Leaving Soon

Five months feels so long with a freshly packed backpack strapped to your back. When you think about the fact that your little sister is going to be growing up while you are away and your friends and family will all be living their lives without you. When you think about spending the holidays away from home and getting sick without mum their to bring you a blanket as you cuddle up on the couch. Five months. That's almost half a year. I will be almost 17 when I get home which is just mind-blowing because I just got my license a few weeks ago! Five months... I will be able to speak fluently after that! I will have friends! I will be ready to get back to work.
Four months later and you have no idea how short one month is. Three weekends. Twenty days of school. Eight class periods to work on Sudokus with Sophie and four Wednesdays left to go swimming or shopping with Marina. Then I am gone.
The idea is kinda terrifying. I have just started to really consider Charlotte, Sophie and Caroline to be real friends that I can communicate with and I really don't want to loose them. My french is good, but not fluent and I still have this stupid accent. And in the last month or so my apartement has started to feel... like home. I will come back and see them again someday, but I don't think it will ever be the same as right now.
That and the thought of LASA is not really encouraging. Seriously, I had forgotten what it felt like to love learning before I came here.
With that said though.... oh my gosh. My little sister has grown 5 months older without me. Is she taller? Happier? Sadder? What does she think about? She doesn't email me much and skype just doesn't work as well as having her in the front seat of the car with me and Elaina I miss you so so so so so much. I miss working out with daddy in the mornings and being sick without your real mum to baby you is no fun at all (though really, Malika takes good care of me). It is hard to have a philisophical conversation here- first you have to find someone interested then they have to be willing to listen to you make mistakes and it is not a daily thing here. Lunch group: I miss you.
So as I reflect about going home we have two lists here: what I am looking forward to and what I am going to miss....

What I am looking forward to:
1)Elaina's play... really actually just Elaina. But plays are good too.
2)Mum.
3)Dad.
4)Hugs... here they do kisses which is so cute but hugs feel warmer to me.
5)Visits to grandparents.... weirdest feeling when I think “oh I can't wait to go visit Gran and papaw in a few weeks, or till Lala and Scott come” and then you realize “ohhh right... that will be in a few months not a few weeks”
6)A real bed that is all mine!
7)Good Austin rainstorms... preferably thunder storms.
8)My car :) driving around all day with Anna just because we can. And now... she has one too! I'm psyched. Wanna pick me up from the air port in that? :D
9)Forests... I love living in the middle of a city but I really need my fill of trees actually.
10)Silence... it is right now but only because I am the only one awake. Normally it does not exist in this household.
11)Writing papers in English.
12)There is no crowd of people smoking as soon as you walk out of the front doors of highschool. Awful European habit.
13)Austin music scene.
14)Showers standing up.... ours is weird. Some combination of a bath and a shower. It works fine but....
15)Toilet seats: they don't exist in public (like school) bathrooms. Ever.

What I am going to miss like crazy:
1)My family. I am the luckiest lucky person on the face of the earth to be here with them. There do not exist kinder more welcoming people anywhere.
2)Malika... actually mum she made me look at what you do for us all the time differently too. I don't know if there is a harder job than being a mother, and my mum and Malika are both pretty good at it. Malika also happens to be one of my favorite people on the planet.
3)Sara.... my sister in a totally different way than Elaina. Can't even put this one in to words. Actually... none of them really fit into words as I would like.
4)Ilyess hopefully will come stay in Austin for the summer so you will see what I mean then. Very friendly, very fun, and never shuts up he can make anyone feel at ease.
5)Reduoane- I am pretty sure he is actually another kid in disguise sometimes... kidding. But honestly there don't exist very many people nicer than him.
6)Ok... I need to stop listing people or else this will never end. Rayanne and Ayoub... Ayoub is hilarious and Rayanne is really sweet if quieter around me. Now I swear just two more categories of people.
7)Charlotte and Sophie and Caroline... What could I even say? Finding friends when you dont speak the language is hard so I am lucky they found me.
8)Marina... ok so she didn't help me with french much :P but it was so so so nice to have her to explore France with me and I really hope to see her again.
9)The french language. Hard, but beautiful. I have started journaling lately (its exciting to be able to do stream of consciousness in french) and I am going to keep this up at home
10)My economics class... coolest teacher ever, and my science class- also a very very very kind teacher. And Italian which is just interesting. Maybe I can make Maria teach me at home.
11)Cold weather. I can not explain how much I will miss cold weather. Aunt Julie can I please go live with you during the winter months? Mum, Dad, can we move? Austin summers.... really now. Acutally Austin year round. I would like winter in Austin to be what the weather is like in early fall....
12)Sleeping in Sara's room
13)Crowding everyone around the too-small table
14)The constant action. I feel like Harry at the Weasley's here and it is so much fun.
15)Walking to school... walking everywhere really. I so dread having to get in the car for everything...
16)French chocolate
17)Watching Malika cook
18)Sleeping in Sara's room.
19)French culture.... I think I will do a blog post on this.