Well, I'm back in hot (but not humid, yay!) New Mexico. I think I'm having a hard time really accepting the fact that the goodbyes I spent last week saying are as final as they are. I mean, I guess they aren't necessarily final, because I will definitely be seeing some people, and I know I will keep in touch with the really important people. But at the same time, there's so much uncertainty...and the fear of falling out of touch scares me.
But things end...that's something we must all get used to.
I can't really sum up my study abroad experience. It was really great...although I feel that great (and amazing and fantastic and wonderful) are such cheesy terms that don't really even mean anything, really. It was also incredibly difficult in so many ways...being away from home and my friends, and especially going through the loss of my grandfather from across the Atlantic; having to deal with my work situation; getting used to, and accepting, the differences in the french education system; etc. I also learned SO much about the world and about myself and all that good stuff.
And, I think most of all, I met some really amazing people that have all made quite the impacts on my life. My roommate and my host-family were amazing...I couldn't have asked for a better situation or more wonderful people to have had in my life every day for the past 9 months. Flo and Claudine, my two best frenchie girlfriends made my experience so fun..it was nice to have people that I could just hang out and be a girl with. Even the other americans that I got to know...people from Oregon and Penn and California and SLU, people who were sharing my experience, and people that I will continue to share that experience with in the future, because we will go through France withdrawals together. All of these people and more that I had to say goodbye to...or rather, à la prochaine or TTFN (ta ta for now) because I hate the term goodbye. And I hope to see them all again.
The last few weeks of my experience in France were really very intense. My friend Andrea came to visit, and I had finals, and Cassy came, and we did some traveling, and I was trying to spend time with my friends, especially ones I had just started hanging out with, and we discovered bedbugs in my apartment, and I had to pack up my life, and meanwhile my computer and my ipod both decided they hated me...it was almost too much for me to handle. But I made it and came home, and made it with all my luggage and apparently didn't look nearly as exhausted or stressed or sad as I was feeling when my mom and two good friends picked me up at the airport.
It's been pretty non-stop since I've been home. I haven't really had time to think about all the hard stuff. This weekend was Pride, so I did some volunteering, went to the parade, and spent the day running around the fairgrounds and being fabulous. And then I slept. For like 15 hours. I was completely burned out by Saturday afternoon that all I could do was sleep. Which was actually kind of sad because it meant I didn't get to go out and do the evening Pride stuff, even though this is the first year I could have done all that. But I desperately needed the sleep, so it worked out. And then yesterday I spent the day cleaning/unpacking. I had to rewash all my clothes and carefully unpack everything to make sure I hadn't brought the bedbugs back. On top of that, since I was house-sitting for most of last summer, I never really unpacked or dealt with my own space, so as I've been unpacking, I've also been trying to clean everything and get rid of stuff. One bag of trash, one bag of paper recycling, one bag of stuff to send to goodwill, and three loads of laundry later, I'm nowhere near being finished. And I need a bigger closet, more hangars, and more bookshelf space. Hmmm.
Anyway, I have to go take care of my car and get groceries. I'm going to try to keep up this blog business, but I'm not sure where I want to go with it, so I don't promise to be terribly regular about updating, but feel free to check back every once in a while. I may need to use it to debrief after all the time that will be spent cleaning out my grandpa's house, and I also have a long list of books to read this summer, so maybe I'll do some book reviews. Who knows?
