Une Américaine à Redon: On Pause

Sometimes I can't shake the feeling that my life is on some sort of pause here. It's a feeling I get mostly when I read emails from my school back at home, and I realize that life hasn't stopped because I left LA, but its just kept going just as it always has. Does that sound selfish, that I thought that everybody's life would stop just because I left?
My family still goes on doing the same things that they do everyday that I'm with them. Eva still goes to tennis on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my mom still goes to yoga and drinks her coffee in the morning on the front steps and my dad still goes running everyday before he goes to work. Everyone at Marymount still goes to class, after school activities and sports. I feel like when I get back, the only thing that will have really changed is me.
Speaking of sports, I was texting Olivia the other day and she said she was going to track and I had a sudden, very strong longing to be there with her, amicably chatting with my friends as we change into shorts and running shoes and head off to do our warm up.This is sort of the same kind of feeling that I get when I miss my family, if that helps you imagine it. (sidenote: I really, seriously miss running in just shorts and a tshirt. I now wear about ten layers when I run because it's so darn cold outside still).

Even though I missed back home more this last week than before, its still exciting everyday here. This last week of break was a bit more "action-packed" (okay that's a little bit of an exaggeration but whatever) because Laetitia, my host mom, didn't have to work, so we went to Nantes (which is a pretty big city about an hour south of Redon) twice, once on Saturday with the whole family and then again on Tuesday without Guenael (my host dad) because he doesn't have February "vacances" (vacation), so he had to go to work. Saturday: we went to Nantes,we walked around, looked at the shops and it poured down rain. Like seriously, we got drenched. The new word that day? "Trempé", which means drenched. Not at all ironically. Tuesday, the second time we went to Nantes, we went to see one of my host brother's favorite singers do a radio show and so that was really cool to see. I also did a tad bit of shopping! That is always fun.

We also have been trying to speak English more and more in my host family and that's very interesting. I wrote the days of the week, months, most used verbs and numbers up to 30 and we taped them up in the kitchen so we use them more! It's been pretty funny but also its cool how my family want to really immerse themselves in the available English (that being me) as well. That makes me happy.

I'm going back to school this week, and I'm pretty excited. I feel like I was really getting caught up in my head and some negative thoughts were starting to become more prominent, what with being in the house almost 2 weeks. It's good to get out and have some different scenery and different people.

I never know how to end these... It's kind of like an awkward silence. Oh well.

Au revoir !

Cecilia

Pictures! (I always post more of these on my Facebook so if ya want to see the whole trip in one go, or just more from this week, you can check that out!)