In just 46 short days, I’ll be heading off for Montreal, and
I’ll be running blindly into the utter unknown that is Québécoise culture. I
know most people blog about these types of things and make a big fuss about how
excited they are, but I’m going to do something different for this pre-pre-departure
post: I’m going to talk about what I’m truly, sincerely dreading. It’s
encouraging to start with the bad and end with the good, right? Isn’t it sort
of parallel to receiving the bad news first and then being relieved with the
good news?
MISSING HOME
I won’t lie: I’m nervous and scared to be away from home for
even a few measly weeks. It’s not exactly a secret that it’s only my mom and I at
home, and it’s also not a secret that I moved in and out of the dorms at OU
within weeks of the fall semester. I just really love my house and my dog (and
Mom, of course), and I’m a fool for comfort and for habit. I worry that my
entire lifestyle routine will be off-balance during my trip, and I worry that
I’ll emotionally be longing for home and won’t take the time to truly
appreciate my experience. I know this is completely natural and expected of a
20 year-old who still lives at home, but it’s nonetheless something that really
rattles my nerves.
BEING INADEQUATE
So, I’m also a French major, and I read, write, listen to,
and speak a lot of French. However, even though I have all these
“qualifications”, how does this fully prepare me for living and breathing
French 24/7? How will my “proper French accent” fit in with all the crazy
French Canadians? Perhaps more accurately, how will my “obvious American
accent” affect how the crazy French Canadians treat me? These pangs of anxiety
keep me up at night and make me want to obsessively study every day of my life.
GETTING LOST/MISSING MY TRAIN
This is another agony of a naturally paranoid person. I
can’t help it: I’m afraid I’ll get lost on my way to Montreal and never even
make it to my classes. I’m traveling with a group of my classmates which in
itself SHOULD make the entire ordeal easier, but there’s still a multitude of
things that could go wrong. You never know what might happen, and like most
human beings, the fear of the unknown plagues my very existence.
BEING AWKWARD
I’m typically a pretty friendly person, but I have the
character flaw of being awkward around people. I start second-guessing what I
say, worrying about what I sound like, hating the fact that I occasionally
stutter due to the previous reasons; I ultimately feel ashamed of being so
nervous and weird and feel certain that everyone hates talking to me. People hardly
are actually upset with me and I know that it’s all in my head, but these anxieties
thrown in with conducting myself in a foreign language feels like a recipe for disaster.
As depressing as this first post may be, these are some of
the things that truly make my heart sink. They’re not unique in any way; pretty
much every single person studying abroad feels like this at some point or another.
Through posting about this, I hope to release and eventually relieve these
fears, and I hope to be able to read back through them when it’s all said and
done and laugh at how pathetically paranoid I was.
My next post shall be the true pre-departure post about
packing and whatnot, and since I only went shopping once and bought about 3
pairs of capris, I am completely certain that the experience will be an
absolute nightmare. Mais c'est la vie, donc allons-y!!
