Angst

Last week was not such a great week for me. I'm not sure if I'm starting to follow CIEE's predicted pattern of homesickness/culture shock or whether it was just a bad week, but this week has gone much better. Homesickness and culture shock come in waves, usually changes on a daily basis for me but sometimes there are completely good weeks or completely bad weeks.

So, this bad week was partly because of things that will not go on this blog (because the Internet has the memory of an elephant) and partly because of a few realizations. Here they are. First, though, I would like to mention that I write about angsty things on this blog because the goal of this writing project was actually to give a realistic picture of what being an exchange student is like. I'm not looking for sympathy, and I don't even like talking about my emotions. But it is interesting what being far from home in a different culture will do to you, so it is that that I'm trying to share.

Now that I've gotten used to my life here, I can decide if I like it or not. I now know now that I can handle it. I have a routine and it's not awful and so it's a lot less scary than the first few weeks I was here. But I've discovered that there's a lot of things that I just like better than home than here. I prefer Homestead to Truffaut. I prefer band nerds to... well, actually, I can't figure out what the stereotypes are here, since no one does any activities like band or chess club or whatnot. I prefer the food at home, I prefer the culture at home, I prefer the busy Silicon Valley life full of intellectualism and stress and band and sports and constant busy-ness. Because I've settled in now, which is a good thing, I can evaluate my new life and how happy I am in it. And it's just a little depressing because while I appreciate the idea of having an adventure, I just like the Silicon Valley better than the Vendée in most respects (not all, but most). And I came here looking for an adventure -- it is an adventure to live abroad, but it doesn't feel like one. My life is actually pretty boring. It's not terrible by any means, and it's not like I'll be suffering until I come home next summer. But it is depressing because that means I'm sort of waiting to come home, instead of reveling in every moment.

I don't want to be waiting to come home. I'm not at all saying that this is intolerable. I'm having fun, I'm just aware of how my values and culture differ so much from those of the Vendée, and I'd be doing things I enjoy more if I were at home. But I feel bad for feeling this way instead of making the most out of every minute in France. I worked so hard to get here, to do this. I wanted it so badly. So I hate that I'm looking forward so much to being back in the US. It's not even that I regret coming; it's good to get to know a different corner of the world, and as a whole it's giving me a new way of seeing the world and that's valuable. It's just that I have a little over eight months left and that seems like a really really long time of awkward parties and wasting time and doing boring stuff at school and not having really close friends with whom I can talk to in my native language about culturally relatable stuff.

Let me explain the parties bit.

I have a problem with parties. My host siblings bring me to a lot of them. Just last weekend I went to one, to celebrate the 18^th birthday of a girl I really like. But I don't like parties. I tried to socialize, like I always do, and had a few good conversations about school and whatnot, but mostly ended up chilling on a couch in a corner by myself. Why? Because I'm really frigging awkward, that's all. A few weeks ago I was optimistic about the parties I go to, glad that I manage a few conversations and reassuring myself that as my French gets better, there will be less of me chilling on a couch in the corner. But now I'm realizing that the French isn't the problem -- I'm perfectly capable of conversing with people. It's just that I'm awkward. If I were at the exact same party but with anglophones, the result would be the same. So that's depressing, because I'm not at home with my fellow band geek friends whose idea of a party is making crepes and chilling on my trampoline. Instead I'm with, well, “normaler” people who have real parties, the kind where people wear lots of make-up and dance and things. (Excuse me while I go hide under my covers. I'm terrified of dancing.)

So my problem is roughly that I'm here without good friends I've known for a long time, with people who have a completely different idea of how to have fun and grew up with a completely different culture. Somehow it was okay to have a language barrier, but it feels much less okay to have a cultural and personality barrier. Because it means it won't change. I won't get less awkward at parties. And no matter how good my French gets, I still won't be French. I'll still be different.

At home, fitting in never bothered me. At least, not since middle school. I am the confident sort of person who wears sweatpants and t-shirts proudly, glad that I don't care what other people think of me. At home, I say what I think and laugh too loud at my own stupid jokes and disconcert people just for fun. It's not common, but there have sometimes been “normal” or “popular” kids who've scorned me for it. And I never cared. But here my goal from the beginning was to fit in. Desperate to make friends, to be liked, I'm terrified of making wrong moves. I'm painfully, acutely aware that I'm not an ideal friendship candidate because my French isn't perfect – hence, I'm not clever or conversationally skilled. I'll always be asking others for help, and so my relationships with others tend to be dependent (while I'm used to others being dependent on me). So that awareness makes me shy and nervous and terribly concerned with what others think about me, which probably makes me even less desirable as a friend candidate. Good job, brain. That was not useful.

Long story short, if I were at home, I just wouldn't go to parties of that sort. But here it's just another part of my losing battle to fit in.

Change of subject.

On Saturday I went with my host dad to see the big boats of the Vendée globe race, which starts here at the Sables d'Olonne, goes south around the Cape of Good Hope and circles Antarctica, then comes back north after Cape Horn and finishes in the same port as it started. The record is around 84 days. It's particularly difficult because it's a solo race, so physically quite exhausting for the skippers, who have to spend four months never sleeping longer than 30 minutes at a stretch and basically living tied to their controls. Every year there's one or two dead or disappeared, usually near Cape Horn. Exciting stuff. I honestly can't say going to see the boats was that exciting, because boats are, well, just boats. But I liked learning about the race.

Me and my host dad at the Sables d'Olonne:

 BOATS!

This week was pretty darn good. I guess I got all my angst out last week, so this week I just didn't think too hard about things and had a good time. The highlight of my week was Thursday night frisbee. It was a killer practice, where we ran three kilometers at top sprint speed just to warm up. Determined not to finish last, though I am the only female and one of two teenagers, I completely emptied my energy reserves and finished 6^th. And to top it all off, on the way home (I carpool with my coach), I discovered a shared love of history and politics with Loic. Since my host family is very conservative and I'm rather liberal, we haven't discussed politics too much at home, but Loic is also liberal and quite well-educated in international politics. We talked about our favorite and least favorite US presidents, immigration policy, and capitalism. He actually inspired me to write up something about the differences between French and American politics, which I'll put in the next blog post. You can tell I'm a nerd when the high point of my week was discussing politics, but it's true.

Because it was such a long post, you get not one, but SIX complimentary songs for the day, and all of them are good for once.

Here's a really terribly sexist song, Femme Libérée that is quite catchy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAQRWmAcmW4

A song I knew and liked before coming to France, but turns out is actually known here as well (unlike all the obscure French-Canadian music I listen to...) “L'assasymphonie” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncE2_2HkaxI

The best song EVER though I admit I got it from French camp and haven't heard it in France. “Le Lion Est Mort ce Soir”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Kj2-hkQBI

And my favorite French band is called Louise Attaque and here are my favorite three songs:

Je t'emmène au Vent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0emXuhPTWUM

Fatigante:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3e5EanH4sk

Léa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGJC0KAPeYA