The 10 minute break we have between classes is pretty much a smoke break for the students & teachers With 7,600 miles between France and Hawaii, it’s no wonder the culture is so different here than back home. Let’s start with the first thing you’ll see when you come to France:
1. There are SO many people that smoke. I’ve always thought that Japan’s smoking culture was out of hand, but France is on a different level. There are people smoking every corner you turn, ever sidewalk you’re on, outside every building you try to exit – it’s endless! Even at school, especially during lunch time, I have to hold my breath and walk as quickly as possible to avoid all of the secondhand smoke. It’s surprising because French people care about their appearances tremendously, and yet they smoke – something that deteriorates your skin and health massively. 2. Speaking of appearances, every day I go to school, I feel like I’m at a fashion show. French people are SO stylish, and my French roommate informed me that if you’re not dressed well, your colleagues will judge you. 3. The “kissing-to-greet” culture still weirds me out and I don’t think I will ever get used to it. You see it in movies, but it’s a real thing! I learned in my French language class that if you don’t kiss them back, they’ll immediately think they’ve done something wrong, which will make the atmosphere verrrry awkward. It’s second nature to French people, but I still instinctively back away from people as they try to put their face close to mine whenever they meet me. 4. The French people, at least in Rennes, are friendlier than I thought they would be. Before coming to France, I always heard about French people being uptight and rude to foreigners, but I have yet to encounter a bad experience with a French native! Although there are times when workers simply tell me they do not speak English and stop communicating with me, never has it been an unpleasant experience. 5. BUT with that being said, they definitely exclude you if you are not French. In my French culture class, we learned that French people tend to stick together, and because they don’t like change, they’re unlikely to welcome a foreigner into their social circle. 6. France is very diverse. Maybe it’s just the city that I’m in, especially because it’s a student city, but there are people of many different races (mostly European and African). 7. Staring. Wow. At first, I thought I had something on my face, or my outfit was weird, or I had bedhead, or I had a stain on my shirt. But after about the 38thtime that someone stared at me on the metro, I realized that it’s just something they do. They stare. For a long time. Even when you meet eye contact with them, they continue to stare. It makes me a little uncomfortable, because I don’t know if it they’re staring in a menacing way, or a racist way, or just staring off into space, but I believe it has something to do with the fact that Asians are very rare. Moreover, because I’m half Japanese and half Chinese, I don’t scream one type of ethnicity, which I’m guessing make them stare even longer, to try and figure out what I am. 8. Going off of #7, I hardly believe this is with any racist intent, but there have been times where, before I even get a chance to speak, they assume I’m Chinese and either say “Nihao” or another Chinese greeting to me. They also slant their eyes when describing me, which I would find offensive in any other situation, but I know that they don’t think much of it.
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French Culture class was held on a Saturday because the school messed up our schedules, resulting in us having to add on another class - we went to the local markets and cathedral to learn about the culture Corporate Social Responsibility class - today was the first day of our midterm presentations We’re halfway through the semester now and I’ve learned a few things about classes at this school:
One thing this school and city are really good at is making students feel welcome. The first week, before classes even began, was filled with activities for students to participate in to get to know the school and classmates.
The Well’Come Association is in charge of all kinds of activities to help students get accustomed to life on campus. They arranged pickups at the airport and train centers for us (which was very helpful, because there’s no way I could have navigated my way to my hotel at night by myself), and hosted events such as the Saint Malo and Mont Saint Michel tour that I went on, along with other activities like a sports day, chill day, and crepe day. On September 26, the school hosted a Campus Fair, with events hosted throughout the day, with a crepe truck, magician, massages, and make-overs. The staff prepared crepes for the students, and there were games throughout the day that students could participate in, along with some raffle prizes towards the end of the day. Students could come and go as they wished, because the event lasted all day. Today, there was an International Student Welcome Dinner hosted by the Un Coeur Pour le Monde à Rennes association, which basically is a group dedicated to making students feel welcome in Rennes. They were handing out flyers on campus, and despite not knowing anyone else going, I decided to check it out. The event was very fun with a huge turnout (some people had to stand because there weren’t enough seats!), with a free fried chicken, string bean, and rice with mushroom gravy dinner provided along with homemade desserts from the volunteers. I met people from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Africa, and France, and learned about this nonprofit organization and about their free weekly events to help students get accustomed to the French culture. After my hellish experience last week, you’d think i’d learn my lesson about taking the bus system in Europe. And I did - that’s precisely why I booked another trip to Frankfurt, Germany this time - because every time I thought about traveling, I got scared and anxious that something bad would happen. And I didn’t wanna let this fear consume me and prevent me from doing something that I love to do. Despite everything I’ve had to endure, the universe really continues to test me. I got to Paris on time at 3:00pm, and explored other parts of the city, returning back to the bus stop 40 minutes before my bus was supposed to depart at 10:15pm. As the time approached 10:10, I called the emergency service (see, I called them BEFORE the departure time this time) in which the guy on the phone casually told me that it’s been cancelled, and that all passengers should have received a notification about this (which I didn't, apparently). And then you know the drill - my body became cold, my mind started to race, my breathing became shorter, but somehow I managed to keep my cool, even when he told me that there were no other busses tonight and he would not rebook my ticket, and that I had to do it manually. I hung up the phone, called my mom, and broke. down. into. tears. sobs. I can’t even think of a word that could describe how I felt at that point. I actually felt myself hitting rock bottom. The last time this happened last week, I told myself “well, at least it’s still daytime, and I’m only stuck here for four hours, not for the entire night.” and welp in a not-so-funny turn of events, that’s exactly what happened this time. I made my way to the same hotel I went to last week when I used their wifi and charging station, and as I entered the bathroom to freshen up after 20 minutes of crying, a sweet, startled girl saw me, asked what’s wrong, and when I told her everything, she helped me talk to the concierges to see what they could do. Short story short, they told me there was another bus departing in 15 minutes, so I ran my ass back to that station, just to find out that THAT bus got cancelled too. Luckily, I talked to a station worker and had her rebook me for a bus the following morning at 9am. So one problem was solved, but now came the most crucial - where do I stay, in this foreign country, for the next 10 hours? I went BACK to that hotel, hid in a corner, and cried to my sisters and mom for an hour and a half on the phone. I could feel my body slowly falling asleep but knew I’d be caught if I slept in that spot, so I figured i’d find a better place. I walked two steps, and a worker that was eyeing me out the entire time i was there, asked me what was wrong. I’d been caught. Luckily, he was there when the sweet French girl explained my situation for me, so after I told him my bus wouldn’t be departing until 9am and that I had no place to sleep AND no money (this hotel costs minimum $200 a night), he told me he couldn’t allow me to sleep in the lobby. but. There was a private meeting room in that lobby in which he directed me to, and allowed me to sleep strictly until 6am. Bless his heart, I now had a place to sleep. It was rough - cold room, lights on, music playing, people’s footsteps approaching every ten minutes, but it got the job done. And I was so mentally exhausted that I was able to fit in a few good hours of rest. Being the diligent worker he was, he promptly knocked on my door at 6:03am and told me it was time to leave. I freshened up in the bathroom and asked for one more favor - to charge my phone before I left for good. He agreed, and told me I could grab some coffee or tea, along with muffins, that were meant for the guests. There really were no words I could find to describe the appreciation and gratitude that I felt for those people that helped me throughout the toughest hours of my life. I have never encountered people and workers that had so much goodwill and honest concern for people, and although there’s nothing I can do to repay them, I hope the universe repays them on my behalf, with luck, good health, prosperity, and happiness. And like everything in my life, this turned out to be a good life lesson, and I had a huge realization after talking to a really good friend who always helps me through my roughest patches. I realized that these bad things keep happening to me because I’m trying to escape my current reality of all problems with my uncomfortable housing, never-ending visa process, and incomplete class situations, instead of buckling down and trying to make the best of it back in Rennes. It’s the universe telling me that the time for fun is after I start to enjoy my life in my own city on my own terms, and that I can’t travel to escape, I have to travel to explore. i figured this quote I saw in Amsterdam fit my situation perfectly
When you're having as rough a time as I am, you kinda just wanna escape reality for a little bit - and that's exactly what I did. There's a company called Ouibus that goes to different cities throughout Europe, and these prices are dirt cheap (my round trip was around 50 euros). I decided to go to Amsterdam for the weekend, so I left Rennes on Thursday morning, got to Paris, spent a few hours there, and caught a night bus to Amsterdam. I stayed at Wow Hostel, which was conveniently located 15 minutes by foot from the train station.
Amsterdam was a GORGEOUS city. If I could sum it up into three words, it would be canals, flowers, and bicycles, because that's literally all you see anywhere. The food was absolutely amazing - I ate street food basically throughout the two days I was there, and everything was superb. It wasn't all fun and games though: For one, the bus station in Paris is the dirtiest I've ever seen, and the bathrooms are so disgusting. I've experienced a hole-in-the-wall-no-toilet-seat-broken-door-no-toilet-paper kine bathroom in Vietnam during my AFS trip, but this was worse than that - peeing was almost an impossible feat. My bus to Amsterdam arrived an hour early, and because the sun hadn't risen yet (it was 6am lol) I was stuck at the bus station for an hour. Luckily, I met a few students from the US, and they were nice enough to let everyone use the restrooms by paying the 1 euro fee first. (Yeah. I guess Europeans don't think peeing is a human right because 93% of the bathrooms I've seen have some type of entrance fee - even in malls! it's ridiculous.) THE WORST PART. So. You know how I've been having the worst luck ever. Well. It gets worse. My bus back to Rennes from Paris, for some odd reason, didn't show up at the stop it was supposed to. Now, I am one to make sure that every single detail is correct, and because my bus got to this station an hour early as well, I had a LOT of time to make sure I was at the correct place. So, my bus wasn't at the location it was supposed to be at, but I figured it was just late (like the bus from Amsterdam to Paris). But after almost an hour at the same stop, I started majorly freaking out. I called the bus company and they told me it had already left, and by that point I was crying and on the verge of having a panic attack. The man on the phone was kind enough to re-book me for a different bus, so I now had 4 extra hours to spend in Paris. But hey, on the bright side I got to see a beautiful sunrise? ^ I made that seem a lot less terrible than it actually was, but I don't think anyone, except for my boyfriend and family, in which I called to cry to, knows how terrified I was. I was pacing back and forth, asking anyone around me if they were catching the same bus as me, my hands were cold, my heart almost dropped to my stomach, and I could feel my breathing getting shorter. While I'm going through these terrible situations, I can't help but think I'm just filled with bad luck, and that the universe is hating on me in every way that it can. But after I get over it and find a way out, I realize that the universe isn't hating on me - it's trying to make me stronger. As I look back at the many bad experiences I've encountered in the past three weeks, I'm amazed that I was actually able to power through them. There were times that I wanted to just quit everything (when I got stuck in Paris, I honestly thought about staying there and having my parents fly from Hawaii to pick me up - that's how hopeless I was) but the fact that I'm still here amazes me, because I know the Corina in 2018 would have broken down during the first housing/visa flop. The greatest realization I've made from these misfortunes, however, is that I have the strongest, best, most loving support team back home. My parents and sisters have expressed to me so many times how proud they are that I've been able to overcome these situations, and always reassure me that it's okay to quit if it means staying sane and mentally healthy. My boyfriend is always supporting me in everything, and constantly gives me the affirmation I need - and if he didn't answer the phone during my situation in Paris, I probably would have broken down. And my friends - even the ones that I never thought would reach out - are always checking up on me and encouraging me to stay positive. CLASSES:
Here is what my class schedule looks like, as of right now. I’m going to be taking five classes, but only the business classes are starting this week, while the French language and culture classes start at the end of September (because they’re less credits, I’m guessing). It's also a little strange because some classes start later than others - for example, this week, I only have my Advertising class. Next week, I have two classes, and the following week, I start my third business class. Very strange, but I guess it's good because it gives me time to get used to my life here! Registration for classes was a few months ago, and you’ll get an email from the school letting you know when it’s time to register – but beware, because it takes place during French time, I stayed up until 3am to get the classes I wanted. You register through their platform called RISE and you can download the syllabi to see what they’ll be like, before signing up for them. However, you only get your classes once you arrive at the school. This basically means that even if you sign up for a class, there’s no absolute guarantee that you’ll get in, and you can’t choose your classes based on times/dates like you can UH. I had trouble registering because it only allowed me to put in four classes into my cart, even though it indicated you could sign up for up to six. This gave me the impression that that was all I needed to transfer back the 12 credits I needed. But like everything with my trip so far, that turned out to be wrong, and I had to talk to the registrar and add on another class when I got to France. So, let me just get this straight so you don’t make the same mistake I did: CHECK. THE. CREDIT. TRANSFERS. My businesses classes count for 3 credits each in the UH system, while the French language and culture classes count for 1.5 each, giving a total of 12 UH Manoa credits (special thanks to Moana’s travel blog for helping me understand this better, she explains it really well!) HOUSING: If you’ve been keeping up with my blog or IG you’ll know that I was living an absolute nightmare this past week due to housing issues. The school partners with a very straightforward, simple to use housing platform called Studapart, where you can find a place to stay, whether it be student housing, homestay, or your own apartment. Contrary to the ease that other students from UH had finding their housing last Spring, this process was horrendous for me (but I’ll save you the sob story). I had a housing secured after two months of searching, but two days before I left, my landlord told me I wasn’t his tenant, and that it was my job to find a new home – which was near impossible at this point. I stayed at a hotel my first night, paid out of pocket, and after crying to Aurelie, the wonderful woman in charge of housing at RSB, I was able to work out something with Studapart, in which they paid for an Airbnb for me to stay at for the week while they searched for a new home. After much back & forth, they finally found me a home (although not the most ideal) in which I was able to move into today. My new home is right next to the Italie metro station, which is nine metro stations away from the school. It’s crazy far in comparison to where everyone else lives (the furthest I know is someone living three metro stops away from school). I’ll be paying 415 euros a month, which only includes rent, water, and electricity. I live with a husband and wife duo who have been hosting students for 19 years in France, and got to meet his two daughters that visit every week. I have my own room with a comfy bed, desk, and closet, and we may be welcoming another student into the home in a few weeks. |