Pour Commencer

To Begin~  Summer of 2008, I lived a dream.  Inspired by an excellent kindergarten teacher to learn French and travel, I began my preparations for a journey to the francophone world in 8th grade, when I enrolled in French I.  Each French teacher I had shared tidbits of the language and how to learn and live it, and then I graduated high school and traveled from Paris to the Loire River Valley to Nice and Monaco with a small group of students my age and younger.  
     Reveling in the place and language, I lived the words of Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, Eat Pray Love (p. 38- altered slightly to French and France rather than Italian and Rome):
"It's kind of a fairyland of language for me here... It's like somebody invented a [country] just to suit my specifications, where everyone... speaks this magical language.  It's like the whole society is conspiring to teach me [French].  They'll even print their newspapers in [French] while I'm here; they don't mind!  They have bookstores here that only sell books written in [French]!"
    Indeed, those nine days seemed to be the best days of my life.  But like most such dreams, living one inspires another.  Then I discovered the wonders of university life.  Freshman year, I took a class that offered correspondence with university students in Troyes, France and a French exchange during second semester.  We emailed, video chatted, and instant messaged, and then we had the exchange, where we crossed oceans of water and understanding.

      But less than two weeks is not enough time.  I am ready for more, and this year, I will challenge myself beyond any short tour or exchange.  I will write English for this blog, which will be my principal communication with those of you who I will leave behind, but I will throw myself into a world where I do not fully understand the language (or anything else for that matter).  In the fall semester, I will stay with a family in Rennes, France, and study language, literature, and culture, and in the spring, coupling my (hopefully) much improved grasp of French with my interest in medicine and the developing world, I will participate in a program themed "global health and gender studies" in Bamako, Mali.
     A conversation with an old friend recently re-emphasized that I am anything but alone in looking forward more than I ever have before.  We, now upperclassmen in college, are seriously pondering the rest of our lives.  We want more continuity and consistency than we ever have before.  Even more than seeking these qualities in our environment, it is imperative that we find them in ourselves.  This year will foster my flexibility and adaptability, but I will be constantly seeking.  I am the girl who always wanted to be a doctor and is now considering what else I will add, if anything...seminary?  public health?  teaching?  What better way to discover one's vocation in full than to throw oneself into a world where all of the variables change and to find what is constant within that self?  Travel with me.