MAAAAAH FACE

I can haz thesis

School starts on Monday or at least, it starts for me on Monday (I'm a tad bit late on showing up this year).  I'm not going to lie I am a bit nervous about start my senior year as a "4th year" (we don't have senior, junior... in France).

Yesterday, I got my packet for my thesis paper from our school center and I started to feel a bit overwhelmed - as in, AH TOTALLY HAVE TO WRITE THIS. It's pretty scary stuff all together.  But I am feeling pretty comfortable with the idea of doing it; I just need to find a topic. 

I know I want to do something with the Internets, but sometimes it feels hard to have to keep in mind the fact that I will be writing this report in French which is uber bummer, but such is life. 

Possible topics include :

• The power of user generated content in the business world - as a means for internal and external communication.
• A exploration of the evolution of corporate communications - what failed, what worked, where are we headed : why?
• Replacing the mainstream media : the power of blogging, user-generated content.
• The open classroom : blogging as an educational tool and experience.
• and many more.

The thing is I haven't read my thesis packet so I need to really do that to make sure I'm headed in the right direction.  I know we have two choices : exploratory research or a sort of corporate study.  I'm not sure which one I will choose yet, but I know I do need to get cracking on thinking about it. 

But first I need to do my rapport du stage (coop reflection -bleck). Where I get to beam for 20 pages about Six Apart.

File this in DO NOT OPEN

My sisters came to visit me in France and it made me realize how far away I always am.  How they share so many cool moments together.  I hate that I miss the birthdays and that I miss the sing-a-longs at the Drafthouse, and so many other little things. 

It has also made me realize how my memory is short.  My memory is short for the bad things, I am a serial postive thinker or as some would say constantly in denial.  When my sisters were here, we were talking about high school at one point and I said to Courtney with a nonchalant smile, "We got along alright when we were in school, right?" with not so much as even a thought more to our relationship.  And she just looked at me.  Looked at me and said, "Brittany, you made my life a living hell in high school". Slowly it came back to me. Courtney taking the brunt of my parent's attention and getting into trouble because she had a boyfriend, me getting cut slack because my parents were concentrating on Courtney. Courtney telling me she hated me because I had a later curfew than she did. Us not getting along. Not at all like I like to remember.  As it all came back to me I couldn't believe that I placed this in the file DO NOT OPEN part of my mind. 

I find I do this a lot.  In France, a lot of things have been hard, and more frustrating than I had ever imagined. But each time an obstacle arose I was surprised as it wasn't at all the France I remembered.  When I left Lyon the first time, I left most bad memories at the airport.  I was done with those and I guess over the past 5 years I have put it on some sort of pedestal, but a wonderful enchanting pedestal.  That year was beautiful, amazing and life-changing and I am pretty happy to leave it at that.  But then if pressed enough, I remember that I walked on eggshells for an entire year, that I was so afraid of messing up and not being a good exchange student that I made myself the most pleasant human being for one year.  That came with its up and downs. 

A month later, I'm home, and again, I realize how much I file away.

It's feels good to be home, but weird being the only sister at my parent's house/town.  When I plan my visits home I never really think of the consequences of them being there (Austin), and me being here (Pleasanton).  What I look forward to is the being together, that is what I crave when I'm across the ocean, but as we get older and our goals go separate ways, I find us ready to be scattered in a more definite scary kind of way. And it's not something I am usually prepared for. When I visualize home I see us all together, sort of like childhood memories but with a surreal Texan background.  But after I get off the airplane and am picked up by 2 instead of 5, it all becomes real.  We are never going to live in the same city again. It just isn't possible. But I block that out when I leave and every time I get excited for a new trip home, I think of seeing all of them and how wonderful it is, but that's just not really what happens.

And it all comes down to growing up being le suck.