THANKSGIVING!

One of my favorite holidays is Thanksgiving. My family always celebrates with my dad's side of the family and we gather for the extended weekend. On Thanksgiving Day we wake up, eat a wonderful breakfast, and watch the parade. While some cooking has already been done, most of THE meal preparation starts now. We (and I mean practically everyone but me) cook all day and the house couldn't small more incredible. When everything is ready, we give thanks and dig in. Definitely one of the best meals of the year.

I love Thanksgiving because it means two things: family and food, but mostly family. Of course, this year was a little different for me. I wasn't home with my family and I didn't exactly have the traditional feast. It was definitely strange because Thanksgiving Day wasn't really Thanksgiving Day for me. I read about and saw quite a few delicious dinners, but it was just a regular day. It was the weirdest feeling knowing that it was Thanksgiving but not celebrating it at the time.

Instead, Saturday was my Thanksgiving. Another American student and I, along with a Canadian student decided that we wanted to have a dinner. We decided to invite other foreign students and make as traditional of a meal as we could manage. They made a list and checked it twice (oops, wrong holiday) and on Friday we shopped for our Thanksgiving extravaganza. Now this was harder than you might think because France doesn't exactly have everything that we typically use for our holiday meal. For example, there isn't any yams or marshmallows for candied sweet potatoes, no onion crunchy thingies for green bean casserole, and no cranberries for cranberry sauce. At least, not in the store by us. Also no traditional turkey or pumpkins. But, we bought the turkey available to us and a gourd/squash for our pie.

Friday night I had a wonderful time baking an apple pie and a pseudo pumpkin pie with these ladies. And yes mom and dad, I DID help.

Me, Sarah, and Rachel with our pumpkin pie!

Saturday was the big meal.The three of us prepped and cooked from 4 to 7 with the help of another American girl and another girl from Czech Republic. Together we made turkey, colorful carrots, brussels sprouts, salad (with craisins, mandarin oranges, and pecans), mashed potatoes, and homemade apple cider. A pretty impressive feast for never having made a Thanksgiving dinner before. And everything was delicious! We had twelve students come from all over the world (Latvia, Scotland, Canada, Germany, and Norway). Together we spent the evening chatting and stuffing our faces. Two of my favorite things!

Our fabulous meal

It was an extremely different Thanksgiving for me. But it was also a huge success. I couldn't be more thankful for these people that I shared one of my favorite meals with and this incredible time that I get to spend in France. I am truly blessed.

Complain, Whine, Grumble

A little over a year ago, I was sitting at a campfire with my friend Zac. I said something like I'm hungry or I'm cold (statements that often come out of my mouth) and he turned to me and said, not at all judgmentally, "you know, you kinda complain a lot." I thought for a second and realized he was right. I do complain a lot. Its been over a year now and I'm still thinking about his comment.

So what does this have to do with my trip to France? Why am I even writing about it? Well, I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get here. And I still am jumping through hoops even though I've been here for a month. Notice the hint of a whine? Yeah, me too. I've realized that I have grumbled too much about all of this. Of course, some of them are reasonable complaints. But I'm in France! I get to live and study here for a year! I get to take whichever classes I want because they will be excepted no matter what and I'm ahead in my degree requirements. I'm slowly learning a second language. I've met students from all over the world. I have been to Paris and Brussels, and in a few weeks I'm going to London! And after I turn in one more piece of paper (cross your fingers) my immigration will be complete and official. What is there to really complain about?! Sure there have been bumps and changes of plans and tolls along the way. But this experience will all be worth it because, as they say, the ends justify the means.

Growing Accustomed

I've been in France for a little over a week now. Classes have not yet started, so the theme of this past week has been acclimation. Of course the biggest thing that I need to get used to is the language. I am pretty terrible at French (I know how to read it and I'm okay at speaking it, but I suck at understanding it) but I know that learning the language will take time. It will probably be a month or two before I can fully understand when people talk to me.

But there are other things that I have to grow accustomed to. The first being the money here. Of course the concept is the same and the bills are the same, what's different is the coins. They all look so similar! I have to look at them all to choose the one I want. At home, they are all different enough (and I've used them my whole life) that I can just reach in my wallet and pull what I want out. I feel bad for anyone that I have to pay because they have to wait for me to figure out what coins I'm trying to use! And, here they have coins, not bills, for ones and twos. It sounds a little silly, but its an adjustment.

Another distinction is the way that the university system works here. From what I understand, people choose their specialty and they stick to it for the entire time they are at university. Because of this, there is a set list of courses you take and when you take them. For example, I am a sociology major. When I went to a department meeting today, I received a booklet with all the sociology courses offered and when exactly they are taken. At my school, I can pick and choose courses from different departments and my degree requires that I take courses from other disciplines. In addition to the courses essentially being picked for you, the times and dates of the courses are not posted until the Friday before classes start. So, if some of the courses you want interfere with each other (they won't if you are a student here), you are out of luck and have to choose the most important. All of this is very different and pretty confusing for me.

A third, and the last that I'm going to talk about now, dissimilarity is the meals. Of course the food is different but that's not what I mean. In northern France (where I am), the main meal of the day is lunch. Makes sense, you want a smaller meal at night so that there is time to digest before bed. I am definitely not used to this. Dinner is always the big meal of the day. Often, I have small snacks throughout the day and my only 'real' meal is dinner. Here, though, most people get a two hour lunch break. The meal is slow and leisurely. There can even be courses. Dinner however, consists of something like a baguette, cheese, fruit, and maybe some type of meat.

Luckily, I have had this time to familiarize myself with the culture. Now to learn the language....

Money, money, money. Must be funny, in a rich man's world.

On this road to studying abroad in France there have been a couple bumps, things that I didn't expect/forgot about, that maybe slowed me down a little but haven't really caused any problems. But now I've reached a big pothole- nothing that I can't get around but it definitely needs extra caution and planning. This pothole comes in the form of money problems. Of course, money problems are to be expected right? I am a college student and money issues kind of comes with the territory. I knew going into this experience that money was going to be tight but then this pothole.        

Most of my trip will be covered by loans, with a couple scholarships and a grant thrown in. As a student, the loans I can personally take out is limited. The rest of the money that I need was to come from a parent plus loan amounting to approximately $13,000. To receive this loan my parents had to have a credit check. This was nothing to worry about in my or their minds because they have excellent credit, it was just another task that had to be completed before I left. Well, a couple days ago a found out that my parents were not approved for this loan. (I received an extra $5,000 in loans to 'replace' this loan I didn't get). Why, you might ask?

About four years ago my family moved and we did not sell our house leading to my family filing a deed in lieu of foreclosure. If you are not familiar with this, it basically means that it released my family from all debt while forfeiting all equity and the bank got the house. Fast forward to my loan. My parents weren't approved for this loan because the bank said my parents still owe them money. This isn't true because all the debt on the house was forgiven but this "debt" is on their record.

So my pothole. I am currently about $7,000 short of how much money the study abroad office recommends that I have. And now the fundraising begins. If you feel so inclined, please, please donate to me. There is a donate button to this right of this post. If you want to know what the money will go towards: books and living expenses. I'm going to try to get private loan too, but I have no idea if that will work out or when I'd be able to use that money if I do get it. If you can't donate, please pray that this will all be worked out.

This blog is entitled A Fear and A Dream referencing To Write Love On Her Arms's Fears vs Dreams campaign. This campaign encourages people to ask themselves, 'What's your biggest fear? What's your greatest dream?' (http://fearsvsdreams.com/)
In about a month I will be leaving for France to study abroad for ten months. It is both a fear and a dream of mine, hence the title. Its a fear because I will be spending ten months away from my family and friends (the longest I've ever been away) and I'll be in a country where I am no where close to being fluent in the main language spoken (I've taken two years). But, it is also a dream. I've wanted to study abroad for basically my entire life. That dream is finally being realized.