5 Months Abroad In France

Alexander Gasson – Blenheim New Zealand

(Above) Chateau-Chalon – Bourgogne Franche-comte

Friday January 12th 2020 ( Day before the exchange)

Kia Ora,

My name is Alexander Gasson, a previous Marlborough Boys’ College (Blenheim) student, who will be attending high school in France for 5 months on an NZIIU outbound exchange! This blog is meant to serve as information, insight and reading material for high school students considering an exchange themselves, and will follow my experiences, hiccoughs and french language progress throughout 2020.

I will be staying in the eastern french region of Bourgogne- Franche-Comte, near the Swiss border, in a small village: St Etienne du Bois.

I hope that students who were are as excited as I was about foreign exchanges find this blog useful to gauge whether or not an overseas exchange is right for them.

With this slightly boring introduction out of the way I’d like to begin with my first post about my exchange experience so far.

Preparation

“My exchange so far?” I hear you asking. Well yeah, I suppose you’re right it hasn’t begun just yet, however the process of preparing for the exchange as not been short and to the point, nor has it been a process that I had expected when I started my final high school year at the beginning of 2019.

The reason I am able to go on exchange (and the reason I am writing this blog for you now) is because of ‘Education Perfect’, a popular online learning site of which I’m sure you are acquainted with. Education perfect (or ‘EP’ for me because I don’t want to have to write it out every time), offers awards for excellent performance in competitions, and it just so happens that one of these competitions is the EP Languages competition, and through “no-life-ing” my way through the many ranks of points, I was invited to apply for a scholarship which subsidized an NZIIU exchange to a country of my choice.

The application process included an online video call interview, an information booklet to fill out as well as a blood sacrifice to Megan and Mari, (who were very helpful and patient with me during my application, may I add). After a couple of agonizing weeks of waiting, myself and a friend were accepted for our exchanges.

Now, I have glossed over a massive process, however the entire process is actually really simple, and is probably the least exciting part of the entire thing (I’d Assume). However, filling out the application and speaking in the interview does make you reflect a lot on your intentions about going overseas and why you as a person believe that these experiences will affect you in a positive way. I think that it’s important that you give a lot of thought to this before applying and really understand what all of this actually means to you.I hope that I can help make that clearer through this blog. But also in saying this, I jumped head into the process blind and came out unscathed, so I know you will be fine too 🙂

Aside from the formalities such as NZIIU prep calls as well as passport and insurance and blah blah blah, preparation for the exchange consisted of taking advantage of boxing day sales and stealing clothes from my older brother, Jordan ( Hello Jordy <3). As well as shopping like Regina George with the lads and lasses for all of the essentials and then some. Even now, a mere 24 hours before I depart on a 31 hour ‘journey to the west’, I sit here quietly and frantically worrying if I have forgotten something or not. I suppose I will find out sooner or later.

This first post was meant to set the stage for more to come (oh no) as well as share my experiences and how I’m feeling prior to my departure. Now usually you will hear from other exchange students that they are feeling nervous and worried about their exchange…

And they would be absolutely right.

Of course it’s nerve racking to be on the edge of moving to the other side of the world for months, but I mean come on, that’s a totally natural human thing to feel. It’s an awkward blend of excitement, anxiety and happiness that I’m avoiding all of my responsibilities here (haha jk, but not really).

What has really made the process easier for me is reading about the experiences of other exchange students who hath come before me. It’s good to get a personal take on someone’s experience, and cross check it with your own expectations. I hope to make my later posts more personal and characterized however at the moment there’s not a lot of variety in my testimony, and I just hate writing without reason. There IS a lot to say, so much to do, and even more that my mind is making up as we speak, however the real experiences will come when I am there.

Thank you very much to Mari and Megan who have helped me to this point as well as my French teacher (Mr Curnow) for calling me a ‘toad’ long enough for me to whip my French into shape. Also thank you to my parents for buying me things because I’m broke now (Yes the exchange costs money, everything does, deal with it).

If you would like other hot takes on French exchanges:

Thomas Burke: https://tommccondach.wordpress.com/

Angela Glover: https://angelaenfrancais.wordpress.com/