You're Welcome

I decided today that I was going to keep a blog about my study abroad experience. You lucky people.

I'm leaving for Paris in a little over a month, but I would say my study abroad "experience" started about March when I decided that I wanted to participate in the program. I've been hesitant to say the least, and I only recently decided for sure that I would be going for the summer. So recently in fact that I received an ultimatum e-mail from API, the program that I will be studying through, a few days ago stating that I need to pay them or they were going to take me out of the program, and in fact, I still need to send out my paperwork.

I think that most people would think that I am crazy for not jumping at the opportunity to go to Paris, since my schedule and finances allow for it. But the experience has not been an easy one so far. The program has been disorganized so far, and I'm still not totally sure what's going on. Every time I try to get information from the study abroad office, they give me information about the culture. I'm not worried about the culture. I'm worried about getting there at all with the mountains of paperwork. My parents have been less than helpful throughout this experience as well. My dad mostly just asks a lot of questions that I have already answered, and my mom's contribution is that she is trying to find a reasonably priced round trip plane ticket to France so that she can come visit me.

Basically, I came into this experience with no passport, no clue, and no guidance, and now, I have a passport.

One of the more recent twists that I found out from the ever-reliable API is that even though I am requesting a dorm room, I probably will not get one. This is because they have reserved 10 dorm rooms for 50+ applicants. The rest (me included, because as I said I have not handed in my paperwork and I just paid them yesterday) will be staying with host families throughout Paris. Luckily the program manager casually mentioned this to my father during one conversation that I'm sure involved a lot of questions from him, otherwise I would be very surprised and annoyed when my housing placement was not in a dorm as I expected. Unfortunately for API, they still have 39 other people who are about to be very irritated.

Needless to say, my study abroad experience has not been a positive one so far. People keep saying that study abroad is an experience I will never forget. That I will be forever grateful that I took the opportunity to go to Paris while I was in college. That I will have the time of my life and it will change me as a person. But so far I feel like I'm being dumped in a foreign country where I barely speak the language despite a long and painful career in French classes, and at this point I don't care if it's life-changing, I just want to make it home alive.