I’ve been putting off writing this blog post because the past few weeks have been hard for me – Hard, with a capital H. I wish I could say that I’m writing it now because things are beginning to look up or because I finally feel like I have a good grasp on everything that’s been going on around me. Unfortunately, the real reasons why I’m writing it now are: 1. It’s way over-due and 2. I’ve reached a point where I feel like I need some sort of consolidated narrative of the past few weeks so that when one of my friends asks me how I’ve been I don’t just say “fine” and sigh bitterly.
These weeks would have been difficult no matter what. CUPA, as a built-in safeguard during the course selection process, makes us try double the courses we actually mean to take so that we get exposed to a lot of different professors, teaching styles, and methodologies. The principle is that we try 10 courses our first two weeks and then pick our favorite five. Because I like having All The Information, and because halfway through the process I began having doubts about whether I could really handle the course-load I was setting myself up for, I ended up trying about 16 different classes and then picking my favorite five.
Of course, all this is on top of my normal anxieties, namely that I’ll make a fool of myself as I try to push my relationships past the point of “I talk to you in class” towards “We’re actually friends,” and that – contrary to all previous evidence and experience – I’ll fail everything. It doesn’t help knowing that this semester, if these things go down, they’re going down French-style.
But most of all, I’m suffering from a feeling of isolation and disconnect from my greater community. During orientation, I got used to seeing my CUPA classmates every day. I got used to having constant access to a group that understands and shares – to a certain extent – my cultural identity. Most of all, I got used to having nearly unlimited opportunities to talk through the cultural differences and pitfalls that we all encounter every day. Leaving orientation behind and starting classes at the Paris universities was a little bit like getting cut loose from the apron-strings. Suddenly I was supposed to be an active participant in French university culture; suddenly I was supposed to launch myself, head-long and alone, into a culture that I don’t know and don’t yet understand.
This is exacerbated by the fact that no one from CUPA is in any of the classes I’m taking in the Paris university system, and since my graduation requirements are different from those of my French classmates, I see a different set of 30+ faces in every one of my classes. The students that I’ve managed to muster up the courage to talk to have all been extremely nice – but they already have their groups of friends, their inside jokes, their lives. This is made all the more evident to me, since I’m just beginning to put down my roots if France.
I think I fell into the trap of thinking that because France is more developed than Senegal and culturally more similar to the United States than Senegal, my adjustment process here would be “easier.” I’m beginning to realize that that’s not the case. It’s true, France is easier to navigate than Senegal was. It’s been easier for me to figure out how to fulfill my basic needs in France. But the notions of family and community are drastically more open and more fluid in Senegal than they are here. In Senegal, I could become someone’s friend, a member of their community, just by working up the courage to ask their name. Don’t get me wrong, there were also plenty of frustrations inherent in getting used to a society where individuality is considered greatly subordinate to community cohesion. But to a total outsider who only had four short months to built a community around herself, it was very, very helpful.
My big goals for the coming weeks are to try and be more outgoing with my French classmates, even if it means feeling like an idiot as I rush headlong into conversations without stopping to think; to do whatever I can to convince myself that I won’t fail everything; and to cut myself a little more slack. Just because people eat with a knife and fork here doesn’t mean that what I’m doing’s not hard. I’ll keep you all posted on my progress.
