirable, feasible or conceivable.

But (isn't there always?) there it is again. That part of me that's me that I'm having a lot of trouble accepting as me. That annoying sister that you want to leave behind, but you can't because she's blood, and you can't deny her. My sullen sister always manages to reject reason, in spite of its overwhelming weight and power. She hopes in defiance. She mourns what was never lost. And I'm constantly ashamed of her. No matter how many times I plead with her to stay home, to leave me alone, to stop inserting herself between me and my reliance on what makes sense, she will not be denied.

Reason tries to reason by comparing things to my feelings about France. France is nice, but France is temporary. You wouldn't want to live in France forever. You miss home. You're going to continue your life in the US. You like cafe-based socializing, all the pastries and cheese and quiche, but you're not willing to rule out taking road trips in your own car, fried chicken, warm chocolate chip cookies, easily accessible iced white chocolate mochas and Mexican food. You're going to want to take a normal shower again. Not the little European handheld ones.

But, Sister says, he's confident, magnetic. Not over-worried about his success, so it flows his way. Whatever he does in life, she's convinced, he will be successful. Whatever dreams he has, goals he sets, he will attain them. She knows this somehow. And she's disappointed because she knows he lives in a world that's so different from hers, a world that she will never, ever be a part of.

Sister, go back to your little corner, Reason says. You know you wouldn't really want to be a part of his world, just like you wouldn't want to take a European handheld shower for the rest of your life.

So . . .

1. I gave my first Rotary presentation last night. I'd say it went well. I'm always so overwhelmingly aware of my American accent, but I can't do anything about it. Oh, well. People said that I spoke well, so I guess I should just be happy.

2. I signed up for the DELF. I don't know why I'm so scared about it. It's a test to show my French proficiency, not a test to see if I will either succeed or fail in life from here to eternity. I'm really trying to calm down about it. March 19 is the big day!

3. I have another class presentation due next Monday. (sigh.) I need to get it done because we're going to Normandy this weekend.

Long, Lovely Weekend and a Few Random Extras

Long Lovely Weekend

It's gotten colder. I snap my fingers in disappointment because I'm ready for Spring to come. Nevertheless, this weekend was lovely. There was a lot of sun. We went to Mont Saint Michel and a nearby town called Saint Malo:

Church this morning was nice. Thankfully, an incredibly sweet young man who lives nearby who also goes to church had the day off, so he drove instead of my having to take the yucky train.

Few Random Extras

1. My dear mom sent me some girl scout cookies and I brought them to share with my classmates and with my students. They were a hit. Thin Mints are my absolute favorite in the universe, but it seemed that the French folks who took a taste were not impressed. I guess the chocolate/mint combo threw them for a loop.

2. I'm giving my first Rotary presentation tomorrow. Mommyyyyy! I'm a teensy bit scared. I mean, my French is all right, but it seems like it'll exponentially diminish when I'm in front of a group of distinguished francophones. I did a little PowerPoint, and my host counselor checked it out for errors. There's still a teeny bit I'm going to add, though, about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I've already used my PowerPoint for educative purposes, though—the handsome Libyan decided he wanted to see what I was working on, so I gave him a little preview. It was so cute the way he pronounced "Martin Luther King, Jr." Awww.

3. I still haven't decided whether I'm going to take the DELF. I feel like I need to go ahead and take it now so that I can get it out of the way and not have to worry about it the rest of my time here. It costs a bit of money, so I feel like I need to do it now while I definitely have the money instead of waiting until later and being like, whoops, I don't have enough. If I fail it (which I superly hope that I don't, and which I think is relatively unlikely, but still possible), then I'll have the chance to take it again in June. Level B2 is the level that French universities require foreign students to have before they can enter. So, it basically shows that you're competent enough in French to do college-level coursework. I mean, I don't HAVE to have this . . . it's not a requirement at all. It's not like I'm going to be able to teach French in the States because I have a DELF B2 diploma. I wouldn't even want to do that. But it is an internationally recognized test whose results are valid indefinitely. I want to go back to the States with something more than a certificate of attendance. I feel like I need to have something solid in hand that shows my competency in French. This is the beginning of my 3rd month here, and I feel like I've progressed. B2 is the level I'm currently in, so I've already done plenty of practice concerning the test. I feel like I should go for it. But I have to be sure . . . it's not going to be easy. I have until Tuesday to decide.

This is what ya girl did/is doing:

1. Finally finished the PowerPoint for my Rotary presentation coming up!

2. Still relishing the compliment my usually supercilious oral production instructor bestowed upon me this morning. We did practice for the DELF (an internationally recognized French language proficiency exam that I'm considering taking this month), and part of the test is basically giving an impromptu presentation based on a text. I hate it when a teacher asks a question or asks for volunteers, and everyone just sits there. It's just awkward, and I can't stand the silence. I guess it's because I know how it feels on the other end, as a teacher. So, I volunteered and gave my little impromptu speech about the commercialization of traditional holidays. He was all glowing and said I was eloquent and that if I did that for the test, I would pass DELF B2. I felt so warm and fuzzy inside.

3. I feel so much better about my French . . . I still have a really long way to go, but at this point, I'd say I'm conversational. I still make a lot of mistakes, and I haven't broken through that barrier yet, but I don't feel as behind in class as I did when the term first started.

I've been slacking on my blog baby.

Not that there have been a whirlwind of things going on, necessarily. Sometimes it's just hard to find the right time to write. I don't want to write when I'm overwhelmingly homesick, blowing my nose into tissue after tissue, gray clouds of self-doubt and worry my only companions. Naw, not that. But neither do I want to write when I'm ridiculously giddy, coming down from an adrenaline rush because I got a text from a handsome friend, or because a friend and I scored the last two spots on a fantastic excursion to Mont Saint Michel, or because I've got some job prospects cooking up stateside. I'm trying to write when I'm in emotional homeostasis. When I can present a world that's neither rose-colored nor tinged with dismal blue-gray.

Let's see, where to begin . . . ah, yes. What happens when 2 Americans, a Catalana (don't call her Spanish) and a Norwegian get together for dinner?

Observe my Saturday morning breakfast view.

Check out my Japanese former roommates.

Praise the Lord for the first church service held in Tours! It was a super small group, but awesome that they're starting to have services in my city. The missionaries, Bro. and Sis. Brochu, are going on deputation and said I'd be famous since they'll be showing pictures of this groundbreaking service all over the country. If you're Apostolic McChurchy and they stop though your neck of the woods, gimme a shout out.

If you heard about the super storm in France, yes, it passed through here as well, and caused a few damages. But thankfully it wasn't as severe as it was in other places.

That's all for now!