Think(er)ing

Rodin's Thinker

I know it's cheesy, but I felt the photo fit. As the title of the post may have given away, I've been doing a lot of thinking recently.

I'm more than halfway done with my program here, a realization I can't even begin to accept. I cannot believe I've lived here over two months, there's so much I still feel like I haven't done. Sadly, I don't think it is possible to do everything here in four months, there is just so damn much. This experience has pretty much convinced me that I want to come back and live here. And while my parents will hate me for saying it, I could honestly see myself in Paris permanently. It's hard to explain how much I love it; again, cheesy, but words cannot describe it. Even the Parisian air makes me happy.

A big part of my obsession with this experience is my living situation. I remember my first night at AEPP, I could not have been more unhappy. I thought I had made a huge mistake. Now I wouldn't trade it for anything, it's like living at the sorority house but 1000 times better/more entertaining. The rest of CEA thinks we've been sucked into some kind of cult, and I think in a way, we have. It's easy to get stuck in our dorm's bubble...but I'm okay with that some nights, some of the best times have been hanging out downstairs (how weird that something so normal could happen in a place as fabulous as Paris).

This morning four of the Germans left to go back home or move on to other parts of their gap years. It kind of foreshadowed where all of the Americans will be only too soon. The departures just reminded me how fleeting time and people are. We all know I don't deal well with change, so getting used to not seeing Mo and Stella around is going to be difficult. It's weird seeing people come and go, I figured the CEA students were the more temporary fixtures of this place.