The Adjustment :: L'Ajustement

I'd say that I can adapt pretty quickly to new situations.  Except, that's different from getting used to it.  I adapted when I realized that it's way colder here than I expected (it didn't click for me that when my host mother said -10°, she meant in Celsius), and bought more clothes (expensive as they are).

Though I've noticed that now I'm used to France.  I walk down the stairs in the dark without fearing for my neck, and I can tell who's going up and down the stairs by how they walk.  I say that, but one time at school I slipped down the stairs, for like, three steps.

if they were just a LITTLE bit more slick...

I can type on the French keyboards as quickly as I can type on American keyboards.  I'm sure most of that is because of the blog, but I type faster than some of my friends here too!  Day 24: can type fluently...now if I could only speak.

I have to have a baguette with dinner.  I can't fathom not having a baguette anymore.  Going through many baguettes in a day (as many as seven!) is normal now, though remember that with me, there's six people in my host family to eat them.  You can understand why Marie Antoinette pissed everyone off.

it's not enough!

I memorized my school schedule, despite it's utter lack of normality.  I didn't explain it before, but there were so many wrinkles that I had to smooth out.  Other students take another language after English.  I was so hyped up to take Russian, but the other students have taken it for three years, and me, well-zero, so....no.  Other students get only one elective.  I managed to get two, Math and Art.  I also tag along with my friends for their Dance and Spanish classes each week.  

I can read the flowery handwriting of my friends, even the chicken scratch of my teachers.  I understand the abbreviations everyone uses.  For some certain four letter words, French people will just take out the middle two letters; sont becomes st and avec becomes ac.  Words that end in -ion, like addition or extension, are changed into addit° or extend°.  Words that end in -ment, like development become develop(tiny t like the degree sign).

MDR = mort de rire = (literally) dying of laughter = DOL?

I'm writing like French people.  In cursive.  My Ss look like teeny tiny triangles.  My Xs look like an S next to a C.  My 9s looks like Gs.  My 1s look likes 7s.  I've just stopped mixing the two up and bombing math tests as a result.

I can comprehend dates slightly quicker than before.  It doesn't help that the numbers are all crazy.  Whenever the teacher says "in 1893", it's not eighteen ninety-three.  Oh no, it's one thousand, eight hundred (totally fine, blah blah blah) four twenty thirteen.

I'm used to the crazy number system, which is Napoleon's fault, by the way, he wanted a system that spies wouldn't have been able to understand, and the writing, and the stairs.  I've started thinking in French (ooh la la look at me, la francophone-y), but now everyone is asking me if I'm dreaming in French.

the language isn't what's concerning me at the moment