7 Weeks To Go – HOW ?!?!

Me and Biljana, a Serbian long-term volunteer

So once again I managed to leave it 3 weeks in between posts … apparently I’m not the greatest at keeping on top of this blog malarkey !!! Hahaha… But yeah … It feels like lots has happened in those 3 weeks and I’ve had a lot on my mind.  It’s quite strange really… I’ve changed my mind about my next steps after this project around a million times and I seem to keep changing it.  I’m slowly building longer term ideas in my head, but in the short term … Pick a country !? As my mum said yesterday; “Rebekah, it feels like you want to travel and Au Pair to avoid full-time working life and settling down” … Heck yes !!! Abso-blooming-lutely! After further reflection, she then went on to say “But then again, if you don’t do it now whilst you’re young, then you may never” … My point exactly :-D Now is the time to discover new countries and cultures, meet new people, broaden my horizons … I can’t say enough positive things about how “Youth in Action” has really helped me start in this process!  But regardless of this, I have finally decided to go back to England at the end of November to decide what I truly want to do.  No harm in giving myself that little bit of time !!!

Apparently, this very confused phase is normal for volunteers.  I have found that I’ve become very attached to Lille and have been fighting between my head or heart about whether I want to stay here after my project or go home.  It has meant that I have had to do a lot of thinking, but it has made me realise that I have a lot more opportunities in my life than I did 4 and a half months ago.

Yves had a good dance at the Turkish night !

There has been plenty to do here in Lille in the past 3 weeks.  For example, 2 weeks ago 2 Turkish short term volunteers with “Service Civique Internationale” (another local organisation that hosts and sends volunteers with EVS) hosted a Turkish evening (fr: une soirée).  Me and the Boss Yves went along and it was great fun.  We all talked, watched presentations about Turkey, ate a feast (!) of Turkish food, drank Turkish spirits and finally did Turkish line dancing.  I certainly slept well that night ! It’s making me hungry thinking about it.

 

Some Turkish Line Dancing !!!

Everyone at the Turkish evening chatting and eating

Presentations about Turkey

Turkish volunteers giving speeches (basically saying thank you)

As well as parties like this one, I also went to a small soul concert last Friday where there was a live bands with musicians and a singer … It was such a nice evening with a good bit of dancing too (and a few beers…).  And of course you can’t forget the dancing Salsa that I do fairly regularly … I may even try a new type of dancing this week hehe … Gotta love dancing !

One of the soul bands

Last week I also started my French evening classes to try and brush up a bit more.  I was so surprised in the advanced class that the teacher said I use a lot of familiar slang language, which is fine for communicating but not so much for exams … Oh well eh, I don’t plan on doing exams too soon ;-) I found that the intermediate class wasn’t a challenge at all but I will give it another go this week and see whether or not I can benefit from it.

With Eszter, a Hungarian Long Term volunteer

I have also recently started English workshops in my project with a whole new group of young people (I don’t know if I mentioned that in my last blog).  I now have in action 3 different workshops, for beginner, intermediate and advanced, which is great.  All the activities I am doing are mainly based on conversation practise and some listening (usually in the form of gap fills in song lyrics or watching scenes from programmes or movies).  I had a great class with the entire group of Leonardo volunteers last week who are due to leave the 5^th November for projects in Italy and Ireland. 

During the class we were discussing stereotypes and there were definitely certain stereotypes that arose regarding differences between England and France.  One of the true or false statements was “The British are not very passionate lovers”. LOL.  Well that started an interesting conversation.  I was asked questions about this statement and I explained from my experience that British are not so demonstrative of intimacy in public as the French (who I have seen on top of each other embracing .. fully clothed… in the park on many an occasion).  I explained that British are probably less likely to full-on snog (!) in public, to which one of the guys in the group replied “Ohhh so they are just hotter in their own homes” repeated a few times… It went from bad to worse, with a lot of laughs and my BRIGHT RED face hahaha.  They were then very interested to have my take on this statement hehe. Can I just reiterate, everyone in my workshops is around my age so we relate well to each other !

I actually just had a workshop for the intermediates yesterday afternoon, but unfortunately only one person turned up.  She is due to leave for a long term EVS project in February and it was great to have a one on one session actually.  At the first workshop she was very quiet with little confidence to speak up.  After an hour and a half today, she was really starting to make an effort to express herself in English and had shown great progress so I’m very happy!

Fun in the park last weekend (I didn't know these guys haha)

Me in the zoo ... I'd planned on doing exercise ;-)

Now I’m gonna head off … It's Tuesday morning and we have preparation today for a forum tomorrow.  I also have 3 more 2 hour workshops this week, which I need to ensure I'm fully prepared for.  I’ve got a lot to look forward to during my final few weeks on my project.  As well as within the project where I will be helping prepare the new group of volunteers as well as possibly helping on the project to open a Facebook page, I will go to London next weekend to see friends and family.  After that I have my only remaining free weekend when I may go to Belgium.  My weekends are then accupied by my parents coming to Lille, Noel visiting, going to Paris, Amie visiting and voilà … C’est fini !!! How time flies when you’re having fun !!!