Student Essay
Each student has a unique and individual experience on their Experiment program. The following essay is a single glimpse into a program from one student's perspective.
Erica Ballester -- A Festival of Theater (FRTH)
France will always be a part of my heart. My third day in France we sat at a café on Rue Moufftard. We began a conversation with the man seated to my right. We spoke for several minutes. The impression he left upon us was unforgettable that day. We felt his love for Paris (as a German immigrant studying Greek) infectious and soon we were as hooked as he. I found a bit of myself reflected in his light blue eyes and I wonder if he saw a bit of himself in me. One day, I think, I will be seated at a café somewhere in Paris, and I too will rave about the beauty and the soothing rhythm of French life to young American tourists. Or perhaps it is just the rush of having experienced something completely different and new and knowing of the many possibilities available to me.
I imagine myself looking back at this summer many years from now and looking at France as a turning point in my life. At this point in my life, at my age, I believe it is time for change. I have been one person for a while and now it is time to shed that skin and begin to form the person I will be the, dare I say, adult. I believe France gave me a good idea of what kind of life I would like to live when I become that person or while I am in the process. The culture I experienced was a more romantic one, one that, to me, makes much more sense than the one most lead in the United States. In this country they teach philosophy to high school students. A student’s knowledge in grammar, philosophy, history and a foreign language will decide whether they attend college. In the states we are taught that a bit of grammar, the ability to write a coherent essay in 20 minutes, and math will guarantee you a successful future. When I explained the SAT to my host brother, Cedric, he could not understand why we needed math. Why is math and science so important in our society? The answer is why many young Americans choose the career fields they choose: money. This is not to say that money is not as important in France. Money makes the entire world go round, but it is not instilled in students mind. They are not trained, they are taught. That is the difference. So if they choose profit over passion, it is their choice or their parents’ but not the government, not society.
Food, a very important component of French culture, is definitely one of the reasons I will relocate. It is not only the excellent cheeses, breads, yogurts, and wines but the rhythm of the meal itself. The order in which I ate at my homestay was very different from the one in which I eat at home. At home it is a quick pounding of a drum. In France it is a few slow strums of a guitar. First came the "entrée" or either melon or tomatoes in olive oil. Then we ate the "plat principal" of a meat with vegetables. After we’d finished our meal and perhaps even our dinner table conversation, yogurt, cheeses or pastries would be served to end the meal. Then we would sit to let our meal digest, not that it was large. I never felt incredibly full, only satisfied. The portions were just enough to satisfy one’s hunger. The order of the meal is something I greatly miss now that I’ve returned, though I have tried to bring that back with me and replicate it in my own way.
The most exciting and challenging part of my experience was communication. I found at times I could not follow (especially my very first night at the homestay) but that was the challenge. I found it fun to attempt to decipher simple chit chat. My host father would be shooting the breeze with a neighbor of his and I would sit around trying to translate it and find similar expressions in English. Some of my favorite French expressions are "pour faire jolie" (everywhere you go in France there are streets, monuments and fountains whose sole purpose is to be pretty), "c’est pas grave" and "c’est pas la peine".
I will admit I cheated from time to time. I spoke English a bit too much, my host brother made sure to point it out to me. Next time, though, I will not use English as a crutch. I believe I could have learned more had I not used it when I found French too difficult. What I learned most in French was the rhythm of the language. I have also become more comfortable speaking the language. I now know I can communicate much more than the weather in French. My host brother and I discussed politics and differences in culture often, and I found I could communicate my thoughts, perhaps not as eloquently as I might in English, but I got my point across.
The French communication was one achievement, but the other was that with my fellow Experimenters. It is not only a difference in culture we must learn to accept and learn from but the difference in people. Fifteen American teenagers, though all very different from one another, learned to cooperate with each other and live together for two weeks. We formed friendships not only with our host families but with each other. This was an incredible accomplishment for me. I have been told that it takes me a while to warm up to people. I can sometimes shut new people out. In this experiment this summer, I found myself very open with the people around me. I was my own silly self in Paris with the Experimenters and I was sharing thoughts and ideas with my host brother, voicing opinions I have never shared with even my closest friends. I was sharing myself with strangers—a new experience for me. Perhaps it was easier because I realized I had to like these people because I would see them every second of every day for a month or perhaps because I felt we were all in it together.
I am thankful for this experience and for everyone that made it possible for me to have accomplished it. Ultimately it was a lovely experience where I learned a lot about a very different lifestyle and about myself. This essay cannot truly capture my experience. I tried to paraphrase my travel journal but it is as thick as a short novel, perhaps one day I will publish it to reveal the true experience of an Experimenter.
