midnight ramblings

I've found the journals of some IES Paris people (no one I hang out with regularly) and their musings on their experience are making me have revelations about my own. I said before that I was 100% happy with my study abroad decision this year, and I AM, but at the same time... I have a lot to say to anyone who is considering this same split-year kinda plan. Cause it is pretty weird and here is why. The fall semester, you have never studied abroad anywhere before, never spent such an extended period in a foreign country (unless you are one of those cool different kids who lived in Haiti or whatever when you were little cause your dad was in the army or whatever, but let's face it, that is a minority), so you are nervous and excited to very high degrees. You live through your first semester. It is awesome. You make the best friends ever.

And then you have to go do it all over again in a new place and a different language. An obvious observation, I know. But the other thing there is that since you've already done this whole study-abroad thing before, you know what to expect, good and bad. Whereas before it was almost completely unpredictable for you. So I think those emotions of nervous and excited are to a much smaller degree--it's hard to get excited about something you've already done, especially when you've still got some resentment like "I already had so much fun last semester, why in the world did I choose to do it AGAIN?" You're much less enthusiastic than if you're just going for your first semester abroad, where you're starry-eyed and all "I'm going to get so fluent here and improve so much and not hang out with Americans and get immersed in the culture 100% omg." But by the time the second rolls around, you're just like "...oh, yeah RIGHT." So you don't want to try--try speaking the language, try making friends with native speakers, all that stuff.

Here's where the part I regret comes in. I don't have a single French friend here. At least last semester, we were constantly meeting Japanese people (whether we wanted to or not!) from both Meikai and Kanda and hanging out with them at Y's and in the park. I miss just about all of them a lot, even though I always felt like I never saw them enough (Atsumi, Mariko, Aiko! Yuriko, Naoki!). But here, we don't have a school connection, and there's virtually NO school-facilitated way to meet other French students. Besides... even thinking about that prospect turns me off. I honestly have no desire to want to become friends with any French people. It is just true. So, I'm not. I also don't speak to my host family as much as I should in order to practice my French. In fact, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I don't go out of my way to speak any more French than I have to--because I think, and know, that my accent is bad (not as bad as some, but still bad) and I hate being embarrassed by it. (The obvious contrast to Japanese where I take great delight in speaking it with my badass good accent.) These facts are ludicrous when I think about my original mindset when I decided I was going to study abroad in France, which was with a goal of (naturally) nothing less than to become fluent in French (it's my major, isn't it?!). Now, I can read just fine in French (I'm currently reading two books in French recreationally, aside from the ones for lit class). Understand too. I just can't speak it well and probably never will. The fact that I really just don't care enough about that to really do anything about it... definitely has to do with already having done this before, and not wanting to do it all over again. I don't have the study-abroad-noob's concept of "I am really going to try and do this gosh-darnit!" and I probably could have benefited from that... that's what I regret.

I think if someone wanted to do this and asked me for advice I would tell them to think a LOT about it. I would only advise it if you are going to first one country where they speak a language that is your own, and then one country where they do not (or vice versa--I don't know which order is ideal). If you are going to do two different foreign language countries, I'd advise spacing them out like, spring of one year and spring of the next year (sophomore & junior is best I think). Then you have a lot of time to decompress in between and get used to the idea, and separate out the languages. I really feel like I was just THROWN into France by a decision I had made pretty much as a naive freshman and wasn't even sure I wanted to do anymore, so when I got here I was really just paddling to keep afloat in this place that was not only very strange (not compared to America, but compared to Japan, haha) but that I didn't feel like it was the me of the present who had even made the decision to come here. you know? Even though now, of course, I'm very glad I came and could have all these experiences. I sucked it up and did it, and now I'm at the place I want to be, but it certainly wasn't fun getting here.

Of course, I was told all this by the study abroad office too, "it's hard to do a split-year" and damned if they weren't right. But you know humans, they never listen! Just have to find everything out for themselves firsthand...

Besides, there's a lot to be said for hanging out with Americans and "doing the same things you could do at home." You get to meet people from all different parts of the U.S., people you'd never have encountered otherwise...

It does bother me not to have a single French college student friend though... but I'm going to blame IES Paris for that one, because how else are you supposed to get any otherwise?? Yeah, meeting random people in bars or on the street is a GREAT plan...