Venting

I am supposed to be in class right now but I am having a really strange day and have barely been able to stop crying for like 5 hours (except for the hour and a half that I was close to falling asleep in my literature class, which I feel horrible about).  Maybe I will calm down by writing some and then I can go around the halfway point when there is a break.  Or I will just upset myself more...I guess we shall see.

I don't know what is up with me today.  Actually I think I kind of do...like a million different things that are upsetting and frustrating and stressful.  I'm sorry to everyone who is reading this...if you are looking for a happy, here is my life and I just went on an amazing vacation (which I did, but that will have to wait until I am more stable) sort of post, this is not it and feel free not to read this...but I guess most of the things that are bugging me are part of my experience studying abroad and therefore are the kind of thing that I'm trying to chronicle in this blog.

First of all, I got back late last night from 9 days of traveling in Italy and Belgium and I am absolutely exhausted.  The trip was amazing, but I think it was that much more tiring for that fact.  Plus I think I'm kind of having travel with-drawls or something.

While on my trip, I was visiting a friend who is studying in Florence, Italy.  She's a friend from high school who I absolutely adore and it was so good to spend time with her, but it kinda made me more homesick.  We talked a lot about going home and made lots of fun plans for this summer, which was really cool, but it made me wish that summer were here already.  And I was a little jealous that she's going home in like 3 weeks.  On the other hand, there's also the fact that as much as I want to be home, I'll be leaving France in about 7 weeks, and that's kind of scary because I can't help but think of the things I haven't done and the things I'll miss.  So all of that is on my mind. 

On top of all that, I had to get up for an 8am class this morning and confront the fact that there are 5 weeks left of school and I have a zillion things to do and am starting to stress about some of my classes.  Some of this stress is my normal, "oh shit I've been procrastinating and now I have to deal with the consequences" sort of stress, but I'm also facing the stress of exams and a real distress about the French system and not knowing what to expect and therefore worrying about my grades.  I know grades aren't everything, and I have dropped the bar for myself a little knowing that it's a lot harder to be a straight-a exchange student in France than to be a straight-a student at U of O.  The problem for some of my classes is that, while I'm pretty certain I understand the material, I have this fear that the ONE essay question that appears on the ONE exam will not be one I can't address...or that I won't be able to answer it the way the teachers expect.  I know that teachers will grade my exams slightly easier being a foreign student, but that is usually a language thing, which I'm honestly not concerned about.  What I'm afraid of is that the French have a different way of looking at things and expect very specific things (organized in a very specific way) and that's what is hard for me.  But I feel like if I can express myself fine in the language, they will expect me to be able to understand the question perfectly and be able to answer it the way they expect.  And in one of my classes I'm the only foreign student, so there won't be any comparison except for the french students' work, and in another the professor is doing an oral exam, but because I'm doing the normal assignment for another class with the same professor, she expects me to do the same for this class.  So basically I'm the only foreign student taking the exam.  Why can't I suck at french?

I talked to Laurie about it today, and she understood and said we can work something out and possibly do a pass-fail thing depending on my grade, since I can't gauge myself since there are no grades but the final exam, and that helped a lot but it was also kind of upsetting because I don't like being an exception in that way.  I don't like being held to different standards, even if it's necessary and fair and all that.  It goes against my perfectionism, and is completely irrational and I can't help it.

While I was talking to Laurie, I also kind of vented to her about my teaching assistant job and all of the problems I've been having with it.  I honestly wish I had quit when I had the chance.  Or talked to someone that wasn't my mother (not that you didn't help, mom...but I mean someone more official).  Laurie was really surprised by most of my complaints and said that I was completely justified in them (something I wasn't really sure about because I wasn't entirely clear on what was expected of me...one of my many complaints about the job in general).  She told me to contact this guy who's in charge of the english assistants (or all the assistants, I'm not sure), but made it sound kind of like there probably wasn't a whole lot I could do with only 5 weeks left on my contract.  So I just finished writing him this long email, which was really upsetting because it reminded me of how much I dread that job and the fact that I have to go tomorrow and invent activities for 5 hours of classes that I am supposed to be ASSISTING teachers in, not teaching.  I hate hating my job.

And then, this whole crying session started when I came across something that I knew about, but hadn't really dealt with or confronted in my mind, which was worsened by some news from a friend.  This kid that I have known forever passed away recently totally mysteriously and out of the blue.  I had heard about it from a friend about two weeks ago, but was so caught up in everything that I couldn't deal with it.  But today I found myself looking at his myspace page, where his family had written a little note about his death and a bunch of his friends had written messages about him.  He is someone that was in my sort of extended "Flagstaff family" growing up and was the little brother of a guy who was about my age.  His dad and my dad are really good friends and I have a lot of memories of spending time with his family growing up.  I really didn't know him that well, though, because he was still pretty young when I stopped spending as much time in Flagstaff and that community dissipated in a lot of ways.  But I always remember him being a really happy and great kid.  And I've seen him occasionally over the years and know people that were really close to him and from what I do know he remained a really happy, great kid and was a wonderful musician and one of those people that no one could say anything bad about.  And then one day he just didn't wake up and from what I have heard, no one really knows why.  And that's so heartbreaking.  

This happened this afternoon, while I was thinking about a good friend who just lost her uncle and someone from my high school who went missing in February and I just felt this heavy sadness drape over me.  Sadness for those losses, but especially sadness for my friends who are affected a lot more than me by them.  After my experience losing my grandpa and being so far from the people I needed to support me through it, I hate the thought that I can't be with the people I love when they are going through a similar loss.  I know that they have support systems around them and are not as isolated as I think maybe I was, but I don't want anyone to have to feel that sense of isolation that I felt at the time when you really need every once of support you can get.  And if my apathy weren't hard enough, I kind of drifted back into my own pain that I've been keeping at bay for the most part since I went home and had some closure.  

So all of these things and the fact that I've spent most of the last 9 days in the sun only to come home to rain and ugly and no food and homework that I'd been procrastinating on are all just too much for me and I can't stop crying and I want to curl up in bed but I know I should go to my class because if I don't I'll be even more stressed when exams roll around but I'm a little nervous that sitting in class trying to concentrate and take notes will be too much for me and I won't be able to stop myself from crying.  It's really kind of a lose-lose situation.  Which doesn't help my mood at all.

Well, either way, I will stop venting, because I think I've exhausted my complaints.

Much love and gros bisous and I promise that I will have some much happier posts about my wonderful travels soon (because we all know I love a reason to procrastinate).

Nerdy study abroad victory moment

So for one of my classes we have to do an in-class presentation and I'm doing it with this guy Romain next week.  He had given me his email address and whatnot (on the back of an unused metro ticket...how considerate of him in case I ever forget my metro card and only have my planner) a couple weeks ago, and I finally sat down an emailed him a couple of days ago with the times I was available to work on our presentation.  So today, I asked him about when would work, etc...bla bla bla...and then he was like, oh btw you are really good at the email abbreviations and whatnot in french (I'm paraphrasing, clearly, because unfortunately I don't know how to say whatnot in french).  It was one of those little victories, like being on the bise level with someone.  Ok maybe not that cool.  But still...

thoughts

So, it turns out there are some downsides to my new hobby, jogging.  Namely that you are very exposed to the elements.  For example, running into the wind is not a very pleasant experience, nor is running in the rain.  Actually, that might almost be bearable if it weren't terribly blustery or pouring.  To add insult to injury...or maybe injury to insult, while running in the wind it is not uncommon to get flying debris in your eye, and that sucks a lot.  Plus I feel like people, especially french ones, give you even stranger looks than they do when they see you running in normal weather.  Lastly, keeping up this new hobby over the smoldering NM summer is a challenge.  I know.  I've tried.  It's a good thing I actually enjoy jogging when I'm able to get over the unpleasantness of the process.  

I'm not sure it's terribly good for the bronchitis or whatever my latest sickness is.  Basically I don't feel all that sick except for the smoker cough plaguing my lungs.

On a completely other train of thought, I learned last night that it's probably a good thing I chose not to go to McGill, because the Quebecois accent is a sound that makes me want to punch babies (please, someone, appreciate the Dane Cook reference and don't think I'm a psycho).  I went to a play with some of the other oregonians.  It was a really interesting play, except that it was set partially in Canada and one of the main characters had this ridiculous accent.  Some of the other actors had the same accent, but hers was especially painful and difficult to understand.  Although more painful than difficult, I think.  Beyond that, it was a four hour play, which meant four whole hours of this accent.  

I complain a lot.  I'm  sorry.  I actually really enjoy jogging and the play was very good.  And life in general is going well.  There was another brazilian night at the marquise on Sunday night, which I ended up going to alone because Katie is sickie.  Actually, a couple of my friends showed up after a while, but they wouldn't dance to the live music because they didn't know the steps, which I tried to teach them cuz it's super easy.  Luckily, while I was standing around awkwardly in the corner, my capoeira teacher showed up and got me to dance with him.  Not only is he a good lead (ie I don't actually have to think about what I'm doing), but he's goofy and will bust into silly dance moves randomly.  I also danced with this guy who was a bad lead and kept changing the steps and running me into people.  It's amazing how big of a difference a guy's dance skillz have on a girl's dancing experience.  

I've also got all my plans set up for my April break that's in a little over a week.  I'm riding with the host fam to Pisa (about a day's drive), hanging out there for a day and seeing the sights, taking a train to Florence and spending a few days with my friend Erin, flying to Brussels, taking a train to Bruges and hanging out there for a couple days with some friends, and then coming back to Lyon...and getting back to work.  Yay traveling!

Ok, need to shower and concentrate for like an hour to finish some homework so that I can go print some stuff out and try to do more homework.  Doing homework has gotten so hard for me!  I'm even more of a master procrastinator than I used to be.  OH!  But exciting news, I FINALLY got my grade for my constitutional law class, and I kicked butt.  My grade was based entirely on a 10-page paper on the topic of my choice, as long as it had to do with constitutional law.  So I wrote mine on environmental protections in the Constitution, mostly focusing on the french Constitution, but also the lack of environmental protection in the U.S. Constitution.  I really didn't know what to expect in terms of a grade, so that was a happy surprise the other day.

And on that note, I should probably get to work on doing well in my classes this semester...

Biz.

sick...AGAIN?!?

So...I definitely had a sore throat last night but I assumed it was from yelling over the little kids at work yesterday, because I pretty much have a sore throat every Tuesday night.  But then this morning it was worse and more in my chest and then I went running and that didn't help so much.  Then I decided to take a nap and slept for like 4 hours and still have no energy and keep coughing.  This seriously is NOT fair.  I can't go two weeks in this country without getting sick.  And I had all these high hopes for getting a bunch of homework done today and failed miserably.  Boo.

On the bright side, though, lots of happy stuff has been going on lately, too.  On Friday night, my friends and I went out...we were trying to go to this one club because my friend had seen a flier saying they were having a hip-hop/funk night.  This was really exciting to me because part of the reason I don't go out all that much is because I can't stand techno for more than 15 minutes and the french just happen to love it a lot.  I don't know why...it's terrible dance music unless you are doing tektonik (quite the euro-fad...youtube it and know the ridiculousness).  Anyhoo, we get to the place it was supposed to be and they were having a jazz festival...which would have been cool except that two of my friends were very drunk and we were all quite ready to get our groove on.   So we headed next door to the Sirius, a place I am a pretty big fan of...they were playing kind of horrible electro-jazz, but we decided to stick it out, figuring it was still early and it would get better soon (nothing really gets going til close to midnight usually).

And it's a good thing we waited, because the DJ was joined by this other DJ (who was a bit of a cutie), who's first song was by the Arcade Fire, who I LOVE.  He continued to play amazing music: the Libertines, the Beach Boys, Beasite Boys, Nirvana, Arctic Monkeys (upon my request), andI even enjoyed a little Daft Punk...techno is ok in moderation, I guess.  We danced forever and it was so good.  I think I might be in love...

So after staying out until 2:30 am and not getting to sleep til like 3:30 because I had to shower and I was all adrenaline-y from dancing, I caught a train at 7 am to Strasbourg with my friend Margot.  It was a totally last minute decision for me to go, but I've been kind of stressing about getting out of town and seeing things since I only have a little over two months left here.  So we wandered around Strasbourg and climbed 66m up to the top of the tower of the main cathedral (which was interesting because I was already sore from capoeira).  We also did a lot of window shopping and enjoying the cute little alsatian buildings that are very colorful and pretty.  Thankfully, the weather was BEAUTIFUL.  On Sunday we sat outside and ate ice cream in short sleeves and soaked up some sun.  And there was a parade and tons of kids running around in costumes (not sure exactly what the occasion was).  Basically is was really really fun.

Then we came back to the rain of Lyon.  Oh joy.  Seriously, I wish the weather would make up it's mind.  Last Tuesday, we were talking about weather.  The class knows "wind," "rain," "snow," "cloud," and "sun," and I'll usually ask them what the weather is like...for example, "is it sunny?" or "is it rainy?"  Basically their answers were yes to all of the questions.  It had snowed that morning, and then it rained, and it was partly cloudy, but during lunch time the sun came out and it was windy.  Seriously...I don't know what to think. Or do with myself.  I get really excited because it's sunny and warm and by the time I make it outside it's raining and cold again.  

Um, I think that basically has me caught up.  I've been working on my travel plans for my break in 2 and a half weeks, and I'm going to ride with my host family to Florence to visit my friend who is studying there, and then fly to Bruges, Belgium and meet up with some friends.  Yay!  

Ok, I might try to do some homework before going back to bed...I can't believe how tired I am...

Bis.