Advice and stuff

As many of you know, I have another blog over here that is exactly the same as this one but with any bad things I've said about my organization taken out, as well as anything else that could get me in trouble. This is my official internship that looks nice on a resume and might win me a free iPad if I am more creative and consistent than the other contributors. Sometimes they give us blog assignments to write on specific topics.

Today's blog topic is on host families and school/classes. What an interesting combination. For me personally, the two are the positive and negative extrema of my experience abroad. Let's start with the negative so we can finish on a good note.

French high school is a fairly bad place to spend 9.5 hours every day for two main reasons: 1) It's boring, and 2) I don't much like the people there. “It's boring?” you might ask incredulously. “How so? I would expect it to be hard to keep up in school in your second language, and everyone always talks about how the American school system is so far behind its European counterparts.” Well. Go back and read this essay I wrote on the many differences between the US and France. If you were too lazy, here's the summary: The US is very laissez-faire and un-standardized, so there are some areas (like the Silicon Valley, where I'm from) that become very competitive, and others (like Wyoming) that aren't. The school system actually looks a lot like the economic system, so that France (socialist) has more evenly distributed wealth and education, while the US (far more capitalist) creates fierce competition by having unevenly distributed wealth and a very lumpy education porridge. What this means is that virtually all the other American exchange students I know do have trouble keeping up in the French school system, just as you would've expected, and they aren't graded as harshly as the other students. But I come from a fairly competitive high school in the Silicon Valley and got put in the science track one grade down from where I would normally be, so for me it's easy peasy, lemon squeazy.

Now, you'd think it would feel pretty awesome to have the equivalent of an A – A+ average without even trying. But I'm a nerd; I like learning. Last year was my junior year, where I worked my butt off for AP US History and still had to keep up with calculus, marching band, and everything else. The thing is, junior year was my favorite year. Working hard and learning things is awesome and I wish I could just be a professional student all my life. So, not learning anything new is not very entertaining, especially since I came to France for my education with expectations of working really hard to keep up.

But I'll try to give you a more over-all picture of what it's like:

In 1S, rounded-off, I have

• 4 hours per week each of: History-Geography, Math, and French
• 3 hours per week of: Physics-Chemistry and Life and Earth Sciences (Biology and Geology)
• 2 hours per week of English
• 2 hours per week of “Accompagnement Personnalisé” which is basically extra hours of class that rotates between math, science, and French
• 2 hours per week of PE/sports (which covers running, badminton, and gymnastics)
• 2 hours per week of TPE, which is a research project that took up all of first semester
• 7 hours per week of holes in my schedule, 2 of which are because the other kids take Spanish and I don't

My favorite class is History-Geography, and it's also my worst grade. These two facts can both be explained by the fact that our teacher is AWESOME. He took me seriously right from the beginning and graded me as if I were French. After the first grading period, my other teachers agreed to do the same, but at the beginning not everyone took me seriously. Anyway, I've had really good luck with history teachers. He's young and gay, speaks decent English, and is thrilled to have an American in the class so he can ask me “How do you say 'gypsy' in English?” and “What do Americans learn in history class about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” and “Would you mind sharing if you have any family members who fought for France in WWI?” (He was fascinated to learn that my great-grandfather fought in WWI to earn US citizenship, as many new immigrants did.) We spent half of our parent-teacher conference talking about the Cold War. I can't say he can manage to make even geography interesting, because geography is frankly the worst subject in the world, but he makes history pretty awesome.

My least favorite class is probably French. French class consists almost entirely of lectures. We read a book or an excerpt (mostly old stuff: Molière, de Musset, Voltaire, Rousseau) and then get lectures on the true meaning of all the symbols in the book. For example, in the one more recent book we read about WWI, we would highlight all instances of words having to do with earthiness: mud, blood, trenches, drained, etc. and equate them with the animality of the dehumanized soldiers. As someone who enjoys both reading and writing very much, I hate this kind of analysis. As a writer, I have never intentionally stuck symbols and metaphors into my writing and wanted them to be picked apart like that. I just put the words down the way the sound best and seem to make the most impact, and I don't care if they make a metaphor of animality or not. As a reader, I find that it takes away from the emotional impact of the book to analyze it in such a way. I actually do pretty well in French class because, unlike in math and science, there's never a wrong answer, so as long as you're willing to try and sound convincing, you get a good grade. I wrote an essay on the theme of the loneliness of the human condition in the WWI book, which sounds to me like total BS, but my teacher liked it and gave me an A equivalent.

I also enjoy physics and math, although I've already seen the material between freshman year and junior year, so it isn't difficult. I dislike life and earth science, but I've never had a fondness for biology and geology goes along with geography as intrinsically boring material.

English depends on the teacher – I change teachers every trimester, acting as a sort of teacher's assistant. The first teacher hated me and treated me like a student instead of a TA, including giving me bad grades. I think he didn't like the fact that my English is better than his, although I really don't think he should've been embarrassed about that. Obviously a native speaker is better than a foreign language teacher, even if he has been studying English for 50 years. My second teacher used me as a participation ringer, calling on me when no one else knew the answer. My third (and favorite) teacher is the only one who appears to have realized the value of having a native speaker, and asks me little usage questions all the time: Could you use 'vacuum' as a verb? Which is more polite, “Could I open the window?” or “Would you mind if I opened the window?” She speaks great English for a foreigner, and in voice and mannerisms reminds me a lot of my 8^th grade physics teacher. But what I'm getting at here is that your English classes can depend entirely on the teacher, whether they'll treat you like a French student or like a TA or a ringer or ignore you entirely. No matter how it ends up, English will be your easiest class.

There is not a lot of choice of classes in France. Last year, I chose literally every single one of my classes. In math, I could have chosen only between calculus and statistics, but I did get a choice. I had three different options for US history, two different options for French (since the teachers liked me and I could skip as many levels as I wanted), eight or so different English classes, etc. In France, there are only three main choices you can make: S, L, or ES. S is for science and math, L is literature and languages, ES is economic, political, and social sciences. You can also go for a technical Bac in management or mechanics, which is a slightly lower-level certification that trains you more directly for what you want to do after high school. Or, even more basic, you can get a Bac Pro (professional) which is for slightly-educated bakers, farmers, technicians, photographers, truck drivers, etc. In the olden days (is still an option today, though less common), many people even stopped school after middle school to go directly into a vocational education, like my host mom did to become a gardener. There appears to be no shame in taking any of these lower-level options, as the French firmly believe that you need all different sorts of people in order to make the world run, and what would you do if you had too many college-educated kids and not enough bakers? No one would have any baguettes! (Sorry, I don't mean to make fun of this idea. Many studies have suggested that the US actually has too many college graduates.) Anyway, as an exchange student, you will only be interested in the S, L, and ES choice. I didn't get a choice, and neither did Sarah, the other exchange student at my school. The school only had room in S, so they put us there. For her, that was a very bad choice and she would've been better off in L, but for me it was ideal. My favorite subjects this year are history, math, and physics, as I mentioned. Despite the fact that we are in S, there is a focus this year on precisely the subjects we aren't specializing in, history and French, because at the end of the year the other students will take their Baccalaureate exams in these two subjects so that next year they don't have to take them. In their senior year, they will finish the Bac in all the other subjects: math, physics, life and earth sciences, languages (English and Spanish or English and German), and philosophy (which all French students are required to take as a senior and sounds horrible). In ES, for example, they get sciences and French out of the way before going on to specialize in math, economics, political science, philosophy, history, and languages. So for me, being in S is a great choice because there's a particular emphasis on the subjects that I enjoy (not counting French), but for many exchange students being in L would be a better choice because of the importance of foreign languages.

Now that I've explained the school system, I'm going to finish that other thought I had about the people in school. One nice thing for socializing at school is that you stay in one class throughout the day, just like in elementary school. I stay with my 1SB class of 33 for all subjects except languages. This is good because it makes the school seem smaller, and helps you get to know people in your class. This can also be bad, because of teenage social drama. There's an iconic French chick flick called LOL which was badly redone in the US with Miley Cyrus, depicting a French class trip to England. The movie is basically about high school drama, teenagers, and sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Now that this movie is a classic in youth culture, every class tries to make their trip to England as much like LOL as possible – hooking up with each other, sneaking out at night, experimenting with illegal substances, etc. My class's trip was not quite this bad, but the number of couples that lasted only for a week got pretty annoying. Off the top of my head, I can think of five hideously dramatic “relationships” in my class that unfolded just during the week that we were in England. If we were in with the group of fairly self-aware, hipster-ish, cynical people that made up my high school at home, you'd definitely get judged for having a week-long relationship, but here it appears to be nothing out of the ordinary. So while having a closer relationship with everyone in your class can have advantages, it can also be really irritating.

Another thing I dislike about the social atmosphere in French high schools is the acceptability of being judgemental. A quick disclaimer: at home, I hung out with band geeks, who, like other groups of geeks, are aggressively tolerant. As an exchange student, I fell in with a group of people I normally wouldn't have chosen to be friends with – the girly, occasionally catty girls who would probably be cheerleaders if that were a thing here. So I guess I can't say for sure that Americans are more tolerant than the French, merely that my sample group in the US (SF Bay Area band geeks) are more tolerant than my sample group in France (rural prom queen girls).

That being said, in France it is very acceptable to not like someone because of the way they look or dress. Both are important: being ugly is unacceptable, and being unfashionable is unacceptable. At Homestead, my high school at home, you couldn't say “Wow, look at that poor girl. She's hideous!” Your friends would say something along the lines of “Wow, tolerance, it's not like she can do anything about it!” or even “But no! She has nice hair!” or something else that points out their best qualities. In France, they consider themselves brutally honest. Calling people ugly is fair game, as is offering unsolicited fashion advice. Ostracizing people for their nerdy appearance is also acceptable. I am aware that this happens at many high schools around the world, but at Homestead nerds were accepted, and even considered awesome for their 'nerd cred.' I think what bothers me the most about this is “the pervasive idea that women owe it to onlookers to maintain a certain standard of decorativeness.” (link) Of course, I've mentioned before that French culture brings out my inner feminist and raises my leftist, equal-opportunity hackles. So that's the social side of school. It's irritating and catty and rather like Mean Girls at times, and I'll be glad to get back to people I understand in an environment where I feel comfortable being myself. But it's not horrible, I don't feel bullied, and I do have some friends.

Now that I've talked for a million years about school (conclusion: it's boring but acceptable), I'll talk about my host family. I think I would've gone home halfway through if not for them. Admittedly it is very difficult to live with a host family, and if I were ever to come back to France for work on a short-term basis (I'd never come back on a long-term basis) I'd certainly get an apartment instead. But despite the difficulties, it is without a doubt the best way to assimilate into a culture.

The family back in September, minus Papa

I take a long time to open up to people, and I find people very stressful. So it may have taken three or four months to become completely at ease with my host family, but now it's wonderful to come home from a socially stressful day at school and make stupid seal noises with my host sibs. (Yes, I'm 18 years old... what of it?) We may have different ideas of having fun, but by now I'm comfortable enough with them to say “No, go to your stupid drunken dubstep party without me! I don't appreciate that kind of fun.”

I have already mentioned that my host sister is going to come home with me this summer. You may be familiar with the phenomenon of Friend A and Friend B and realizing that if you invite both of them to your birthday party it will be very awkward, because with Friend A you act like the other dancers in your dance troupe and with Friend B you act like the other nerds in your history bowl club and so it would be weird to have to be two different versions of you at the same time. I have this problem less often than many people, because I am no people-loving social butterfly, but I still see it a lot. I briefly considered whether bringing my sis (let's call her Becca) home would create awkwardness simply because of the vast cultural difference between France and the US, and how I have indeed learned to be a different person. I have even had a few mini existential crises where I had to figure out where me is, in between all the cultural layers, and how many cultural layers should be allowed to change and how many should stay the same. But I quickly decided that this won't be awkward at all. It will simply help Becca understand me even better, as she learns just how different it is. There's a few things I'm looking forward to – mostly things relating to my own confidence levels, and proving that I really do have friends and tell jokes and go out on adventures and have a life, but France took all that away from me. I'll even be able to order food from restaurants without having a panic attack. Just yesterday I got Becca to order something for me, and had to explain to her the concept of accent shame, which startled her as she did not realize that existed or that I suffered from it. So bringing her to the US will be a great way of sharing my ordeal of the last year, so she can understand what I experienced and I can help her as she experiences the same difficulties.

I have just one piece of advice to give to exchange students as far as living with a host family goes:

Last week, Becca and her boyfriend were planning an outing to go out that night to a restaurant and then go get dessert afterwards. What I missed, or didn't hear, or didn't pay attention to, or something, was the little detail that the restaurant outing was actually supposed to be just between the two of them as a date, and that my host brother, the other friends we were with, and I were only invited for dessert. So I started putting on my shoes to go out, and suddenly Becca jokingly said “Wait, no, you weren't invited!” thinking that I had understood, and in fact was putting on my shoes for some other reason. I looked up at her blankly. “Oh? I thought we were all going out together?” She burst out laughing, realizing that I hadn't understood, and immediately waltzed off into the other room to announce to everyone how hysterical it was. “Hey guys! So funny! Jenna thought she was coming with us!” And if there's one thing I hate, it's being made fun of. I heard my host mom say “Oh, poor Jenna!” obviously not thinking it as funny as Becca did. If there's one thing I hate even more than being made fun of, it's being pitied. The black cloud of fury boiling in my heart, I took off my shoes, walked into the other room, and said cheerfully “Oh, these poor stupid Americans! They don't understand anything, do they!” And everyone laughed and forgot about it, except me.

That is what you need to be an exchange student. You need to be able to laugh at yourself. Hopefully you can do it without the buried cloud of shame and anger. But unless you speak better French than I do and are already intimately familiar with the culture, there will be a lot of moments when you don't understand and end up being the butt of jokes, even though it's not intended to be mean. But getting all defensive about it is the worst thing you can do, and no one wants to hang out with that kind of person who throws a fit about everything. So put a smile on your face and be a nice butt of the joke.

Other tips for being a good exchange student would be the importance of openness and communication with your host family, even for embarrassing things like human bodies. It's important to be able to tell them that you're sick. They'll probably try foisting all kinds of suspicious medication on you because French people are like that, but it's important anyway.

I'm sort of running out of things to say. I have a really good relationship with my host family and therefore not much to complain about. There's something constantly exhausting about not being alone and not being at home, where you're sort of an eternal guest at the mercy of others. They've adopted me as a second daughter, but that doesn't mean I won't be glad to move back out – just like any 18-year-old who's anxious to have their own space, I suppose. But otherwise, I couldn't be better off than where I am, and I know that I'll keep in touch with them for years to come, hopefully the rest of my life.

Voilà. Any questions on host family relations or school or anything can be sent my way. My apologies for a late post because of a ski vacation (post coming soon!) followed by a couple days of vomiting, followed by a tourist expedition to Nantes (also post coming soon!).