Visit To the Consulate

I made my trip to the consulate on the twenty-fifth! The flight there was easily the worst flight I've ever had in my entire life. I got my first ever cold in the summertime (in case you didn't know, getting a cold in the summer SUCKS.) that I'm still recovering from, so my sinuses got all funkified by the pressure and I legitimately thought my head was going to explode and/or my eyes were going to pop out. After landing (and still being alive) I got bouts of vertigo all day, so it wasn't a great day for me. However, I did still get my visa application turned in, and I should be getting it back soon! The consulate "interview" sounds much more intimidating than it actually is. In my head, it was FBI interview in a metal room with a spotlight aimed on me. In reality, it was just me slipping a giant stack of papers under the glass (like at the movie ticket counter) and saying, "this should do it!" He didn't ask for anything else, so I'm hoping that that DID do "it." Plus, he said that I should be receiving my passport in the mail by the end of next week-ish. Sounds promising! Today marks exactly one month until I leave. I just got a snazzy new address book, so email me your address at gillian.c.harper@gmail.com if you want me to send you a postcard. Teachers, I'll be sending your postcards to the school, but if you'd rather I send them somewhere else just shoot me an email. I think almost all of my allowance (yes! I get allowance from rotary! Score!) will be going towards an ungodly amount of postcards, but I feel like I'll be having too much fun writing to my old friends to really notice the price tag. I'm not super techy, thus I have no idea why allow my text clumps into one big block even when I space it not paragraphs as I'm typing it. So either imagine a skipped line/indent when I change subjects, or explain to me how to make it work in really easy (preferably numbered)instructions. I'm finally starting preparations for my year abroad, and I gets more and more real with every day that passes! I've got just over a week until my seventeenth birthday, three weeks until my last day at work, and a month until I catch a plane to France! Ill try to keep this updated (I'd argue I'm doing pretty well thus far) so keep checking in! Or you can do this super spiffy follow by email thing. I had to watch a tutorial to manage to put it on this page, so someone had better use it! So... until next time!

I Suppose I Should Post Something Significant

So now that my blog is all frenchified I guess I can begin. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Gillian. I'm currently sixteen years old, though I'll be seventeen for the entirety of my year abroad. I've always had a passion for language, whether it's incessantly fixing my friends grammar (though you'll have to excuse mine, it's difficult to type on an iPad and it changes the weirdest things) or taking way too many years of foreign language in high school. I've taken five years of French now and one year of Spanish, but I'll also be taking a Spanish class while in France (crazy, I know), and I'd like to become fluent in more than three languages. I haven't decided which ones yet. I'm extremely clumsy on land, and usually stick to sports like water polo (5 years) or swimming (I've been swimming since I was very young, but never liked swimming competitively) and I also scuba dive where the water's warm. I'm going to try my hand at windsurfing while in France if I can, and maybe find a new talent (or perhaps something I fail miserably at!). I work at a coffee shop in Sunriver, Oregon that I love, but aside from that I don't do too much here. I love the beach and hate the snow, I'd pick white chocolate over dark, I can't see anything without my contacts, and I drink my tea with unhealthy amounts of sugar. Now that I've revealed my deepest darkest secrets (but really, you could probably get me to tell them pretty easily) I'll get started on things pertinent to my year abroad. I've had to fill out an ungodly amount of paperwork to apply for my visa, and now I'm going to the French consulate in San Francisco on the 25th to be interviewed. There, they will either approve or deny the visa that is necessary for me to get my plane ticket. Though there's pretty much zero chance of them denying it, I'm definitely still nervous. It's one of those things where I'll just feel better once I get it, even though everything points to it turning out fine. I'm unbelievably ready to hop on a plane to France! While I'm there, I'll be living with three different host families. I've met the entirety of my first, they're so nice and encouraging! The daughter of that family will be coming on exchange to Eugene to I won't see her much, if at all. I'm trying to be able to meet her when she arrives because she is landing the 15th of August and I'll be taking off on the 27th. I've already skyped with this family, and I'm positive that living with them will be great. I've also talked with the mom of my second host family a bit. She seems really nice and very funny. I think I'll get to know her more once I arrive. My third family I know the least of--I've only become friends with my host sister and talked to her a bit. She will be in the year above me in school, but she seems lively and fun. I don't doubt that my exchange will be full of awesome people like these! I'm going to miss my friends in the US, but I also hope to make a bunch of friends in France. I'll be staying in touch over Facebook with everyone. I'm also planning on sending a ridiculous amount of postcards, so watch out! To all of the teachers that I emailed this link to--prepare yourselves. I'll be armed with a pen, some postcards, and mediocre French to help me find some stamps. So I think I've exhausted all of the subjects I wanted to touch on initially, so I suppose I'll end it here. Let's hope I can manage to figure out how to post pictures while in France so my blog isn't entirely text! I expect to post next after my visit to the consulate on the 25th with some words about how that went. So keep checking back! A bientôt!

Hi everyone! Proved by my already failed attempt to post something on this blog, you should be aware that I am painfully not tech-y. However, I thought that I should at least try to give a bit of insight to my future life in France. I'm going to leave this as my initial post and see what I can do from here--hopefully I can turn this into a blog that doesn't seem like the ramblings of a lunatic. Wish me luck!