une journee pour aller. // one day to go.

i did not want to go to school today... absolutely did not want to go. but, i had to take the bus with camille this morning and make the trek "a l'ecole." when i got there, i found out that the students had to take a test so we weren't allowed to accompany them to class. figures... the last day of school, we're basically not allowed to go. anyhow, i spent the first hour of school in a small, claustrophobic room with the other americans and then we were "the teachers" of an english class the next hour. the english teacher talked to us before her class (in a funky british accent, mind you) and warned us that her class was, "not high-achieving... actually, quite slow at learning..." uh, what? are teachers here allowed to say stuff like that to students? apparently, so. it ends up that the "slow" class wasn't actually that slow, they were just extremely shy. i guess shy equals slow in france...?

after that, we were finally able to go to a class with our correspondents. the class was a technology class and the teacher literally stood at the front of class while the kids went c-r-a-z-y. i'm not even exaggerating... they were out of control. their cell phones were out playing michael jackson (they are so obsessed with him here -- it's quite ridiculous...), they were throwing scissors, and one kid even got up and knocked over this girl. i couldn't believe how chaotic the class was!

luckily, i was released from that mess into the courtyard where i waited to go to lunch. lunch was super bland today, but being the rebel that i am, i took two baguettes so that i could stuff one in my purse to snack on later (i think i got this "trait" from my dad == thanks, dad!). after lunch, our correspondents went to library, which was already stuffed with students. we didn't feel like going, so we headed to the cafeteria a second time with devon, who had come to the middle school for lunch. after lunch, our class met up in front of the middle school and we headed to enghien's hippodrome. it was humongous. unfortunately, there weren't any horses there and we weren't able to see a race -- the next one is on wednesday, and we'll be on a plane then.

in all honesty, the hippodrome wasn't all that interesting... but, we were able to go to a cafe after the tour for some drinks. i got a diet coke (i'd been craving my addiction for the past two weeks... all my family drinks is coke zero. it's just not the same...) and a crepe with nutella and bananas. now, i really don't care for bananas, but lemme tell ya -- that crepe was delicious. plain delicious, even if there was about a gallon of nutella on the thing. plus, being with my class was really enjoyable today, for some reason. it was nice talking about our experiences in france and our feelings about our return home -- a lot of us are really looking forward to stepping on american ground!

i realized that we all had a worthwhile time here, even if everything wasn't all that we expected it to be. obviously, you can't make all fantasies come to life, so all that we had hyped france up to be wasn't actually what france was like. it took me longer than i had imagined to adjust to life here, but when i adjusted, i realized that i would be leaving soon... what a bummer, hmmm? but, i decided that instead of dwelling on my regrets while being here, i need to forget the not-so-great parts and focus on the ones that made my stay truly amazing. i'm so fortunate that i had the opportunity to come to france and stay with a family! i owe it to myself to live it up the last day in france. in the words of madame z's facebook status, it's "time for the last hurrah in france!" nicely put, mme z.

love you guys and miss you... still!
xoxo,
jyothi