Zut

From the moment I returned from my fantastic voyages in Italy, I've been wishing I had never left.  It has been the worst week I've had here, all because of one, excuse my French, putant.  While I have loved my host family and experiences here, the classes have not been great.  But tolerable.  Until I began working in a group with other French students for my marketing class.  All the K students have been upset with this class, mostly because their groups just treat them like they don't exist and won't let them do any of the work.  For me, that was not the case.  I held my own, doing as much work as my French counterparts.  But one girl, from the start, was not happy to be workig with me, an American, and assumed the worst in me.  She made that clear throughout the project, but this week she hit a new level of mean.  When I couldn't make our group meeting because they scheduled it without me at a location 2 hours away from me by bus, she had had it.  On Facebook, for the rest of the group to see, she yelled at me, said she hopes she never works with me again, said she was fed up, etc.  It was humiliating.  But they sent me my part to complete and I prepared for our presentation.  Come the day of the presentation when my slide pops up, the horrible girl and I start talking at the same time. Apparently they had told me the wrong part to do.  And my other slide we never got to because we ran out of time.  So I said nothing.  And then she yelled at me for it.  I'm so glad that I have been able to meet people from France outside of this class including my host family and some friends I have made from the school because if it was just my group, I'd never come back to this country.

This had been the only bad experience I have had with someone from France.  The fact that it stemmed from the fact that I was American and it was slightly harder to work with me didn't feel great.  But, it was yet another situation when I truly got to appreciate the other people I am surrounded by.  My host family asked what was wrong and after I showed them the conversation I had with the girl on Facebook, they were furious.  My host dad wanted to message the girl himself and go to my school to speak with the professor (I declined his offer).  My friends were just as upset as my family was and I was completely surrounded by support.  It wasn't the end of the world, but they were protecting me like it was.  I wish it hadn't happened of course, but at least I had some wonderful people on my side when it did.