And So It Begins...

Hello Everybody! My name is Hayley Chwazik-Gee. I recently graduated from Norwich (NY) High School as Salutatorian (I know, I missed it by that much) and am leaving for France tomorrow as a super-cool Rotary Exchange Student. For those of you who don't know me, here is the basic synapse of my life: I dropped out of pre-school at an early age because I apparently didn't get along with my peers, and then I had a "brief" obsession with the movie Pocahontas (I wore an outfit just like hers pretty much every day for several years), I went on to correctly spell words like "Bewusstseinslage" at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and now I spend my free time signing environmental/animal/humanitarian petitions and learning the countries and capitals of the world. Now that you know a bit about me, I will tell you a bit about my blog. I've decided to keep an online journal of my year in Privas (don't pronounce the s), a small city in Southern France. Lucky for me, I get to take one more year of high school because 4 years just wasn't enough. I will try to write about all aspects of French life in the following year: school, food, life with a host family, travels, language, etc...

As a state-park summer lifeguard who sits 8 hrs/day, I've had some time to think about my goals for my exchange year recently, so here they are:

1. Become Bilingual: Right now, my French is pretty limited to asking where to find the nearest food, so considering the circumstances of living with a family that doesn't speak English, and going to a school taught completely in French, learning the language is pretty high on my agenda.

2. Dare to be Decisive: Almost every sentence that comes out of my mouth is a question, and those questions are usually geared towards "What should I do now?" or "Where do you think I should go next?" or "Do I really have to go to the bathroom right now?" You get the point.

3. Obtaining Independence: For 18 years, I have lived under the same roof. I've never strayed far from home for very long, and I usually lack the patience to figure things out by myself. I'm always around someone who can help me out with a problem, and while I appreciate all who have helped me (you know who you are), I've decided that it's imperative to learn to do things by myself.

4. Learn to be French: My main goal for next year is to adopt a new culture. I plan to live like the French, eat like the French, speak like the French, and on and on. From what I've heard, Privas is a pretty authentic French community without much international influence, so I'm going with an open mind and an open heart, and we'll see where that takes me.

Thank you to all of you who will be following this blog next year; I'm sure there will be crazy moments to come, and I can't wait to share them with you! Feel free to post comments or questions along the way; I'd love to hear them. Well folks, next time you hear from me, I'll be in France (hopefully), so bon voyage, and see you soon!