Wednesday, September 26, 2012

La Bise

Before coming to France, I read a previous CIEE blogger's post on la bise and why it is complicated. It certainly made me nervous, but once I got here I thought, hey, this isn't so hard after all! What was she complaining about?

Well, la bise is pretty simple. You kiss someone on each cheek to greet them, starting to the left and ending on the right. I feared having nose-bumping issues or something equally awkward, but it's not difficult.

What is difficult is that the rules aren't always the same. Sometimes you don't go from left to right: if you arrive from the right and start working your way down a line of friends, you'll probably kiss from right to left, no big deal.

I just so happen to live in the Vendée, a département where they kiss four times instead of two. But among teenagers, close friends, and family, it's only twice. There must be even more subtle rules than that, because the other day I went to a dinner party and greeted the hostess with four cheek kisses (watching her carefully to determine if she was going for four or two) and then moved confidently on the the host, where I went for four kisses and he went for two. (AWKWARD.) Is it a guy/girl difference? Or first greeting vs. second greeting? I don't yet know.

I've been told I need more pictures to separate my massive walls of text, so here's an unrelated picture of our cat, Nuts!


The worst part is not knowing whether to do la bise or not. When I see my friends at school, usually we do la bise first thing in the morning, but not if we see each other again at lunch, for example. But what counts as a friend? Do I do la bise with someone who's hanging out with my friend, even if they aren't my friend? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I haven't figured out the rules yet, so usually I just follow their lead. But sometimes I worry I'm being rude. (Oh well, I'm American, they're going to have to accept my faults.) When my host siblings take me to parties, do I have to go around the table and kiss everyone, even if I don't know any of them? (Answer: usually yes. I think.) Sometimes people do handshakes instead, but I'm not sure where the line is between slightly businesslike handshake situations and friend or family bise situations. Eek.

At the same time, I find it rather charming. In the US, people either greet each other with hugs (friends and family), with handshakes (business or first introductions among adults), or with no touch at all (anything that doesn't fall into the first two categories). So if I show up at school and join a group of friends and acquaintances hanging out together, the most likely thing to happen is just to join the circle, say “hello,” and give everyone a sort of greeting nod. Feels kind of abrupt, sometimes. But in France, the guys will all shake hands with each other every time they meet, and girl/girl or guy/girl interaction involves cheek kisses. You never say hello to anyone without a physical acknowledgement of their presence, and while it makes me uncomfortable, I appreciate the idea.

More unrelated pictures! Here's me standing next to a really old windmill, doing my awkward “I never know what to do with my hands so I guess I'll throw them up in the air” pose.


In other unrelated news, my English teacher is terrible. As his native language is not English and I know how difficult learning languages is, I respect his accomplishments. He has a French accent, but it's not terrible. He can say the English “th” sound (think how the stereotypical Frenchman says “zee baguette” instead of “the baguette”) and usually manages English “r”s, though not always. His ear for English sentence structure is pretty good, but sometimes he comes up with phrases that are just odd – I can't even put my finger on if it's wrong or not, but it's definitely odd. So he's not perfect. In my experience, native speakers of languages make much better teachers than people of the same culture as their students who learned the language in school. But there are far better reasons he shouldn't be a teacher: 1) he's really really boring 2) he commands absolutely no respect from his students, because he's just clueless and awkward and says silly things, and 3) his grades have no relation to reality.

He gave me a 8/20 on my English homework. What. The. Freak. I already talked about how expectations in school are lower here, where 12-16 out of 20 is a good range for your grades. At home, you pretty much want As which are above 90% and would therefore be 18/20 or higher. Anyway, even though the standards are lower, 8/20 is bad. And, um, just saying, but I actually speak English. I think. I mean, pretty much by definition if I disagree with my English teacher, I'm right, because he's French. What sounds natural to my ear is how properly spoken English should sound. Spelling and grammar are more concrete than that, but I happen to be remarkably good at both, so my previous statement still stands. I have no idea why he gave me such a low grade except that everyone says his grades have nothing to do with reality. I know someone who cheated on a quiz so she knew she had all the right answers, and he gave her 2/20. Whaaat. Anyway, I'll be doing my best to sort out that situation, because it would embarrassing and not good for my diploma if I failed English. Not just English for anglophones (which I've always gotten As in) but English for French people. Le monde est fou.

Your complimentary French song for the day is called Les Passants, by Zaz, and is pretty popular here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEu3oxxclW4

Friday, September 21, 2012

Home sick, not homesick

I have a nasty cold. You know how when people ask you what you have, and you say “just a bad cold,” they sort of go “oh, okay,” and lose sympathy for you? Well, I personally will never forget that having a bad cold feels like you're going to die. You have a bad headache, your head is filled with snot, your throat hurts, you have a fever that makes your thought processes far less than optimal, and you feel like if you even try to move out of bed, your body will just shut down on you.

Long story short, I am not going to school today. Fortunately, it's Friday, so I can sleep as much as I want this weekend and recover. I completely predicted this, too, but there's nothing you can do to prevent catching a cold except sleep a lot and eat right. First of all, germs are a little different everywhere, so just like how I got sick a lot in 6th grade in my new public middle school, coming from a small charter elementary school, I expected my American immune system to fail once or twice against French viruses. Then when my little cousins were sick several days ago, and I carpool to school with them, I knew I was doomed.

Having a cold is completely different in my extremely scientific family at home vs. a standard French family. I think that my analysis of why I am sick is almost certainly correct and fairly complete (otherwise I wouldn't think it – so I suppose my logic is fairly circular, but oh well. I'm sick; what do you want?), but my host mother thinks it's because of the changing weather and because I don't wear shoes in the house (cold feet = sick). I also had to firmly turn down medications (assuming it was anti-bacterial stuff, which is obviously useless against colds, which are generally viral) until she told me it was just a fever reducer. It reminds me of my cousin's rather amusing story of living in the Czech Republic, where her dance partner's mom insisted she must be sick because she eats too many vegetables.

On a completely unrelated topic, I love having another American student at Truffaut (my high school). Not because I want to hang out with her all the time; I actually want to avoid her for the most part, because it would be all too easy to form Club Amurika and not force myself to make friends with actual French people. I like it because she and I are polar opposites, so it provides a nice amount of contrast to avoid over-stereotyping of Americans. I speak good French for an exchange student, and she doesn't speak a word of French. Therefore, people won't assume that all Americans speak great French or don't speak French at all. You see? I am athletic; she hates sports. I come from the Silicon Valley and think that the French are way behind in math; she comes from a bad redneck school in rural New Jersey, and has never seen math as advanced as this. She dresses impeccably and has a great sense of style; I prefer to avoid fashion, am terribly intimidated by the well-dressed Europeans, and generally look as plain as possible in jeans and a solid-colored long-sleeve shirt. Additionally, we can compare notes on our host families and the people we meet, so that we don't over-stereotype the French. It would be weird to go up to a random student and ask them “hey, so does your family also drink coffee in bowls?” but if I ask the other American, I can confirm what is normal or not normal. (I know, I know – two data points is not very scientific.) (Yes, all French people drink coffee in bowls.) And the last 2 reasons I like it are because it makes me look really good at French in comparison, and because I have enjoyed hanging out with her and her group of friends to help translate, thereby expanding my circle of acquaintances at Truffaut. (Wow, upon rereading this paragraph to check for mistakes, I remark that my parentheses problem is even worse when I'm sick.)

On another completely unrelated topic, here are things I miss that you might also miss if you go live abroad:
  1. Peanut butter
  2. AP and honors classes – work that actually challenges me intellectually
  3. Hugs – la bise just doesn't cut it
  4. Marching band and wind ensemble
  5. Politics – it's so hard for me being away during an election year. Every time I have some substantial free time I've been watching a different part of the Democratic National Convention – so far just Michelle and Clinton's speeches. Last night at the dinner table, they asked me what I thought of the death penalty and if it was legal in CA, which I was only too happy to discuss, but it's so frigging difficult to discuss in French. Where would I possibly have learned the word for “death penalty” in all my different studies of French? Answer: nowhere. If you were wondering, it's peine de mort. Anyway so if anyone reads any good political or news articles, please send them my way. I'm feeling awfully out of touch.
  6. Productivity – actually doing things during school so we can get out at 3:00 and then go do our homework or hobbies or whatever. (Homework and hobbies don't really exist here, because school goes all day.)
  7. Ethnic food. They only eat French food here, except occasionally school lunches will contain something they call “American cheeseburgers” which are disgusting and both of us Americans will skip the main course and fill up on fruit instead. Right now I would kill for some tom yum soup, which is amazing for clearing out sinuses. My favorite restaurant at home was called Thai Pepper, and I wish they'd deliver take-out to France.

But then on the bright side, they have baguettes here of a much higher quality than the French bread you buy at Safeway, they eat a lot of tomatoes, and it's raining!

Today I give you not one, but TWO complimentary French pop songs, because I forgot the last couple times and also because they aren't very good. But just to keep you informed about French radio, the three most played songs are Call Me Maybe, Wati House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIrRPLzDrHU and Bara Bara Bere Bere http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxF9PGRiabw


Friday, September 14, 2012

Mostly Good Things

School lunches are good. They serve baguettes with every meal (one mini baguette per person!) which makes everything better. Today, for example, I ate salmon with rice? I think? or some kind of grain... along with salad, a slice of cantaloupe, and this incredible dessert thing that was pear covered in chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and toasted almonds. Like, literally a dessert you'd buy at a nice restaurant. Other news about food includes that either I'm getting used to it, I'm finding less fatty things to eat, or that after the first couple days of travel-sickness my stomach could handle it better. Some combination of the three, and we'll say that food and I are getting along much better these days.

School is going well. I have sort of two different groups of people I hang out with, and they're all very accommodating. As far as coursework goes, well, let's just put it bluntly and say I studied most of this between 7th and 9th grade. The only classes that give me any trouble are physics (because I suspect the prof doesn't completely know what he's talking about, besides the fact that I've never taken physics) and French. French class is, obviously, like English class is for us anglophones – a class in analyzing literature. If you think about the texts we study in a typical English class – Shakespeare, Hemingway, Twain, etc. – they are not easy for most anglophones to understand. (Otherwise, what would be the point?) So now imagine that you're a Japanese exchange student trying to understand them. Tu aurais du mal! So this is me, being lost in Femmes Savantes by Molière. But math is great fun because it's basic algebra so I sort of just chillax and look smart, biology is what I studied in 9th grade (which I hated at the time, but now I appreciate the simplicity), English class is honestly just boring, and in general I don't feel too overwhelmed. I have two remarkably good teachers – possibly three, because I think my French teacher is brilliant but I can't really tell. Heehee. But both my biology and history/geography teachers are terrific lecturers and have been incredibly helpful and understanding about my whole French-as-a-second-language problem. Anyway, that's going well.

I realized last week that I need to stop thinking about my experiences here in relation to chez moi. Essentially, it's very easy to think about everything that happens here (for example, biking into town and seeing a really old church) as a cool story I can tell at some college party that will make me seem interesting and well-travelled. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but I think I would have a better time and integrate myself better if I really start thinking about France as my new home; visiting the old church is cool because a) it's cool and b) it's getting to know my town better. Since I realized this, I slowly have been thinking less about my year here as a story to make my life more interesting once I'm past it, and more about actually living it. I've been feeling more comfortable every day with navigating social situations and finding my classrooms and not looking like a stupid foreigner, which allows me to begin to appreciate the everyday, which is one of my favorite hobbies. I take pleasure in little things and small victories: admiring the scenery on the bus home. Succeeding in social small talk. Math class, and being able to help out my friends who always help me out. Today I took the super overly-complicated bus system home, and didn't get lost even though there were about five places I could have easily gone wrong – it seems ridiculous, but I was proud of myself. I wish I lived close enough to the high school to walk or bike, but at the same time, figuring out the bus is yet another way of gaining confidence and independence. I also love the moments when people don't realize I'm American. Today a kid on the bus asked me if the seat next to me was taken. Saying “no, go ahead” is such a simple phrase that even with my gros accent américain, I can manage a three-word phrase without giving away my origins. (I think.) So it was literally only a two phrase exchange, but I love when I can deal with an everyday situation without having to ask them to repeat themselves or relying on my friends to help me. (Tl;dr, hurray I said 3 words in French on the bus. I must be practically French by now. Yes I am making fun of myself.)

Yesterday I went to my first Ultimate Frisbee night! I have played frisbee for the last 4 years at home, but assumed it was an American sport and didn't even bring my cleats to France. Turns out, there's an Ultimate league in Challans that meets two days a week. It's the first year this club has existed, but somehow everyone already knows how to play and are in fact very skilled. I consider myself not half bad, as a frisbee player, but I felt pretty sloppy compared to these guys. The coach is nice, though, and said it would be fine if I kept playing with them – we'll just work on my technique a little. ;) The most important thing I learned from yesterday's training? Playing frisbee barefoot is not ideal. Fortunately, Maman found me some cleats that belonged to a cousin or something that are exactly the right size, so next week should be a little easier.

Here's some things that maybe you didn't know about France:
The stop signs don't say “arrêt,” they say “stop.”

True to the stereotype, French people are generally extremely well-dressed, and all the girls wear make-up to school (in large quantities...). I wish I were a guy – the fashion thing really intimidates me, and though the guys are also better dressed than American guys, it's more straight-forward.

I think of Americans as quite ignorant of international politics, geography, customs, etc., but it turns out that everyone is ignorant of stuff that happens outside their homeland. I'm constantly surprised by the things I say that surprise people. For example, they never would have imagined that the school system works differently in other countries – that I don't have to pass the “Bacc,” which is essentially a more difficult high-school exit/college entrance exam, because for me it's the grades in my classes that count toward a diploma. They also see a fair amount of American politics in the news, but don't understand it at a very deep level. (I shouldn't criticize – I know almost nothing about French politics.)

The stereotype of Americans is what I think of as the stereotype of the South: fat, McDonald's-eating, ultra-conservative gunslingers. But at the same time, they see the US as a dream of advanced society, where everything cool comes from – technology, music, education, even fashion. A study in contradiction. Regardless, they are all fascinated with America.

The two questions I have been asked most frequently: 1) Are there really cheerleaders? (They call them pompom-girls. So cute!) 2) Is there really prom?

That's all for today. I need my beauty sleep.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

School

I have now had three days of school. Here are my observations:
1) French people have a much different concept of time than we do. School is usually from 8:30 to 6:00, which sounds like a super long time. Additionally, individual classes are between an hour and 2 hours long – 2 hours is really long to be doing anything, in my opinion. But here, in the lackadaisical countryside, a 2 hour gym class (which I had yesterday) might contain an hour or so of listening to the teacher talk about not terribly relevant stuff and taking forever to explain things (not that I, the stupid American, am complaining), half an hour of running, and half an hour of changing clothes/chilling. So, while it is completely and utterly exhausting to be at school that many hours a day, I highly doubt that they do more things in the day than I did at Homestead, especially with a decent loads of AP classes.

In France they also have lots of empty periods where you just happen not to have class, not to mention an hour and a half lunch. If this were at home, my studious friends and I would spend our copious spare time doing homework. I know that a) we're only just getting started and haven't done much yet, and b) they have less homework in general because they get out of school at 6:00 pm, but still. I never would've imagined that people would spend their two hour break just chilling with their friends, not even talking very much. Just chilling. Boggles the mind. The busy Silicon Valley girl that I am feels unproductive.

2) French people are bad at math. This is, of course, blatantly false, as I don't believe different ethnicities are significantly better or worse than each other (okay, except maybe the Ashkenazim and Chinese, but there have been studies to support that!). A better way of putting this sentence would be: the junior year math class at Truffaut is approximately equivalent to what I studied in 7th and 9th grade in Cupertino. Algebra. At once it's kind of a relief because I could skip all the classes I wanted to, not understand a word the teacher said, and still ace all the tests just so long as I remember to switch my commas and periods around. (In Europe, 5.2 = 5,2 and 1,000 = 1.000.)

Similarly, the other classes (which are mostly science) don't seem too difficult either. In Life and Earth Science we did mitosis, the classic looking at an onion under a microscope and finding the different phases. In physics we did a lab with projecting images onto a screen and measuring the distances between light and lens and lens and image. The only class that really scared me was French class, predictably.

3) French teachers, or perhaps just my own, are predominantly male. I didn't even realize this until my French teacher turned out to be female, and then realized how surprising it was that all my other teachers had been male. Perhaps it's because I'm in the science track, but I've never seen such a high concentration of guys in teaching before. I don't even think any of them are gay.

That's about it for the observations. I've been following around a really nice girl in my class named Julia (I'm changing all the names just in case they mind, because I haven't asked). I don't know how much of a bother I'm being to her, because I think I would probably mind if I were at Homestead and some exchange student who didn't speak English very well tagged on to me for the entire school day. But then again, she seems like a much nicer person than I am. Also, French people think America is cool. On Wednesday we came home for lunch, on Thursday I ate with my host sister's friends who I don't like because they act very awkwardly around me and mostly just try not to address me, and so on Friday I invited myself over to Julia's table. Her friends are far more open and friendly. I knew one of them already from hanging out on Thursday during our open periods, and then there were a bunch of other small, cute girls with lots of questions about the existence of cheerleaders, prom, etc. Of course we cannot forget the swishy gay friend who talks too fast for me to understand, but also has decent English. The first thing he said upon meeting me was “I'm from New Jersey!” and I believed him. It was only with the second sentence he said that I heard the French accent and the groping for words. So they were all very nice and let me hang out with them. One of them is acting as a guide for the other American exchange student, who I met on Thursday. She's here with Rotary, her name is Sarah which is next to impossible to say with a French accent, and she doesn't speak a word of French. Eek! Fortunately, most of the girls guiding her said that they like her and like the opportunity to practice their English. Personally, I can't imagine doing that in a million years. It would be like me going to Russia, right now. How would I survive in school? How would I bond with my host family, or express my gratitude? I am just too independent to do that – it already grates that I am more dependent on others now than I was before. So I feel bad for her, but it sounds like she's having fun anyway.

On Friday, I missed the bus. I didn't even do anything after class, it just goes really early apparently. Seeing as I didn't yet have a cell phone (I do now!), Maman and I were especially freaked out. Fortunately, my curly-haired guide for the bus who was supposed to show me how it works convinced the bus driver to circle around again for me. What a gentleman. So in the end I got home, but it had already been a really long day and the only thing I felt like was curling up in bed and sleeping. Then we went to the faire.

I hate faires. I hate the noise and the people and the smell of burned grease. I like roller coasters, but I hate circular rides that make me sick. I hate not being able to understand a word people are saying because it's French and there's too much noise. I also hate being a spoilsport, so I tend to grit my teeth and follow everyone else around. Let's just say that was really not my favorite part of the France experience and move on.

It is now Saturday morning, which is a mixed bag. Saturday is great, because it means no school. I like school, but it's stressful. Morning is less good. It tends to be morning and evenings when I feel the most homesick. I try to remember that it's not really because I'm homesick, but rather because this follows my normal emotional patterns – at home I tended to feel the lowest about my life, school, etc., when I was about to sleep or when I'd just woken up, especially for school. So when my dreams slowly coalesce into an awareness of myself and I remember where I am, and the homesickness hits me like a full-speed BART train, I just tell myself the same thing I did in Sunnyvale. One day at a time. It'll go faster than you can even imagine, if you just take one day at a time.

One of the things I miss the most is being clever and knowing what to do. A lot of my identity is tied up in that, and the fact that I really can't be that way here hurts. I sound so stupid in French. Blech.

And that note was really not how I meant to end this blog post. I'm having a great time and I really like my family, the school, and the people I've been meeting. It's all going fantastically. It's just hard, and very different. But that's part of why I came here, too! I wanted challenge, I wanted not to be bored, and I wanted to give myself a hard time so I could learn and grow and change, since I didn't feel that I was growing enough in my home environment anymore. Well, here it is. I got what I wanted. And now I'm going to make the best of it.

Your complimentary French song for the day is a French camp favorite that I was tickled to hear at the faire last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHoT4N43jK8

Also, anyone who wants to help edit college essays, shoot me an email or comment below. Thanks!

Monday, September 3, 2012

Food

When I told people I was going to France, most of them responded with some form of “Oh, France! I'm jealous; the food is delicious” or “Hehe, you'll come back 10 pounds heavier.” The second response is funny because while French food is famous for being heavy, French women are famous for being svelte. Most people explain this by saying that they eat much smaller portions. THEY LIE. Not only do they have not one course for dinner like most American families, they have the entrée (which does not mean main course like it does for us, it means firsts, since it's too substantial to be called appetizer) and then the main course, and then cheese, and then dessert. Not only is the entrée as big as what I would call enough, and the main course even bigger, but they're all heavy, cheesy, fatty substances. With lots of red meat. I have no idea how French people are not fat like the stereotypical American (yes, they have confirmed for me that that is the stereotype). No idea at all.

For me, I haven't been eating very much at all. In the states I usually tell people that I'm not picky at all and that I'll eat anything. But here I feel bad because the only food I don't like (shellfish) is a big local specialty, and the one thing my stomach doesn't handle well in too much abundance is grease, which is in every dish. In the states my greasy food problem only appears if I'm stuck with a McDonald's cheeseburger, which only happens once a year when I take the bus to camp. Nate, our CIEE organizer guy, was talking about how for him, in Spain, the trigger for his homesickness/culture shock was the low water pressure in the shower that just pissed him off. For me it'll be the food.

Another thing that amused me: today my host brother took me to his last day of work before he starts school. His work is oystering! We went out in his boss's boat and the first thing they did when we got out to the oyster fields was open the cooler and eat lunch. Now, I realized several hours later that this was because you have to take the boat out when the tide is high and you can't get out of the boat to work until the tide is low, but it still strikes me as being incredibly French. No rush to do anything – take your time and eat! All this, right after I'd eaten a big breakfast because Maman insisted that I be well-fed before venturing out on the sea.

Despite the lunch of ham sandwiches with a disgusting amount of butter inside, oystering was fun. I actually did nothing – I hung out and caught itty-bitty crabs while the men oystered. Here is how oystering works:
There are big mesh pockets full of oysters on long metal planks that are in the water at high tide and out of water at high tide. When the tide is going out, they bring in their boat and wait for the water to descend to waist-high. Then, the oysters that aren't ready yet (I don't know what the difference is) get their pouches turned over to kill the seaweed that grows on them, and beaten with a stick to pound the oysters out of the holes so they don't crawl through the mesh. The oyster bags that are ready get thrown on the boat. Each bag weighs at least 10 pounds, and there are hundreds of them to go through before the tides come back in. It's quite dirty work. Like I said, I just sloshed around in my borrowed rainboots, catching little crabs and brainstorming ideas for COLLEGE ESSAYS (insert ominous music here). But it was really cool, and I'm always glad to get out and moving, since it appears my host family exercises less than I do. (I was going to make that a generic comment about French people, but when I think about, I exercise far more than most Americans, so I think this one is my abnormality, not theirs.)

Tonight we had fish and vegetable stew with quinoa for dinner, which was amazing. I don't want to give the French a bad name – most of the food is delicious. It just has an unfortunate tendency to make me sick. But tonight's dinner was not too heavy at all, and we even * gasp! * skipped the entrée, so for the first time since I arrived I ate as much as I good and felt great afterward. Yay for veggies!


Here is your complimentary French (actually Canadian) song for the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzltFPS5Fy8

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Some Observations about France

So, Day 3, as it were. I haven't exactly done very much, but I've met lots of people, set up my room (which didn't take very long cause I don't have much stuff), done a fair amount of chilling, and a ridiculous amount of sleeping. I like everyone I've met so far, especially my host family (important) and my host sister's best friend.

Somehow it's incredibly exhausting (and yet cool) to deal with all the insignificant differences in daily life. It probably makes me look stupid – I couldn't figure out the toaster or the doors, and was more briefly confused by the backward lightswitches, the lack of trashcans in any room but kitchen and toilet, the separation of bathroom and toilet room, the milk cartons, and many others. Fortunately, the Badauds have been extremely understanding. I can tell they have travelled abroad a lot because they know how to speak slowly and clearly and are good at specifying.

One thing about French people, and I'm pretty sure it's not just because I'm American: they're very direct and blunt, which is awesome. Back home, I could very well imagine that when a foreigner does something that isn't done, one would just look the other way and fill the awkward silence with some small talk about how cute babies are or something. Rare is the practical and wise American who would gently and kindly correct the foreigner, and even then they'd usually feel awkward about it. I haven't felt that at all – on the contrary, they've explained lots of French customs to me and it didn't seem like they felt bad for “rebuking” me at all, just that they're explaining the new facts of life (which is exactly how I view it as well). So I've gotten “You aren't scared of us, are you?” and “In France, we wait to take the first drink until everyone is seated and we have a toast.” (I suppose this could be a universal custom, but in my family we've done toasts but don't save the first sip for a toast. Thoughts?) I've also gotten “Did I make the drink too strong for you?” which in the US would sound terribly patronizing, but here it was meant literally and kindly.

By no means am I independent here. Poor Maman has to keep fixing what I do wrong and telling me how to put it away the right way, and she's helping me talk to the French bank, arrange a cell phone for me, etc. Nonetheless, I've gotten lots of compliments on my French, and have been able to express what I need as well as carrying on conversations. In Boston, at Orientation with the other exchange students, I got the distinct impression that I speak much better French than all seven other students. I have no idea how they are coping and how they will make friends with so much more limited communication skills. Maybe for them it's okay to be more dependent and less aware of what's happening, but for me that would just about kill me. So, first of all, I am feeling incredibly grateful to French camp right now, and second, to my French teachers at high school.

I do not yet know my schedule for high school, only that it starts on Wednesday. I do know that they looked at my transcript and decided to put me in the sciences track (the others are economic/social and literature) in junior year. This sort of made me laugh, because while I know that finishing calculus in junior year is not a common achievement, it's very common in the Silicon Valley. Next to my brother, I've never felt like a math/science buff, though I suppose I might be compared to Average Joe. It'll all depend, however, on whether I get the classes I need to graduate. I'll need to talk to their equivalent of a guidance counselor and see what can be arranged so I can at least get economics, a math, a science, and English. (Yes, I need English to graduate. Silly, isn't it?)

For those of you who don't have facebook (Hi auntie Sara! :) ) my pictures can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4619252846176.187607.1438307065&type=1&l=7109807a46
So far it was just me freaking out about how cool Icelandic is, and also pictures of my new room.

That's all for today. I'm having a great time, slowly learning, fitting in, and catching up on sleep.

Here's your complimentary French song for today!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0emXuhPTWUM