Here the Time Has Flown

I feel like that should be a song title or something. :)

Anyway, Hi!!!

Ready for this? I'm done with school in a week and a half. I'm done with the Bac in 3 weeks. I'm leaving my host family in 4 1/2 weeks. I'm leaving France in 5 weeks.

People keep asking me how I'm going to feel going home. Honestly, I don't know. On one hand, I'm going to be so happy to be back, to see my family and friends, to get back to my life there... But on the other hand, I have a life here, too. I've lived with my host family for almost a year, I've made friends, I've shared so many things with everyone. Well, I guess I'll just have to take it in little steps.

The past few weeks, I've spent a lot of time in Annonay, hanging out with friends, walking around, etc. Annonay isn't really a huge town, but it's the biggest in Ardèche, the department that we're in. The population is a little less than 20,000. There is a big super-market, plus a few chain clothing stores (the newest, Jennyfer, was put in about a month ago), and many small privately-owned stores, like Diamond Jewelry in Westford. There's also a library, a few couple of post offices, a tourism office... I'm sure you get the idea. :)

One thing we just did at school was a small celebration of Europe Day. I didn't even know that there was a Europe Day. FYI: Europe Day, May 9th, was started in celebration of the Schuman Declaration, made on May 9th, 1950. There are now 27 countries in the European Union (this number may or may not change, with the enlargement of the EU being a hot topic in today's debates.) To celebrate at school, my English specialty class put together a couple of videos working off of surveys we had done in the school and on the streets of Annonay and showed them to the "European Section" English classes in Seconde. The classes of Seconde also put together a couple of little skits with the theme of Europe. It was quite the amusing afternoon.

Other than that... not much. Just starting to study for the Bac. We have 36 texts to study for the French portion!!!

Wish me luck!

~Catherine