Wednesday, July 06, 2005

To exchange or not? 

I'm thinking about going on exchange in Semester 2 of next year. Point/counterpoint:

-may remotivate me with French since am in total cruise mode now. BUT may also make me hate French forever. Also, do I even want to go to France? Been there twice already. I want to go to somewhere where I can like lose my innocence and come of age and have cool multilingual Euro friends like in l'Auberge Espagnole*. Yup.
-academically sorta useless since am not pursuing future French studies, most probably
-very expensive: min $10k/sem! though government loan of $5k is possible
-freeeedom from mother: may actually make me grow up and try this whole being an independent adult thing people keep telling me about. BUT may just end up living on packet noodles and getting pimply. Also, totally unprepared for independence
-when else am I gonna be able to live in Paris?
-when else am I gonna be able to attend a world-class uni (Sciences-Po: GRANDE ECOLE, omfg)? BUT that might also kill me, what with nerdy competition and being in FRENCH and already sorta dying in third-class bogan Australian uni already (sorry USyd, but it's true, on a global level at least)
-may improve my French. However, my French is very resistant to improvement since I've been resting on laurels since Year 12.
-am shithouse at making friends in English already, how much worse will it be in French? (cue violins...now)
-bureaucracy, references, visas, accomodation, loans. agh.
-and look:
"Niveau de français

Le Programme international n'est pas un programme d'apprentissage du français ; il suppose un usage courant de la langue française qui permette de suivre un cours, de prendre des notes, d'intervenir oralement de façon à être compris de tous, de rédiger des devoirs et des examens. Cette maîtrise de la langue doit être acquise avant le départ en France, même si le stage d'intégration et les conférences de français permettent des améliorations parfois spectaculaires en cours d'année."

AAAAGGHH. I can't even intervenir oralement de façon à être compris de tous in English!


*Poupees Russes is out in France! Hurry up and come over to Australia already, damnit.

# posted at 11:45 pm

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