Ok so on tuesday I called my mom and I told her everything. She was appalled but she was really funny about it. You should have heard her exclamations it was really amusing. She wasn’t completely freaked out and worried. Everything I've ever thought about my host mom and family that I would never have said out loud, she said. It felt so amazing to have all my thoughts confirmed, I had shoved them in the back of my head, thinking I was being rediculous! Then my mom told me that I needed to get a new host family and it was final. After I hung up I sent an email to Nathalie and I told her everything, now I'm waiting in great suspense for her reply! Its thursday now, maybe she'll reply tonight!
The strange thing is that she called yesterday while I was taking a nap to invite me to go to Paris with her and her family for a horse race! I am so excitied because that is really nice of her! I guess she hadn't read my email yet when she invited me, or maybe she had and she wants to talk about it in person. I'm also nervous, I mean, I hardly know her and I'm going to be in the car for an hour and a half with her and her family. I really hope they like me! She has three little kids, I totally love kids, maybe I can just move in with her! We have a lot in common, she used to ride, and her husband works with horses! She told Catherine(my host mom, pronounced like kat-treen) that we were going to have a picnic. My mom sent me the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies (all the dry ingredients already measured and mixed together because the measurements are different over here) and I've been saving them because its so special to me. Catherine said I should make a dessert to bring for the picnic so I'm going to make my chocolate chip cookies for them =]
My host mom took me to the Centre Equestre to sign up for horseback riding lessons. I felt so guilty about her taking me that I didn't want to go! But we went nevertheless and I signed up. My parents said that I could do horseback riding here but its soooooo expensive, they might say no when I tell them. But I'm so excited, this is going to make everything so much better! I'm also really nervous, my french sucks soooooo bad! I hope that everyone is nice and that they don't get annoyed with me! Horseback riding is something that I love SO much, I can't even explain, but I have to say, it does wonders for my mental health!
So I will give my host mom props for that but she kinda ruined it this morning when she came into my room again and said that the kitchen wasn't cleaned. Déjà vu! It was so stupid, she is a freaken physco! Listen here woman, I am SORRY that I cannot freaken read your mind! Now I have to show you an email that my grandma sent me today. Have I mentioned that she used to work for YFU? She was a personne relaise, or whatever it is in english. I wasn't going to bring her into this fiasco but my mom called her of course, she was pretty freaked out by everything (but she was pretty good humored about it, like I said [and I mean my mom, not my grandma]). Anyways this is what my grandma said to me:
HI Anna!We talked with your mother last night and she told us some of the trouble you are having.Definitely talk with your YFU contact and tell her everything. I have had some thing happen like this for a boy I had in my area. The family decided they would have a hired man and the boy was expected to work on the turkey farm. Of course, YFU did not allow this and the boy was moved to another family. Do not be afraid to tell the YFU person you are afraid. Tell her everything!!!! If you do not get results, we can work on this from this end, but it is better that you do it first. Insist on moving, this type of thing never seems to get better even if people say it will.We are praying that this talk will go great for you!Love and Hugs!Grandma!!
Sooo yah, she feels really seriously about it! And she would know, thats good, shes not just saying that out of concern for her granddaughter, she has a professional opinion.
Ok Jackie, you said that I should wait a week and give them a second chance, thats good advice because that is what I was already doing. There were times this past month when my friends told me to "get out while you still can!" but I said, no- I'll give them onnnne more chance, I'll see how this week goes. Sunday was like, her third chance! And she really really blew it.
Sure, I can be a good little christian and forgive her but the damage has already been done, she has hurt my feelings so much since I've been here, I can't live like this, I shouldn't have to and I won't!
I guess I wasn't very clear about what happened sunday morning, mostly because I hardly understand it myself but she was angry because the dishes weren’t done and kitchen wasn't clean and I was lounging around doing nothing -that is her point of view! My point of view? I had eaten breakfast just like every other morning, cleaned up any crumbs left on the table and went to get myself ready. When she still hadn't called me to tell me it was time to go, I sat down to read a book until it was time. She never asked me to do the dishes that morning or any other morning. I clean the kitchen every night and when I'm not at school for lunch I have to clean the kitchen before and after lunch too!
Where is my host sister? Yah she's nice but she's just really busy and cranky all the time and don't get me wrong, she's not cranky at all to me, she's really nice but she just doesn’t really have time for me. It’s ok, it could be better though, but I don't mind I've been making some good friends at school.
My closest friends at school right now are the two other exchange students from germany, but they are leaving at the end of the month =[. I shouldn't get so attached to them, but I already am! We just have so much in common, I love other exchange students, they are the coolest people you could ever meet! They are so easy to talk to, and you feel like instant friends! I've ditched my downer emo friends and started hanging out with them all the time. I'm also starting to hang out with some other really nice girls in my class so I won't be totally devastated when Aline and Annkatrin leave.
Today was a really long day. Thursday is one of the days that I don't get out of school until 6 o'clock! Its also the day that I have my dreaded gym class. First was english. Every one is the class has to do this presentation on anything they want, they just have to do it in english. Today two girls did theirs on Barack Obama. You can imagine my distaste. Don't even get me started on Barack Obama and how everyone in France is obsessed with him, it is so annoying! He's not that great people! They didn't even spell him name right on the board. I had to sit through all this crap about how he is so amazing and blah blah blah and then to end it they did this fake election. They handed out slips of paper and every one had to write who they would vote for, Obama or McCain. I thought this was completely inappropriate. Which makes sense from my point of view considering what I've gone through concerning politics here in France. I was worried somehow that if I wrote McCain on my slip of paper that everyone would know, because I'm the american or something. I was so worried. But I wasn't about to deny what I believed in! So I resolved not to write anything at all. They would never know why or who was the person who left the paper blank. After we passed our slips of paper up Annkatrin asked me the dreaded question, so who are you for? I shrugged and gave her my usual answer, that I preferred not to talk about my political views. And she asked why but in a conversational way not a wow-thats-really-wierd-way, and I gave her the usual response: that people got too heated over politics. So she doesn't think I'm a freak, and that’s good! When the results were in there was a little surprise! Everyone had voted for Obama except one! So now I wonder, WHO?! It would be very interesting to know!
After that class was supposed to be my english history class but it was canceled because the professor wasn't there. Instead of having substitute teachers here, we just don't have class at all, its great! I went to the CDI(library) with Annkatrin and Aline. After that was gym class but then a miracle happened lol! Our gym teacher was gone so gym class was canceled! So we went back to the CDI for another two hours. After that was my free period so I stayed in the CDI for another hour. That’s a total of 4 hours! Then I had lunch with Annkatrin and Aline. After that we had math, all three of us sat there and read our books because the class was doing this math thing on the computer that we didn't have to do. I studied french, which is what I always so for a legitimate part of school. So that was an hour long. Then we had history which was 2 hours. Except, for the second hour there was a test that we didn't have to take. Soooo we went back to the CDI! You can see that I have had a very productive school day. 5 hours in the CDI, wow. I don't know how I survived. It really didn't seem like 5 hours! I was with Annkatrin and Aline for most of the time and they are cool and she we just kept ourselves entertained. We did some homework and showed each other pictures of our old lives on the computer lol. It was mostly just me and Annkatrin because Aline has a little bit different schedule.
Today was pretty great actually; I'm starting to feel at home here in Rouen despite my family problems, I feel like I can handle it! Really, it all comes from making friends. It’s not just Annkatrin and Aline, there are other girls in my class who are really great too, so I know that when they leave, I will still have friends and I will be ok =] If I am able to feel this happy now, just think how happy I will feel with a new family! So all in all it was a great day, even though my host mom was mad at me and even though I had to walk home. Its like, as long as I have friends, I feel so much for comfortable with myself and my surroundings, it makes a world of difference! I can be at home here. I can learn to think of Rouen as my home.
