Bonjour Toute le Monde!!!
It's been a while since I've posted to this blog, and close to a year since I started it. It is insane how this year has been, I never would've thought I would be where I am now. I honestly don't even know where to start. My junior year is coming to an end (finally…), I’ve got some trips and things planned for this summer, and then it’s senior year!
This junior year has been very interesting. I remember sitting out on my couch on our back porch talking to my family about how great of a year junior year was going to be, I was going to make a lot of friends, I was going to do really well in school, we were setting the bar pretty high, and well, that didn't happen. Although, I don't think that everything we were saying was entirely wrong. While I did have a very rough year, I feel like I have started to move into a better direction of becoming myself. I know, super cliché and dumb, but I don't really know how else to put it. My mental health was a really big part of this year, I went through one of the hardest times of my life and I worked very hard this year to push through it. There were some bumps and bruises and lots of professional help (which is nothing to be ashamed of), I am coming out of this year with light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I didn't make as many friends as I would've liked, maybe it did take some academic arrangements, maybe I did have to spend some additional time getting help, but what matters is that I am doing so much better now and I am headed in a much better direction.
In these past few months, I haven't done very much in regards to travel. In November I took a trip to Bemidji, Minnesota with the French department at school to Concordia Language Villages. We flew to Minnesota early Wednesday morning in November, (yes, it was cold) spent the morning at the Mall of America, which was so much fun. It was expensive, but it was so fun. Then we went to Concordia for their high school village weekend. CLV is a camp run by Concordia College that focuses on world language immersion. They typically do summer camps, but they have smaller things throughout the year, in our case, the village weekend. We spent Wednesday afternoon through Sunday morning speaking, eating, singing, and breathing French. I went a little bit nervous, but I had such an amazing time, although I will say it was a little bit on the easy side for me. Shocker. It was still amazing. I'm really excited for next year. I still to this day get the songs stuck in my head to this day, 6 months later. The camp counselors there were so awesome too, they all came from different francophone backgrounds, and I got to hear different dialects firsthand. It was hard because we did have to split up from our school and divide with middle schoolers, at meal times and in groups was fine, but it was rough in the cabins, I was in the cabin with more middle schoolers than Rock Canyon kids, which was less than ideal, but we spent such little time in our cabins it didn't matter that much. I am really excited to go next year! Hopefully I'll be able to, there was a waitlist this year, and it wasn't cheap, so we'll see.
Other than that I haven't done much, just been working hard to get through this school year. However, I do have some exciting news for this summer! In June I will be going to Europe! I will be in Paris for about a week, and then in Madrid for about 3 days! In Paris, my dad has some things to do for work, so for the most part my sister and I will be on our own to explore, (we are looking for suggestions, so if you have some, I would love to hear them! Whether they are for things to do or see or places to eat, I would love anything and everything you can give me) which I am so pumped for. I think it is going to be a really good experience to get to test the waters on traveling truly on my own and to be able to see what my sister and I really want to see. So far, on the list we want to see Sainte-Chapelle, Sacré-Cœur, Jardin de Tuileries, Place de Vosges, Rodin Museum, and the famous places like the Louvre, l'Arc de triomphe, and La tour Eiffel. We have I believe six or seven days, so we have plenty of time to fill. But bien sûr I am most looking forward to being in Paris and parlez-ing français.
As for Madrid, I don't know what is there, I don't know how to speak a lick of Spanish (yes, I did pick up a Spanish class, but if we are being honest here, it's not going to get me very far), I know next to nothing about Spain, so thats what we got going for me. I'll be with my dad most of the time there though, so I will leave the planning to him besides a few suggestions here and there if I think of them. Madrid is known for its jamón (ham) and bull fighting, which might not exactly be my sister's cup of tea, but I am looking forward to it. After the souqs in Morocco, I can just about be around anything when it comes to animals without getting freaked out, that and reading some pretty graphic books for school (thanks, Upton Sinclair).
When I am not traveling, I am going to be working so I can save up towards a car, doing some things for college prep, and enjoying my final high school summer!
I'll post again soon! xoxo
Emily
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