Is this even real?

In the misery of summer quarter I am counting down the days till departure, today marks 37 days till take off. This makes my first trip outside the U.S and my first study abroad, which makes it all the more exciting. Throughout the day, I must look a bit crazy for thinking out loud and practicing my beginner level french. My mother would give me nicknames all the time, one of them being: “mon petit chou” which translates to “little cabbage” or “sweetheart”. During the day I am a part time barista so my customers have been helpful with small phrases, that as well as recommending some places that they think I’ll like to eat at.

What are my current thoughts? Well I still have not been able to fully digest the thought of me being in an entirely new country, despite that the day is coming sooner and sooner, I know that it won’t hit me until I have my first bite of a fresh baguette and a sip of an espresso. I think about what I want out of this experience, I want to be able to leave with a better grasp of how art played a role in Lyon and it’s continuation of how it shapes and is shaped by society. I want to be able to build parallels between America’s context of “good design” and cultural awareness to France’s approach and the history that trails behind it.

There is still a small part of me (that probably stems from my parents) that wants to be on ‘tourist mode’ and visit the must see places and take as many photos as I can. Yet, a bigger part of me knows that this isn’t what I truly want. I want to be intentional on the things that I do and the photos I may take, I found a quote that stuck with me in “On photography” by Susan Sontag:
“to take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability, precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” (pg. 11)
I find that it is quite easy to lose myself in her stream of thoughts that perfectly capture concepts I couldn’t describe myself.

To wrap this up, I am curious on what my classmates pre-departure thoughts and what they want to take away from this experience. I am sure we are all sharing the same level of excitement with a touch of jitters (maybe just me).

Until then, Au revoir!