Une mois~ One Month

I have been in France for a month now. It is crazy hard to believe how quickly the time flies. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was in 308 Brewer panicking about whether or not I would get accepted, would I have enough money, how am I going to choose what clothes to bring, what if I chicken out at the airport, etc,etc. If I have learned anything from this experience, its that everything, somehow or another, works out in the end, and it was senseless to panic to the extent that I did. Being abroad has really taught me quite a bit in just the past month. I have really evaluated what I want to do in life, at least the next 10 years or so. Which is that I want to return to France after college graduation for a couple years. Then return to the states for grad school, which will be in historic preservation. From there, who knows. I would like to receive my PhD in a more specific field (undecided at the moment) of history and work for museums. If not museums, I would definitely love to be a professor. I would especially like to be able to facilitate study abroad, and maybe even teach abroad. We will see. It really took getting out of the country for me to see how big the world is, and how short life is. Seizing the day, and really making the most out of each one is really important. This doesnt nescecarily mean going out and being crazy and living like that there is no responsibility. I simply mean that I want to make the most out of my days, whether home or abroad.
So today I experienced my first French strike, or protest. The French are notorious for these strikes. For the particular one today, it managed to shut down the tram system. I went into a store and bought a candy bar- by the time I returned outside, there was a giant group of people marching. They took up the entire street. I think that it was teachers protesting, but Im not sure. I have honestly never seen anything like this. And its normal. When I was at the tramstop, they announced that there is a protest in town, and because of it, the trams would not be going into "centre-ville". The annoucement was just like weather- today we have partly cloudy skies, with a chance of rain, oh and a protest. C'est la vie en France!