La septième semaine

Saturday 14 January = shopping day hehe. We went to Primark in the morning and I bought a green dress and top and batman pj's which are awesome. That night we also went out to someone's house for dinner which was really nice. The food was great and I had a really fun time. They had such an adorable cat which reminded me of my cats so it was obviously really cool.

Sunday - I skyped my family just to catch up which was also really cool. They are still keeping busy with their lives - Gabby was off to swim camp, Mum was doing crazy amounts of cycling and Dad got glasses (plus he had done a 66km run the day before...). It's really cool because I don't feel homesick at all - obviously I miss my family but I have a new family and new friends here which is a pretty awesome feeling and thing to be able to have.

For the rest of the week...

Monday - There was 2 classes of maths which was such fun. But the rest of the day was normal. I also got my NCEA results back which weren't too bad overall. I was happy with the majority of them but some I was pretty disappointed in.

Tuesday - I realised that the month was going by so quickly and that I was just over halfway through my exchange...this has made me realise that time really does fly by when you are having fun but it also scared me because I don't feel ready to leave in a month and a half...I will definitely make the most of it though

Wednesday - I went for my second run! It was 0ºC with ice on the side of the road and a little bit of wind...but since it was sunny I decided to go. I soon warmed up and ran for about an hour (well I was out for an hour. There may have been some walking included. Just to change the song though ;) ). It felt really nice to go out and run again for fun because in France because of school times you don't really get too much time to play sports like you do in NZ. And also because this winter is actually cold you don't want to because you would become an icicle.

I was also asked to do a presentation for Friday that was 5-10min long about New Zealand and of course, it was in french. The idea of this was very scary because my pronunciation of a lot of words is interesting...and because it is my second language and I was speaking in front of a class full of naturals.

Thursday - Had a normal day at school, finished my PowerPoint about NZ and just kept reading it over and over again. In my head, I knew I had to accept that I wouldn't be perfect and I will make mistakes BUT I also think that everyone wanted me to do well and they accepted that it is my second language so it would be hard anyway. I had never prepared a presentation in English that quickly so that was also a challenge but quite a good one.

Friday - Well I did it. It was terrible but I laughed and they laughed so I think it actually went okay. The good things are that I now think that nothing will be that scary ever again (and I also have a good speech for my french internal haha). We also went out to lunch to a place called Grec which was so nice. I had a wrap with chicken, fries and a coke. So good!

So yea, there were challenges this week but with the help and support of everyone here, they definitely didn't seem as big compared to if I was doing it alone. I am able to understand much more french now but there are still a lot of times where I just have no idea. Even though my pronunciation is a bit...meh...I am trying to speak more in french and it's good that people are speaking more french to me as well. I really do feel at home.