I got my lobster!

I made sure to get my lobster before I leave. :)

When people find out that I'm going to be an exchange student, the four main questions that I get are (in no particular order):

1) Do you speak French?
2) Where are you living?
3) But won't you miss your family?!
4) Are you excited/nervous/happy/sad?

The answers to these are:

1) Yes, I do speak some French. I've been taking French since I was in sixth grade. This, however, is not nearly enough French to get by in life in France. "They" say that four years of high school language is equivalent to just four weeks of complete immersion in the language. So, I know some French now, but this is nothing compared to what I will know in a month, two months, three months, six months, a year.

2) Up until about a week ago, this question was the most annoying. I had no clue where I was living, so when everyone was constantly asking me it made it worse. I do now though! I'm living in Marseille, France with a temporary host family. A temporary host family is just a family who I will stay with until they can find me a permanent host family.

3) Truthfully? YES! I will miss my family and friends so much!  It will be a year of ups and downs none of which I will be able to share face to face with them. This, though, is a small price to pay for a year of living in France and being immersed in the French culture. I'll expand my horizons, and I'll be able to get a whole new perspective on life. It's like that song we used to sing when we were little "Make new friends, but keep the old..." That's what I'm going to be doing in France. I'll have a whole new set of friends in family, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forget the ones here.

4) Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I'm so incredibly excited! I get to live in France for a year! It's going to be great. I'm also very nervous. Like I said, I'm living in France for a year. I won't know much of the language, and I won't know anyone there. It's going to be hard, but it'll be a good challenge. I'm happy to be embarking on a new part of my life, but I'm also sad to have to leave another part behind for a year.  It's pretty much a whole ton of feelings to the point where I don't even know what I'm feeling.

On another note, I've been looking into the activities that I can do in Marseille, and from what I can tell it looks like I'll be able to choose from handball, football (soccer), sailing, volleyball, dance and climbing. I'm not sure which seasons each of them is in, if they all have options for girls (in France they don't have a Title 9, or even anything equivalent,) or exactly what some of them entail, but I'll be excited to try some new things!