1 mois en france

As of yesterday I have spent a month in France! It feels like I have been here much longer, but is also a little scary because it means that I'm 1/4 done with study abroad (although not with Europe!). This fact, combined with sitting on a bus for about 5 hours yesterday, as led to some reflection on my study abroad goals overall.

Really there is only one study abroad goal, actually. Fluency in French (or rather, more fluency than I currently have). While I do speak alot of French here, I speak almost nothing but English two days a week (fridays and saturdays when I hang out with other IES kids). No good. It's also interesting to think back on a month ago when we were in Tours for orientation, or even orientation in Nantes, and everyone made a really good effort to speak French all the time. I guess at that time speaking French was all new and exciting. And now the newness of being in France has worn off, and speaking English is just so much more convenient for making friends/having fun in general. But no good. I'm really really going to try to make more of an effort from now on to read/speak more French.

I also have some apathy towards making French friends. Not that I wouldn't like to get to know French people, but I think I'm being realistic in thinking that I'm not going to be able to make French friends in the next three months. As it is I have a hard time making time for IES friends at time. And I do meet alot of French people through conversation club at IES and orchestra and frisbee. I think getting to know people is more important than necessarily hanging out with them outside of set activities. Because after all, I'm leaving Nantes in 3 months.

And now on to my more exciting weekend-ish activities!