Le Gourmand

                                           Pretty Fall Colors in Privas

I seem to have developed a reputation / new title in France: Le Gourmand. That basically translates as "person who loves food and eats a lot of it." I have been associated with this name several times in France, and I must say that it fits me very well. For some reason, (don't ask me why), when you go on exchange, you suddenly discover that you have a second stomach. Because of this, you are twice as hungry and twice as likely to eat. I also think people are a little impressed by the fact that I can easily eat as much as (or more than) any teenage boy or grown man at the table. I am a food champion.

Last Friday was a rather fun day; granted, the main reason for this being that it was the start of vacation. I'm happy to admit that things with M. Saint-Clair have gotten slightly better for now. I never ended up going to that meeting with Anne and the principal, because as I've discovered, saying that you will do something and actually following through are often very different things in France. So - I decided to go and talk to Saint-Clair alone after class (even though it cut 5 minutes into my vacation time). He managed to be civil even though I told him I wasn't going to do the homework over break because it is too difficult. Beyond that, let's just say I keep my distance and I hope that he keeps his.

Also, one exciting Friday fact - I found out that my high school is kind of like a boarding school. I always see all these students with huge suitcases in the morning and I finally decided to ask this girl why they brought suitcases to school instead of backpacks. She told me that some people live well over an hour away and they stay in apartments above the classrooms during the week returning home only on the weekends. That explained a lot: my high school always seemed rather large for 880 students, so it made sense that several floors of the school are dedicated to student dorms.

Now that vacation is finally here, I've had some time to lay back, relax, and sleep! It feels so nice knowing that I don't have to go to school tomorrow, and the fact that my exchange student friend, Pruthvi, is coming to stay at my house for a few days makes vacation even better. This is the first time that I'm getting together with a friend since I've been in France, and I'm so excited to have company. Sometimes being foreign is so darn lonely.

This weekend, I went to the movie theater with my family for the first time, and we saw the new action film with Taylor Lautner. As I watched him eating his burger and fries and milkshake in a diner as people started to be blown up outside, I became kind of nostalgic for America. I was also homesick because no one in the cinema was eating any popcorn or candy, and to me - that's just depressing. I've started to appreciate the wonderful, unhealthy eating habits of Americans more and more since I've been in France, and I fully plan on resuming them when I return home next year.