Fear and Loafing in Lex Vegas

I just got back from a weeklong visit to the city of my alma mater. Two friends (to now be referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Curls) were getting married and I had the honor of being a bridesmaid. It was a beautiful wedding and a great trip. It was also my chance to say goodbye to a lot of friends. Now that it's less than a month until departure, things are becoming more and more real. Prior to leaving for the wedding, I read a post by another person accepted to the TAPIF program for the Brittany area. This person left for France early on a trip with her parents. After visiting her future home, she decided to quit the program. I'm not going to lie, that was pretty unnerving to read. It was the area that led her to this decision. She had previously studied in the south of France. My hope is that she was just expecting to find the south of France in Brittany and that's what caused her discontent, not the area itself. Brittany is not and should not be the south of France. I spoke with an alum of my school who taught in the same area. He said that Lorient was a little bit ugly, courtesy of WWII bombing, but had a thriving student population, courtesy of the university. Win.

Now that I'm back at home, I don't have too much to do aside from prepare for France. This involves a lot of reading former assistant blogs (that's productive, right?) and googling different locations. Today, I found this video made by young Quévenois shot in Quéven that (1) makes me feel better about the town and (2) reminds me that people are generally not so different across the world. Young people will always try to be "cool" and fail, adorably. It also made me feel both positive and scared about my French levels. Maybe it's just that I should watch more CSI-type shows in French haha. (Les Experts = CSI in French)

Now, back to fixing up my French and emailing my future coworkers. I'm not too anxious about my French right now because I know I will learn a lot of French on my arrival, but it's still intimidating to realize how many random words I don't know.

Je vous prie d'agréer l'expression de mes salutations distinguées.

MCJ