Well, I'm officially off the clock as an English assistant here in France. My contract ended April 30th, and I've been traveling since May 6th. Don't know where the time has gone. A lot has happened since the February vacation. I never finished posting about Germany or Prague, or even wrote about my April vacations and now I have these May ones to catch you all up on. I have like 5 posts about French culture that I never finished. But that's going to have to wait a little longer. These last three weeks since the April vacation have been insanely crazy and I feel like I haven't had a second to breathe. I've been trying to breathe in a little bit of everything around me before it's too late. Somehow it's already too late.
Since the April vacation that ended the 18th-ish, I had two weeks of work, working on some stuff for my upcoming internship, numerous last dinners/lunches, goodbyes with my students, goodbyes with my colleagues and new friends, a vacation to Bordeaux and another one to Barcelona. I just feel like I've been running on a treadmill at full speed for three weeks, sleeping like I used to in college in order to get everyone and everything in. But that's okay, because the fatigue will pass.
These last few weeks I've felt really homesick, and I'm not sure why. It's not terrible but just makes me wanna go home for the first time in a while. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I know the end is near. Riding in the taxi in Bordeaux and the Bee Gees playing at 5:30 am in the bus in Barcelona makes me think of road trips with my family and dancing at the family BBQs. Also, for those of you who know Kiki, she is not doing too well and may have to be put to sleep so that's one more thing making me homesick.
I think we, the assistants, have all been readying ourselves for the move back for a while. I will miss everyone and everything. I'm a sappy sentimental, what can I say. I write little poems about Toulon. It's wiggled its way into my heart, somehow. I've been looking back at the pictures of me and other assistants throughout this year and from my first vacation with Emilia, Charlotte and Becca and from when we went to the rugby game and Australia Day when I got stuck in the bathroom. It makes me twinge a little with sadness, but then I make myself look back on it as if I am in California, through the scope of a few months. I feel myself putting it at a bit of a distance so that it is easier to say goodbye. Luckily, I still have a few brief moments left and I'm going to relish them as best I can.
I plan to write a goodbye to Toulon in my last few days here, like I did in Lyon. I'm not done with you yet Toulon! Keep reading....I promise I'll fill in all the blanks....eventually.
