Okay...honestly, I am not much of a blogger, or a journal writer for that matter. Oh well, I guess that's just one hurdle I'll have to get over.
Anyway, this blog I am dedicating to my six month exchange to Soissons next year. Lately I have been online following the paths of many others my age on their exchange journeys via blogs. So, I have decided to start one of my own :D. Fun fun.
[[ WARNING: If you decide to follow my blog, a pillow by your computer is manditory *wink wink - for those extra boring blog entries* ]]
Well, it's three months prior to my departure (haha, minus...six days or so). I have been in contact with my host sister since before I even recieved the letter from Student Exchange Australia with my host family's details.
Hehe, Facebook - annoying at times, yes - bad at contacting people, no.
Well anyway, at first I guess I was a bit hestitant because they were NOTHING like my two families here in Australia, but 182 emails from my host sister alone within a period of 29 days really brings two together. So far we've had two or three MSN chats which have resulted in me becoming engaged to my
Français-Anglais Dictionaire (and even getting as far as planning the origami wedding cake - for the groom's
famille of course -
Monsieur Dictionaire's "book cover" and my wedding dress.
Les coleurs: blanc et noir
About two weeks
après I was first contacted my my host sister
Marine [[ou Poisson Rouge ]]. I received
the letter in the mail with the full details of my host family.
Individual bedroom - two sisters, Aurore (11), Marine (16) - deux chats et des poissons
In my eyes, this could not have been better!!! This letter was the confirmation that I really
was going on exchange...in three months!
YAY!!! Haha, happy dance!
---
[[ rewind to April ]]
I originally wanted to go on exchange for seven months, departing mid-year (
Nöel!). But my mum was all set to apply of the
Early-Bird Deadline...which I think was the 29th of
Avril.
I remember that night so well...the night before the application was due. My mum was late home from work and I was madly printing my Photo Album on proper photo paper with the proper photo printer. Numerous times I made urgent calls to my mum, stressing because the printer wasn't working (haha, we learnt then that I should NEVER be the one to connect electrical devices to computer...:S).
At five to six, my mum ran through the door, screaming at me that the post office closed at six. I can imagine how it must have looked when she walked through the office doors.
[[ Mental Image ]]
Me sitting on the floor with a half pulled apart printer sitting on an office chair - plugged into the wall on one side of the room, and with its other cord plugged into the computer on the other - with my school uniform hardly resembling that of my school's - staring at the pages being printed, one every three minutes (with five to go, might I add)...let's not forget the mangled hair and the massive bags under my eyes.
In the end, we pretty much gave up posting it on time. I think it took about
fifteen minutes of pure stress and nervous shouting to pump out the last bits and pieces of my application. HA! And they accepted it twenty minutes late (...that's including driving time...no, I swear, I'm not THAT bad at maths :P).
Yes...quite naive I was to think that all you had to do was send in that application and everything was all good and well.
[[ My assumptions = faux ]]
A few weeks late, I received a letter in the mail.
"A representative of SEA will be in touch with you shortly to arrange an interview with you. If this interview is successful, you will be accepted into the Semester Program."
My thought at the time...Hm, let's think. Some mix between freaking out and contradicting my actions by thinking, "well, I'm a good student, a pretty well presented person...yeah, there's a good chance they will accept me...".
A week or so after receiving the letter, my dad called me telling me that a women from SEA had called and that I should call her back. After giving me her number, and hanging up. I stared at the number that was freshly writen down for a while. I sniffed (trust me, not the best time to have a cold!) a few times and practiced what I was going to say when she picked up the phone (haha, sad, I know) before laughing hysterically at how my voice sounded (well, HELLO NERVES!) with a blocked nose and having just lost it.
*BRING BRING*
"The number you have called is currently unavailable. Leave a message after the tone or try again later. BEEP!"
Yes...well. I hung up...I'm not much for leaving messages, I always tend to forget one thing or another.
I sat staring at the clock on my computer counting down five minutes. Four minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute. Zilch.
I was a bit more apprehensive about picking up the phone and dialling the number this time, as it had taken all (okay, fine...a good bit of) my courage to do last time.
*BRING BRING*
"Hello, [blah] speaking."
"Oh, hi. It's Rebekka. My dad told me you called."
Okay, so she wasn't actually in the office at the time so she told me she would call back later. But before she hung up, she asked me if it was okay that we held the interview at my house. I said
oui (well, the English equivalent) and she asked me where it was that I lived. I told her...and she asked me if it was off [blah] Road. Hm, well, to be honest, I'm not too good with my roads and streets and highways etc. as I have moved a total of nine times in my life...not good for the memory, trust me.
Result: I spent five minutes trying to explain where I thought it was - she had no idea what I was talking about - I went on Google Maps to try and explain it to her for a total of fifteen minutes (the internet was slow, okay!) - she ended up telling me that she was very busy and that she would figure it out herself...
Oops?
Okay, so the interview rolled around. I wasn't too nervous...until the doorbell rang, that is.
Anyway, she sat down at the table and I did too, leaving a seat between us for my dad to sit (I forgot that he wasn't meant to be in the room for the first part of the interview) - which of course, he didn't sit in...so I was faced with the awkward situation of having to move up closer to her.
The interview went quite well at first. Then came a particular question which really stunted me. I had absolutely no idea how on Earth to answer it. I ended up doing the unquestionable...I asked her for an example of how to answer it (haha, it is only really now that I realise exactly how idiotic that was). She seemed a bit taken-a-back by the question, but answered it. After hearing what she had to say, I was still a bit confused, so I ended up thinking aloud. Repeating, "Oh yes, I might be able to do [blah], yes...that sounds good, although [blah] might be better...yes, I think I might do [blah]". [[ The question was something to do with how I would deal with my emotions ]]
The remainder of the interview went quite well, I suppose. Despite the fact that my nerves left me rambling too fast for her to write...hehe whoopsie daisies :D.
Well anyway, I was accepted!!!
Result: [[ danse de heureuse ]]
---
Forward to last weekend
Well, basically my mum contacted a familly friend up in Canberra (who is Dutch, but is fluent in French and is married to a Swiss-German man who is fluent in French
aussi) and she told us about the
Alliance-Francaise (I already knew about them because we have the annuel French Poetry competition at our school) and how they had
un petit café where people go to socialise in French.
So, we checked it out - pretty good, we thought.
And I became a member, which then allowed me to borrow two French movies to watch for a week. I've watched one already...didn't understand most of it - but managed to understand that it basically a comedy based on a re-telling of the story of Princess Diana.
It was called :
Palaïs Royal
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809421179/info
Anyway, I bet that pillow has come in handy, eh? :P
Well, a few weeks prior to my departure, I might be spending a week up in with an authentic French neighbour of the family friends I told you about to work on my conversational French.
Okay, well
bonne journée from
Australie!
Bisous!
