Blah

That is exactly how I’ve felt this past week.  I have been sick since Saturday and it hasn’t changed much.  I went to school and whatnot but other than that I didn’t really do anything this week.  It has been a rather blah boring week and I want to feel better again and soon so that I can go out and do stuff and check out les soldes (the sales) that only happen twice a year.  Ugh, of course I would get the cold that doesn’t want to go away!  Today I have to go out to the grocery store and get some stuff and I am all out of tissues since I need to blow my nose what seems like every 5 minutes.  I also need to go to the pharmacie and get some cold medicine (I am throwing in the towel, I thought it would go away on it’s own but I was wrong).  Ugh, so many errands to run and I don’t want to do them.  It is funny because I don’t want to get up and do things since I just feel blah but I am getting stir crazy from being in my room and I just want to get better and quick so I can go out and do fun things.  This week during one of my bus rides home I had the revelation that I only have 4 months left in Paris for studying!!  That is not much time at all!!  Also since I have been cooped up in my room I have had a lot of time to think, which may not be a good thing lol!  But I did a lot of thinking about how short my time left here really is.  Four months is nothing, there is still so much that I want to learn and do and discover and I am not ready to go back to the States yet; I want another year or so to learn French and learn more about this country and whatnot.  It is just mind boggling to think how quickly my time here is going by and I don’t want to waste a moment of it (and of course I have this revelation when I am sick and am not up to going out and doing grand things).  I was thinking back on first semester (and how quickly it went) and how I struggled with a lot of things like just making friends with locals (and how I am still working on that).  When I first was looking back on that previous semester I was comparing it to other people’s experiences abroad and how they were all making friends and learning lots of stuff and changing and whatnot.  I would then look at my first semester and think, “what happened?  Why didn’t I get that?  Why is it that everyone else seems to be friends with locals or international students and I am still rather friendless?”  But now I realize that I can’t compare experiences abroad because each and everyone has their own unique experiences that come with their own difficulties.  I guess what I am trying to say is that first semester was really hard for me and there were a lot of times when I questioned what I was doing here and had lost sight of why I love French and France.  But the other day I had this “aha” moment and I realized that I have learned a lot (like how to navigate the metro by myself, I remember in the beginning when I was terrified to take the metro by myself) and I remembered how much I love learning French even though it is hard (I still have a lot of room for improvement though) and how much I love France and the culture.  I guess part of me is being all sentimental and reflective because 1) my experience is half way over and 2) the newbies will be coming on Monday and it will be funny to think about how I was in their position not that long ago.