T minus 15 days

Two very good friends are heading off to Versailles/Paris and Lyon for their Year Abroad tomorrow. Not only am I going to miss them, despite going to see them in respective cities, it has also made me realise just how close Lannion is getting. I'll be heading over there in 15 days. 15 days from now, I'll almost be arriving at Plymouth port.

On another note, it seems that preparation for the YA is intrinsically linked with spending a lot of money. In the past three days I've spent £185 on YA insurance, £50 on an apostille for my birth certificate, £12 on an ink cartridge so I can photocopy ALL the documents and £120 on flights home for Christmas. It's just a depressing amount of money and I've not even arrived on the continent. It doesn't end there though. Tomorrow, I'll be getting my eyes tested, which inevitably will mean new lenses (will probably get whole new glasses, just in case I break/lose a pair in France)...

So what have I been doing to mentally prepare myself?

Negative:

Avoiding packing and other planning/preparation.

Curling up on my bed in denial.

Positive:

Watching videos of Lannion on Youtube

Voluntarily translating an article from French to English

Going for meals with friends to say goodbyes.

I've actually forgotten where I was going with this post.

I'll go away and come back later.

A bientôt!

Living in Denial

So, I've just realised that by this time in 25 days, if everything goes to plan, I will have already arrived in France, set up a bank account and will now be going on a mini tour of my town. I keep telling myself that once I arrive and have dumped my bags, it'll be okay and I'm just worrying over nothing. Or maybe, once I've got there, set up the bank account, gone to the CAF to explain that I don't have a social security number, finally met my classes, AND made it to St. Brieuc before 9am on the training day... just then, and only then, might I start to feel calmer.

As I'm sure you've caught on by now, I've already started applying for housing benefit (now on referred to as CAF - Caisse d'Allocations Familliales), even though we were told in the Year Abroad talks that we couldn't apply until about a month after we arrived. This is technically true, but my landlord was insisting that I started now as it's the date of application which counts. So what I've had to do is tell them everything I could and then at the end of October, just update them, which is apparently easier and quicker than starting from the beginning.

I've read many a time that French bureaucracy is enough to put anyone off from moving to France, either temporarily or not. So far, I have to say I've not found it too horrific, I've just photocopied every single piece of identification and information and sent it to the CAF. The only trouble I have come across is cultural differences. I was asked for a Social Security number, and as we don't have that over here, I left it blank. After I posted the entire form to my landlord so he could complete his part, he started asking me about this number. At the time, the only thing I could think of that might have been similar was my National Insurance number, so gave him that, along with a rough outline of what NI does. He then replied to me explaining exactly what Social Security is, which is when I realised that my EHIC would be the closest information I could give. After describing the NHS and the EHIC card, he wrote all the numbers on the form, just in case. I'd like to think that I survived that discussion rather well.

This success doesn't stop me from living in denial though. I was thinking the other day about the aspects which scare me the most about the next 9 months or so. This is what I've come up with and I'll try to put them in some sort of order.

Not being good enough to teach: This is definitely my number one worry. I'm going to have to stand up in front of a classroom full of teenagers and come up with something relatively entertaining for an hour, every week. I realise that planning is key for this, and planning I will do, but what if I plan the wrong things?

Being faced with a constant wall of silence: Linked to the previous one, what if my lesson plans are okay, but the kids are just really stubborn and don't care about what I've prepared? What if they strike and just refuse to participate?

Living with two guys: Not a major worry, but it certainly exists. I didn't really think that it could have been a possiblilty. It's certainly going to be different from having an ensuite for the last two years!

The language barrier: You might have thought that I would have placed this higher. Don't get me wrong, I'm worried about how my spoken French will go and how there'll be cultural clashes with humour, but the teaching anxiety is huge. Maybe I should have applied to university...

Packing: How, just how, do you fit your life into a suitcase and a rucksack? I don't have any luggage restrictions per se, just whatever I can carry. Considering I needed a van to move out of my flat in Leeds (read bedroom and part of kitchen), I think I may struggle.

And finally, a trivial worry, just to make the others seem more important, the cobbles and the hills: As I get older, (I know, I'm not even 21 yet) I consider more seriously that I may naturally have bad feet. Bad in the way that they hurt if I'm stood up too long, if I walk too far, or if I walk on uneven ground. At first, I thought I was just being pathetic, but it's something I'm starting to look into and if it doesn't improve over the next year, I'll be mentioning it to my doctor when I return to Leeds.

Am I excited yet?

I'm currently trying to determine whether excitement has surpassed my anxiety yet. 

Deep down, I know the answer is no; don't be ridiculous, I'm always going to be anxious about it, each new day will bring new experiences to me. But maybe my anxiousness is reaching a manageable level... 

Over the past few days I've done a few things to bring me that tiny bit more closer to my Year Abroad. I've returned forms to the CAF, sent a letter to the Principal of the college because I believe he didn't receive my email (or ignored it...), talked to one of my housemates, who'll sadly be leaving at the end of September and read a blog from an American girl who was an assistant in the same school as I will be. Certainly some interesting things to bear in mind from reading it...

My last post talked about the nightmarish journey I was preparing myself to have on 3 French trains, however, it turns out that someone, probably my housemate, will be coming to find me at the port. Roscoff is roughly 70km from Lannion, which by car, can be reached in just over an hour. My landlord suggested that, instead of getting all the trains which meant I wouldn't arrive in Lannion until lunchtime, someone will pick me up - then I'll have time to open the bank account that morning. 

What?

I'm sorry... you actually expect me to be awake and coherent enough to be able to open a bank account, in French? On verra.

******************************************************

It's just come to my attention that I've not really told you, the readers, about the school in which I'll be working. So I feel that now is a prime opportunity. I'll be working in a lycée, called Félix Le Dantec, which is like a college here where we would take GCSEs (for how much longer?) and A-levels. Over in France, students take the baccalauréat comprised of varying subjects and pathways. Le Dantec is a polyvalent college which basically means that it is multidisciplinary. 

As I'm sure you've guessed, the college is named after Félix-Alexandre le Dantec, who, according to Wikipédia, was a French biologist and philosopher who died of tuberculosis in 1917. I don't recognise any of his works, but he liked to write about Darwinism and other theories like that. For those of you who can read French, you can read this Wiki page or if you can't, you'll have to live as I can't find an English Wiki page on him. Time for a photo or two to round off, I think:

Roll on, Roscoff!

So, I finally decided to take a ferry from Plymouth as the method of travel to get me to the Hexagone. Annoyingly, the ferry doesn't leave until 11pm on Sept 14th, unlike the 8pm one from Portsmouth, but I've booked it. Following my arrival in Roscoff, I'll need to get a bus to Morlaix, and a train to Lannion with a change in Guingamp, all with big bags of luggage. Cannot wait.

Including today, I leave for France in 36 days. It's so scary. I've said my final goodbyes to Leeds and won't be returning there until Sept 2013. It's so weird to think that. I was meant to be writing about a few things in this post, but I appear to have forgotten most of them.

It's been mentioned that it might be a good idea to take a small gift of 'English' things for my responsables as a thank-you for the work they're going to be doing with us and the support we'll be getting. So far, I have some London themed stickers and not sure what else to get. Tea and biscuits, maybe?

Things that have made me feel a bit more positive about the whole experience are that I've found a LGBT-H association in the town which I think is slightly like a union to join but also runs events and stuff. Yes, because that was coherent... There is also a gay friendly bar and coffee shop 8 minutes walk away from my house. So I think, as long as the house is all legit, things should go okay.

My memory escapes me.

This will do for now.