Adapt or Die :)

Ok. So, before I left home last August I knew that this year would be hard. In fact, just to make sure I didn't get my expectations so high that they would undoubtedly be crushed, when I caught myself daydreaming about it I would constantly remind myself that it would be hard, I would even go so far as to imagine problems that could arise. Alas, in my mind all these problems somehow magically disappeared after a few months. Thus I was reasonably annoyed in November when it wasn't particularly easy going. Then I realized that at all the orientations they had told us that Thanksgiving and Christmas were usually pretty difficult and after six months or so we would be adjusted and the time would fly by. This comforted me throughout the holidays. Yet here I am, six months in as of Friday and it's still not easy going. I've realized it's not ever going to be easy going.

I remember at one of the orientations a past exchange student telling us that this would be the hardest thing we've ever done, that for the first week she was on the phone with her parents every night crying wanting to come home, but now that she's done it she knows she can do anything. I thought the hardest part would be the beginning, getting on a plane to leave my friends, family, and my world for a year. Heading off into the unknown, brave and courageous, I almost want to gag when I think about it like that now! Like some sort of romantic story. What I've come to realize is that the hardest part isn't getting on the plane, hell that was easy, the hard part is staying, enduring, living, adapting, finding the inner strength to get out of bed on those days when the very thought of looking out my bedroom window at a countryside that is now familiar yet always strange forms a hard ball in my stomach. Dealing with the grind of not quite fitting in day after day. Feeling like I'm hitting my English-speaking head against the wall. That is the real challenge.

But, of course, it's not all bad! Overall it's been a great month, I've made lots of progress with my French, plus every Wednesday (since I finish school at noon) I go out with Alice (the girl coming to the US next year) and we just talk. It's really good practice for me and her, we speak English when she wants :)Also, I can make some jokes now! Finally haha, I've missed being able to joke around. My relationships are getting stronger and the time is definitely flying by.



As my Dad said (and drew), "adapt or die" (thinking of dinosaurs here) well I'm adapting, but that's the exhausting part.