“dommage que tu par tu vas nous manquer tu était tres tres tres gentille et tu nous apprens beaucoup de chose tu vas me manquer j’aimerai que tu reste a carcassonne encore des millier de jours je t’aime rébéca tu restera toujours dans mon coeur même si tu par”

“It’s a shame that you’re leaving, we’re going to miss you. You were very very very nice and you taught us a lot of things. I am going to miss you, I would like for you to stay in Carcassonne for thousands more days. Love you Rebecca, you will always stay in my heart, even though you are leaving”

How cute!!! I am so happy to have had such a positive influence on the lives of these children. I am very much definitely going to cry on Friday when I have to say my final farewells.

So here we are. Nearly at the end. I have one week left of teaching, just one week. I’m going to be ever so sad, I’ll probably cry because that’s just what I do when I leave places. I can’t believe I’ve made it through this year. Looking back to my first posts I could so easily have packed it all in but I didn’t, I stayed strong and now look! I’m having the time of my life and feeling ever so sad to leave this place.

Carcassonne is an experience I will never forget. When people say that their year abroad is the best year of their life I used to think “yeeeh whatever” but now I totally understand. It’s not just the opportunity to be in the country where your interests and the key to your degree lie, it’s also the opportunity to meet so many new people, live a different culture and experience new things.

I’ve recently decided that when I am contemplating doing something I must ask myself “pourquoi pas?” (“why not?”) if I can’t think of a valid reason then I’m throwing caution to the wind and just going for it. You only live once and you might only get the opportunity once!

In other news, I got stung by a bee for the first time and I have never felt a pain like it! Christ on a bike it hurt so badly. I sat outside the café and I was nearly in tears it was that painful. My poor thumb swelled a bit and I thought my arm was going to fall off! New experiences aren’t always great, I guess!

-Athlete

I realised there was no real post in my blog dedicated to the great people that have made and are still making my year abroad what it is and has been, so here it is!!! Thank you girls, I’ve loved every minute!

There are loads more here.

Each time I stop to think about the near future I feel very shocked. I have  7 weeks left of teaching here in Carcassonne, 2 of those weeks are holidays that I will spend visiting friends in Hull before they graduate (!!!). Mental. It doesn’t seem two minutes ago that I was moving into the foyer, fretting over lesson plans and organising my new French life. Now it’s nearly the end. Of course after my 7 weeks left of teaching I will stay in Carcassonne for a few more weeks but I intend to be home for the start of June. My 21st (another sign that time is flying) and the End of Year Ball… my 3rd End of Year Ball. Only one more left after that and then I’ll be graduating too. Scary!

What will I do with my life when I’m not a student anymore. If I was made of money I’d continue being a student for the rest of eternity. Sadly I’m not and one day I’m going to find a job, a house, a husband and children. I mean have children, not find them. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go nab a few from the town centre. It scares me to think that soon my whole life will actually go into a new phase (stealing that word from Mia’s latest blog as it is the best way to explain it) however, as much as it scares me I am so excited for it. Bring on the future!

I spent the last weekend of February visiting a friend in Lyon. It was not without it’s nightmares. I had to pay double (€210) to get there because the lovely lady at the bank (she was lovely, that’s not sarcasm!) who reissued me a new bank card cut up my original one… before I’d managed to get my tickets out of the machine at the station. The SNCF lady  told me the only way I could get my tickets was to pay again, but she gave me a reimbursement form and I filled it out so hopefully I’ll get some money back. If not I guess it is just a lesson learned!

Anyway, Lyon is a nice city, full of amazing culture. I even loved the graffiti!

We made crêpes with friends of my friend and we went to a club. the worst club ever. €12 to get in and €2 to leave each you coat and bag… which you had to do because they didn’t allow people to take bags in. I don’t think they know how hard it is to dance and enjoy yourself when you have money in your bra, a mobile phone in your boots and nowhere to put your cardi when you get too sweaty!!! We saw an awesome band consisting of a huge double bass, guitar, drum, banjo and harmonica/saxophone just on the street next to the river. I wish there were more street artists about. We visited Belle-coeur and I went on the metro a lot of times although I am still not a fan of the concept of trams being underground. We went up fourvière hill to see the stunning cathedral the view of Lyon…

Breathtaking isn’t it? (I’m rubbish at remembering to take photographs, so I only have these two and one of the great graffiti)

On the way home my first train Lyon Part-Dieu to Narbonne was delayed for an hour and a half as a result of the wind the previous night. I was okay with that, ça va, I can wait that long. I got to Narbonne, eventually, for my connecting train to Carcassonne and asked the woman at information which train I should get as my original connecting train was hours ago (as a result of the previous delay). The lady informed me that my next train would be the 19h58 direction Bordeaux…… which was en retard (late) by an hour and a half and as she informed me, elle ne rigole pas. She wasn’t joking. So I finally got home at almost 11pm despite my estimated arrival being 7pm. So all in all it was an eventful weekend.

Now it’s back to reality and even though I was given this morning off by one of my schools I still have to get myself motivated to get to my afternoon school.

In language learning my strengths lie within the ‘receiving information’ side of the language; reading and listening. My writing isn’t even especially bad it is just speaking which is my major downfall. I’ve commented before in this blog how the reason is that I don’t feel confident enough and that I must get confident blah blah etc etc. However this week I have noticed some things that just make everything about my linguistic weaknesses disappear. I don’t have to HAVE confidence… I can fake it!

I’ve been doing a lot of listening and observing this week, mainly of non-native French speakers (just like me) trying to speak the language, and to just listen I could be fooled that they are much more amazing than me at the language, but if I REALLY listen I realise that’s not necessarily the case. Miss-conjugations, difficulties finding verbs, talking around the subject when nouns are forgotten and tense problems… that’s what I do!

The thing that separates me from these people (in my mind of course) is that I don’t fake the linguistic capability to mask my uncertainty – I uhm and ah until I find the exact way I want to say it or I rush in like a TGV and blabber everything and anything making it all muddled.

I think that if I really think about it and I take into consideration the things that these people do, adding simple phrases “bon alors” when I lose my TGV of thought, I could convince myself that I am in fact as great at French as I perceive the other foreign francophones!

Also, tonight, whilst l was sat in bed trying to get my sleep on (slight Cassidy reference there), I was thinking through some verbs and conjugations (I’m a language student, we’re allowed to do things like this for fun) and I came to the verb savoir (to know) and I started to think it through, I changed the regular first and second person singular forms of the verb from having an ‘is’ ending (sais) to an ‘it’ ending (sait) and felt uneasy I couldn’t even imagine trying to say “je sait” – just typing it makes me feel like I know nothing.

I know that’s a little trivial thing that may only interest my mind but along with the fact I catch myself thinking and mumbling to myself in French without even realising it I feel perhaps this is all a sign that I’m finally getting to grips with the language and that perhaps if I take heed of all that I have written above I’ll soon start to feel like I’m mastering the great French language!

I rang into my school to tell them I wouldn’t be in because I was ill and the secretary said, more than once, “entendu”  which literally means ‘heard’ but put into context is ‘understood’. I wanted to make many a joke – “of course you heard, you’re not the one bleeding from your ears” however my French isn’t strong enough to be funny and I figured I’d get lost in translation somewhere and sound like my potential ear infection was in fact brain complications.

A quick trip to my doctor confirmed the latter, an ear infection. He prescribed me 5 (yes 5!!!) boxes of tablets and I went on my merry, partially-hearing way. Now, sat in my bed, feeling sorry for myself, surrounded by a wonderful array of boxes sporting long and unpronounceable names, and trying hard to understand Bones on the television without cranking the volume up, I got to thinking about what it would be like if I became deaf.

What would sudden deafness do to me? Well firstly I’d be forced to learn a new language, not out of want but out of necessity. I can spell my name in sign language but I’m not sure that would suffice. Not only would I be forced to learn the language but so would many people around me, all of my friends and family. It would throw a spanner in the works of my life plans; how could I continue to learn French without the ability to listen? I’d no longer be able to switch the radio on to hear the top 40, go to a club to dance to the top tunes or listen to my beloved iPod shuffle on the way to work.

I know that sounds very materialistic of me but hey, this is a material world. Of course there are technologies nowadays to aid those who have lost, or indeed never had, their hearing abilities. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I’m very thankful that I still have my hearing.

Some evenings are for writing

This evening is not