I have been neglecting this blog so much! Yikes...I suppose it started when I got sick back at the end of March. It was terrible! I felt so horrible and went 72 hours without eating! Really not healthy, and then when I started feeling better my appetite was so bizarre, I was hungry from not eating so I binge-ate and then I felt terrible again. It took about a week for my stomach to get back to its normal size and for me not to feel like being sick after I ate anything. After that I just have been so busy. Finishing up projects here, and now I look at the calender and see that I only have 9 more days left in St-Raymond.
These past three months has just flew by, just like I said they would. I feel so lucky and thankful, that I have had the opportunity to live in Quebec and experience the culture here. I believe that the only way to learn and see something for yourself is to live and experience it. That is what I have done here, I have attended school here, felt the stress of staying up late to finish a project, I have felt frustration at not being able to express myself clearly to people but you know what that frustration has done for me? It has helped me push myself further, to pause, search my brain and then try again, and again, and again until I succeed. Because here I don't have my first language to fall back on. Back home, yes I did learn the language but everyone else knew english too! If I didn't know how to say something it was so easy to not even try and just fall back on my first language by saying what I wanted to in english. Even talking to Rebecca it is easy to do that, she understands english so I automatically just say the unknown word in english.
It has nothing to do with being lazy or not trying, it is just an automatic mechanism! But here, 99.9% of the time. I cannot do that, I can't just take the easy way out, I have to try and try until I get it right. That frustrating feeling when you look at someone and you can just see on their face that they have no clue what you just said is annoying as hell. I hate it, and because I feel so strongly towards it I have been able to use it to my advantage. I don't like feeling like that so I have fought against it, done the best I can and just recently I had a full conversation, about gym, Quebec City, people in the class, etc. with a substitute teacher and she never ONCE gave me that confused look and asked my what I just said. No, I had a conversation with a teacher whom I had never met before, never seen before in my life, she didn't know I was on an exchange trip either! And she never once asked me to repeat myself. That my friends, that is my definition of victory.
Yes, I am sad to say good-bye to all of the amazing friends I have made here, I am sad that I soon will my walking the halls of Louis-Jobin for the last time but I know that this trip has been so beneficial to me. No, I haven't gotten over my shyness, I still cannot go into a room full of strangers and start mingling but I feel so much more confident in my french. Before this trip, I was so nervous to talk in french to anyone else then the people in my class or my teachers, anyone who's first language was french. I was so scared that they would be judging me in their head, disecting every pronunciation that I got wrong, laughing at me. While I am sure that there might be some people out there who do that I can't let that get to me, especially not here! Not talking isn't really an option to not talk so after 3 months of talking in a different language, of overcoming language barriers I feel so much more confident. I have become friends with people who do not speak english, I have been able to share jokes and have conversation with them! I cannot express how happy I am with how this exchange worked out.
At first I wasn't sure how well I was paired with Rebecca, I will admit at first I even considered denying it. On paper we have nothing in common, we are almost complete opposites, but now, after almost a year of corresponding my e-mails and living together we are closer then I could even imagine. Rebecca and I share the same kind of humor which has helped us bond throughout this past year and now we aren't friends, we aren't even best friends, we are sisters. I have lost so many friendships over the past two years and it takes me awhile to open up and become friends with someone, but with Rebecca I have. And I have not one doubt in my mind that we will not remain friends for many years to come, because we relate so well to each other, we have lived together and now each other better then anyone! And we both want to remain close, Rebecca already has plans to come visit SJ this summer and I am positive that I will return back to St-Raymond in the future.
I have grown throughout this exchange, gained confidence and made life-long friends. I have learned many things, not just academically. I have learned that some things I have dealt with I shouldn't of had to. I am so sad to say good-bye to St-Raymond and Louis-Jobin but I can deal with it because I know I will be back to St-Raymond and I know I have made a couple amazing friends. I have memories from these past 6 months that no one will ever be able to take away from me. I did not know what exactly was going to come with this exchange when I decided to do it, I can still remember sitting on my dads bed at 11 o'clock at night and trying to convince him to let me do it, I could have never imagined that things would have fallen into place the way they did...and I couldn't be happier.
