Things I learned about sports (and lots of gooey sentiments)

I wrote this at the end of last year in honor of fencing and frisbee and how much they've done for me, but I never ended up finishing it. Here it is now, finished and edited... although I'm sure I will add more things to this list as I continue learning things about sports.

Things I've learned from sports from freshman year:

1) It doesn't matter what it is, but do it.

Have you ever loved something so much it hurts? Something you just wanted to throw yourself into completely out of love for the thing and the people and the everything about it? I think a lot of people had at least one of those in high school. For me it was musical theater, and at least for a little while, marching band. Thinking about putting on a show in theater or performing a “golden show” in competition for band made my belly ache just thinking about it, I wanted it so much. All my friends were in band, and my few friends who weren't soon dropped out of my life because I didn't have time to spend with them and all I wanted to talk about was music, anyway. I considered majoring in music my sophomore year. I didn't tell anyone, because I was embarrassed to be considering the prospect when I wasn't really good enough to make it work. But it was an obsession and an addiction and my whole life, and I couldn't imagine not centering my life on music.

I fully intended to join a band in college, but it didn't happen. Somewhere between my two sports and classes and meeting new people and having exciting new experiences, I didn't make time for it. But the full force of my slightly obsessive personality is now fixated on sports. To a certain extent, it doesn't matter what you do – if you have a passion for music, sports, theater, art, fantasy, gay rights, video games, etc etc – all that matters is that you do something and throw yourself into it and love it. I couldn't imagine living without music, but I also love sports and it was easier than I would have thought to give up music by replacing it with frisbee and fencing.

So if I ramble constantly about fencing and tell you fencing jokes and “this one time at a tournament” stories and won't shut up about how boss my frisbee team is, please forgive me. I fell in love.

2) You are capable of so much more than you think. Confidence is everything.

I've run track and cross-country, did marching band, and played frisbee for years. I'm no stranger to exercise. But being on Bella Donna (my frisbee team) has been the most demanding sport I've been a part of. 2 workouts a week, 1 practice a week, 2 weight-lifting sessions a week when we managed it, tournaments every weekend in March and April, and all those nights practicing until midnight in the Shell made for a difficult year. It was difficult with respect to time-management, balancing practice with fencing and classes and homework and studying and sleep and eating and a social life often seemed impossible, and sometimes I slipped up and and fell behind (usually with sleep and studying).

It was difficult physically – I don't think there's a single girl on our team who went uninjured all season. Working out and playing that much take their toll on your body, but it felt like disappointing the team to be injured, so most of us would suck it up and play through minor injuries like pulled muscles and rolled ankles, only taking time out if absolutely necessary. Most days I had 2 hours of fencing practice, an hour break during which I would sometimes but not always get the chance to eat dinner, and then either an hour-and-a-half workout or a 3-hour practice for frisbee. Sometimes I would watch the clock creep closer and closer to midnight, just wishing I could go home and catch up on sleep and rest my aching muscles.

There was a period of time in early spring semester when I didn't put much enthusiasm into either sport, and I'm a little bit ashamed of that now. Because what I've learned is that even when you think you're exhausted, that's just your brain. Your body is a remarkable thing and is way more resilient than you think it is. During your 4^th game on a Sunday of a hard tournament, you can simply convince yourself that you have more in you, and voilà! Somehow it's there. If my girl is running deep, I used to believe that she was faster and let her beat me, but rather recently I've discovered that I'm faster than I thought, and if I go in with a head full of confident arrogance and a heart full of belief in myself, I can almost always beat her. During my 6^th workout in 3 days when I'm feeling worn down and dispirited, I can just tell myself that I'm excited about it and still have plenty of energy, and somehow I always do. Why waste time believing you have limits when your body hasn't given up yet?

This belief in oneself, this confidence, is also a huge factor in fencing. One of my foil mentors (hey Stephen!) likes to tell me I fence too timidly, which cracks me up because I'm an incredibly aggressive fencer as long as I stay in control of the bout. (He is right, though – as soon as the other person takes control of the bout and puts me on defense, I lose confidence and my limited ability to plan ahead.) But I will unashamedly brag about how well I did at club nationals in Tennessee, because I decided I was going to be a boss and scare the crap out of every girl I faced on the strip, and surprisingly it worked! My strategy is to be fast and aggressive and scare them until I hit them with my incredibly large lunge that they really should have parried if they weren't so intimidated. Against better fencers, this wouldn't work at all, but apparently this is good enough for club level fencing.

On a more philosophical note, it is my experience and my belief that people become what you expect them to be. If you treat someone like a criminal and a delinquent, there's a darn good chance they'll act like one. In high school I would get in trouble for breaking rules that I only broke in spirit, like getting disciplined for “ditching class” when I really only ditched school rallies because I hated that we were required to go to them. They had strict rules precisely because they expected us to push the limits and break all of them, and so I did. While on the other extreme, my parents treated me like I was a responsible, independent adult capable of making rational decisions from about age 12 or so. I can't even imagine how horrible it would be to let them down, since they believe that I'm a better person than I really am. So I try to live up to their expectations, and when I fail, it hurts and sometimes I try to hide it. So whatever you want people to be like? Treat them like they already are as kind, responsible, etc as you expect them to be, and hopefully it will push them in the right direction. Expectation is powerful, and I don't know which is more powerful: the effect other people's expectations have on you, or your own. But your own are far easier to hack. So go believe yourself into being good at math, sports, music, languages, and especially people skills. I believe it works for all of these.

3) Your teammates might just be the most influential people you'll meet.

It's hard to just generate confidence on your own though. A lot of us don't believe in ourselves and can't just start with a snap of the fingers. That's where the sidelines come in. On Bella, we really emphasize the importance of the “8^th man on the field”: the players on the sideline. This is useful for practical and strategic reasons (telling the defensive players where the disc is and where they can be to play most effectively, for example) but also to give you the much-needed confidence boost when your fuel tanks are flagging and you don't believe you're fast anymore. You need people to believe in you for you sometimes, and for me that takes the form of my weight-lifting buddy Romy screaming her head off at me on the sidelines telling me “You're so fast, Ikwe! Deeeep! DEEEEEP!”. Or it's our coach Robyn sobbing after a point with too many turnovers to count in the most important game of our season, because she believes in us so much and was so overwhelmed with pride that we stuck it out and won the point. It's standing in a huddle, looking around at the determined faces of your teammates, knowing there is no one you'd rather play with, because we believe in ourselves and each other and we've worked so hard together to learn that trust. Being a part of a team is a powerful feeling. It makes you better AND it's the single most rewarding thing about playing a sport.

I've met so many amazing people through sports. They've inspired me and changed me and I feel incredibly lucky to know them. I was consistently humbled by the dedication and fire of the senior players on Bella (Forty, I'm looking at you) who never seem to lose intensity and are always working to become the best players they can be. My fellow new players learned the same lessons I did this year about time-management and pushing through pain and fatigue, and we've lived the same struggles and figured them out together. As for fencing, well, I owe everything to the senior foilists on the team. We have a coach, but he can't teach us all individually, so it's no exaggeration to say everything I've learned about fencing is thanks to David, Stephen, and Ruby. They gave up so much of their practice time to teach me, and were somehow patient through the frustrations of learning how to treat a thin piece of metal as an extension of your arm which is in turn an extension of the wire springs that are a fencer's legs. And we got to know each other, somehow we all became best friends. I guess fencing attracts a certain kind of personality, quirky and interesting and intelligent and kind. All I know is I could spend all day talking about how cool my fencing friends are, Stephen who's like a brother to me, Victoria who's a 500% nicer version of me, Foil-Mama David, Tommy who crushes lizard skulls in his free time, Sean the adorably neurotic punk, I could go on and on. What a cast of characters. There should be a reality TV show about us. Anyway, I didn't mean to go on and on about my friends because that's not very interesting to read about, but the point of all of this was that when you play sports, you become close with your teammates which is the best way of making friends I've found so far. And I am a very different person thanks to the people I met last year and my relationships with them.

4) You belong on the field.

In organized sports, everyone has a role. In frisbee, you're a handler or a cutter. No matter where you are on the field, you know what your job is. If you're a chaser, you look to open a window deep and then come under either as a continue or as a cut if the shots did not get open. (Yes, I realize this means nothing to you if you don't play frisbee.) On defense you're even more necessary. If it's man-on-man defense, you have to follow your girl, and if you don't do that, in all likelihood she'll score and that point is all your fault. In zone defense you're responsible for an area of the field, and not doing that makes the rest of the defense fall apart. My point is, you are necessary when you're on the field. You can't hang back because you think the other people on your team will do a better job. You know what you need to do and your team is relying on you to do it.

My coach Robyn mentioned an article that I can't seem to find right now talking about how women's sports (and specifically Ultimate) are so important because they teach women to be unafraid of their bodies, unafraid to take up space and be physical and use what they've got. All too often I see girls who try to take up the least amount of space possible. If they're tall, they stoop a little in embarrassment. They weave through crowds where large men usually just walk straight and people move aside for them. I experimented recently with not moving out of my way for people on sidewalks, just to see what would happen. I got ran into a lot and got some surprised looks, and eventually figured out a technique of walking with squared shoulders, head up, and looking people in the eyes that somehow made people step aside for me. This is why girls should play frisbee. Take up space! Box your girl out, and run as aggressively as you can in her space without making it a foul. I saw this at camp this summer too – when girls don't have mirrors for 4 weeks and are forbidden from using makeup or wearing pretty clothes by the circumstances they're in, somehow they become more comfortable with their bodies. They get muscle from canoeing, they get pride from portaging canoes on their head, and they get respect for how hard they work. They're worth what they can carry, what they can do to help, and how they contribute to the group, not what they look like. (Incidentally, one of my favorite parts of being a counselor was getting to break the mirrors off the port-a-potties so they wouldn't see themselves for 4 weeks. 21 years of bad luck here I come!!)

I want everyone to feel like they belong in whatever space they're occupying. Sometimes I'm on the field not knowing where to cut or how to help, but my goal now is to just cut more until I figure out how to do it better. By not participating, you're hurting your team, so get out there and be a presence on the field. You belong in your space. Own it.

So go out and play a sport. You might learn something. I learn something every single practice, and it's an amazing feeling.

One semester of awesome

Well, I survived my first semester of college. It wasn't too hard! Here are some of the highlights and things I've been up to, in no particular order:

- I wrote a research paper about women in the sagas and how they are portrayed as powerful, a character type that ought to exist more today. I didn't think I was the sort to read into gender roles, but apparently I am. I am still struck by the images of Gudrun, Brynhild, Gunnhilda, and Aslaug – powerful, revengeful women, yet still sympathetic characters (not antagonists like the Wicked Witch of the West or Maleficent) and heroines in their own right. And it really did leave me wondering why I always pretended to be male characters when I was little and played pretend. Knights, heroes, captains... with the exception of Eowyn (and I would have rather pretended to be Legolas or Aragorn when it came right down to it), I was at a loss for strong female role models in popular fiction. It certainly didn't bother me at the time, and no one ever told me “Put down that sword, that's not a girl's toy!” But now I find it food for thought nonetheless.

This is yet another reason the Hunger Games series is so fantastic. A strong, emotionally stable warrior heroine helps her sweet but weak and dependent (boy)friend Peeta survive. (Hilarious and accurate article on this here.)

-I tried out for the UW women's ultimate team, Bella Donna, and joined them! It's been a lot of fun and I've learned a lot. It's also been pretty intense and hard to manage with also doing fencing. Fortunately, I've managed to keep my body in pretty good working repair and have had only minor issues with the arches of my feet and my back playing up like usual. It's always a trade-off between being in shape and wearing down one's body, though I'd rather get more than enough exercise than not enough.

-Fencing has gone well too. Since I have no experience with fencing and it's not as competitive, it's almost more of a social outlet. (Fortunately for me, since I definitely couldn't handle two sports like frisbee.) A lot of my favorite people are in fencing as well as this kid I'm dating oh wait I guess I should say “my boyfriend” now. He said I should write a blog post about him (egotistical, I know) but I don't know how I can do that without sounding all gushy and stupid. Oh well. Let it just be known that I am happy. Perhaps later when I'm more comfortable with writing about my personal life I'll tell you all about him.

-All of my priorities and things I thought were important to me changed. I thought I was going to college to figure out what subject fascinates me and to delve deep into whatever that is, but my favorite memories from the past semester are all very much social. I even have become less introverted and need more time with people. Favorite moments include 3 am talk with friends, getting to know people at the beginning of the semester, blanket forts in the basement, parties (which I hated last year, remember?), goofing off at fencing, dressing up for Halloween, sledding on Observatory Hill, and filming a group project with some very silly friends. I have time to figure out what I want to do, so this year is for shits and giggles and snowball fights. It's been a time very much of figuring out who I am now that I'm not living at home or in someone else's home in France, now that I have the confidence to be me and the freedom to do what I feel like doing and all the opportunity that comes with living on a very dynamic, exciting social campus. And apparently that person is a happy, somewhat impulsive, very active young woman by the name of Ikwe.

It's very strange to think about the year 2013 as a whole. I felt like life started over when I got to college, and I forget that I left France only 6 months ago. Studying abroad is a chapter of your life that gets to be very separate from everything else, almost like a whole different life. Coming to Madison, I had already been away from home for a year and yet I had just shut the door behind me on my experience in France, never intending to look back. Essentially, I came with nothing, knowing no one, having very few ties left to anything. And leaving Madison to come back to California, as I waited for the bus to take me to the airport, I realized that I have everything I could possibly want here. A lot can change in a semester. It's true that the years pass faster and faster as we get older, but to a certain extent this is counterbalanced by how much change there is in life at this age. In high school we don't see the years go by because they're all more or less the same, but 2012 and 2013 both had so much change that a new year seems like a new world.

I'm so pleased with where I am now that I'm having a problem I have never had before: I don't want anything to change and for once I'm not champing at the bit waiting for the year to pass. I didn't even want to make a decision about housing for next year because I just wanted to live with the exact same people in Cole again. This unprecedented contentment with the present, of course, doesn't mean I'm not excited for 2014: 2014 will have Israel, an awesome second semester, hopefully working at French camp and other summer shenanigans, and the first semester of sophomore year living on the Scandinavian Studies floor. I hope it will be even more awesome than the past semester has been. Cheers to the New Year! May the year ahead of you hold adventure, learning, laughter along with the occasional cathartic cry, serendipity and spontaneity, a healthy sense of romance, late night heart-to-hearts, good books, and good friends.

College is awesome

I'm not writing anything because everything is perfect. What do you even write about when there's nothing wrong? I have noticed before that happiness is the emotion the least conducive to creativity. At the beginning of high school when I started to ground my life with marching band and things were looking up, I briefly mourned the demise of my dark poetry and melancholy artistic ways. Briefly, of course, because being happy is so much better than being sad, but it is a strange kind of shock when a part of your identity (being a writer) goes away.

I don't know why introspection should be negatively correlated with happiness. Perhaps it isn't relevant. Perhaps I'm confusing correlation and causation, and I just don't have the time to be introspective and I'm happy because I'm busy with things I enjoy. I don't know, and I can't bring myself to care either. The goal of life seems to be to find happiness, and I seem to have found it.

So since I don't have anything to complain about, and I feel bad for not writing for over a month, here comes the actual life update with as little introspection as ever happens with me. Classes are going quite well: I'm taking an interest group set of three classes about Vikings which comprises Swedish, folklore, and sagas (Norse mythology). Learning Swedish has been a reminder of how much I love learning languages and how it really is a talent of mine. I have to take linguistics next semester and figure out if this is what I want to study. I'm also taking Calc II, the most failed class in Madison with the worst professor in Madison. Surprisingly, I'm doing okay in that too. My first calc midterm was probably the first test I've successfully studied for in my life. Usually the studying doesn't happen, or I don't do enough of it for it to work.

That's enough about classes, since I haven't been focused on classes in the slightest. I've also been trying to win a competition with no one in particular to see how many extra-curriculars I can physically do. So far, this mostly involves either fencing or frisbee practice every night of the week, and sometimes both. Yes, I fence foil now! It's exactly as awesome as it sounds. And just because that clearly isn't enough exercise, I've been running along the beautiful Lakeshore path, and occasionally going rock climbing. I'd say this continues to support my previous hypothesis that exercise is one of the best things you can do to be happy.

Other than that, I hang out with people – wow, I have lots of really interesting friends! This is new and exciting! And I mean no offense to my dear old friends from high school when I say this, but I am simply astonished at how easy it is to meet fascinating people in college as opposed to, well, everywhere else, and how great it is to have friends from many different places (classes, sports, dorms, random encounters) who are different and wonderful and interesting all in their own ways. Gone are the days when I could only be friends with band geeks. Before, band was a good litmus test of compatibility: they were generally a more intelligent and interested bunch than those who weren't in band. But now, I meet awesome people on such a regular basis, I no longer even need ways of sorting people into “potential friends” and “the rest of those losers.”

What else... dorm life! I thought I would hate the dorms, because I like peace and quiet and need a lot of personal introvert time. I was concerned about having a roommate for that reason and because I could tell we were very different. But I love the dorms! I like my roommate and the fact that we are very different, because we get along wonderfully but don't talk so much that I can't have introvert-recharging time in my room. Almost from day one our floor bonded over everything and nothing, and we have the best atmosphere. Everyone leaves their doors open and we're all pretty much friends. The first couple weeks I kept thinking how much like summer camp it felt. Why did no one tell me that college is just like summer camp?

I assumed coming in that the first couple weeks would be hard, that it would take me awhile to find friends, and I'd question if it was going to be okay and why did I even decide to come here anyway. That's just normal, I assumed – it'll just be like an easier version of France. But that did not happen at all. From day one I felt at home here and knew I could be friends with these people. There were a few days in mid-September when I wondered when the euphoria would wear off. I assume euphoria isn't sustainable, that one day I'll realize it isn't as incredible as I thought it was and things will revert back to normal. That hasn't happened at all either.

I catch myself just grinning like an idiot as I walk to classes, thinking about what I'm studying, something funny a friend said, my plans for the weekend. Thinking about life, formerly an introspective and quiet process, just makes me smile uncontrollably now. It makes people smile back at me, which is funny. They look happy and bemused to see that I'm happy. Today I walked past someone who had pretty much the same goofy grin on his face that I did, and it just made me laugh, knowing I wasn't alone and wondering what he was so pleased about.

I'm also in love with Lakeshore, the dorm neighborhood I live in. We're on the far west side of campus, away from downtown and the loud drunken parties that Madison is notorious for, near the lake and the woods and great running paths. Of course, we can still go to the crazy parties, the difference is just that we get to come home to relative peace and quiet when we want to. All of Lakeshore is incredibly beautiful, and the smaller dorm sizes mean that people talk to each other more here. The one complaint I have about dorm life is the food. The dining hall options are not great. For the first few weeks I ate barely anything because nothing was appetizing and I was too excited to eat anyway. Now I've figured out that I can cook decent food in our basement kitchen when I want good food, and I know what the better options in the dining hall are when I don't want to cook. Cooking, of course, has also become a social event, just like everything else when you live with a bunch of awesome people.

Some nights, of course, you just need to sit and study in your room with a bowl of ramen, both because sometimes studying actually needs to happen and for social recharging. And that's fine, too. For awhile I had some bad FOMO (that's Fear of Missing Out), afraid that every minute I wasn't trying to forge new connections would be my eventual downfall, as everyone would have formed these great social groups and connections but me. Apparently, this is quite a common problem among college freshmen. You get over it, that's all. You get friends, you become secure in your new social environment, and it stops being as big of an issue. Tonight everyone is out at Freakfest, which is Madison's big Halloween shebang, while I'm embracing my claustrophobic crowd-hating instincts and sitting in my room writing and listening to excellent music.

I love life I love school I love people I love friends I love sports I love Madison and that is my life right now. I apologize for the lack of coherence and direction to this post; it is simply meant as an update so everyone knows I didn't die. And yes, I am realizing that it's a lot more difficult to blog when I don't have to for my internship and I'm far busier. Have a wonderful week, faithful readers!

It Gets Better

So I'm in college now. I guess this makes me officially old. You'll laugh at that, of course – not old, but in truth an independent adult. And of course, all the changes to my life right now mean that this blog is going to be changing as well. I no longer have the single theme of living abroad to focus on, nor do I have an internship that requires me to blog about my everyday life. Instead I'd like to write more about what already inspires me most – politics, culture, feminism, and people-watching (social observations!). Obviously I haven't hesitated to do so during this past year, and these posts have also been the most successful, with my most-read posts being, in order, I have a massive crush on humanity on the negativity of radical feminism, 5 things about feminism I agree with, my personal favorite The American Essence on American intellectualism, ambition, and competition (which I consider a summary of all my thoughts on living in France), and finally Charity, discussing how to rationally make the world a better place. Clearly my faithful readers agree with me on which topics are the most interesting. With that being said, I'll be writing much less about my day-to-day life and more about the interesting stuff. Today I'm going to write about what it's like to be awkward, a topic I've been meaning to cover for ages (and covered briefly here).

Imagine that you are a martian. You are trying to fit in on Earth, even though you are very unlike the Earthlings. And you are terrified that they will find out your true identity, that you are Not One of Them. You get the feeling that everything you do isn't the right (well, normal) way to do things, right down to the clothes you wear, the lunches you eat, the things that interest you, and the way you staple your homework together. Ok, maybe that last one is an exaggeration, but maybe not. I was joking with my dear friend May about “not getting the memo” – that is, when I was in middle school I didn't get the memo that stretchy pants weren't socially acceptable, I didn't get the memo when everyone started shaving their legs, etc. Maybe other girls have mothers who explain these things to them, or maybe they're just more aware of their surroundings, I don't know. But either way, I never got the memo, and somehow this contributed to the feeling of being not the same species as those around me.

One thing I always admired is how people with confidence acknowledge their differences without thinking it's awkward or special. People have lots of variations in their everyday lives, and sometimes they don't learn all the same things at the same time. Some of my new friends in college just learned how to do laundry this weekend, whereas I've been doing mine since age 11 or so. Some people drink a lot of juice, some people like milk. These personal differences are even more obvious when we're all living in the dorms together. But a few years ago, I never would have been able to say “I don't know how to straighten my hair” and be comfortable with it. Being under the impression that every other girl on the planet had obtained this skill, it would have seemed like an admission that I was a different species, and not a simple “I am a person who has never felt the need to straighten my hair before.” At best, I would have made a big deal out of it, turning it into a label – I've always liked labels way too much. It would have been “I am not a stupid valley girl/fashionista/preppy girl, so (since I am proud of being different and a nerd), of COURSE I don't know how to straighten my hair!” when in reality it is silly to either be ashamed of or make a statement out of such a simple difference.

I don't know what makes people get this feeling. I've heard feeling that we are very different from those around us is one of the classic signs of an introvert, but it also has a lot to do with confidence (a trait not particularly correlated with introversion or extroversion). A lack of confidence was a big factor in making my middle school years (and my year in France, for that matter) unpleasant. Fortunately, this is a trait that can be developed. I remember really wanting to write about this topic a few months ago, but since coming back to the US I have had much less difficulty with this, and no longer feel as strongly about it. The whole reason I am still dedicating a post to it is to talk about how it gets better.

In case you aren't familiar with the It Gets Better project, it's a project to reach out to LGBTQ youth and tell them that life really does get better. Don't give up. It won't always be this bad. I wish this project existed in a more generic form, just to tell all adolescents struggling with depression that it'll get better. I certainly had a very painful middle school experience, and each year with the possible exception of France has been better than the last. Talking to the younger siblings of my friends, I can tell everyone goes through the same things. We all have been hormonal, alienated, mean to others or bullied by others or both, and constantly on the brink of giving up. I wish I could talk to myself from five years ago just to give myself a little hope. And that is also something I'd like to do with this blog, but for those who come after me.

Step number one is just to realize that everyone is human, not robots. They all have differences and awkwardnesses as well. Maybe the kid sitting next to you put on his T-shirt inside-out this morning and only fixed it when someone made fun of him. To you, you don't even question whether it's “weird” or not, but he might feel as mortified about that as you feel when someone thought you were weird for not plucking your eyebrows. And maybe the girl who discovered you don't pluck your eyebrows now feels weird wondering if she is the only one who does. Who knows? The point is, when it happens to other people, you don't notice. It seems normal, because it is normal for humans to have lots of variation. So when it happens to you, don't react like someone just saw through your eyes into your naked soul. Just be cool. Laugh it off. There is no normal.

Another thing that helps sometimes is to break open your boundaries and talk to people about routines – things you wouldn't normally talk about. Some people are very good at the kind of everyday humor that comes with being comfortable with this, for example, telling a funny story about tripping on his own flipflop and faceplanting in front of some cute girls. If someone else can tell this story and it's hilarious and makes you feel closer to them, why can't you do the same? Answer: you probably can. The other day I tripped walking to the dining hall and a group of people were walking behind me. A few years ago I would have kept going without saying a word, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. But then, I looked back and said “You didn't see that, right?” with a conspiratorial wink. They laughed and we ended up having a really nice conversation. Bonus social points for me! So if this is a problem you suffer from as well, go tell someone about putting too much milk on your cereal this morning and how it got soggy and sucked. Maybe they'll even think you're funny.

When I originally intended to write this post several months ago, it was going to be solely about the odd sensation of being a complete outsider, both as an explanation to those less socially challenged than I and as a request to know if others experience the same thing. But I've been losing interest in this topic. At first this disappointed me – darn, I should've written it when I first had the idea – but it's actually a very good thing. I lost interest because I don't usually feel like this anymore, because everything's been getting better. (I really need these messages of hope right now because a friend of mine is going through some serious depression and I feel the need to broadcast the It Gets Better message, so bear with me.)

I have often worried that life is nothing more than a waiting game. In middle school, I just waited for high school so all my problems would go away. In high school, I waited for the beginning of every marching band season, I waited for summer, but most of all I waited for college. Junior year I found out I was going abroad, and I waited to leave everything I knew, start over, and I assumed that from there everything would be perfect. In France, I just waited to go home. The obvious concern here is this: what if it never does get better? What if I spend my whole life waiting, but happiness is not actually dependent on the particular situation of the present, and I'll never attain it?

But now I'm in college. I've never looked forward to something beyond college – never longed for a family or a grown-up job. So this is the endgame of waiting, the final test to see if the waiting is forever or if it gets fulfilled. And guess what? I'm not waiting anymore. I never catch myself thinking “It'll be better when X is over,” or “It'll be better when I get to do Y.” Sometimes the days pass slowly, because there's too much to do and it can be stressful and overwhelming. More often the days disappear like will-o'-the-wisps, as full of laughter as of stress, fulfilling even when they're wearing. I've only been here two weeks, but I've met some amazing people and I even feel like I belong. A dieu, my life as a martian. Welcome to feeling like a real person. This isn't to say there are never hard moments. I know I'm going to struggle with two of my classes this semester, and some days life just isn't as cheery as I wish it could be. But I'm where I'm supposed to be, in a pretty ideal environment for doing what I want to do.

This has been a scatter-brained three pages. I didn't know what I wanted to say, and life has been overwhelming. But what it comes down to is this: If life sucks, hang on. I believe that it'll get better. I believe that one day you'll be happy where you are. Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day, and recently I've been hearing about way too many suicides or attempted suicides. I know that sometimes life seems hopeless, but I don't think it is. Even if it takes a really long time to get there, it will get better. Have hope.

Life Update

Here's an update on my life, starting with college, including my back injury, and finishing with a reflection on my timeline of emotions of my year abroad.

Last I left off, I was deciding where to go to college, between Madison, UCSD, UWash, McGill, U of Minnesota, and UCSC. I got rejected from Berkeley, which didn't surprise me at all and only disappointed me for an hour or two. I posted a question to the world about UCSD's vibe and got overwhelmingly negative responses; people telling me that UC Socially Dead is very weak on extra-curricular activities and is not friendly and open. Further research also showed me that much of UCSD's reputation comes from biology and engineering, while Madison is very strong in the humanities. This means that Madison is a better school in the subjects I'm more likely to major in, as well as having a better vibe for me. It's not that I want a party school, exactly, because I don't really like parties. I just want the attitude of a party school, where everyone is looking to be friendly with everyone else, and you can smile at people as you walk down the street and sit next to strangers in the dining hall and strike up conversations.

Anyway, after a lot of research and reading the many facebook messages I got on the subject and soul-searching, it became pretty obvious to me what my best choice was, which is actually the school I've wanted since the beginning: The University of Wisconsin-Madison. So on April 6^th I signed my online confirmation, finished signing up for housing, and declined all my other offers. WOOOOOO!!!

Excuse my unprofessional writing, but WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Let's put on some happy music. (I'm actually not very good at happy music, so this is the best I've got: My Evil Plan to Save the World)

I'm really excited. It feels like the right choice, and I'm also really glad to be done making that choice. My best friend Grace got a really stressed angsty 3am Gchat conversation with me the weekend before. Now that that choice is over, I can theoretically get a good night's sleep!

Theoretically, because Life Update #2: I have back issues. I posted a week ago about my accident that ended me up in the hospital (Socialized Medicine). Unfortunately, my back issues weren't getting better, so on Wednesday (6 days after I fell) I went to see a kinésthérapeute/ostéopathe, which is a very generalized French doctor who does physical therapy, chiropractics, osteopathy, etc. He was very attractive and kind just like my emergency room doctor was, leaving me with the impression that all the rumored good-looking Frenchmen I was promised are all hiding in doctor's offices, because I certainly don't see them very often. He showed me that I had one leg 2 inches longer than the other, which is not normal, and put my pelvis back on its hinges. After he finished cracking me back into place, he showed me that my legs actually have a normal half-centimeter difference, which is why I often have back problems because my pelvis likes to jump off its hinges. Then he turned his attention to my upper back which is where it actually hurt, and said “Does it hurt to breathe?” “...Yes, especially if I sneeze or laugh.” “Well... that's normal. You have a muscle caught between your spine and your ribs that catches every time you breathe.” “...Oh.”

I guess eventually I will learn that whenever I hurt, I actually have a pretty bad medical problem. Obviously an out-of-place back is nothing I could die of, but it is nonetheless painful and every time I've needed to see a chiropractor they've been astonished that I didn't come in earlier. This problem runs in the family: we have high pain tolerance, don't like asking for help, and assume the problem will go away if we ignore it. I am writing all of this down to try to help me see how stupid this is so I won't do it anymore. It was especially stupid of me because I was on maximum dosage of paracetamol for 4 or 5 days and it was doing absolutely nothing for me and I couldn't sleep, so I should've known that I had a problem that wouldn't go away with time. Now, fortunately, I'm doing much better, am off the pain meds, and even went back to frisbee practice last night for the first time in two weeks. Yay!

In other news, springtime decided not to come this year. We went straight from a cold, gray, rainy winter to summer. Last Sunday was the first day of summer, and I went fishing with my host brother and father in the grandfather's boat.

Bare feet!

Fishing, meaning I lay on the top of the boat and sunbathed. Yes, I did get sunburned, but it was worth it.

With the sudden arrival of summer, a lot of things are changing. People are happier, we hang out outside during lunchtime instead of inside, and everyone's starting to count down the days until school's out. My friend Sarah, the other American, is going home in less than a month. I have less than 2 months until I see my parents and less than 3 months until I am HOME for real. 3 months from now, I'll be picking up my host sister at the airport.

You know how smell is the sense the most strongly linked to emotion? This has always been especially true for me because I have an acute sense of smell. The warmer weather means my sense of smell has come back in full flood, oddly enough reminding me of when I first came at the end of August. The smell of the soil and the plants in the garden, the smell of cows and green things when I go running, the smell of my sheets and the particular laundry detergent that they use, the smell of the house in general, they all remind me in a vivid, gut-wrenching sort of way how terrified I was when I first came, how sick and lost and alone. It's a weird feeling, but somewhat triumphant because it reminds me just how far I've come. In August and September I didn't talk much, I barely ate because I couldn't stomach the heavy food, I didn't know what to say or how to say it or how to act or anything. After two weeks I went to my first frisbee practice. I was terrified of everyone, didn't understand a word the coach said, and especially hated the fact that all the frisbee players say hello to each other with a cheek kiss. Seriously, isn't that a little overkill? In the States we just show up and say “Hi guys!” and start playing.

At the end of November, I went to my first frisbee tournament and declared that weekend a turning point: I had finally found a reason to stay in France. Now, my coach is one of my favorite people I know, and he's determined to send me to the national women's championship (more on that later) because he said he's proud of what I've become and how much I've improved.

I'm gonna miss these guys!

So for a brief summary:

In early October, I broke down for the first time and cried, just because I was homesick and alone and felt like the months ahead of me were so very long. (For the record, I broke down twice this year, once in October and once in... January? Anyway, the middle of the year.) In late October I had an angst crisis: sure, I was starting to get used to life in France, but what if it didn't fulfill my dreams? What if my life at home was actually, well... better, in most respects, than my life here? Considering how often I had told myself “Just X more months and I'm out of this high school, out of this boring city, out of this whole messed-up country!” before leaving, that was a pretty sad realization and took awhile to get over.

In mid-November I was in Paris, mostly alone, getting lost and daring to ask for directions and even starting to walk with the confidence that made people think I was a native – I got asked for directions three times. In December I sold oysters at the market, and celebrated Christmas away from home. In February I went to England with my class, which was the other most important turning point during my year abroad: I finally started feeling like I belonged with my class and with my friends, like I deserved a place on the bus instead of feeling bad for tagging along and annoying people. I also turned 18, which has honestly given me a sassiness +10 bonus. I'm a responsible adult, and no one can mess with me! In February or March I finally started being best buddies with my host sister – we got along excellently since the beginning, but now I never do my homework because we're too busy hanging out, watching bad reality TV, and making fun of each other. April 4^th, when I went to the hospital, was the first day where I forgot to be embarrassed about my accent in front of strangers. I just started talking to the nurse and the strangers at the hospital without stopping to explain, timidly, that I'm American and I'm sorry for my accent. And guess what? It worked just fine – my doctor talked to me in perfectly normal French. Even though they obviously knew I was foreign, they respected the fact that I speak fluently and didn't make a big fuss over my foreignness.

That leaves us at the present. Up until quite recently, I didn't think I was going to be sad to leave France at all. Sure, there are a few people I'll miss. I'll miss some people from my class and my frisbee team and most of all my host family.

 Les copines me manqueront!

But recently my life has just started to take on a greater degree of completeness, a sensation that I'm actually not in withdrawal of anything. I miss my parents and my friends and my music and my hometown, but I also have a life here that is becoming more and more rewarding, and it's going to be more difficult to leave it than I had imagined.

I know this was a very rambling update. But to conclude, I'm very excited to be going to Madison next year, my back issues are better, and France is starting to smell like summer.

Here's a love song with very repetitive lyrics that are adorable, since I haven't done any complementary French songs for awhile. T'es Belle – Volo

“You're beautiful when you smile... and when we see your teeth... when you make a lame joke in the middle of a silence... when you get mad and it's not the right time to tell you so... You're beautiful in all circumstances.”

Where to?

This post is a plea for help: I am not looking for more people to tell me what to do, as I already have enough of those, but I am looking for information. College has got to be just about the most important decision of my life so far, right next to coming to France in terms of how much it affects my life. I applied to seven colleges and got accepted to six: UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz (+honors college), University of Washington (+scholarship), University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (+scholarship and honors college), University of Wisconsin-Madison, and McGill. Last year I wrote about my college visits here and here, although unfortunately I didn't visit UCSD. I have to admit, getting admitted to six schools out of seven means I underestimated my academic record. Comparing myself to all my high-achieving, hard-working, AP-overloading friends means I forget that compared to most people, I actually do pretty okay. So the point is, I really did not expect to get into UCSD. For that reason and because last year I was determined to go to school out-of-state, I never got around to touring UCSD.

Where to?

This is now an incredibly problematic problem. Because now that I've been living 10,000 km away from home for seven months, I'm starting to think that living closer to home would be awfully nice, and that really there's no reason to go far away when I find California's culture entirely compatible with my own (big surprise there) and have started to appreciate the mutual understanding this creates between people. UCSD is a very prestigious school although by most measures about the same as Madison, with UWash are not far behind. Its prestige and the in-state tuition mean a lot of people are telling me I should go there.

But a few prestige points really don't matter that much. In the end, my career will not be significantly different if I go to UCSD or UWash or Madison. What does matter is the vibe. I didn't really like the vibe at U-Michigan, for example, and ended up not applying even though it's a nice big public school, which is what I was going for. I've never visited UCSD, so I don't know what kind of vibe it has. By “vibe” I mean the intangible attitude of the school, so I know whether our personalities will match up. UWash, for example, was full of hipsters. I like that, thought it was quirky and fun and I'd probably fit in. Madison and Minnesota were full of really friendly Midwestern kids who all had smiles on their faces. Also nice. I didn't apply to any privates because I didn't feel the cost-benefit tradeoff to be advantageous, and also because I am not a fan of the elite private school vibe of well-off entitled kids who've never failed at anything in their lives. Not saying that all of them are like that, of course. It's just the general vibe I pick up on.

So here are my questions about UCSD:

What is its vibe like? What is the bizarre college system like? (I got into the Thurgood Marshall college; is that good?) Can you take crazy awesome random classes like medieval weaponry? (If not, never mind, I'm going to Madison!) Is it full of people who seem vaguely disappointed that they didn't get into Cal or UCLA, or is it like Madison where people seem proud to go to the best school in the area? Is it full of dreamers who want to learn to surf and do study abroad and do something crazy and amazing with their career that will change people's lives? Are they friendly? Do they smile at you as you walk down the street?

If there are questions I haven't asked but you want to answer, go ahead. Just don't tell me “UCSD is awesome.” I know it is. I know I can't choose wrong, because I will have a great time at any one of my schools. Please tell me what it's like to be a Triton, since I wasn't lucky enough to get to visit it. And please, don't tell me what to choose. Tell me why, but not what.

Feminism

Although in general I would not consider myself “anti-feminist” (because I am for equal rights of women), I wouldn't choose to identify myself with the feminist movement either. I could go into the reasons, but I couldn't possibly write it better than one of my favorite bloggers, who did a series of brilliant posts about feminism, trying to understand it and sympathize with it, and sometimes feeling victimized by it. You're probably saying to yourself “Tl;dr” right now (Dear Grandma and Grandpa: Tl;dr is short for “too long; didn't read”) but I promise that if you even just start to scroll through the meditations, you'll end up reading all of them and your time will not be wasted:

First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Meditations on the subject of being a privileged white guy feeling terrorized by militant feminists, and other related topics.

If you really did skip over that section (no really! Read them!), I'll take a moment to summarize my negative feelings about feminism with a first analogy to race, which I believe to be an even more flagrant issue.

I am not racist if I refuse to give a black person something. Yes, I have been accused of this, and no, that is not acceptable. I am not racist if I acknowledge the fact that there are differences between races, such as Ashkenazim having long lifespans, or even (God forbid I attribute positive or negative attributes to races!) the fact that Chinese people are on average more intelligent than other races, second only to Ashkenazim. No, I am not racist if I acknowledge these differences, even if I mention that Ashkenazim have long lifespans and are the most intelligent ethnic group and I also happen to be half-Ashkenazi myself. Yes, I do believe that racism is an over-used word (a “superweapon,” if you read the blog I linked to above). Yes, I do acknowledge the fact that there is still racism in the world and that we should fight it, but accusing non-racist people of racism does not help your case.

The other problem I have with militant anti-racists is Affirmative Action, which deserves a whole post of his own and I wrote an essay on it last year that I got a bad grade on because my teacher was pro-affirmative action. (Grumble grumble bitterness bitterness.) But let's just leave it at this: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” --MLK Jr. This is what I want – I don't want it to be easier for blacks to get into Harvard than Asians, nor vice versa. I have read Tim Wise's “White Like Me” and didn't agree with most of it. It is true that blacks, on average, are disadvantaged in the race to success in college and jobs: growing up in poverty, with worse schools and a lower cultural value on education. But it is unfair and inaccurate to assume that all blacks are disadvantaged by an arbitrary 280 SAT points and that no whites or Asians are poor and disadvantaged. (To clarify, being black instead of Asian is as helpful as having scored 280 higher on the SAT in terms of getting admitted to college, on the old 1600 point scale. So you can picture it, that would be a 420 point difference on the new scale, for example, 2200 for an Asian and 1780 for a black.) This is why we have application essays: to get to know the person behind the application. But it is far too inaccurate to sort based on race, and it isn't fair to whites, blacks, or Asians to do so. (If you think it is to the advantage of African-Americans, keep in mind that affirmative action creates a different meaning of the phrase “Harvard diploma” for different races – since studies have shown that it is the type of student admitted to the top colleges and not the education provided by the top college that makes a successful graduate, if you admit a lower caliber of black people and a higher caliber of Asian people to Harvard, this will generate “Hey, this job applicant is a Harvard grad!” “Oh, this one too!” “...Well, the Asian Harvard graduate obviously had to be a more impressive candidate than the black one to get admitted, so we'll hire that one.” (Disclaimer: I do not know if this actually happens or not; it's just a theory. Let me know if you find any studies on it!)

This is approximately how I felt about feminism until rather recently.

(My brother read this post and said 'It sounds like you're saying "There's too little sexism to effect [sic] us anymore" and then immediately after that saying "Okay, well there could be enough to effect [sic] us somewhat, but not so much that it deserves to be made a big hairy deal of."' So just to clarify, yes, that's what this post is about, but with the emphasis being on how my views on the subject have evolved over time, partly thanks to the differences in treatment of women between the US and France.)

My thought process goes something like this:

I am aware that sexism was a huge problem in the past and still is a problem in many parts of the world for many people. But we have made so much progress against it that I have never felt denied an opportunity because of my sex. I have no reason to be feminist because I have never felt like my path to success is more difficult because I am female. The obvious challenges that still exist often have other reasons besides sexism behind them: There are many more male US senators than females, which is not because all men are misogynistic oppressive rapists, but because

1. Men “look” more like senators, which is probably partly a social construct and partly a natural evolutionary urge since we look at men as the alpha wolves of the pack, and their natural height and brawn (to fight off the other potential pack leaders!) is clearly authoritative and a desirable trait in a leader. This is not necessarily a good thing, but I don't consider it a sexist thing either. It's an unfortunate, somewhat natural phenomenon.
2. I don't have enough information about this to say anything, but it is true that there are natural differences in male and female brains. To choose a random example, the average male has better spatial skills than the average female. There might be biological, rather than societally-imposed (and therefore sexist) differences in our brains that account for highly skewed gender distribution in jobs such as politics, fashion, science research, etc.
3. Sexism.

I promise you, I really do acknowledge that this is an issue. I just think we tend to exaggerate. And the last thing I want is a 50/50 female/male ratio in Congress. I want our politicians to be elected for their legal knowledge, their logical thinking, their effective policy-making, and their competence, regardless of sex, race, sexual orientation, or religion. I will still rejoice for the victory against prejudice when we succeed in electing a gay muslim athiest, but I won't vote for them if they aren't competent.

I still feel this way, but feminism is multi-faceted. There are certainly more issues than this, but most feminism I've encountered falls either into the discrimination-in-jobs category or the objectification-of-women category. The first category is the one I've discussed above, that I accept as an existing problem but don't get up in arms against because I've never personally experienced it. But the second one is one I've been thinking a lot more about lately.

Reason 1) I've already mentioned being intimidated by the fashionable French. Perhaps most of the US is just as fashionable as France, but I doubt it. My theory is that the Silicon Valley is particularly unfashionable because we value education above all else (and thus Harvard sweatshirt = fashionable, plus we don't give a damn), that the rest of the US is a little more fashionable than us, and that France is much more fashionable than the US in general. It is true that this holds true for the men as well as the women, but it's not equal. In the US the problem is that we're so homophobic that men could be afraid to dress nicely. Fitted khakis and shirt, a wool coat, a fashion scarf, and hair gel (completely normal in France) borders on metrosexual in the US. In the US, social pressure does not give men much choice, whereas women can dress like tomboys or femininely or however they want. In France, men can either dress nicely or in jeans and a sweatshirt (like the majority of American men) – they have free choice. It's the women in France who don't have a choice.

Before coming to France, I never would've imagined that (outside of TV shows about catty rich high school blondes) someone would actually say “Ew, look at what she's wearing!” in response to an ugly or unfashionable garment such as a T-shirt. Most people have heard “...well, that's an interesting fashion choice,” referring to a very short skirt or too many colors or very gothic or very cheerleader or any fashion choice that is deliberately extreme. To my social-o-meter, it is acceptable but not kind to comment negatively on deliberately extreme fashion choices, but not acceptable to call a person ugly (ever) or to call their garments ugly if they are simply plain. During the last 3 months, I've heard insults like that many times – not intended to be mean, but mean to my ears anyway. This is the sort of comment that people imagine others say of them but in my previous experience, no one ever says. In short, it's paranoia. But whereas I have never been too concerned with my appearance and rarely experienced such paranoia, now it's reality and not paranoia, as I realize I should be careful with how I dress so as not to put myself at a social disadvantage.

This, to me, smells awfully of objectification of women. Please let me know if there's another explanation that doesn't involve sexism (and that passes Occam's Razor), but that's what it sounds like to me. Remembering that I said in the US it's men who don't have a choice, let's acknowledge that that is a problem, too – not sexism, but closer to homophobia, in my opinion. But the lack of choice for women in France smells like sexism. We're obligated to look nice. Why would that be? I can't think of any other explanation besides the fact that a woman's role is to be decorative (aka a sex object, depending on how far you want to stretch the argument). They're all perfectly made-up. Clothes that I consider normal (T-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts) are not acceptable for girls to wear. Skirts and dresses and heels are much more common at Truffaut than at Homestead, and an amount of jewelry that would look skanky at Homestead is common at Truffaut. It's one of those things that in theory I don't support, but you can't fight a country and a culture. It's easier to conform and not make life harder for myself. (Don't worry; I still rebelliously wear my giant blue sweatshirt once every couple weeks or so just to remind myself that I'm American.)

Naturally, these girls don't think of it as an obligation. When I mentioned it to my BFF Julia, she seemed surprised. “It's just a habit!” But when she forgot to put on makeup one day a few weeks ago, she was desperate to find someone with an emergency makeup kit so she could fix the situation. That doesn't sound like a habit to me – it sounds like an obligation. And naturally there are girls who don't obey the rules. There will always be the nerds and the social outcasts who either haven't realized the rules exist (like many of my friends and family), don't have the confidence to give themselves a make-over and be like everyone else (once a late bloomer, always an awkward egg, just like me!), or just don't want to, strongly enough to overcome the societal pressure. But back home, at least at a high school full of nerds like Homestead, it was perfectly acceptable to choose whether or not to be fashionable. Fashionable people, like this cool fashion blogger from Homestead, aren't outcast for not being nerds (as far as I know; I have no personal data on this), and nerds are not ostracized for their sweatpants and Harvard sweatshirts. We are respected for our choices, and whatever we choose is generally not so unusual as to be remarkable. Here in France, it doesn't feel that way at all.

Reason 2 that feminism has become more of an issue for me since coming to France: I'm going to touch on this only briefly because I have little data on the matter, but French boys seem to be a lot pushier than American boys. You know that image we have of sexy, romantic Frenchmen who are slightly obsessed with chasing pretty girls but they're handsome so it's okay? Well, yeah, that. It's only charming in romantic comedies – in real life it doesn't fly. (Man, there are so many things wrong with romantic comedies... PLEASE don't think these are good stories to emulate!) Most of the American boys I knew were adorably shy with girls. This is clearly why the modern tie was invented by Anglo-Saxons: Anglo-Saxon girls need a handle for their men, or they'll never get kisses. This is not at all true for the typical French boy. Needless to say, I am a big believer in asking permission and respecting a negative answer as the final word – none of this “playing hard to get” nonsense. In Amurika, we teach our boys to respect womenfolk, or Pops'll shoot ya with his bear gun.

And last and least, Reason 3 is that my French teacher is a serious raging feminist. I do not always agree with her, but she does bring up some good points. My favorite one is this short video which is in French, but you'll get the gist even if you don't speak French. It swaps the gender roles of standard western society simply to shock you and realize that some things that we consider normal really shouldn't be. We shouldn't have to be afraid if we're walking down the street and there's a group of big strong guys leering at us. Granted, most guys are not rapists and would feel wounded if a woman was afraid to be alone in an elevator with him, for example. “I didn't do anything!” he would think, indignantly. And he would be right, most likely. And when a guy asks a girl out, sometimes she might be afraid as well. We don't know if it's just a guy asking us out, or if a refusal will be met with unwanted persistence and harassment. This, too, is unfair to the poor average guy who's just trying to get a date. I wish we could tell the difference, so we'd never say “Get away from me, creep!” to a nice guy who just wants to buy you a coffee, and we'd never accept a cup of coffee from a rapist. Unfortunately, men don't come with labels, and the fact that they are the physically stronger sex means that sometimes women will be afraid of innocent men, and sometimes women will trust men who will take advantage of them. Sure, women are mind-readers, but not infallibly.

...Shoot, I totally had other things to say, but then I got distracted and forgot what they were.

Okay, moving on. Here's my random PERSONAL UPDATES:

I GOT INTO UW-MADISON! :D If you'll remember from this post a super long time ago, my tour of Madison convinced me that that's where I wanted to go. I'm still going to wait for Berkeley to reject me before I say yes to Madison, but I'm pretty sure that's where I'm going. And I might end up rooming with one of my awesome Voyageur friends if she decides to go there as well! I'm getting pretty stoked for all of it – for living in Madison, which is a beautiful little city, and for the snowy cold, for living near the Boundary Waters and also my aunt and other assorted family and friends in Minneapolis, for getting to retake up band and all the musical opportunities I'm missing out on this year, for frisbee, for being gloriously undecided and getting to decide what I want to do with my life, for more study abroad, for making friends and Hoofers and sledding down Bascom Hill on cafeteria trays and getting to restart my life again, but this time in English and with a little more confidence.

On the other hand, I think I have to mention that last week I felt sad instead of excited for the first time at the thought of going home. My frisbee coach was talking about how we're going to play beach frisbee this summer and learn to run in the sand and how much fun diving for the disk is in beach frisbee. Then he asked me if I'd like to come help out with the mini Friday night practices for the younger kids he's going to set up next year, before remembering that I wouldn't be there. It really startled me, the feeling of wishing I'd be here to play beach frisbee and help out with the little ones. I'm having a good time, but normally I think of June with nothing but excitement.

In other news, we just got our grades for this trimester. I have an average of 15, which is equivalent to an A and is about the 4^th highest in my class. It makes me feel half guilty, because I didn't do any work this trimester and I'm doing far better than I would've done at home with a full load of AP classes.

Just a note for any future exchange students reading this – I don't know why it works like this for me, but this is not a result you can expect. All the other American exchange students I know in France are not doing so well, and they don't get graded because if they were they'd get zeros. (And here is where Julia would tell me to shut up and stop being arrogant, but no, I'm just telling the truth.) The German students I met in Paris, on the other hand, they're right along with me, acing school. So I'm guessing it has something to do with good education (Homestead not being a typical US high school) and something to do with mastery of the language. I don't really know. But for whatever reason, exchange students either succeed or fail. They don't do anything in between. Just a heads-up.

All is going well. I have friends, at least, a few. School's fine, and now that first trimester grades are done, I'm essentially a second semester senior. I have another Ultimate tournament this weekend. And it's almost Christmas vacation, which means skiing at Méribel!

Here are your complimentary songs for the day. They're all good ones this time, too. (I've decided it looks much prettier to use hyperlinks instead of pasting youtube links all over the place. Maybe the perverse French obsession with things looking nice is getting to me.)

Tryo “Ce que l'on sème”

Kyo “Dernière Danse”

Patrick Bruel “Lequel de nous” (My host mom has a crush on Patrick Bruel! It's adorable.)

“Attention à la présentation!”

All the other Americans I know in France agree on at least one thing: the school supply situation here is quite frankly ridiculous. Everyone has a pencil case containing at least 10 different colored pens, 4 different highlighters, whiteout (in pen form and in roller/mouse form), a ruler, glue, pencils, and an eraser. Bare minimum. The prepared, well-organized French student will also have scissors, a stapler, and probably some other super fancy goodies that I'm not even aware of. Here, no one is too cool for their super decked-out pencil case, whereas in the US, guys who think they're cool will often forgo the pencil case entirely, preferring to bring a single pencil or just borrow from their neighbor in every class.

I'm pretty sure if you turned in homework written in a million different colors in the US, the teacher would sort of roll his eyes at you and remind you that you're no longer in middle school. Here, it's what you're supposed to do. I write all in black, and can't stand doing anything else.

Even in the US my bad handwriting sometimes provoked “try to write neater, please” comments on particularly messy homework, but not usually. It's cramped and sloppy and I make a lot of mistakes, which I tend to just cross out and continue writing. (I can't stand whiteout. The stuff drives me crazy.) What makes it look even worse is that French handwriting is actually different – we are taught to form our numbers and letters differently, so that makes my writing even more difficult for my teachers to read. In math it was most confusing, so I've already switched to writing my ones like sevens and my nines like lowercase Gs, but I will probably not adapt to their super curly semi-cursive style of writing.

Where all of this is heading, of course, is that everything I do looks like cat vomit to my teachers and classmates. I got a math homework back with “Attention à la présentation!””written on top (“be more careful with the presentation!”). I was aware it wasn't pretty, but felt rather self-righteous about it anyway since it was I who had explained the homework to half of my class. Then on our math test, I was careful to be really neat and use my best “presentation” handwriting – I got it back with the same comment. As my classmates would say, in an exasperated tone of voice, “Putaaaaaiin!”

The funny thing is that in a way, neatness is subjective. Yes, in general Americans just turn in messier work than French people. But in the US they hate when you do math homework in pen, because there's always too much crossing-out or whiteout. I am stubborn and generally try my hardest to ignore this rule and write in black pen, but in the US, neat math homework = writing in pencil. Here, turning in work written in pencil would be unheard of, practically an insult to the prof. And then, of course, there's the matter of handwriting, where I have just as much trouble reading French handwriting as they have reading mine. Yes, I'm a messy student with terrible handwriting, but not all of it is me – some of it is just plain cultural differences.

Anyway, if any of you are thinking of moving to France any time soon, practice your prettiest handwriting and get used to colored pens and using rulers to underline everything. That's all.

Another thing I find pretty cute, and in rather the same vein, is their lab attire. But first, permit me to describe science class in general. Comparing my physics/chemistry class this year to my Chem Honors class sophomore year is rather like comparing you, dear reader, to an arsenic-based lifeform. The contrast between teachers is equally stark – my shy, awkward, nerdy prof now is the farthest thing imaginable from Napoleon-complexed, over-compensating, fire-breathing Narf at Homestead. In Chem Honors, labs involved a lengthy purpose, procedure, and research before starting, detailed observations in the lab notebook during the lab, and a conclusion and error analysis afterward. Here, labs consist of going to class, doing the lab (no lab notebook, no procedure, no nothing), and then talking with the prof about the results and what it means. I like the general idea – it makes science stay science instead of being the elaborate religious ritual that it was in Chem Honors, but at the same time it takes away from lab technique, and we don't get very good results. Today we were measuring concentrations of a solution, and I'm certain our lack of procedure and carelessness were reflected in the data. But the funniest thing is the lab attire: Lab attire back home consisted of closed-toe shoes, tied-back hair, and safety goggles. Lab attire here consists of none of these things, but we wear lab coats. How cute is that? As my mother said, “Dressing appropriately is a high priority after all, at least in France.” Protecting their clothes is apparently more important than protecting their eyes. Oh well, to each his own. I rather like my eyes, but I guess clothes are nice too.

Hey, guys! Look at the view from my window this morning! Also there was a really cool spider. Too bad you can't see how nice his web is in the picture.

In other unrelated news, frisbee yesterday was really fun. Only 5 people showed up: the coach, two adults, another young and relatively inexperienced player, and me. We worked on technique, played games (2 on 3 works pretty well when 2 of us are young and amateur and the other 3 are world-class players), and just plain had fun tossing around a disk. In a smaller group, I'm less intimidated by the quality of the players and not quite so lost. I just really enjoyed it, and hope frisbee will keep getting easier and more fun for me. I know I have a lot to learn, so if I keep my ears open and pay attention to our coach, I don't doubt that I'll improve quickly.

To follow up on my last post, I just thought I'd mention that I talked to my English teacher about my bad grade and he changed it to 12/20, just like that. The pretense both of us used was that it was my poor French skills that got in the way. Huh. So now my grade in English is as good as it is in French. Yay? Oh, the irony. In French, on the other hand, I was exceedingly pleased to get a 12/20 on my essay, which is about a B even though it looks an awful lot like a D- to us Americans. The prof said if I were French, she'd have given me a 10, which is still not too shabby at all. Good lord, was I relieved. I worked all weekend on that thing and was still terrified that I'd completely missed the point of the texts we were supposed to analyze. And that, my friends, is exactly why I'm not your ideal exchange student. I don't know anyone else who expects to write essays in French and get passing grades. Most of the other exchange students I know don't participate like a French student would, not doing all the homework or tests, and they are totally okay with that – we're not French natives and we shouldn't be ashamed of what we can't do, just like how we shouldn't be ashamed of not being able to swim as well as a dolphin. Me, on the other hand, even when I know logically that I should have different standards than the other students, I'm terrified of not passing my classes and therefore not getting my diploma, not going to college, and ending up as a McDonald's janitor for the rest of my life. Welcome to the beautiful neurosis-land that is Ikwe's brain, everyone!

And my last bit of unrelated news for today, far away in the land of college apps, is that I am DONE applying to McGill University, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and the University of British Colombia. I'm slowly but surely editing my essays for the other three (University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Washington, and the UCs), so if you feel like editing, shoot me an email. I was extremely impressed because the other day I sent UW-Madison a question, fully expecting them to take several weeks to respond. It's admission season, my question was complicated (everything becomes a million times more complicated once you're applying from another country), and they must be flooded with admissions questions every day. It took them an HOUR to write me back with a thorough and helpful response. Go Badgers! Whoever said that public universities can't give you the individual attention you deserve, I present this as evidence against your case. It's particularly impressive once you compare it to the month it took for my high school guidance counselor to get back to me and tell me that she'd look over my email “later” to let me know if I'll even earn my diploma or not...

Okay! Super long rambling post is over! I've had a great week and hope all of you lovely people are doing well too.

Love,

Ikwe/Jenna

Your complimentary song today comes with a condition: if you recognize what American song the melody strongly resembles, please tell me, because it's driving me nuts. I'm sorry it's not a very good song, but I'm dying to know what the American song it reminds me of is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKJx-BnSLQU&feature=endscreen

(Keen'v, Contre Son Corps)

Another song by the same artist is way over-played on the radio, but is kind of catchy: Ma Vie au Soleil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOdOhQFt1GE

And if you wanted an actually good French song, here it is, Joyce Jonathan's Je Ne Sais Pas (Merci Nina! <3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsJWSDe44Uk