Paideia Reflection

Obviously when I wrote my most recent post (about a month ago), I was missing Aix a lot and as a result, my post took on kind of a sad perspective. But now that I have a reason to reflect again (Paideia), I want to look at my summer in a different way. I was thinking last night about how I changed and grew while I was in France. I remember the first day I got there--I was a total wreck. My suitcase was ripped, I was confused about how to get from the Marseille airport to the Marseille train station, and when I finally got to the train station, I felt completely lost. I was sitting in a cafe at the train station waiting for my friend Lindsey to meet me and the one, overwhelming thought on my mind was: I don't think I can do this. I really wanted to be in France and I was so excited to be there, but I wasn't sure that I'd be able to survive the summer. And yeah, that sounds a bit melodramatic, but I was scared. Spending a week in Nice with Lindsey quickly took away that fear, and before I knew it, I had adjusted to what I thought "life in France" was, and was on a bus for Aix, to start my program. However, life there was definitely different, and I realized it would take a while to get adjusted. There was the fact that we had French roommates, French program directors, French professors, French host parents. Basically, we had to be ready to speak French at any time, which was definitely a challenge.

I think what I struggled most with was speaking French with my host parents. I was pretty shy around them for the most part and they would always tease me, so I guess I was convinced that they didn't like me. But at the end of the summer, at our last family dinner, our host mom, Madame Bach, pulled out a little book and asked each of us to write something in it. She does this with every semester's students, so it's kind of a tradition for her. While I was writing in it, I was so afraid that I would make some colossal grammar mistake or use a word in the wrong context. The next day, I arrived earlier than the other students, and so Madame Bach pulled me aside and said that she was so impressed with and excited by what I had written in her book. That definitely made me feel better and I finally did feel as though my French skills had improved throughout the summer: in the classroom, at host family dinners, and out in Aix.

So I guess I want the focus of this post to be the fact that I was totally capable of not only surviving the summer, but doing way more than surviving. I had so much fun, learned so much, and grew as a person. I am definitely a lot more independent now, and I'm not so afraid of "challenges" anymore. Now that I've seen myself overcome my challenges in France, I feel so much more confident about each challenge I face here in the U.S. I definitely miss Aix, but I can always look back on it as an experience that really enabled me to grow...and it was just a lot of fun too! And I can always go back for vacation--after all, I do have a standing dinner reservation Chez Bach. :)