Ready to be done with school?

It was just a conversational question in an e-mail but it got me thinking...

I'm ready to see my family and friends - to meet my niece - to live with Michelle - to help Terri plan her wedding - to be around people who I love and who know me well - to have late night chats over bowls of M&Ms and oversized cups of coffee - to get regular hugs.

I'm ready to earn a paycheck and be totally independent - to have a space that is entirely my own - to take an American shower - to have clothes clean, soft and warm from the dryer in two hours flat - to have a supportive bed and pillow without lumps - to get my own furniture and decorate my room.

I'm ready to have a regular schedule - to go to yoga and meditation classes - to play piano - to have my tripod, SLR and photography class - to read books and watch movies - to have more time online to check out new music or browse amazon - to drive - to get Frappucinos and sit in bookstores for hours - to hear live music that doesn't involve accordions or gypsies.

I'm ready to stop spending 2% extra on everything because my card is "etranger" - to not watch out for dog crap when I walk - to be doing technical things and talk to technical people - to get free refills - to make eye contact and acknowledge strangers on the street - to have more conveniences - to build something with my hands.

I'm ready for organic cereal, frozen vegetarian dinners and soy products - to eat dinner before 8pm - to eat less cheese - to have a hearty American breakfast and small American dinner - to not feel like my arteries are being slowly choked off with cholesterol - to know how much food there is for dinner before deciding if I want more soup - to have Ranch dressing on a salad with more than lettuce - to drink 1% milk that's always cold - to see nutritional info for serving sizes instead of the arbitrary 100g - to get Mamacita's and Japanese and cherry-flavored Craisins.

I'm ready for lots of things. I'm not ready to give up my French life.

I'm not ready to give up the feeling that I'm constantly able to reflect because I'm often alone - to leave all the people who have experienced this with me and know what its like - to give up the feeling that I'm learning more every day than I do in a week at home because everything is new - to give up the feeling that what I'm learning is more about life experience than something I can be tested on - to give up the challenge of speaking French on a daily basis - to feel like my life is composed of two different worlds, either one of which I can retreat to when feeling bothered by the other - to leave Joelle.

I'm not ready to leave the golden light that bathes the streets of Aix in the morning - to give up my rights as a pedestrian and the ability to walk in the streets when I feel like it - to give up walking at least 3 miles a day and always walking when it's only 20 minutes away - to miss the small, family run shops, each with their specialty - to give up European public transportation that will take me to another town or country whenever I feel like it - to be charged for incoming calls on my cell phone.

I'm not ready for the nightly news to talk about foreign nations as places far, far away that we don't really understand - to see celebrities and tabloids everywhere and understand the headlines - to listen to everyone worry about being politically correct - to be a citizen worried about how my beliefs and rights are being represented instead of an outside observer able to arrive at my own opinions while feeling unaffected by the situation - to give up my French History professor as an intellectual resource.

I'm not ready to give up the ability to sit in a cafe for hours having only ordered a cup of coffee - to have Diet Coke with that American, chemical flavor - to give up French chocolate and all the varieties of dark - to give up Orangina Light - to worry about whether the yogurt has gelatin - to give up the oversized bathtub - to give up the mountains - to give up French courtesies like saying hello and goodbye to the shopkeepers and bus drivers everywhere I go - to give up the laid back lifestyle and the mentality that personal is more important than professional.

It's somewhat ironic because I've felt ready to be done with college for a long time - long before I came here. My life over the past few years has been composed of four and eight month blocks - every experience only temporary. I've been ready for awhile to settle into one place - to feel like my life was finally able to start because I could finally hold onto something. I've been ready to move on to the work world instead of feeling stuck in a world I've outgrown. I've been ready to be treated like an adult instead of a student or someone who will shortly be leaving wherever I am. And now that everything I've been and still am ready for is nearly here, I'm not ready to give this up - I want to take it all with me.

I only have four weeks left in Aix not including spring break. There's still so much I could learn here - so much more I want to do. I don't know when I'll ever have an experience like this again.

In part, it's because I have to go that I'm able to say I want to stay. If I was going to be here much past May, it would be too much - not that I wouldn't enjoy it here, but I'd feel like I was missing out at home. I think it has helped immensely that Michelle is at school this semester so that I don't feel like I'm the only one missing out on life in Houston. But it's also helped because she can sympathize with the "school life" of classes and homework and irregular schedules (not that mine is anywhere as intense as hers) and remind me of life at UM so that I still have that connection when I'm comparing classes and memories from the two schools.

The next few weeks here are going to fly by, just like the past three months have. I can't believe it's April and what have I done in all that time? When I think about it, I don't feel like this has been the life-changing experience I dreamt of when imagining studying abroad. Though, as I've discussed with friends here, it probably won't be until we get home and have the comparison to our lives before France that we'll see the real changes. But my fear right now is that I'm going to go home and be surrounded by some things that haven't changed while I've been gone and I'll go back to my way of life before I came here. I'm worried that I won't be able to keep as much of an international awareness or perspective in the States because it seems like you have to actively seek it out there.

I don't want to lose this, and yet I know that some of it will escape me over time as all experiences do. I only have two weekends left that I'll actually be in Aix - this weekend and the weekend before finals and I think it's in those free days that I'll be trying to soak it in as much as possible. I remember saying goodbye to Ann Arbor - I spent a day walking around campus after handing in my last paper and a night driving the streets long after the lights had started blinking yellow. This will probably be much the same, but the likelihood of coming back here any time soon or seeing any of the people here again is far smaller - I'll have to take the camera...