… is what the French call dips and curves and stuff in the road. So of course I am speaking metaphorically about the road of life. My computer has officially thrown in the towel and decided to no longer work, which doesn’t really bother me too badly except for the fact that it was not at all old. I had already finished 90% of my schoolwork. Plus I had a good conversation with the guy at the computer repair place when I told him I was from the U.S. I was also proud that he didn’t figure it out on his own from my speech… yay, I’m getting better at French! Plus whenever I read, I manage to pay a lot more attention to sentence structure and stuff and really get the impression that I’m on my way to being bilingual. I can even have pretty good phone conversations, which is hard because of background noise and thinking on your feet and stuff. Woo.

My host mother was out of town this week to go see her new granddaughter… the baby’s name is Faustine, and from the pictures I have seen, she is really adorable. I bet my host mom will want to talk about her a lot. My host dad and brothers were really good about meals and stuff this week, which surprised me a bit: I expected to be eating sandwiches since my host mom wasn’t there… but nope, my host dad even made a quiche one night (even his sons were surprised).

I suppose I should touch on French Thanksgiving: it was really nice to eat dinner with everyone and meet my friends’ host parents, and the singing and piano-playing were good, too, and everything generally was very pleasant. The only funny thing was that the restaurant tried to make pumpkin pie, but the French don’t really do that… so they put in curry spice! Haha, we spent a good five minutes trying to figure out what it was before Hannah finally figured it out. Still, it was a nice night, and I had a really good time. It’s the thought that counts. Plus, right afterward Hannah and I started singing as many Christmas songs as we could think of.

Along that train of thought, Christmas is everywhere here now and is in full swing. There’s a Christmas market, lights everywhere, and posters all over the place, even in schools. I was discussing it with my friend Meyanna; we both really like how omnipresent Christmas is here, with little regard for political correctness and were noting how Americans are kind of afraid to do things like that. I said I thought it was because they had pretty successfully separated Christmas from everything Christian whereas Meyanna argued that the country is historically Catholic anyway, and that probably has something to do with it. I think we both hit on valid points. It is really pleasing, though, to walk around and see all the lights and signs and decorations.

Next week is going to be my last week with the elementary schoolers, and I am a little ashamed to say I am not regretting it completely. They are kind of tiring; I know that sounds mean, but I am just being honest. I will be happy next semester not to do the internship… I am very happy to have done it, but I will also appreciate the rest.

I will be home in less than three weeks, now, and I’m looking forward to it. I still don’t really feel the Christmas spirit yet, but I think I will once I get home. I’m thinking of everyone, and I’ll be happy to hear all your stories as you’ve been reading mine!