A year away from home

Problématique: What's a year away from home like? In free form, because you can only describe a year away from home in free form...

It's been a long time. Looking back on this year I am tempted to say "Wow, that went really fast!" but I can't say that. I can't say that because I know it hasn't been any faster than a normal year. We always look back on a year or a month or a week and say "Wow, that was quick!" but that's not at all. You just remember less at the end, so it seems shorter... I guess there is an exception to this rule however, because I reme

mber a ton about my year here, but it's also felt long from time to time.

Getting here on September 1st, I was EXHAUSTED. I don't sleep well on planes, so by one o'clock in the morning when I went to sleep after watching people do crazy things with bulls I slept like a log. What a welcome, and between that and driving from the train station through Nîmes and some pretty, small villages on the 

way to my new home a lot of things were going through my mind. Such as:

• "AHHHH! Crazy French drivers!"
• "I barely understand anything."
• "I can't believe I'm actually doing this."

If I had to sum this year up in one word, like some other fake essay question I might ask myself, my answer would be: EXPERIENCE. Tons of people have asked me why I decided to do what I'm doing. I was never dying to get away from my home or my parents - I simply wanted to learn another language and have one hell of an experience. I didn't feel rushed to start college and start the life of searching for what I need to do to live the way I want to live in the future. Or something like that. It never stressed me or anything, I just didn't feel like I needed to start all that so quickly, and that maybe it would be better for me to take a break, relax, and widen my horizons.

So the experience already - what's all that about? For one thing I experience what it is to have a little sibling - I'm sorry Perry for whatever Keith and I did to you. But that's not the only experience I had; this year has been full of big and little things that have blown my mind. For the first couple months I was exhausted. When I got here I could only speak "French to eat and sleep," and feeling myself progress was (and still is, for that matter) incredible. In a week I was translating in my head less, and by the time my parents came to visit in early January I was getting along just fine. It amazes me that someone can learn a language as I have (or better) in nine and a half months. I also learned what it is to be American. Now I've never been a real patriotic person because I'm never felt a need to be. My country has never during my lifetime been menaced by another in war, and for the most part I've been too young to really be able to analyze how I feel about myself and my country. When I've reached the correct age - whenever that was - I was never proud of our political situation or our place in the world, so I'm never been a diehard American. Then you come to Europe and everyone has something to say. You learn quickly that you're more patriotic than you think because you have an instinct to defend your country, even slightly for things you might know they're right about. And then you learn that you can't get to perturbed every time some critiques the U.S., or you're going to spend a hell of a lot of time frustrated. So anyways, you examine yourself and your country, what binds you and what makes you different. The most important thing that I've experienced is living another life. This year has kind of been like a retirement (at 18-19 years old) or a year of vacation, where I've felt like I've paused my real life. Although everything else to do with my real life is going on as normal, I've stepped slightly out of it. I've stepped into someone else's shoes who lives in Boissières, a village of 500 people in the south of France, in his junior year of high school, etc. I now know how someone here can live and the numerous similarities and differences between our ways of life. I understand better that cultures can be special or ugly and that everyone in the world has certain tendencies of how they look at their cultures or foreign cultures. I understand that we're all just human beings even if we like to indirectly say that we belong to a country, and that you really have to EXPERIENCE something before you can completely judge it.

This year has been both a headache and put my head in the clouds. Within a year spent almost anywhere, you experience sublime moments and moments where you really wish you could be somewhere else. I've had my fair share of both, and I'm glad I did. As I said before, now I can fully appreciate a little sister who turns of the TV, plays with my hair, and is always in contact with me. I've ridden my bike in some of the prettiest places I've ever seen and been in and around monuments and houses more than 10 times as old as where I live. I've struggled to communicate, wished I could home from time to time, but also done amazing things like dodging bulls at night in village parties (don't worry Mom, I'll tell you all about it when I get home). At the end of this year, I can't be anything but happy that I did it. What did I do to hurt myself? Put my college and journalism or who-knows-what career on a hold for a year? Big deal, hopefully I'll have plenty of them... I haven't lost much, but I've gained more than I could have imagined. A language, millions and millions of people in the world I can now communicate with, a second set of family and friends, and tons of stories. Not so bad, huh? I don't know quite what else to say at the moment, because I could say so much. If you see me, ask me about it. I'll tell you a story.