je suis etrangère

"The funny thing is, with the passage of time, something does happen to long-term foreigners which makes them more like real exiles, and they do not like it at all. The homeland which they left behind changes. The culture, the politics and their old friends all change, die, forget them. They come to feel that they are foreigners even when visiting “home”.

Beware, then: however well you carry it off, however much you enjoy it, there is a dangerous undertow to being a foreigner, even a genteel foreigner. Somewhere at the back of it all lurks homesickness, which metastasises over time into its incurable variant, nostalgia. And nostalgia has much in common with the Freudian idea of melancholia—a continuing, debilitating sense of loss, somewhere within which lies anger at the thing lost. It is not the possibility of returning home which feeds nostalgia, but the impossibility of it.

But we cannot expect to have it all ways. Life is full of choices, and to choose one thing is to forgo another. The dilemma of foreignness comes down to one of liberty versus fraternity—the pleasures of freedom versus the pleasures of belonging. The homebody chooses the pleasures of belonging. The foreigner chooses the pleasures of freedom, and the pains that go with them."

From an article entitled "Being Foreign: The Others" published by The Economist

on verra

Despite being absolutely, painfully and pathetically (yet simultaneously, hilariously) broke, I decided I needed another holiday. I think maybe the French mentality of needing a holiday every few weeks has corrupted my American work ethic... In any case, one of the several things I initially set out to do once I arrived in Toulouse was to go to Barcelona. Well, nearly a year later, I was beyond excited to finally go!

I spent a full week there, which was very fun, very exhausting, and very financially unwise for me. Yet sooo worth it. Spain made me realize a lot of things about France. Namely, how unFUCKINGbelievably expensive my life is in France. It's seriously no wonder I'm broke, I pay so much for everything. I was practically crying tears of joy when every night I paid an average of about 9E for an amazing meal with starter and drink included and when coffee was about 1.20E and nectarines were 89¢ a kilo (compared to 2.89 in France).

I also began to realize how uptight the French can really be. I've spent the past seven months straight in France, not even leaving the country once so I suppose I got used to it. But the Spanish are much more expressive, they're loud and they're not afraid of making a scene or wearing bright vibrant colors. It was actually refreshing -- for the first time in a while, I didn't over-think every thing I wore or worry about being considered too silly in public (oh, how I miss dancing in public...). I came back here, and I actually kind of resented the French for being so old-fashioned (also paying an arm and a leg for fruit).

PAELLA YUMMY NOM NOMS!

Barcelone, je vous aime

let's plage it, shall we? "let's shall."

(side-note: the headwrap, aka the shirt I wore to the beach, was due to the terrible sunburn I got on my scalp from the sightseeing of the previous days)

Parc Güell

Anyway, while I was in Barcelona, I got an email a few days earlier than I expected and I didn't get the scholarship I needed in order to go to university in England. Which blows. Cause even though I tried my best not to get my hopes up about anything, I really did want to try a year in England and I simply cannot justify spending what it would cost for me to be an international student. I've decided to defer acceptance and make the decision in another year which may allow me to try to save up some money. We'll see.

I hate that: "we'll see." I'm tired of it. Gimme some direction already, universe! I don't wanna come up with my own!

In the meantime, I'm just gonna go back to paying for overpriced chocolatines and enjoying what's left of the summertime. 

bisous