I can’t believe over a week has gone by, passed in a flash of eating and sleeping and working, making fires and catching trains and confusedly straining to understand the language. It’s so much more … exhausting than I’d anticipated! I thought it would be, in a strange way, ‘cruising’ compared to school. That I’d have the energy and time to devote to a bunch of creative things I’ve wanted to do – practice my drawing and painting and such. As it is, I haven’t made a single drawing (apart from the ones I do with the girls, but they don’t count). It’s ok, I will not let the year go by in the same manner, but it seems that it’s not as cruisy as I thought? Someone told me that taking a gap year is so helpful because you get a taste of what working life is like, and that despite what students think at times, working is WAY more difficult, more exhausting than studying at university (and thus gap year students would appreciate their university struggles better?). I can sort of see what they mean now. And this isn’t even proper work, it’s just looking after two kids, and cleaning and such. But still, the 8-6 shifts are tough, in the way that when I get a break I don’t want to do anything but rest and read. Creativitiy? No way do I have energy for that. But, ah, I can hear you laughing: unless you’re in my situation of just finishing high school, you WILL have worked full time, and I’m probably whining for nothing, right? Haha I know. But I suppose everyone has to learn once.

Anyway, that isn’t what I was going to write about. Excuse me. I wanted to muse about the differences between families, because being here for over a week now has pointed a lot of things out for me. It’s really interesting to live permanently in a whole new household, where they have their own customs and habits of things. When you live at home, you take a lot of things for granted about what happens, say at the breakfast table or TV-watching or down-time or anything else; you’re so used to it you stop thinking about it, it feels as if that is THE way to do things, it’s the way things have always been done. But now, seeing the way another family lives, it’s really .. mind-opening. Suddenly I’m not allowed to read at the breakfast table anymore (it’s rude?)– I’ve always found such pleasure in that, I suppose I’ll have to curl up with a book and a cup of tea somewhere else — or for instance, my host-family don’t like watching TV at all. I completely missed that the Melbourne open was on until we visited another house where they where watching it (I was like, ooh tennis!) … sometimes I can see their point, when they say that ‘TV is not a babysitter’ and such. I don’t want to sit glued to the television screen constantly either, nor do I think that children should — but still! At the end of the day, after dinner and everything else, it’s so wonderful to cosy up in the couch with everyone and watch a move or Midsomer Murders or something. I miss it. Watching reruns of “friends” recorded on my laptop, alone in my room, it doesn’t cut it..

But other things too are different, little things, that would almost evade notice. They put all the bread into a basket and bring it to the table for breakfast. Ditto for all the cereal inside another basked. I thought that was pretty clever, we carry it all over individually at home. And their vacuum cleaner is .. a backpack! With a really long cord! It’s SO much easier to vacuum that way, you don’t have to drag the little thing around… and ..

…You probably think I’m just rambling illogically at this point, but really, I think it’s great to experience the way other people live. Get a clear reminder that the way you’re used to isn’t necessarily THE way of doing it. Often people end up doing things an illogical or inefficient way and just don’t see it because they’ve grown not to think about it, and it takes a stranger to see, and recommend a better way. And usually it’s just so obvious! But we grow blind to the obvious sometimes, right?

Ooh, is the weekend soon. I think I’ll go skiing properly, I can’t wait … and yesterday went to my first French lesson, down at the community college in the village – my head felt like it was going to explode with all the new input as I walked home, I’m not joking – all is well

Thanks for reading, oh internet-being…!

This post was deigned to fit best into the category "Musing" and went live on the 29th January, 2010 at 6:49 pm