TGIF

Today was much better :) I love Fridays. My day was super busy and tomorrow will be even busier :D
My appointment with the principal was in the morning and good news– my new schedule is validated! I am going to have three hours of séries ES (economics) for a start and hardly any French-Literature class, therefore lots of holes in my schedule where I have P.E. (study hall). Today I only had gym class and history. During gym, we played an intense two-hour match of badminton. It was a lot more strenuous than I thought it would be. I sort of suck at it, but it was fun. I met some of the people that will be in my new ES class and they were really nice. Then later I realized that my new ES class consists of the same students that share my history class. So I already know them... but not really. The locker rooms in the gym are not really locker rooms because there are no lockers. They are very small room with benches and some showers. Quite small indeed for thirty girls to share. I have to bring my gym clothes with me every week since there's no place to store stuff :P And on a side note, I wasn't in the right fashion trend again. Only one other girl was wearing shorts like me. Also all their "tennis shoes" were like the shoes that the girls in my American school wear everyday, like Converse. Not many people wore actual tennis shoes like I was wearing. Ugh... it's just that new kid thing.

After I was nice and sweaty, I went to lunch in the cafeteria. But first– another word about the meaning of a "line" in France: A line doesn't exist. Everyone just crowds the hallway area and you wait around awhile until you can push ahead. I ate with the Damelinecourts and their friend. It was really fun talking with all of them. They all wanted to hear me talk with my American accent :) We mostly talked about American culture and how amazing America is and how everyone in France wants to go to America... etc, etc. I can't wait to have all these French people come visit me next summer.

After history class, I was done with school! But not really. Immediately afterwards I went to the local elementary school. My Rotary counselor is the principal and she wants me to help out with some of the classes. I was tired and a little confused when we got there so I followed the different teachers around like a blind sheep. It was very uncomfortable and awkward when one lady brought me outside and down some stairs where she and some other teachers were smoking. It was like where the school bullies or rebels would hang out... except that it was elementary school teachers. I could breathe easily again once a different teacher brought me out to the recess area. Oh. My. Goodness. You've never seen anything cuter or more hyper in your life. A hundred little French kids running around in a blur like a fast-forwarded movie of colors and fruit snacks. It was so adorable. A French accent is at its best when coming from a little four-year-old. I miss the days when I could run around wild in a constant circle at recess and never get tired of it.

A lot of the kiddos stared wide-eyed at me. I knew why. I had picked that day to wear my fringed shirt that said "American Rebel." To a French elementary school! What was I thinking? Well, I wasn't exactly informed about the plan for the day. I've been more cautious about asking about plans. Cautious=I try to avoid it at all costs. I don't want a repeat of what happened before when the subject of "planning" came up. Anyways, I went with this lady named Pascale, who teaches English and Math. At first the students (all about ten-years-old) posed me questions in English and I could see that it was very, very difficult for them. Later I asked them questions. They were all shy and cute, but Pascale was really, really strict with them... "Hurry up, Nicholas. Why can't you answer her? Come on, hurry up!" It was awkward to watch them all get punished for not knowing the answer to their favorite color. In America, kids that age would have gotten candy and praise for just sitting there and remembering how to breathe and blink. My feet were killing me by the end of the hour. I have so much respect for the teachers who have to stand on their feet all day long. I'm going to help out at the school every Friday afternoon and accompany them on their little field trips. In fact, there's one next Thursday to visit some cows and sheep and to make some butter. The qualities of Northern France :)

After the school, we went to the bank to see if my stupid card had arrived yet. Nope. The bank is definitely not on our side. My card is about two weeks late... :( Immediately after that we went to a huge super mall called Cora to look for a school bag for me. It was surprisingly fun to shop around with Marie-Armelle– who doesn't like shopping. The only bag I liked was 150 euros. :P No surprise there. I'll try again in Lille tomorrow.

I attempted to play my clarinet in the evening. Oy. It was horrible. I was completely out of practice (three years out of practice!) I felt like an asthmatic after I played one scale. The noises were horrible and I could only play for ten minutes before I was completely winded. I'm nervous for the three hours of music class on Monday. :P But on the bright side, my bag is packed for horseback riding and Lille tomorrow! Finally I'm going to see the big city. A bientôt!

... At the Dinnertable

Today was not the best day here in France. It was the first time that my host parents got mad at me. Now I'm so mad at at myself; so mad that I couldn't see how stupid I was acting– stupid in that I was asking way too much of them. It's the only child syndrome coming back, I swear. Everything was fine until dinnertime when I posed yet another question regarding future plans. Marie-Armelle was tired, Xavier was tired, and I was tried... so dinnertime was pretty horrible. I don't feel like going into detail. All I'm going to say is that I completely lost my appetite and cried for the first time here in France. I'm just impatient and a bit frazzled, therefore a little unconscious of how much pressure and stress I was putting on Marie-Armelle. I'm not going to make any more demands or pose anymore questions from now on. I'm promising myself that. I felt awful that nothing got resolved and that everyone was upset.

But then....

I plucked up some nerves and went to talk to Marie-Armelle. I started with "I'm really, really, really sorry that–" but then she came over and told me not to worry and that everything is all right. You couldn't believe the relief and gratitude I felt. I would have hated to leave the night in a state of uneasiness and tension. She is super kind and is doing so many things for me. I'm so, so, so glad that they're willing to give me another chance and that they understand. It's my opportunity to change. I'm in a different world now– I can't be the same person that I was in America. These aren't my parents. This isn't my house. This isn't my native language. But this is my life right now. I have to learn to adapt, change, and appreciate everything. I'm looking back and realizing how incredibly fast time has past. I still have a lot of time left here, but still... I'm wondering if change will ever come. Sorry for the diary rant, but tonight really shook me up.

Anyways......... the rest of my day :) I have an appointment with the principal tomorrow and hopefully I'll be able to change my schedule. It's been a ton of work so far to change it, but I hope it's for the better. I really, really, really hope so because I can't change back. I talked with my future teacher of ES and she talks super fast... so... um... yeah. I'm hoping the students in the class will be amazing and nice.

After school we went to the bank to see if my card had finally come. Nope. There's some issue with it so it's a week overdue. I can't take money out of my account and thus I don't have money for shopping on Saturday :\ Later we went to the library and I got Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to read now that I finished Harry Potter :D And then we bought a little pastry for a snack before leaving to go get my clarinet! (See what I mean about a lot of things that I do here?) Marie-Armelle found someone who is willing to loan me a clarinet as long as I also play in an other orchestra with it. We went to the music school place and I met the teacher. He kept trying to speak English with me. There are two different levels in the school: one that's a bit harder with teens and adults, and another that's easy but for little kids. I'm going to practice like crazy, seeing as I haven't played my clarinet for 3 years, because I want to join the "big kid" group. I'm trying so many new things and moving really fast all the time. I keep hoping that I know what I'm doing and that it'll all work out... in one way or another.

The reason, I'm thinking, behind my never-ending line of activities with Marie-Armelle is that I don't have much freedom by myself. I've been invited to eat out for lunch in town, to go shopping in town, to go to someone's house, etc. But I can't go. I have to stay in the house. At least for now. I'll get more freedom later, but right now it's hard to stay still because I want to do everything. Also, I would really like to hang out with my friends and go places with them since I don't have people my age around me. If I had siblings maybe things would be different, but on the upside I really like my host parents and am going to focus more on all the wonderful things that I do have. Okay thanks for reading this slightly corny and sentimental blog. I'm done. Tomorrow is Friday, inspiration for sleep :D Good night.

Three weeks, already?

I can't believe that I've been here for three weeks. It feels so much longer than that. I counted the days again and again, but it's true. Three whole weeks already. It's such a short amount of time contrasted with my whole year here and yet it seems like so much. I've done an incredible amount of things here already and I can't imagine how different things will be at the end of this year.

I love Wednesdays. Why? For one, I can get up two hours later than usual at 9:00am because my classes start later. Also, my classes are very simple to remember on Wednesdays, for a change. I have two hours of English with Madame Simon, then two hours of English with Madame Lemaire, and then two hours of French with Madame Massy. Voilà. I'm actually learning new things in one of my English classes– like the many different types of literary genres (picaresque? epistolary? novella? bildungsroman?) However, most of the time I get bored and read my Harry Potter book, which by the way... I FINISHED!!! In French! It's the first lengthy book that I read in French. It took a long time, but it feels really good to know that I'm capable of reading French novels– with the help of my handy pocket dictionary, of course.

I only had two hours of classes in the morning before I went to lunch. Marie-Armelle was in Belgium today (it's only like an hour away) so I couldn't eat at home. Therefore, I ate lunch at Marie-Michelle's house with her friend and brother. We ate SO many French fries. Since they will be my third host family, it was nice to visit them. I love their house–it's so colorful. Also I love that they have a mini-farm in their backyard with chickens, cats, rabbits, and a horse! The dad is a farmer, I believe. They're really nice and I will spend the night at their house this weekend and go to Lille with them while the Raux are visiting their son, Morgan. I'm so excited to go shopping in the big city! I'm such an American... I love big classes, big stores, big cities, etc. etc.

We were a bit late to class after lunch, but didn't have to get a note or anything. I thought that the school would have been really strict about tardiness, but I just walked in late and that was it. I talked a lot in my next block of English classes. The teacher wanted me to talk about my personal experience with 9/11. It was hard though because I was so young at the time. I think I talked too fast because afterwards the class stared at me with glazed eyes like they had been listening to some Icelandic person talk. One girl had started to cry. At first I thought that it was because she couldn't understand me and got upset, but then I learned that something else was bothering her. It would have been horrible if she really was crying because I spoke English too fast... it would have also been a little strange.

For the first time since school started, French class was easy! We just read the whole time. That's how I got the chance to finish Harry Potter :) Later after school Marie-Armelle and I visited the local theater in Cambrai. I'm going to start taking theater classes next week with five other people. Hopefully it will improve my French since a big part of theater is the voice and the script. Yes, I'm a little anxious :P

I was home alone for dinner tonight because the Raux had a get-together with their friends. It was strange and a little lonely– eating my cheese all alone :\ I have an appointment with the principal to talk about changing my class séries. Also, on Friday I am going to speak in front of some little kids about how awesome it is to be an exchange student. :D Excitement and nerves. Good night for now :)

Snoring and Pig Eyeballs

School again. I have to say... Monday was rough, like all Mondays are. School was sooo long (8:00am-5:30pm) because I had two hours of music after school. It wasn't much fun for me because I didn't have my clarinet yet so I had to standby and watch everyone else. We have to preform in a concert soon so I'm getting a bit nervous. Also, earlier in the day I helped another English teacher with her class. It was with older kids in more serious atmosphere than the time before. No more wild questions thrown at me. I helped them while they worked in small groups. The teacher insisted that they not speak French, but I knew they spoke French the minute my back was turned. It was fun even though they seemed a bit shy speaking English in front of me. I'm such an intimidating American with my ridiculous backpack and all ;)

So yeah... that was my first Monday at school. But after school, I had a lot of fun finishing my English video with Manon. Sophie came over too because she got locked out of her house. It took us forever to make the video because we couldn't stop laughing. I couldn't say "Ondres" with the fancy French tongue roll and Manon couldn't say "Aja" the same way every time. We took twenty takes before we got one that worked. Then we snuck into the kitchen and ate some cheese and yogurt. No. Lots of cheese and yogurt. It was amusing when the girls taught me how much cheese to take. The first time I cut a piece they exclaimed that it was too small. I gaped when they showed me how much cheese they put on one piece of bread. It's not a stereotype: In France, they eat cheese... a lot of cheese. Then we ate some some chocolate and things that aren't generally good for you. As a result, I have some sugar-resulted zits on my forehead :P Very attractive.

School was interesting today, Tuesday. So early in the morning I went to a class called SVT, which is basically the same thing as science. I had heard that the teacher, Mr. Ego (yes that's his real name) was a bit strange and I immediately saw what they meant when I walked in. The first thing I saw was an old man cleaning pig eyeballs. I seriously almost threw up. I looked around for the real teacher, but of course it was him. It smelled so bad for the whole hour and a half. For most of the class he talked to us while cleaning the eyeballs at his desk, cutting away muscle and gushy stuff. I felt nauseous. Then he made us all come to the front and watch him cut the eyeballs in half so we could see the insides. I won't go into detail. Let's just say that it wasn't the best class that I've had so far. Later while we were taking notes, he came over and hovered over my desk. I got really nervous that he would touch my stuff– I really wasn't digging the thought of eyeball juices on my notebooks. Anyways, yeah. That's Mr. Ego for you.

SVT finished early so I had to eat my lunch outside of the steps of the lunch building for P.E. (not physical education. It's the study hall). I had two hours of Italian and we apparently eat in the P.E. building. Some people called me over and I talked with them for a while before class. They were really interested in America and all say that they want to go there (to New York, Florida, and California. Same states every time I ask.) I decided that it is too much work to take another language on top of learning French. I wanted to stay there, though, because the people were so nice, but it's just too much work and confusion with the languages. But now I know. I tried, I found out, and now I know for next time. Motto of my time in France so far.

I was home alone for awhile after school because Marie-Armelle went to the parent reunion/conference. Afterwards I found out that I may be able to switch into séries ES– ES will have less French literature and more economics so therefore maybe I will be able to keep up more with the conversations :D We will make an appointment with the principal and find out if that's possible. Normally in France one can't switch back and forth, try new classes for fun and then quit the next day. Normally, you can't. But there are special exceptions for me– the foreign girl. I'm glad that my school isn't super strict and that the teachers are nice and understanding with me.

In the evening I did iChat (same thing as Skype, but for Macs) with my parents in America and my host parents joined us. They said lots of nice things about me and spoke English for my mom (French for my dad. He's fluent.) I adore their French accents. Their English is really good, but they don't speak a word of it with me. It's for my own good. It was interesting to see both of my lives in the same place, same time. I'm not sure which one I'll miss more overall. I've only been here for three weeks, but it feels like I arrived yesterday. I haven't really had much of a culture shock yet and I haven't gotten super homesick. Sometimes I keep thinking (usually in the middle of not understanding a class) "I wish I was home right now... with English-speaking people who understand me" but at others it's "I already don't want to go back home." It changes like the weather. Speaking of weather... It rains and clouds-over here just like Seattle. Just like home! Rain! Clouds! Whoo! Nah, I love it here :)


Oh by the way, I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. Why? My host dad snores like no other. It echoes like crazy in the house and his snoring is sooo loud. The house shakes. I don't mean to be rude, I know he can't help it, but still... Finally I fell asleep by wearing my noise-canceling headphones that are meant for planes. It worked. Like Marie-Armelle I have to start going to bed earlier before he falls asleep and starts snoring. Oh darn, I missed my opportunity. He's snoring right now. Better get my headphones. Good night. :)

Church Songs, Seafood, and 911

The weekend at last. This week has been incredibly long and packed with so many things. I've learned so much and already feel like my week on L'île de Ré was a lifetime ago. But things didn't slow down at all this weekend. Anne-Soizic came back Friday evening to stay for the weekend and– oh! I forgot to mention that Marie-Armelle's mother has been staying with us for a couple of days. She's nice, small, and very old-fashioned.

I went shopping with Anne-Soizic in the big city Saturday afternoon. Big city meaning Cambrai. It's a lot bigger than Snoqualmie with lots more shops and beautiful building, but literally all the teens here think that Cambrai is too small. They all wonder why I like it so much. It was extremely hot while we shopped around looking for a new school bag for me. I can't stand my big backpack anymore. However, there was nothing that appealed to me. But something interesting did happen in one of the back alleys... We were crossing through when suddenly some random guy came up and started talking to us. I thought Anne-Soizic knew him, but when he asked us if we wanted to go have some cake at his house she paled and rapidly told him no thanks. She didn't know him. Marie-Armelle looked really worried when we told her what happened. Moral of the story: Creepy people are everywhere in the world and always say no if you're in a foreign country and a stranger mentions cake.

After shopping we went to mass. Oh, mass. I had to sing in the choir. So, so, so awkward and uncomfortable. Not only did I not know the songs, but it was extremely hot and I was bright red the whole time. Now I understand why it took forever that one night singing church songs with the other kids. It was practice for the real thing. I watched other peoples' mouths and tried to make the same sounds like a child learning how to talk. We sang so much. I tried to just repeat "Jesus" and "Hallelujah" the whole time. It seemed to work. :) Our neighbor, Sophie, came with us and she, like me, didn't know the songs. It was fun pretending to sing along seriously with everyone else. But the best part of the "soirée" was after mass when the church held a barbeque get-together sort of thing outside. It was less hot and I got to meet a lot of cool teens. They all said that my French is super. :D A lot of them have taken seven, eight years of English but still have difficulties. I think it's easier for an American to learn French than a French person to learn English. I made some new friends and had a lot of fun talking with them. They all go to Saint Luc, but are in Terminale (12th grade) or Première (11th grade) séries S (science). We stood up the entire time so my legs were killing me by the end. We ate hot dogs and moms walked around with desserts. I had made little cakes with Marie-Armelle that afternoon... but I didn't eat them. The moon was full and there was a random cat that kept trying to sneak into peoples' cars. I wanted to take it home. I met a girl named Justine and her brother Tibault. Justine actually knew me beforehand because Marie Damelincourt had told her about me. I think it was a really good mistake that the Damelincourt sisters thought that I would be living with them. They told all their friends about me so a lot of people have approached me to talk with the American :) I promised Justine and Tibault to help them with their English sometime after school. After the barbeque, Sophie and I had some good laughs on the walk home about... some French words. I won't go into detail ;)

On Sunday, we had a birthday party for Marie-Armelle. It was really nice. Two of her friends came over and we got out the nice silverware. Really nice silverware. Her friends brought a ton of flowers so the house is very pretty and decorated right now. During the day we mostly... ate. A lot. There were eight people so Marie-Armelle bought a HUGE seafood platter that took forever to eat. It was so good and reminded me of home– where seafood is everywhere. There were oysters on the half shell, crabs, shrimps, little clam-like things, and scary looking shrimp/lobster/monster things with eyes, claws, and everything. Anne-Soizic freaked out when she saw crab guts :) And again we had champagne. For the record, champagne is not an everyday thing. It just so happens that I've been having it a lot here. This time there wasn't as much fire in my throat, but it wasn't my favorite thing in the world. After seafood we had a huge platter of cheese with salad. Then we had not one, but two amazing cakes and there were cool candles, not just the boring stick ones. There were sparklers and things that crackled and exploded. They sang "Happy Birthday" in English! With the French accent, of course :) Marie-Armelle opened her presents and adored what I gave her: smoked salmon in a hand-painted box with a pretty Native American deisgn + a painting of Seattle that I got at Pike Place market. Xavier gave her a blootooth :) She got a lot of kitchen supplies and Soizic lied that Morgon and Edern bought her the pair of salad spatulas before they left. I was with her when she got them. Marie-Armelle is getting anxious. She really wants to talk to Edern, but he hasn't given them much news and has only sent nine photos... :P I've taken over a thousand. There you go. The difference between a boy and a girl.

Later we said our good-byes and ate the rest of the seafood for dinner. Oy. So many oysters. We talked a little about 911 at the table. Today is the horrible 10th anniversary. The event had shocked the whole world, but I was a bit surprised to see that French people knew so much about it. I wondered about America and what people there were all thinking about as they did their daily things... Maybe about all the people that died on this day? The children who lost fathers and mothers this day? The evil that still exists in this world? I wondered about this and thought it rather strange to be celebrating a birthday and eating cake in France... when today is the anniversary of an event that shook up the world and killed parents and people with dreams.

I'm a bit nervous for school tomorrow. It's my first Monday there. I'm starting Italian and have three hours of music... in which I don't have an instrument. I might just have to sing like I did in the church ;) We'll have to wait and see. Oh and one more piece of good news. I figured out how to use the accents on my French phone and I memorized my number! That's all for now. A bientôt :)

Some Overdue Pictures

I'm a bit lazy with putting pictures on my blog. Friend me on Facebook, if you haven't already, to see more :)

Some of the other exchange students in the Paris airport!

Enormous yogurt selection in the supermarket. Three aisles!

Me and my occasional host sister in Cambrai's cathedral.

Specialty candy with a joke (Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis)

At the first exchange student get-together. In our blazers :)

Ropes course group!

Beach on l'île de Ré :)

Me and Clautilde (my future host sister)

At Saint-Martin

Saint-Martin. It's so beautiful.

Petit-Suisse and Nutella. Yumm...

Impromptu concert! Last night on L'île de Ré.

Castle Chenonceau. So pretty! Me with Marie-Michelle and Clautilde.

Champagne and a Broken Wine Glass

Yeah... I broke my first wine glass today. I'm horrible with delicate, breakable, fragile things. But first, some things about the last few days here in Cambrai. I started music class on Wednesday and loved it. I was with different kids and the environment was less serious and more chill. The teacher had everyone make a little speech about themselves, why they chose music, what instrument they play, what music they like, etc. So naturally I was really nervous, but it went well. I didn't tremble. I am going to start playing the clarinet again, despite the fact that I haven't played it for two years. I met some nice new people in the class and am now sort of nervous that I won't remember how to play my clarinet. I have three hours of music on Monday and I don't have an instrument. Should be interesting.

Also, I had four hours of English on Wednesday. Four hours! It's so cute to hear the French accents on American words. The teachers often ask me for little pronunciation help or grammar assistance. I got really bored though after awhile. I have two different English teachers and I am going to help them later with different classes, I hope. Speaking of that, as I was leaving for lunch yesterday I ran into another English teacher. I simply wanted to say hello, but she asked me to come and follow her. I had talked with her earlier about speaking to her class sometime, but I had no idea that it would right then and there. The class was really fun and I talked to them for the whole hour! It made the teacher's job really easy :) She insisted for me to only speak English with them. They asked me all sorts of questions: Is your school big? Are there cheerleaders? (cheerleaders don't exist in France). What kind of music do you like? Do you know LMFAO? Do you like France better than America? Do you eat peanut butter in the mornings? Is it true that Coke is cheaper than water in the United States? Do you have a boyfriend? Can you drive? What, you can drive! Do you have a car?... All in all, it was entertaining :) It seemed like the class wanted me to come back, as it was a day of no homework for them and a day to goof off and make the American girl feel slightly awkward.

Also today I started P.E. It's called EPS here. It was a lot different than I expected. First of all there were tons of people. It was my class with my history/geography class (which has a lot of people in it) AND the class that I spoke in front of yesterday. Some of the kids in the class kept glancing at me and I heard some of them say something about me, but none of them approached me! It was like they had forgotten who I was :\ We had to walk far from the main building to get to the stadium. Once we were there we had to choose which series we wanted to be in. Again with the series. I stuck with series one because that's what my friends in my class were doing. It's badminton, acrobatics/dance, step, and swimming. Series two is muscular work, hand ball, badminton, and climbing. I considered doing that one, but I thought it would be best to stay with my friends and there were already too many people in that class. There could only be 30 students in each series so some unlucky people had to be moved to series three which is running, soccer, and swimming. My series is all girls again :P None of us want to run, haha. P.E. is two hours long and only on Fridays. That's it. We didn't do anything today because we ran out of time. I met some new girls in my class who recognized me from English First– that isn't worth mentioning. It was horrible. One of the most boring hour and halfs I've ever had. It was an optional course after school meant for preparing for a big English test later in the year. Never doing that again.

I keep running into random groups of friends that I know. Two over here, two over here. We're not all super close but we know each other. In France, if you walk past your friend you don't just wave at them or smile or just say hello. You kiss them on each cheek, then walk away. Sometimes without saying something. It's more personal that way I guess. Sometimes I forget the kisses and remember after it's too late. It's one of those culture things...

Today was a really great day because it was so short and I did a lot of things besides gym. After school Marie-Armelle and I went to Auchan, the HUGE supermarket, again to buy some new school supplies for me and to get food for the weekend. Sunday is Marie-Armelle's birthday so we're having people come over. Lots of cheese, yogurt, and cake awaits :) Then my friend, Manon, came over to work on our video for English class. It was extremely funny. I helped her a lot and wrote the script. She helps me a lot in French class and with the literature so in return I'm helping her with her English :) Our first attempt at the video was horrible, but I'll keep it for future laughs. The things that are so easy for me to say in English are so hard for French people to say. And vice versa... Example: "Say host family" "House fameelee" "No, host family." "Houst fameelee" It was fun :)

And immediately after that, Marie-Armelle, Xavier, and I went for a little get together at my Rotarian counselor's house. We all talked for hours. To be honest, I almost fell asleep because I couldn't keep up with the conversation. There were cute little things to eat... and oh yeah, champagne. Oy. It's against the Rotary rules to drink, but it's okay to drink a little something-something with your host families. It would have been rude if I didn't drink the champagne with them. I've had a little champagne before, but not a big glass like tonight. My throat was on fire, but I had to smile and tell them how good it was. Later, I accidentally knocked the glass over and it immediately shattered. They insisted that it wasn't a big deal, but it was super embarrassing. Oh and now that I mentioned– embarrassing– one more story. Last night I was watching the finale of one of my favorite reality shows. It was really intense, because it was the last episode, so I sort of squealed occasionally. I had my headphones in so I didn't realize how loud I was being. Suddenly my host mother was at my bedside. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She had thought that I was crying. I told her in English that "I was just watching my–" Oops, I'm in France. I said something rapidly in French, something like "Sorry, this is sort of embarrassing" but she just smiled and left. Yeah. Then she told the story to the Rotarians tonight. Note to self: Every little noise echoes in the house... So be quiet and stop watching reality shows at midnight. Hehehe.

So that's it for now. I can't really remember everything, just like I can't remember everyone's names. More later. This weekend is going to be really busy with parties, more church, and maybe horseback riding. I'm exhausted now. Bonne nuit et à bientôt :)