I just moved into my third host family two weekends ago. I live back in the center of Bordeaux, five minutes away from my high school by bike. I have a host brother who is more or less my age (I’m 10 months older than him, so nearly a year). I haven’t talked to him a lot because he had a big project that he just recently finished and now he has to study for a huge exam, so it’s almost as if he weren’t there.

School is going just as normal, nothing really different. I will post an update soon about my Bus Trip to Paris and Barcelona.

We live in an apartment.  I’ve never lived in an apartment before.  I must admit that the most awkward about it is that there is only one bathroom and it’s very easy to hear everything that goes on inside this restroom.  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.  There is also a cat that lives with us.  She kind of gets on my nerves sometimes when I’m sleeping, and then she scratches on my door to get in, and then once she gets in, she starts walking all over my stuff and then comes and sleeps on top of me!  Definitely not the best thing in the world, but I’ll survive.

The apartment is farther away from my school than my first house was.  It takes me twice as long to get to school on bike and if I take the bus, I have to get up one hour before the course starts in order to get there on time.  It’s very tiring, but that’s that.

Wednesday, I watched a French film at the movies called “Hollywoo” (no, I did not forget the “d” at the end).  It is one of my new favorite movies!  Most of the movie takes place in the United States and the movie is in both French and English (whenever the characters speak English, there are subtitles in French).  I hope I can buy this movie on DVD before I go back to the United States.  It made me feel like I was in the United States again for a while.

Someone asked me the other day if anyone in my family speaks French.  As I was reflecting on this question, it occurred to me how weird it’s going to be that my parents speak English and Spanish, yet I speak English and French.  When it’s said like that, it doesn’t make much sense.  But when you hear the explanation—Spanish is the second language of my parents, so they only speak English at home.  Therefore, I only learned English at home.  And I lived a year in France, therefore I speak French whereas my parents never lived in France nor have they studied French, so they don’t speak French—it makes more sense.  It’s still odd though.

Monday, I’m going to be an English assistant for an English teacher at my high school here.  I’m excited!  Before I came to France, I realized that I might want to teach English in France.  As I’ve been living here in France and pondering on this idea, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that that is what I want to do.  I see my English teachers teaching here and it looks like something it’d really enjoy doing!  It would be a way that I can speak both English and French everyday for the rest of my life!  And if I raise my kids here in France, I would only speak English to them at home.  They’ll learn French at school and just in everyday life, but English is clearly not that easy to learn in France just living day-to-day.  So they’d be immediately fluent in two languages: one of them being the most important language in the world right now and the other language being one of the most beautiful and THE most classy language in the world.  :)

Next year, I REALLY hope that my family and I can host another exchange student!  Preferably, a French exchange student.  I want to “give back” to the universe all the help that French people have given me.  People might think that I want to host a French student so that I can continue to speak French when I’m back in America.  That is not the case.  I want to be able to help him or her with American/English expressions, vocabulary, “we don’t say it this way, but that way” instances, etc…  It’d be a way of me being an English teacher to a French person before I even leave high school!  I can’t imagine anything better than that for next year!

I talked about this with the director of the Houston Rotary Youth Exchange, and he told me that hosting another exchange student would be my mission.  In order for me to host again next year, I’d have to find another host family and have them commit to hosting and then present us two host families to the Richmond Rotary Club.  And if they accept sponsoring another exchange student, that means that RYE Houston can send another American exchange student abroad.  When Alan, the director, told me that, I took this mission personally.  I though about last year when I was applying to be an exchange student and how eager I was to be accept into the program.  And to think that if I hadn’t been accepted when I might have had a chance if a host club had decided to host an incoming exchange student.  I might be able to make a difference to an American exchange student like me!  So I am working as hard as I can all the way here in France to find people in Texas to host.  This isn’t the easiest job, as you can imagine, but it is a personal mission of mine that I WILL accomplish.  The summer when I was being home schooled, I was having a lot of trouble learning French and understanding it, which really depressed me because I wanted learn how to speak it and succeed in this subject!  So one night, I prayed to God to help me become fluent in French in whatever way possible.  Look at where I am now…

And as for the second year after my return to Texas, which will be my senior year of high school, I have my fingers crossed that my best friend from high school here in France, Ben, can be an exchange student and come to Texas.  He has been such a good friend since I’ve arrived here.  I mentioned the idea of him being an exchange student in Texas when I go back, and the idea highly interested him.  Unfortunately, he can’t go next year because it’s too late to apply.  So hopefully he can go the year after, which will be my senior year of high school.

After History & Geography, I had lunch with one of my best friends here at school, Ben.  After lunch we had a break for a few hours, so I went to a bookstore to buy a English/French Vocabulary book that I had been planning on buying.  After that, I went back to school, to the library, and went through it just to pass time.  After our break, my English class and I went to the movies to see the film “The Help.”  We have an assignment that we have to complete about the film, so it wasn’t all fun and games.  I had actually seen this movie a few days before I left the United States.  It’s a great film, in my opinion.

Then, after the film, I went back to school for my theatre course.  My greatest trouble in this course is that I am not able to stop smiling whenever we’re doing an exercise out-of-the-oridinary.  My teacher told me for one specific exercise to do it without a single smile.  That is probably the worst thing you can tell me if you don’t want me to smile.  Whenever people tell me to not smile, it makes me smile because I know they’re watching me to make sure that I’m not smiling.  So, as you can imagine,I smiled.

After our theatre course, the class and I went to a small community theatre to see a “play”.  On the way there, we all stopped to get something to eat.  I went to Subway.  While I was waiting for the other students to buy their food, and Asian man came up to us and asked where the “Hôtel de France” is.  He asked it in English though.  I know well that the other students weren’t going to be able to explain to him how to get there, and the man was already lost, so I explained it to him (in English, of course).  I felt so useful.   I hope he found his way there.  My directions were quite simple.

The “play” (I put it in quotation marks for a reason) was not a very good entertaining for various reasons.  For one, the seats were extremely uncomfortable.  They were actually wooden bleachers.  This theatre was more of a black box and the audience consisted of about 30-40 spectators.  The final reason that it wasn’t as enjoyable to me as it would be to other people is because I couldn’t understand it!  I am still not able to follow entertainment in French.  I’m starting to understand songs in French, but sometimes movies and plays go too fast for me.  I can understand people when they talk to me because they don’t speak that fast and they know that I am not a native French-speaker, so they speak at a fair level.  Anyway, so I was not able to understand this play but all it was was two people having a fight for two hours.  There were also shocking graphics in the background.  They had projectors projecting backdrops and other things like that.  One backdrop, which lasted about 45 minutes, was the bare chest of a woman and as the projection lasted, it lead down to reveal her pubic hair.  This isn’t that big of a deal, but I was highly shocked that my theatre teacher would bring us to see this and that the school would allow it.  But in all honesty, French people don’t care.  They walk around the beach nude, the teachers never say anything whenever a student says a cuss word during class, etc…

After the play, I rode my bike home for thirty minutes in the rain.  It was actually a drizzle, but it was a bit uncomfortable.  I got home and went straight to bed.  That was the end of my exhausting Tuesday

I went to le Musée de la Mer (Museum of the Sea) and saw the seals being feed! “Seal” in French is “phoque” and it’s very easy to laugh whenever you hear that. I also learned “pieuvre” and “poulpe,” which both mean “octopus.” It’s really interesting learning words just in living. It’s like I’m a child all over again!  One of the difficult parts about learning a new French word is learning if there are any accents on the letters (there’s the possibility of 5 different accents appearing é è ê ë ç, but accents kind of come naturally after a while) and the gender of the noun.  For those who don’t know, in Latin languages all nouns have a “gender.”  There’s no rhyme or reason to it except with humans and animals, but otherwise you just have to memorize if the noun is masculine or feminine.  For example, “a table” in French is “une table,” and a store is “un magasin.”  Table is feminine and store is masculine, but there’s not really a reason why.  That’s just how it is.  And so for us English-speakers who have the habit of ALL nouns being neutral, we have to learn whether a noun in French is feminine or masculine.  It’s generally easier for people who speak Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or Romanian to know which gender each noun is, but they might not always be correct.  Some noun genders differ in the different languages.

And so, today I got back from Bayonne.  I went to mass at 6:30p.m., but it didn’t start until 6:45p.m..  There was some kind of dispute between people from the church and some weird man (I think he was homeless/drunk).  It was kind of scary because this man started walking around near the congregation.  We had no idea what he was going to do.  The police eventually came and escorted him out of the church so that we could start mass in peace.

After mass, I come home and cleaned my room a little.  It’s usually just my desk that is messy.  After I finished cleaning my desk, I wrote an entry in my journal about today.  I hadn’t written in my journal since October 22nd, and I never even completed the entry that day.  I’ve been really lazy with my journal and with my blog, evidently, but I know I am going to regret that severely in the future, so I am doing my best to start writing again.

I am also working on creating a gallery where I can directly upload all of my photos.  The only thing is that it takes a long long time to upload all these photos since they are in their original high-definition format, so it might be a while before all of the photos are uploaded.  But I will get to work on that.  I love vacation periods!  It gives me time to relax and get work done!

We went to see Paranormal Activity 3 last night.  It was a bit creepy.  It was better than the first one, but they’re not very scary.  They’re suspenseful, but not scary.  We also ate at a Chinese restaurant last night.  I couldn’t understand the waitress because she had a Chinese accent in French, and it’s difficult enough for me to understand people who have a French accent in French.  So I have no idea what I ordered, but it was good.

Tomorrow, I am supposed to go to Arcachon with my host family, if the weather is nice.  If the weather isn’t nice, I’m not sure exactly what the alternative plan is.  But I’ll find something to do.  I’m reading a novel (in English) called Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.  It’s an excellent story, and very easy to follow.  It’s a fairly big novel, which usually discourages me from giving books of that sort a second look, but I had heard many good things about it before I bought it and I read the first chapter at the bookstore before I bought it (something I always try to do before I buy a book to make sure that I won’t lose interest right away).  Whether I go to Arcachon or stay here in Bordeaux, I will pay my novel a due visit.

Monday, I have plans to hang out with Mathieu, a friend of mine whom my best friend, Mathilde, introduced to me.  Mathieu and I are going to hang out with two of his other friends.  Mathilde can’t hang out with us because she is in Paris (isn’t she just lucky?)!  Mathilde was an exchange student in Houston last year, and she lives in the same area where I live now.  So I’m her little piece of Texas in France.

The vacation period ends on either Thursday or Friday.  I can’t remember.  I’ll try to find out some information on that, as it seems a little important.  I have homework to finish before I go back to school.  It’s homework from my English course, so it’ll be fairly easy to complete.

I need to start hanging out with more French people.  I love hanging out with the other exchange students, but the only problem is that we all speak to each other in English because it’s easier for all of us (Even those who don’t speak English natively) to speak English compared to speaking French.  I wish more people at school would ask me to hang out!  It’s usually me who asks, and it makes me feel pushy or needy.  But who knows?  Maybe things will change.  Hopefully if they do, it’ll be for the best!

November marks the last month that I will be with my current host family.  It’s crazy how quickly time passes.  I swear time goes by too quickly.  I haven’t even started thinking or dreaming in French yet, and it’s already November!  I have made a lot of progress in my communication skills in French though.

As I always say, I will try to update this more often.  Email me if you have any questions that you’d like me to answer on future blog posts.

Speaking of the photos, I left the United States with two amazing cameras and their chargers. I forgot one highly important thing though: a transformer. There’s no way of charging the batteries of my cameras if I can’t plug the chargers into the wall! And I didn’t just need something that allow an American plug to be put into a European outlet, I needed something to convert the voltage too, otherwise my chargers would be fried. I knew right away as I arrived in France that I needed a transforme, so I made it a point to find and buy one here. Slowly, this task moved to the back of my mind and stayed there. A whole month passed and the task came back to mind, and then it slowly went back to the back of my mind. Finally one day when I was Skyping with my parents, my dad asked me if I had bought the transformer, and it made me really mad that I hadn’t!

A whole month had passed without me taking any pictures, and this is the beginning of my time in France!  The most memorable time of it.  So the next day, I went out and found one!  It was exceptionally expensive, but it was well worth it.  Now I can take as many photos as I want without having to worry about wasting my cameras’ battery life.

Last weekend, I went to a small town in Southwest France called Nérac.  There was an event there for all of the exchange students in this region of France.  Saturday evening, there was a “talent show” for all exchange students who played an instrument or did something that could entertain the audience.  Some people played the guitar while others sang, some displayed different rhythmic and synchronized claps, and I, of course, sang!  I sang a song in French called Les yeux ouverts.  It’s the French version of the song Dream a Little Dream of Me.  The song, in my opinion, sounds VERY romantic and classy in French.  While I was singing it, my voice cracked since I hadn’t cleared my throat before I started singing, so that was a bit embarrassing, but I kept singing!  I was really nervous, of course, but it was so awesome to finally have an audience to perform in front of.

Here’s the song I sang, sung by Sylvie Vartan:
Les yeux ouverts

Right now, I am at school.  I woke up this morning at 7:00 am and got to school right around 8:00 to see that my teacher wasn’t there.  In France, if a teacher is not at school, there are no substitute teachers.  The class is simply cancelled and students are free to do what they wish until their next class.  I went to McDonald’s for breakfast.  After breakfast, I came back to school, and guess what?!  My other teacher wasn’t there.  So I woke up for nothing!  I could’ve slept two extra hours, but I didn’t.  And I’m fine.  So I came to the school library, where I am now, and checked my email and decided to start writing this blog post.

Today is my Grandma’s birthday!  Don’t ask me how old she is, because I’ve lost track!    Just kidding.  I actually never payed attention to her age, so I have no basis to add the years to.  I emailed her a French birthday song called Bon anniversaire.  It’s such a beautiful song for a birthday.  The lyrics are beautiful in French, but it doesn’t translate well into English.  It has a lot of French-specific elements that aren’t easy to translate and make sense out of in English.  Unfortunately, this birthday song isn’t sung in this area of France.  I’m not sure exactly where it’s sung in France, but here they just sing our version of Happy Birthday to you, but they sing Joyeux anniversaire!

Today, Friday, October 21st, is my last day of school for October.  There is a vacation period in France that lasts from this time in October to the first few days of November.  I’m not sure exactly why, but I am going to research it and I’ll share it with you here on the blog.

I have class in eight minutes, so I’m going to log off.  I’ll try to update again soon.

I just returned from a vacation with my host family.  They own a beach house in a small city called Arcachon.  We were there from Thursday until this afternoon.  I took lots of pictures, which will be on my Facebook profile soon.  I’ll try to upload them to this site for people who do not have Facebook or are not friends with me on Facebook.

As for me speaking French, I’m getting better and better everyday!  I do not translate in my head.  I just say what I need to say and it comes out in French.  I’ve made the mistake of mixing up the two languages already.  I spoke English to someone who only speaks French.

In Aracachon, I went to a HUGE sand dune.  I went up the side on a staircase, but then my host sister, my host brother and I all ran down the side and then went back up without the staircase.  That was SO exhausting!  But it was definitely fun and something that I’ll never forget.  After that, we went to the beach.  I tried to get in the water, but it was way to cold for me.  I only went in waist deep.  I didn’t want to go in any deeper.

I’ve discovered what I love to do in France: go shopping with friends, go to a cafe with friends, and just go out at night with friends!  I’ve made friends with all of the other Rotary students who live in the area.  I live in the center of Bordeaux, so it literally takes me 5 minutes to go anywhere!  And if the distance is “far,” there’s a tram stop right by my house.

I went to a Rotary meeting last week!  Along the way there, I coincidentally ran into Mathilde, a French exchange student who went to Houston last year.  I invited her to hang out with my and the other students after my Rotary meeting.  At the Rotary meeting, I met my sponsor Rotary club and had lunch with them.  The food was DELICIOUS.  They have invited me to go to the meetings every Tuesday, since the hotel where the meetings are is very close to my school.

I look forward to going to school tomorrow.  I’ll try to update more and eventually have the new layout up.

Sorry that I disappeared off of the face of the internet world.  My host family cannot remember the password for their WiFi, so I’m waiting for that and then I’ll be only a little more.  I’ll eventually get around to posting photos.

My first few days here have been busy.  First day here, I arrived at noon in France (5:00am in Texas) and then we went to the house to drop off my bags and have lunch.  After that, my host mother, my host brother Hugo and I went shopping.  We live in the city center, so we could go anywhere with the tram and it’s all close together.  My host mom bought me some “Stabilo” pens that I had wanted, but I left them accidentally at American Express when I was having my money converted. :/  So today, I went back to the “papeterie” (stationary store) and I bought them, but this time with my money.

The second and third day, I went to a French course put on by a host mother for all the Rotary students in my area.  My Rotary district covers a large part of France, so this was just for the students who live in and near Bordeaux.  There are 7 of us, me, another American from Hawaii, 2 Brazilians, 1 Finnish girl, 1 German girl, and a guy from Taiwan.  The guy from Taiwan cannot speak French at all, so I’ve been helping him and explaining the rules of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary to him.

This day that has just passed, Saturday, was an awesome day!  There was no French course since it’s Saturday, so I went shopping of course!  My host dad took me to see my “lycée” (French high school) and then we went to “rue Sainte-Catherine,” which is a VERY long street FULL of stores.  I bought a charger for my Blackberry, which thankfully works with my French SIM card.  I also went to Subway and ordered my first meal in French.  I also bought a business card holder.  All Rotary Youth Exchange students have their own business cards.  I have 500!!

After going down rue Sainte-Catherine, I went home and rested for a little.  I then went to mass at a church very close to my house.  A lady there gave me grapes from her garden. After I returned, I got on Skype.  I talked to my cousin, Cassie.  And then a past exchange student from France who went to Houston last year, Arthur, started talking to me on Skype.  He eventually came and picked me up on his electric scooter and we went to the city center for a drink.  We talked for about two hours and then I returned home.  After that, I got back on my computer and I’ve been on it up until I am writing this!

I’m going to log off now.  It’s a bit late here and I have a Rotary picnic to go to tomorrow.  I’m excited to meet all of the other exchange students!  It’s weird being around them in the sense that I am now one of them.  I hang out a lot with exchange students in America, but to me they’re different from me because they come from a different country and are in America.  For me now, the other students are just like me!

As for my French skills, I’m getting better and better everyday!  I’ve dream a little in French.  I know it wasn’t English.  But for the most part,  I still think and dream in English.  With time, it’ll change.  When I arrived, it was so overwhelming to hear French everywhere and to be spoken to only in French.  But within 2 hours, I got the hang of it.  I am able to express myself, communicate, and converse in French!  I’m getting better with time.  I can now understand people better, even when they speak fast (or at a normal speed for them).  My host parents both speak English, so they’re able to translate vocabulary for me if I have need.

I’ll try to write more in the future!  Sorry for such a late start.