Author Archives: Fabiola Rivera

Before leaving to France

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Pre-departure was a very difficult journey for me. I had so many obstacles for having issues with my passport, getting my visa, to getting my computer, money and phone stolen; it was really bad. Fortunately, I overcame every one of those obstacles.

It was hard to pack my belongings because I wanted to bring everything with me. I like brought 10 pairs of shoes because I knew I was going to do a lot of walking and odds are that I will probably buy more over here. Then I know french people dress different than Americans in the sense where they dress with more casual/formal. You wouldn’t find someone going to the store in their pajamas and t-shirt. Actually, I don’t think I have seen a woman wear a t-shirt at all. Like in the US I always wear my shorts and t-shirts all the time and it is hard because I wont really be able to do that over here, of course, unless I want to stand out as an American which I really don’t. Besides, I am doing an internship so I have to look professional. So I pretty much packed all dress shoes and boots. dresses and dressier shirts. But no jeans because last time I was hear, I don’t remember seeing a lot of people wearing jeans.

Saying good bye was hard. I didn’t think it would be that way. I thought I was prepared to say goodbye but I was wrong. I know I am going to go back but three and a half months is quite far away. It was very painful to say good bye to my mom and to my boyfriend. For a moment I began to have second thoughts of leaving.

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Since I had already been in France, I already knew what to expect for the most part. I knew I was going to see beautiful monuments and a lot of old buildings. The streets where going to be more narrower and the cars smaller a lot of motorcycles/mopeds, crazy drivers too. For the meals, well I expected bread and wine for sure, oh and cheese which is not my favorite whatsoever. I like cheese but not french cheese. I am not expecting a whole lot of different things from what I had previously seen. I am hoping to see a lot of new places, meet a lot of people and make the best out of this internship abroad.

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Faby’s Introduction

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Hello everyone, my name is Fabiola but I usually go by Faby. I was born in a town in Guanajuato Mexico and at the age of three my family immigrated to Oregon. Since then, I have been living my whole live in the Salem area. I am the third child of my family and a first generation student. As a child I played soccer, basketball, and was in track. Also, I have been in band, orchestra, and theatre. I am currently a part of an Aztec dancing group where I have gotten the opportunity to know more about my culture in Mexico.

I graduated from McKay High School in June of 2010. At Mckay I took several French classes which lead me to going on a three week trip to France. Being in France I learned a lot of valuable things such as being independent, knowing how to communicate with my own group of people and others, and most importantly, I was able to improve my language by practicing and hearing it constantly while I was at a family stay for ten days. That was actually one of the reason why I decided to do an internship in France. I initially wanted to do a study abroad program but that didn’t work out so I decided to instead to an Internship. The internship is at the Office of International Relations at the University of Poitiers. Poitiers is a semi small city south of Paris. The other reason is because I just wanted to know how it felt to live in a different country and experience a completely different culture from my Mexican-American culture. Since I said that I had previously been here, I already knew how it was over here before I left. So a lot of what I will be experiencing wont be knew to me. Culture shock should not be that big of a problem.

I am now a senior at Western Oregon University in the process of completing a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences (CJ) and a minor in French. So, If everything goes well, I should be graduating this following spring. I am very happy to almost be done but at the same I can’t see my life not going to school. I am definitely interested in continuing to get my masters degree or to get into Law school.

My internship actually started this Monday but I wasn’t able to start the blogs earlier because there were a lot of other things I had to do for the internship that I almost forgot about the blogs. Since my computer was stolen I have no pictures of the last time I was here in France if not I would have posted them as well.

Well, I hope everybody is getting the most out of their stays abroad. Bonne chance a tous!