How to be Sick in France: A Novel

Disclaimer: This post includes the retellings of the trials of study abroad. If you do not in fact wish to essentially read an angsty 16-yearold’s diary, please feel free to skip this post!

Well, it was bound to happen some time. As I am a mere mortal - and on top of that, the opposite of a germaphobe, perhaps a "germaphile"? - it was just a matter of time before I ran into the trial of sickness in France. Don't worry, I won't bog you down with the agonizing details of my illness (luckily for me, it was only a little head cold with body aches and a bit of nausea) but I will bog you down with a wonderful little analysis of how an illness during study abroad can mess with your head. How? Well, I'm happy you asked.

Fortunately for me, my sickness was for the most part benign and succinct (I was only sick for 1 day). This meant that:

1. I didn't have to go see a doctor (though my host family offered to take me if I didn't feel better the next day)
2. I was able to use my usual medicine and therefore didn't have to test-run new ones (which, if you don't know me, is the worst! I am allergic to soooo many medications it's ridiculous)
3. I was able to 'enjoy' the few perks of being sick ie. free time, naps, simple foods, and English books.

However, despite the overall benevolence of my malady (that's right, I rediscovered the online thesaurus, prepare for some misused frilly words!) these 24 hours of illness were basically my personal equivalent to Dante's Inferno. Don't get me wrong, living on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apples and toast) isn't that bad, especially when the toast is made from fancy French bread. Sitting around all day reading Pride and Prejudice and vegging about on my computer wasn't too bad either. But there was one ordeal that I never saw coming:

Over-analysis of my life in France

Yep. This quaint phenomenon hit me like a bag of lead potatoes in the bread-basket (In case you were not aware, the 'bread-basket' is a small town word used to describe the upper abdomen, more specifically the stomachular region. And yes, I know stomachular is not a word). So, long story short (well, actually still pretty long) over the course of 1 day I had about 5,000 existential crises featured around my time here in France and my apparent failure to succeed thus-far. Here are just a few of the topics that my illness-clogged brain dwelled upon:

1. "I've squandered my last few weeks! I've been here 2 whole months and I'm nowhere near to fluent!" Of course, this is not true. I know for a fact that these last 2 months haven't been for nothing. I'm light-years ahead of January me. I can hold normal conversations now, participate in class, and even joke a bit. Even just looking back on my earlier posts is proof of how much growth I've seen in these last 2 months. But all the same, it is a constant worry of mine that I am not using my time in France to it's fullst. On a similar note...
2. "There's not enough time left! Oh my goodness I only have 3 months left! How will I ever learn enough French in this time?" This is one of my biggest fears, that I never really addressed before yesterday. You always hear about exchange students looking at the calendar and breaking down about how much time they have left. But usually, these students are worried because they think there's too much time left, whereas I am freaking out about how little time I have left. Maybe it's because I am here for 5 months, rather than a year, but I am constantly worried that I won't have time to learn the language as well as I wish to. I can't say that I have remedied this fear.
3. "I have no friends!" This was probably the most prevalent of all my study-abroad-crises. Looking back (haha this was one day ago... How I have grown since then!) I can see that there were many factors leading up to this crisis.
1. I had just spoken with my extremely outgoing, genius friend who is also partaking in a semester abroad. After only one week, she has made tons of friends and has made plans with them that I, after 2 months, cannot even imagine planning. I knew she would do well on study abroad, and even warned myself not to compare myself to her, but nevertheless I did. I suppose I wasn't prepared to so feel so completely... Unsuccessful? Shown up? I don't know. It's an awful thing when other people's success makes you feel bad about yourself, but it's just one of trials that comes along with studying abroad. It doesn't matter how hard you try not to, when you speak with another study abroad student, you inadvertently compare yourselves to them. This only results in you feeling bad (either for yourself, or for the other person and their bad experiences), and you have to work through it.
2.  I'm on winter break right now, which means organized interactions (school etc.) with my friends are off. Because it's vacation, many of my friends are also out of town (some are in Norway, some ironically in the USA, and some just seem to be busy). Basically, I have not been able to hang out with any of my friends from Hédé or Combourg. This isolation from my friends added to my feeling of friendlessness. The truth is that I do have friends, but, as would be expected, my connections with them (as opposed to my connections to friends back home or from CIEE) are not as strong due to the language barrier, leaving me open for doubt. However, now that I realize how the deepness of my friendships affect me, I can now start working even harder to deepen them.

And there you have it. A nice, clean summary of my study-abroad-crises! Honestly, I'm glad that I was only sick for  a day because, though I was expertly counseled via email and Facebook chat, I don't think I could have handled two days of endless analysis of my time here. The thing about study abroad is that you have to live in the moment, and make the best of every minute - and that's hard to do when you're stuck in bed with nothing but toast and Jane Austen (and oh yeah, a caring host family!) to keep you company. As I have proved, the average study-abroad-student's head might very well explode if given too much time to meditate on their progress. Thankfully, not only am I feeling better, I have also come to terms with most of my crises. Thought the problems they pose may vary, their solutions remain the same: I have to make the best of my time here, both by learning and simply living! Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go speak some incredibly amateur (though progressing) French with my host family!