64. It's All About Perspective

i don't think it'll ever hit me that i'm actually living in France.

sure, i can say it but they're just words. i feel too at home here to think that i'm in "that country across the Atlantic". my brain just doesn't want to flip...thinking about when the year is over & when i'm back home looking back on my year abroad makes me gape in awe at myself. if i wasn't me & i met me a year from now, i'd be astonished at myself!

it all depends how you look at it.

this past weekend, i hung out with AFS alumni, AFSers & future AFSers & the thing is, after all is said & done...um, they're just people. like anyone else...perhaps because french culture is coincidentally very similar to my own or perhaps really, people are just people & living in another country for a year is really no big deal. plus, the alumni are totally cool, as in apparently minimally unaffected.

secondly, if i may admit, i am a little too sucked into Education to look at the big picture. i'm well adapted & i feel 98% at home; i've established a life here & i no longer see the big deal in what i'm doing until...i look around at my classe, at my famille & realize that i have to Leave these people sooner that i think. Leave, as in won't see them, probably ever again...but then i realize that airplanes exist...

it all depends how you look at it.

***

my birthday is in (holy cow!!!) three days & i can't remember the last time i've felt so birthdayless. i don't know, perhaps it's hard to identify yourself with a birthday when you don't have the people you're used to celebrating it with around. will it be the same for christmas? AFS tells me it's the hardest part. currently, i feel insanely neutral, as if saturday will be any other saturday; not my birthday. however, my host family & i are going to go see a comedy that night for my birthday. i'm glad cause:
a) i don't really like throwing parties for me cause i'm more of an adult-oriented kid & for me, entertaining people sucks more energy out of me that i'd like for a day that should be um, about me. plus, you all know how much i like doing nothing. & how much i hate being celebrated be people who are "forced" to celebrate me cause i invited them...just a lot of cons
b) i like spending time with family
c) it'll be my first french pièce de théâtre, which is a big deal
d) it was kind of a surprise gift & you all know how much i like surprises!

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Paris this past weekend was great, like every other AFS event. i'm very impressed by this organization & i think i'm completely convinced about bénévolat. everyone is just-right kind & the activities are numerous & fun. it's really the most i've walked in a long while & i shopped on the Champs Elysées & bought an um...*cough*100£*cough* jacket. it's beautifully plain & it's from zara & it's black & long & belted & i bought it with my visa..funny story...

since my visa looked funny (not french) the cashier asked for an ID, which i didn't have so i gave her my bus pass that i never use & have an enormous landscape (not portrait) picture of me (cause the picture was too big) that i put on myself. it other words, as unofficial as you can get. hehe.

so dance tonight! :)

last thing: this morning, i had TWO exams, as in 2h géo & 2h maths...& i pulled throughhhhhhhhh! ok, so i studied til past one in the morn, which is really shame on me but i don't know how else to do things...i'm more of a night owl, i've realized as in i don't like to & i can't work during the day but work wonderfully when i'm half aspleep & alone. people distract me. heck, i distract me. now go philosph-eye on that one...

nap time, i believe (but i don't like naps either :S)

[bt]

p.s. i realize that i always digress from the title
p.p.s. i had a huge urge for chocolate & so i um, took a "reverse raincheck" on my calendrier d'avent...shhhhh
p.s.s. i'm currently crazy about the xx