By the way, I do realize I'm currently not in central standard time. I just wish I were a lot of the time.
Happy Thanksgiving, too!
Friday, November 23, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Continuum
Yesterday I went back and read most of my blogs that have led me up to where I am now. It was odd. All the ones of last year had to do with my impending life here in Pau and the impossibility of fitting everything into 24 hour days. How did I let myself get so busy? And how in the world was I able to enjoy anything with that much on my shoulders? It's only weird now because here in France it seems I have all too much time and none at the same time. I can't really comprehend this notion that has seemed to plague me throughout my university years. This same problem, I fear, is going to follow me everywhere. It's here in that I have nearly 23 hours of class per week, so I don't have enough time to spend doing other things (such as travel as much as I'd like or simply pass the time with new friends). There doesn't seem to be an even playing field for all the things I'd like to be doing versus those I must. In anycase, I'm bothered.
On an unrelated note, I have just over one month left of my study abroad experience, and it's as if I have nothing to show for it. Things have happened, yes, but at the same time it seems that everything is exactly the same, even though I know it isn't. One of my best friends has gotten engaged while I have been away, I have visited many places and met a lot of interesting and fun people, but I still feel as if I don't really know anyone. It's unsettling. What's more, is that the friends I have at home have gone on without me, not that they had any choice either. And I'm certainly not asking that they stay in the same spot I left them. No. That'd be unfair and impossible anyway. It's just odd.
It doesn't help anything that all of my expensive items save my hair straightener have been stolen. First it was just my iPod and camera, but once I got back from London I found my laptop and jewelry had vanished as well.
Anyway, I'll be sad to leave Europe, but it won't be that hard to leave Pau.
On an unrelated note, I have just over one month left of my study abroad experience, and it's as if I have nothing to show for it. Things have happened, yes, but at the same time it seems that everything is exactly the same, even though I know it isn't. One of my best friends has gotten engaged while I have been away, I have visited many places and met a lot of interesting and fun people, but I still feel as if I don't really know anyone. It's unsettling. What's more, is that the friends I have at home have gone on without me, not that they had any choice either. And I'm certainly not asking that they stay in the same spot I left them. No. That'd be unfair and impossible anyway. It's just odd.
It doesn't help anything that all of my expensive items save my hair straightener have been stolen. First it was just my iPod and camera, but once I got back from London I found my laptop and jewelry had vanished as well.
Anyway, I'll be sad to leave Europe, but it won't be that hard to leave Pau.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
My Professor called me jaded. I called myself honest.
It’s almost a certainty that I neglected to give France a chance. Sure, I went to Paris. I saw that Tour Eiffel, no really, I did, it just, well, it wasn’t a big deal. Clearly, this is not true. I mean, yes, I saw the Eiffel Tower, and it was great, but it is a big deal. There’s one thing that hits you though when you go to anywhere in France that isn’t near the Eiffel Tower — and that thing is that, mostly France is just like Iowa or some other plain state. There are loads of farms. I’m not quite sure, about how I managed to edit out that France is world-renown for their cheese. And that cheese comes from, yes, farms.
Driving to the south of France after five days in the City of Love was like a dream. Nearly six hours went by and still, Pau felt no closer than when I’d left Paris. Upon arrival it occurred to me straightaway that if we’re talking distance, Pau is closer to Spain than it is to France’s capital city.
The Palois, the citizens of Henry IV’s Pau, have dark hair and tanned skin, and speak French, but many know Spanish, including the French host mother who was to take me in as her own for the next few months. We’d met outside the University of Pau dormitories. There were palm trees and it was hot, but not the kind of hot that forces one inside, the kind of hot that makes you excited to jump through sprinklers no matter your age.
Everything seemed surreal. She was Florence and I was Brigid, but I didn’t know she was Florence, and she had really no idea who I was. Thanks to confusion brought on by a small slip of paper describing my host situation I’d assumed the surname of Madame Carde was her first name. Two weeks went by until she finally mentioned that her name was not in fact Carde, game or any other sort. This is normal, though. There’s an unwanted unfamiliarity once one is thrust into it. No matter how prepared I thought I was, what with my travel towel and 20 pairs of underwear, for my voyage across land and sea, there’s no way to really get it.
No, not until I was here for over a month did I fully comprehend that France, even with it’s Eiffel Tower, mountain stretches, crepes and cheese, is just another country. The same things happen, people pass their time, students go to school, adults work, and life presses forward.
But back to this point that I didn’t give France a chance. Because I didn’t. There’s wasn’t enough time, but then again, that’s all I and my fellow study abroad classmates had. We had time to run to the supermarket to nick a 30 centime baguette and some frommage de Chevre. We had enough time to practice French with each other, while trying to introduce ourselves to each other at the same time. There was time for all that, but none to process it. That simply doesn’t happen until a few months in, when the honeymoon wears off, so to speak.
Something has to happen to make the flick switch. For me, I was faced with the seriousness of thievery, and for others it was simply that they were homesick and felt left without a paddle. The thing is, this unnaturalness of living with someone, having friends, yet completely being alone. It’s the realization that, although you may have shared your life story, there hasn’t been enough time for people to process, to get who you are or where you’re coming from. And, while I might be speaking English, it doesn’t matter, because I’m speaking another language.
Going from point A to point B isn’t difficult, it’s comprehending the journey, and after nearly a semester’s worth of driving forward, there’s a lull where the only thing I am capable of doing is thinking. These are the things people tell you, but remain impossible to decipher until the moment comes upon you, like it did for me, starring at the expanse of mountains from a small green bench overlooking the Pyrenees Mountains in the south of France.
Driving to the south of France after five days in the City of Love was like a dream. Nearly six hours went by and still, Pau felt no closer than when I’d left Paris. Upon arrival it occurred to me straightaway that if we’re talking distance, Pau is closer to Spain than it is to France’s capital city.
The Palois, the citizens of Henry IV’s Pau, have dark hair and tanned skin, and speak French, but many know Spanish, including the French host mother who was to take me in as her own for the next few months. We’d met outside the University of Pau dormitories. There were palm trees and it was hot, but not the kind of hot that forces one inside, the kind of hot that makes you excited to jump through sprinklers no matter your age.
Everything seemed surreal. She was Florence and I was Brigid, but I didn’t know she was Florence, and she had really no idea who I was. Thanks to confusion brought on by a small slip of paper describing my host situation I’d assumed the surname of Madame Carde was her first name. Two weeks went by until she finally mentioned that her name was not in fact Carde, game or any other sort. This is normal, though. There’s an unwanted unfamiliarity once one is thrust into it. No matter how prepared I thought I was, what with my travel towel and 20 pairs of underwear, for my voyage across land and sea, there’s no way to really get it.
No, not until I was here for over a month did I fully comprehend that France, even with it’s Eiffel Tower, mountain stretches, crepes and cheese, is just another country. The same things happen, people pass their time, students go to school, adults work, and life presses forward.
But back to this point that I didn’t give France a chance. Because I didn’t. There’s wasn’t enough time, but then again, that’s all I and my fellow study abroad classmates had. We had time to run to the supermarket to nick a 30 centime baguette and some frommage de Chevre. We had enough time to practice French with each other, while trying to introduce ourselves to each other at the same time. There was time for all that, but none to process it. That simply doesn’t happen until a few months in, when the honeymoon wears off, so to speak.
Something has to happen to make the flick switch. For me, I was faced with the seriousness of thievery, and for others it was simply that they were homesick and felt left without a paddle. The thing is, this unnaturalness of living with someone, having friends, yet completely being alone. It’s the realization that, although you may have shared your life story, there hasn’t been enough time for people to process, to get who you are or where you’re coming from. And, while I might be speaking English, it doesn’t matter, because I’m speaking another language.
Going from point A to point B isn’t difficult, it’s comprehending the journey, and after nearly a semester’s worth of driving forward, there’s a lull where the only thing I am capable of doing is thinking. These are the things people tell you, but remain impossible to decipher until the moment comes upon you, like it did for me, starring at the expanse of mountains from a small green bench overlooking the Pyrenees Mountains in the south of France.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)