Commencement

It ends and begins.

I have been so emotional lately. We had our last day of orientation class today, and I almost cried so. many. times. It was slightly ridiculous. I watched Finding Neverland last night with one of my friends, and that was not a good idea. It is impossible to watch that movie without crying at least once--for any normal person. For me, it's somewhere between three and four times. (Christy, I blame you!) So that got my tear ducts all revved up and ready for today.

So today in class we watched a French film about family and how it's great even with its ups and downs. And obviously that's another great idea considering that I've been getting homesick lately. No tears from me at all. (Said the liar.) Leaving class today was actually really bittersweet because I've gotten really fond of our professors but I'm also really excited about starting real classes on Monday.

I don't think I've ever explained about the wonderful cafeteria at the school. The man in charge--the chef, if you will--is amazing. Every day during our coffee breaks (they are an essential part of the French lifestyle), we would all walk into the cafeteria to get our coffee and he would give us special deals after first bursting out in laughter and shouting, "Vive les Américains!" Some days he would bring us pain au chocolat--amazing pain au chocolat, mind you--and he would always greet us with some sort of compliment, trivia question, or joke. Once he had us name four American presidents before we could get our coffee. (Just FYI, France has only had six presidents so far, including Sarkozy. So it was a little easier for Americans than it would have been for the French.) Today, for our last day, he surprised us with a huge array of drinks, pastries, and fruit. It was so nice! And so French!

Aside from all that, I had a sort of revelation earlier today about what exactly makes life here so incredible. Life here really isn't all that different from life in the United States, but everyone here expects life to be amazing, so it is. Every time we do something, it's somehow transformed into an experience instead of just a task we have to get done. Life is so much better when you live every day as if it were extraordinary!