Veronica Winslow

2008-09 Outbound to France

Hometown: Orange Park, Florida

School: Fleming Island High School, Orange Park, Florida

Sponsor: Orange Park Sunrise Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida

Host: St. Marcellin Rotary Club, District 1780, France

Bio

Veronica's Bio

Vagabond is She, jade nature-lover,
Vindicated cerulean waters flow in and around Her, a
Vaudevillian on the stage of life.
Vanished She is from the sight of sea-sick sailors,
Vivacious with only plum water lilies,
Vain and insatiable, to keep Her company.
Vicissitudes of fate have kept the salty water moving about Her—no
Vendetta held. This jade mermaid, lovely,
Verbose, is like no one else; uniquely
Vigilant on the stage of life, dancing
Valorously to Her melancholy Moonlight song.
Violins sing the syrupy music that so
Vexed Her into the electric blue dance which
Vacillates between slow and fast,
Veracity illuminating the cerulean water around Her.

Who knew that this metaphorical vagabond would end up truly wandering all ends of the Earth? My name is Veronica Winslow, I am 17 years old, a junior at Fleming Island High School, and I am inexplicably and completely beyond thrilled to be given such a fantastic opportunity; I cannot thank Rotary enough! I live with my mom and dad and my younger brothers—who are twins—James and Daniel. My family is completely weird and that is why they are mine. And wonderful.

Joy finds me in many different ways; writing (obviously—I hope), singing, dancing, reading, and adventuring. My room is filled with books, notebooks (filled and empty), pictures, zillions of stuffed huskies, plenty of rubber ducks, and many other random trinkets, such as a ukulele and a Batman action figure. Remembering must be my absolute favorite hobby, I do it a lot and I keep everything—even the rolls of toilet paper I carried with me at Warped Tour just in case the Port-A-Potties were extra gross. Without memories, I would be nothing.

Yes, I am quite silly. And yes, that makes me delightful company. Spontaneity defines me. Adventure attracts me like a magnet. My life is a wild, beautiful ride and I love it.

Adventure is calling again, and so begins this vagabond’s next wild, beautiful ride!

July 21 Journal

I leave for France in thirty some-odd days. Up until now, I felt as though the day would never come. Now I am freaking out a little bit.

Okay, more than a little bit. And I’m not even leaving as early as others.

Nonetheless, already I’ve changed in ways I never thought possible, and I cannot even begin to imagine who I’ll have become by the end of this exchange. All I know is that I am proud of who I am right now, and I am proud of who I am going to be. This is a strange feeling; pride in something you don’t know, something you don’t understand completely. The entire idea of this exchange is still eerily surreal to me. Yet every decision I make leads directly back to it, “Will this be worth it before I leave?” “Do I really need this now?” Even, “I don’t need that skirt—I’ll be living on the side of a mountain pretty soon, here.” Somehow this is all quite nonchalant.

Then there are the times when I sit back and concentrate really hard and the tip of the Youth Exchange iceberg hits me a little: a year is a really long time. I imagine all the school nights this past year when I laid in bed thinking, “I wish this year was over. I want it to be summer. I want this to end. I can’t take another day of this.” I thought I was in pure agony then. That’s about the time I translate it all into French, add a dash of as many horror stories as I can conjure, and picture myself curled in my host-bed, crying and singing the National Anthem. Now that’s what I call agony!

Yet, for some weird reason, I cannot wait for it. I know I will be that much stronger the next morning—that much more determined to dominate the French language, the French culture, to truly become bi-cultural. It is perhaps one of the most difficult things I have done so far, trying to explain how I feel about this exchange. It isn’t one specific emotion, but it’s not really a bunch of conflicting ones, either. It is something only an exchange student can know: an ever-changing mixture of excitement, curiosity, nervousness, hesitation, anxiety, worry, pride, thankfulness, and amazement. I think I even missed a few there.

I don’t think I can thank all of you Rotarians enough for giving me the opportunity to genuinely have a hard time figuring this entire ordeal out. You have presented me with the greatest challenge of my life and I love every minute of it.

See you on the other side!

August 15 Journal

I know, I know. Maybe I’m a little overzealous with the journals, but what can you expect? I’ve witnessed multiple goodbyes before my own, so I’ve grown a little anxious. Plus I like writing. And I’m so long-winded I have no idea how I’m going to keep all of my journals relatively short.

To be quite frank, I feel incredibly left out. School starts on Monday, so not only will my fellow exchangers be long gone and settling in, I won’t even have the comfort of my permanent-Florida-resident friends to confide in. And even though it’s still utterly unreal to me, there’s nothing I want more right now than to leave. Everything I’m feeling is very strange; a weird mix of polar opposites. I’m a walking contradiction! Part of me wants to crawl into bed and hibernate until August the 26th arrives, while the other part of me wants to go out and do as much as I can before the same date. On the one hand, I’m couldn’t be more jealous of Renee for leaving tomorrow, but on the other, I’m scared motionless of the whole ordeal. I am constantly vacillating between two completely different outlooks, yet no matter what way I look at it, my anxiety never dwindles.

Today I visited my old (YES!) high school. I went to see Mlle. Fitchette, my French teacher from the days of yore, as well as Mr. Merritt, my English teacher, both of whom were quite influential to me in my final high school days. As I sat with Mr. Merritt in that stuffy portable I used to wander into every day for third period, trying to find the goofy things he often hid for us to find—attention to detail!—his future students came and went, introduced themselves, and tried to get a feel for the insanity they would soon be faced with. I leaned quietly on a desk and observed them—those kids whose shoes I was in a mere year ago. They had absolutely no idea how much they are going to grow, just like I didn’t. Even after hearing speech after speech about “Oh, how much you’re going to grow!” I truly never imagined thinking back on the past year in disbelief at how far I’ve come. And I have to say, it’s an astounding feeling.

I also packed today (photo). Round one. It wasn’t nearly as hard as everyone makes it out to be. Unless I’m just not packing enough, but let’s not add to my paranoia.

No matter how left out I feel right now, nothing in the world could make me rescind my utter commitment to this program and all it has to offer. Never in my life would I return to where I was a year ago; I’m so much happier right here and now than I ever have been. Thank you, Rotary, for giving me more than I ever could have asked for!

September 1 Journal

I have never felt weirder. Everything is in French, as expected, but occasionally I will actually realize that and shortly thereafter I will realize that I actually comprehend most of it and shortly thereafter I go through some bizarre wormhole emotion and it is gone again. It’s fun!

Five days I have been here. And by five days, I mean an eternity. So much has happened and I have kissed so many strangers, I hardly know what to do with myself. Already I understand French so much better than when I first stepped off the airplane. I have even improved my speaking. It’s the vocabulary I need to work on, which my host brother, Stef, and host sister, Ketty, are incredibly enthusiastic about. They got me a white board in the kitchen, where they write the words and phrases I learn. For example: les flics = cops. Apparently it’s funny when I try to say ou (like in you), so they make me say the name of their cat in front of everyone and their brother. It’s Touffue, which does not look hard to pronounce, but let me just tell you. It is. C’est pas grave because Stef cannot for the life of him say “word,” “world,” or “throw.” Now that’s amusing.

My flight was excellent and I got zero sleep, because the 65 of us outbounds sort of took over the plane and made it our own little celebration. We even talked about politics with the flight attendants. Everything went smoothly for me; I made tons of friends, collected business cards and pins, and gave out my own. The only problem I ran into was check-in at the Paris airport. I had to pay the overweight fees because United Airlines failed to tell me the Paris luggage requirements. Yay emergency funds! As for my flight to Lyon, I only remember jolting awake briefly to note we had taken off.

Everyone was restless at baggage claim in Lyon: this was IT. The moment of truth. We stumbled confidently out of baggage claim to lots of French gibberish, kisses, and bienvenues. My host family didn’t recognize me at first because I cut my hair. Oops. Nonetheless, they were incredibly nice and Stef immediately took my bags for me. Such gentlemen Frenchmen are! It was surprisingly hot outside, especially in my Rotary getup, so I got to experience my very first (and very inevitable) embarrassing Rotary moment! As you may know, very few cars (not to mention houses) in Europe have AC, so you have to depend on the windows. My family lives in the mountains, so all the roads are tiny, winding, and constantly moving upward. And they drive fast. So there I was, minding my own business, depending on the windows and continuing to overheat, when all of a sudden it hit me: I was gonna be sick. It was futile to fight it, but I did anyway. To no avail. Lucky for me, they understood and pulled over right away when I put my hand to my mouth and went completely pale. Stef says “spew up” all the time now. Whee.

But let me just say that even French carnival food is delicious. And French bumper cars? Top notch. Nutella is also the best thing ever. They love the song “YMCA,” and anything by Queen, but have no idea what they mean. American TV shows in French are weird, especially the Simpsons and Desperate Housewives (Dez-pear-aught ‘Ousewives). Cheese and fruits are their dessert and they eat bread with everything. They ask me a lot of questions about America and positively freaked out when I told them that anyone under 18 has a curfew. I’ve only seen 3 McDonald’s, which were tiny. Everyone shaves, wears deodorant, and is anything but rude. This winter, it’s going to snow! I absolutely love it here.

I have my own room on the very top floor of their house (which my host dad constructed himself, along with everything in it) along with a second room just below it, which houses my salle de bains (just a shower and a sink) and a desk. However, the only times I’ve been in either room so far are to sleep and shower. I have been to Grenoble twice already and got to experience a Granita, which is like an Icee, only about a trillion times better. Stef plays Rugby, so I got to go to one of his games. I went hiking on the mountain my family’s house is on, where we picked and ate wild mountain blackberries. I’ve been to a French grocery store that was our equivalent to a Wal Mart, only really classy. There was a three day fête in a nearby village, and I went to two of the nights with Ketty and Stef. This is where the carnival was, along with a discotheque, which we danced at until it ended at two in the morning.

Everything is wonderful right now, I can only hope that it stays this way long enough for me to express myself well en français. Thank you, Rotary, for this phenomenal opportunity; I may be completely off my rocker, but this is the most fun I have had in a long time. Merci beaucoup!

À bientôt et bisous!

September 29 Journal

It has been one month. One month and I’ve come so far in building myself a life here in France. Honestly, I can’t think of what to say next; every day I think of a zillion things I want to put in journal and tell everyone about France, but it’s hard to keep track of everything.

I sat down the other day and tried to write a college application essay in my spare time, but my mind was whirling with too many emotions to express, too many insights to articulate, too many observations to record, and too much general bursting for me to get down one coherent sentence before thousands more came whizzing through. I thought I learned an unexpectedly large amount about myself in my days leading up to departure, but that doesn’t hold a menorah to the even more unexpectedly large amount I’ve learned in the past month. I mean… whoa. That’s all I can really think of to explain it all at this point. My mind is spinning so much that I can only hope it will get at least slightly more lucid as the months roll by.

My French has progressed phenomenally. I can understand almost everything, but articulation isn’t quite my specialty yet, even though I’ve begun to think in franglish and learned most of the slang.

School is really long—I get out at 5pm everyday but Wednesdays and Fridays—and I’m in the class Scientifique, so I have an overload of math and science classes. English class is usually embarrassing because I have to teach them words like totalitarianism and my teacher always asks me random questions about expressions. I suppose I just feel out of place speaking English while the kids in my class have no idea what’s going on.

I have picked up jazz, salsa, and tap dancing classes in a town near my school, as well as theater classes. I’m really glad I decided to because it’s another outlet for me to make friends and see some friends from school (while attempting to work off my soon-to-be Rotary 15). I’m so relieved to have friends at school. One of my biggest fears before arriving was that I wouldn’t make any friends, but I’ve found a few really nice girls in my class who include me in their goings-on at school. It’s a great feeling for me to walk on campus every morning and have a group to look forward to seeing.

My family is absolutely wonderful and I’m so lucky to have had them as my first family. I’m really dreading the day I’ll have to switch because they truly treat me as one of their own and I most definitely feel that first host family bond with them. They take me places and teach me things; they’re always eager to hear about my day at school and they are always concerned about whether or not I need or want anything.

The food. Oh my goodness the food is unreal. The stereotype that the French eat very little is rubbish; I eat more here than I did in the States (and I’m seeing the results), but I have no idea how I’m going to handle going home without all of this delicious cheese. Every day I eat something new and amazing. I swear the French are food geniuses.

This weekend was my Rotary orientation weekend in Annecy. I had a wicked time meeting with all of the other kids in my district and, to make Rob Overly happy, singing Fever at the talent show to represent a portion of the Americans. We got to spend some time in La Veille Ville d’Annecy, being obnoxious, touristic exchange students and taking crazy group pictures every 5 minutes. I think sometimes we scared the locals a little screaming stuff like “Vive le Canada/USA/Chile/Mexico/ [insert various other countries here],” and the word for ‘platypus’ in Spanish, but what else is to be expected of a large group of Rotary exchange students?

I’m really beginning to think of this place as home now and I wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else. Except, perhaps, Vegas. I’ve discovered that I’m freakishly good at poker.

As always, I have to thank Rotary profusely for this opportunity—it’s still so unreal to me, but I am so beyond glad it’s all really happening. Merci vraiment très bien, Rotary!

Gros bisous!

November 7 Journal

It’s a new month and another chapter, I suppose, but it’s still hard for me to believe it’s only been two months.

Most everyone else is saying, “Wow! These past couple months have just whizzed by!” I’m not going to lie and say mine have, too.

Don’t get me wrong—these have been probably the craziest two months of my life, in a good way. My Rotary Rollercoaster had its ups and downs, twists and turns, and loops as well, but it’s beginning to settle into a smooth, well-oiled joy ride into the next eight months. This is why I’m amazed that it’s been only two months. In that short amount of time I’ve become just about fluent in French (aside from my laughable accent), made a group of close friends who truly care about me, established a daily routine, settled into a new family, and integrated myself into another culture. Trust me, that’s a lot to do in just two months.

In addition (yes, I realize my English has digressed so much I must resort to pathetic transitions), I no longer feel as though I should be considered an outbound. This word implies too much that I am headed somewhere, but I’m not anymore. I’m already there. I’m home.

OK. Enough with the gushy.

France is honestly a magnificent place. The ridiculously attractive men here—of which there are many—aren’t big-headed jerks who would just as soon play an average girl like me than pay me any mind at all. In fact, they are painfully (yet genuinely) polite and charming to the point where I sometimes don’t know what to do with myself and get scared that I’m charming enough in return.

I don’t have a clue what miracle method they use on their children, but somehow the sharing lessons are much more effective; absolutely no one—at any moment—eats, drinks, chews gum, or even smokes (yes—many people I know smoke, and no, Al—you don’t need to worry) without first asking if the others around them want some. They are also much more polite to just about everyone than I ever expected and they are incredibly loyal as friends. Friendship takes on a much deeper meaning here that you would have to experience to understand. Sure, it exists in the States, but it is much harder to come by than it is here.

I have read many of the other outbound journals and many have said they get a lot of attention because they clearly stand out as a foreigner. I have not had that kind of luck and must say that made it a tad bit tougher for me at the beginning, because no one can tell I’m not French until they hear me talk. Granted, I can communicate effectively in French, as I said before, but I have to work for my friends, which just makes the experience all the more enriching for me, because I know who my real friends are and who the people who just want to talk to an American girl are.

Living in the countryside is incredibly new to me. I don’t live in walking distance of anything but other houses and cows. As a matter of fact, I once lay awake in bed one night for at least an hour completely terrified of a noise coming from just outside my house before I realized it was just a cow mooing. I have also had the misfortune of hearing a cow belch, which must be one of the most disgusting noises on earth. It just so happen that my next family is farmers who make and sell foie gras and keep live (yet very sick) geese that occasionally honk and make various other sick-geese noises late at night. Yet every morning I wake up to the breath-taking beauty of the mountains outside my window, which are beginning to become snow-capped. Actually, I experienced my first snow (in ten years) here one cold October night recently. I was ecstatic, and although it was late and I was ill-equipped, I ran outside to play in it.

Another fun countryside quality is that everything is extremely laid-back. No one is ever in a stressed, frantic hurry to get things done. The state of mind is very “eh-don’t-worry-we’ll-do-it-eventually” rather than the typical American OMGNOWNOWNOWGO. I rather like former.

I finally had my first Rotary Club meeting and passed on proudly the Orange Park Sunrise flag before eating one of the most delicious meals of my life. However, in the introduction of myself, I managed to say that I love Nutella AND cheese without making the distinction that I like them separately, so even after my ceremonious handing-over-of-the-flag, one of the Rotarians stood up to ask how I cut the cheese to put the Nutella inside. Still, the food was fantastic and if anyone cares to let me know what a guinea fowl is and where/how to find and raise them when I get home, I will be absolutely delighted. It’s my new Thanksgiving and Christmas and any other night I feel like it specialty. Really, try it. It will change your life.

I have to thank Rotary, even though it will never be enough, with all of my heart for giving me this opportunity. I am so far beyond grateful for all the friends, family, and new experiences these two months have brought me and those that the next eight will contain. I have honestly gained and grown so much as a person I cannot believe it.

Donc voilà—merci mille fois, Rotary! C’est vraiment la plus belle année de ma vie et je n’arriverai jamais à vous remercier. Gros bisous à tout le monde! À la prochaine!