So I'm realizing that my skills with the English language (what with being a native speaker and all) can be a useful way to make friends. I'm clearly not abouve exploiting people's desire to speak my language as a way to buy their friendship.
Like I said a couple of posts back, I went to the TOEFL class and had received an email from one of the girls. Well, we are having lunch together on Thursday and seems excited to hang out and chat. And I am too! She seems really nice and interesting and has very good taste in music, so that is a plus too. And, even better, she will likely be at U of O next year, so we can keep in touch over the summer and I can pay her back by introducing her to my friends and inviting her to hang out with us...and I'll have someone to speak French with. Really it's just win-win all over the place. It was kind of awkward at the time, but Barbara's stressing that it's really hard for us American kids to make friends may have paid off. Woot. Also, today before my capoeira class started, one of the girls asked me if I would mind helping her with her english because she is also preparing for the TOEFL (and at Lyon 2 there is no prep class. Bummer). So anyway, I gave her my number and told her to give me a call and I would be happy to help her out.
On a similar and amusing note, a couple of weeks ago in my constitutional law class, one of the guys came up to me and sat down, and in a kind of messy mélange of English and French, explained to me that he had a pick-up line in English that he wanted to use on me: "Has your father ever told you that you are like a robbery?" That's how it started but I didn't get to hear the end, because he got all self-conscious about his English and getting it right, and he told me he would do it for me another time. I'm still waiting. The French really do love to show off whatever English skills they have whenever they get the chance. At first it can be kinda frustrating because, well, I'm here to learn French, not awkwardly worded English. But then I realized that many of them wont have the opportunity to study in the states and they need to practice too. Plus it's totally adorable. I *heart* English with a french accent.
If you can't tell, I'm doing much better. I spent the morning running errands and then came home and was kind of sad and pathetic and bummy and then I took a cat-nap with Chagall and went to capoeira, which really does make me feel loads better. I was planning to go to a second capoeira class at the studio in Villeurbanne, but I ran into some friends on my way home and we ended up standing around chatting about vacations and how to get our fixes of american food (apparantly it is possible to find cheddar cheese and even decent tortillas, which is cool, although I kind of enjoy making them now...tortillas that is) and then I was going to be late and my feet were killing me, so I came home and took a shower and had a nice salad and a glass of wine and have just been kind of relaxing waiting for the host family to get home so I can share the cookies from Annecy with them. What's left of the cookies, anyway. I've been eating them a lot.
I've been talking to a few other people, and I think everyone is kind of in a period of serious homesickness and questioning the intelligence of deciding to spend a whole year away from home. The initial novelty of being here is kind of starting to wear off for everyone and we are all realizing that it's not just a vacation. That we really are here to live our lives for a year and all the differences that we joked about at first become really frustrating. Even little stuff like not being able to make Mexican food just right because pinto beans don't exist and not being able to go to Target to get all the things we want and the fact that the dollar sucks so bad right now, so shopping is kind of depressing. I'm sure we will all come out of it soon. I know it will help me to see people from home, and I have a number of people that are coming to visit me or will be in Europe sometime in the future...just making plans has brightened my spirits a little bit.
So, even though I've been in a bit of a slump lately, I realize that life goes on and it's time to start counting my blessings instead of worrying about the negative stuff. Easier said than done at times, but that's my mission for the moment.
*MUAH*
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