Countdown to France: T minus 23 days

This blog was created to document my time in France, and yet, in spite of this I find myself updating it while I am still in America. So I'm cheating a bit, I'm thumbing my nose at convention, I'm maneuvering around the system - a common practice in France according to a book I have recently been assigned. Therefore, I'm merely facing culture shock dead on by accustoming myself to common French practices.

Admittedly, these pre-departure updates are perhaps more self-contradictory and less rebellious than I would like to imagine. In my opinion, self-contradiction has earned itself a very negative connotation, so to lessen the hypocrisy of my present updates (and all future updates until I arrive in France), I am going to slap an official label on them to lend them some credibility. They will from here on out be called "Countdown to France: T minus _____ days." Yes, there is a subtitle. It's common knowledge that any official title must have a subtitle to clarify and legitimize, otherwise it would be child's play and taken seriously by only those who know no better.

After that extremely long and excusatory introduction, I am finally getting to the true purpose of my post. I received an email several weeks ago written by my host mother introducing the family. She begins the letter with a brief description of where the family originates, her husband's profession, and that she is a mère au foyer, or a house wife. This is no wonder considering her next statement that they have 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls. Yes, eight children ranging in age from 26 to 12. This caught me off guard - all my friends who have studied abroad had host families consisting of usually a single mother with a fully grown child. Rarely have I heard of multiple children, let alone eight.

I'm thrilled to live with such a large family, and cannot begin to imagine what life will be like. I grew up in a family of four: my two parents and my "little" brother. The closest I have ever come to experiencing large families is Thanksgiving at my aunt's house. My extended family is rather large, but my aunt's is even larger, and when she hosts Thanksgiving the noise and numbers have a tendency to astound and even overwhelm new additions to the family.

I don't see my limited exposure to large families as any greater a challenge than complete submersion in a foreign culture. So much will be different, what is one more thing? Right? Well, I guess we'll see in 23 days.

Here goes nothing

Considering my past history with Diarys, Journals, and all other non-academic writing endeavors, it's remarkable I am under the impression I will succeed at regular blog posts. Some may call me delusional but I prefer "optimistically naive" (if that's an improvement). Yet despite the odds, I have decided to join the ranks and create a blog of my own.

For the time being, I will make the bold assumption that I know everyone reading this - for the time being, because I intend to create a cult following and I cannot expect to personally know everyone avidly reading this blog. But until then, I'll write for friends and family. Having said this, I still feel obligated to give a brief description of myself, what's going on in my life, and why on earth my blog is named Nothing "Toulouse." So if you will excuse the cheesiness of what I am about to say, let's start at the start.

I was born May 31, 1985 in Houston, TX to my loving, if not slightly crazy parents. Now flash forward 23 years. I'm a 4.5 year senior at A&M where I've spent the last several years studying History and English. I love both of these fields, but perhaps only slightly more than I love telling people I've majored in them. I've found over the years I get one of three responses when I tell people what I study: (1) The appalled "I just had a flashback of my high school history teacher and her monotone voice," (2) The "History, huh? Well, you must know all about [insert obscure history reference featured on the history channel last week], or (3) History/English? I love History/English! I wish I had majored in that.

Regardless of the initial response, everyone always follows with the "So what are you going to do with that? Be a librarian (teacher, lawyer, etc)?" Admittedly, this is a perfectly legitimate question. It isn't like my majors have predestined my career, or even allow for an easy assumption. So with that, let's transition to the "what's going on in my life." For the next several years (and I mean several) I hope to study French history in grad school, but to do that I have to speak French. I didn't make the logical jump between studying French history and understanding the French language until rather late in the game. That means I have to learn French pretty quickly, and the best way to do that is to live in France. So that's the plan. On August 23 I'm getting on a plane and flying to France to study abroad for the semester before coming home to graduate. I know, I know, life can be pretty hard sometimes.

So now to explain the blog title. I'll live in a city in southwest France called Toulouse, which is more or less pronounced to loose. Get it? Nothing "Toulouse," Nothing to loose...? OK, stop rolling your eyes, it's funny and you know it.