When is Julia going to update her blog??

I'm not sure... haha

Hey everyone. Thanks for still following my blog even though I have not been so good about keeping it up.
But you must understand that the last few months have been CRAZY!! But the best few months of my exchange. I am really comfortable in France now. I am constantly with my friends and my host family.

At the beginning of the year I struggled to keep away from my computer where i knew emails were waiting from the States.. and i could possible talk to a friend online.
I came home from school directly after class because I didnt have anything else to do. As soon as i came in the door i would literally crash!! I was so tired from one day of school all in french!
Some dinners with my first host family (7 including me), I would feel LOST in what seemed like and overload of conversation!!

Like I said, following classes seemed almost impossible at the beginning! If I didn't understand one word, I might not understand most of the lesson. I was constantly with my dictionary.. which was like my bible in class for the first 3 or 4 months...

My history class has become one of the classes that I like the best. I have always felt like I could follow, even if it was in french. But up until about a month ago, my teacher never gave me a grade on written tests. (most test consist of writing an essay or analyzing a document). I would only get a grade if it was a small quiz or map that we had to label. Even for midterms... we had the choice between writing an essay, or commentary on a document and I was the ONLY one who chose the essay. I wrote 5 pages and I had all the information... but no grade. Because my teacher kept telling me that I had made good progress, but I was still making too many mistakes in french!
At that moment I remember feeling annoyed and embarassed. Like all the other times we had a test passed back... if the teacher hadn't already announced your grade to the class.. everyone asked everyone what they got. And I had to tell them.. no grade. I thought to myself, "why can't she just grade me like the other teachers! she knows I have all the information even if my french isn't perfect!"

As the months went by my french got better and better, as I had become more and more motivated. I even bought grammar books at the middle school level to do in between classes.

Finally about a month ago I got a test back in History class, and my teacher announced to the class that I had recieved a grade. And that my grade was actually better that some of the others in the class. Because not only did i know the information... but my french was at the level of the others. She said that I had made a lot of progress and that I should be proud because she graded me like the other students.

It was a great moment that I will remember for a long time. I have that test hanging on my wall in my bedroom like a 2nd grader!! :)


Now it is the month of May.. and I honestly don't know where the time went!! My family was here.. and I had an amazing time showing them my new life. When they left I changed host families for a third time, and I am now living in the city. Which allows me to see my friends a lot more.. and I'm really loving it!

Last weekend we had a long weekend, and my host family took me to a region in France called "La Loire" which is near the city of Tours. We visited probably 5 or 6 different castles! What an amazing trip! I will post some pictures of that ASAP!

Hope everyone is having a great spring... and that you still understand my english?!

BISOUS!!