It's not goodbye, it's see you later

Looking back , one of the first posts on here was 9 days before leaving France. I felt it only necessary to bring up the fact that now, it’s reversed. I will be home in 9 days. NINE…and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. at all.

Last week was our last full week of classes, we reviewed, had last minute tests, and said goodbye. The entire week was sort of bittersweet, but the end of it was the worst(or best).... international night. Basically anyone who wanted to could go and present something about their country…it was mainly songs, dances, and little skits. I didn’t partake in the presenting, but I did go to watch it all, and I’m glad I did. I got to see many different cultures do dances and sing, and that was incredible. M. Melin got up and gave one last speech to us all “chers etudiants” =( and talked about how he loves when students are sad when they leave cuz’ it proves they enjoyed their time with cidef….true. Two favs of the night where when a group of Americans got up to do the cupid shuffle, and ended up pulling our cidef professors up there to teach it to them. It was really entertaining to watch M.Melin, Floc, and a few other of my profs get down with their bad selves ;) To end the night, the assistants (and my translation prof) got up and did a really hilarious dance number…oh which I can’t even fully describe to you, but just know it was extremely funny and Adrien turned red when we mentioned ‘Super Cidef’ ;)

 Wednesday afternoon was Cassie's last time with us (she left early) and Sarah, Cassie and I spent it buying souvenirs around Angers and not wanting to part. When we were saying our goodbyes, M.Melin was not far away, and he literally stopped his car to watch us part...he really does get joy out of seeing us saddened to leave...=p

Traduction

The last classes were spent reviewing a little, but mostly enjoying eachothers company, and saying goodbye. We took pictures with professors, and as a class. Friday morning was my last langue class, and all we did was eat and talk. Everyone brought in food of their own culture, and I at least tried everything offered to me…(8 am Chinese food? Sure why not…Chinese candy…beef flavored..pourquoi pas?)but alas, only a few minutes after returning chez moi…the food made me sick…literally. I don’t think my digestive system is up to par for legit asian food. Oh well.

Exams are very much in order right now and I have officially taken 7, and still have 3 to go. (our langue exam is 6 separate tests, 2 listening comprehension, 2 written expression, one written comprehension, and one oral expression). My histoire exam was over everything from 1785 (le directoire) to 1946 (4eme republigue) and I will ask you to excuse my language, but I made that exam my bitch ;) the 5 langue tests stressed me out a bit and were harder than expected but I still feel I did well on them. The langue oral expression was this morning at 8h45 ! UGH…and we are supposed to present ourselves, and then are given an article to summarize, give our opinion on, and reply to any questions they throw our way…well my article was on Coeur de pirate…a quebec singer..and I have her cd…sooo I may have had an upper leg on others. We spent 90% of my exam discussing why I wanted to be an English as a second language teacher and both profs administering the test were really REALLY intrigued by it…strange.

2moro I have my literature exam, Thursday is a jour de conge en France, Friday is my phonetics exam, and Saturday morning I finish Cidef with my translation exam.

Langue 324

I haven’t packed, I haven’t said goodbye. I haven’t seen everything, done everything, experienced it all. But I will be back. In 9 days I return to the states. When I left everyone kept saying “it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later” and I can’t help but feel that way about France…I’m drawn to this country for unexplainable reasons, and I know in my heart that I will return one day, maybe for vacation, maybe to live, who knows where life will take me.