Popcorn and Pesky Host Brothers

                                                    Pretty Ardèche                                    

I spent almost all of the afternoon in the water closet. Don't worry - I wasn't sick, it was just the only place in the house where I could escape my pesky little host brother. I won't name names. He spent most of the day putting his dirty socks on my face while I was trying to take a nap. In the end, I took all his dirty socks and washed them in the sink with dish detergent. That had him stumped for a while on what to do next.

Today made me feel like the worst host daughter ever. It was my host mom's birthday, and I had no idea until we went to the supermarket. I started catching on when I saw all this junk food and pastries, which is very unlike my family. She ended up telling me, and I started apology after apology for not knowing, but she just laughed it off and said it was no problem at all. I'm still a terrible host daughter. On the other hand, I was very pleasantly surprised at the outcome of the supermarket trip. It was almost like Anne was shopping for my birthday instead of hers. M&Ms, marshmallows, and popcorn were all part of the loot, and I was euphoric this afternoon when I got to make my first batch of French buttery popcorn on the stove.

School has gotten considerably better these past few weeks. I decided last Friday to reapply to four colleges - Brown, George Washington, Pomona, and Pitzer. Ever since this happened, I've been complaining to everyone in sight about my new workload, but I secretly enjoy having something to do. Most of my classes are spent writing essays, and I find it much easier to focus on college apps when I'm not taking 3 APs. Everything has been going well so far, although I was extremely disappointed when I found out yesterday that the common app personal essay has been cut down from at least 500 words to a new, recommended length of 250-500 words. That's like, 2 paragraphs. (This blog entry just so happens to be 850 words FYI.) Half of my essay was written when I found this out and I'm already over the limit. It will take me longer to cut things out than it did to originally write it.

College apps aren't the only reason school has gotten better recently. I have more friends, and am able to have legit conversations in French so they are more apt to talk to me in the first place. In addition - Thursdays are now one of my favorite days of the week. The principal gave me the key to the music room, which no one has used in the past two years. Whenever I have a free bell (Thursdays I've got 4 of them), I'll go play the piano, take a nap, or eat some snacks. The music room is in a completely empty part of one of the less-used buildings, so it has become my secret sanctuary during the day.

This week, I realized that I'm starting to feel confident about my French. I've found myself at several different occasions thinking in French, and when I went to the movies last weekend to see Intouchables, I understood the story line and a lot of the dialogue. While this is all good and merry, I have continued to fail at convincing people I'm actually French. I was stopped by a car on my way home from school, and asked by the driver if her car would be able to pass through a construction sight ahead. (For those of you who know me really well, you know that construction sights are my forte.) Anyway, in French, I explained that the route was blocked, but at the end of my explanation, the lady said "thank you very much" in a thick French accent. After that, I was kind of bummed because apparently, my French hadn't been very believable.

The only other thing I can think of to tell you all is that this morning, my gym teacher announced to the class that we would be doing lifeguarding skills next week. There will be some butt-kicking involved on my part. I'm pretty excited. Oh - and one other thing - my host mom announced that we would be having fondu for dinner on Saturday. You have got to be kidding me. There has been so much hype about this fondu, and I'm supposed to go to some Rotary concert the same day. Don't get me wrong, I love concerts, but if you recall, I missed my family's fondu the first time for a Rotary concert. This can not be happening. I will probably live my whole life without eating cheese fondu, and I will never forgive myself, which is why I've made up my mind to call up Rotary and tell them that I forgot about a really important dinner with my family on Saturday. My new mantra is to live without regrets, and I refuse to regret missing family fun fondu night.