Honestly, this was the most difficult experience I’ve had on talk abroad. I was nervous going into it as usual, but I ran into a lot of problems. First of all, the camera didn’t work despite my best efforts. I think at one point she asked if I could turn my camera on, but I didn’t have the vocabulary in French to explain that I didn’t know why it wasn’t working. I was immediately very uncomfortable because I didn’t know if maybe this session wouldn’t count because the camera needed to be on, but I didn’t have the time (or money) to reschedule. I also had a hard time because I practiced answering the questions from the sheet and sometimes Axelle (my partner) would rephrase it with vocabulary I wasn’t familiar with so I could only guess. I know we aren’t supposed to use a script or anything, but it’s what I had familiarized with, so the addition of unfamiliar vocabulary really threw me off.

            I didn’t notice any major cultural differences, as we didn’t really talk much about our cultures. We talked more about ourselves, so everything felt pretty similar and relatable. I don’t know if this was my anxiety, but I felt like I may have offended or annoyed her somehow. I thought she seemed a little bit frustrated when I didn’t comprehend something or took too long to answer a question that she asked. I also noticed she ended the conversation a few minutes early, which made me a bit confused. I know we finished the questions about four minutes early, but I wasn’t expecting her to just wrap it up immediately after going through all of them. I could be mistaken but I think she may have tried to correct my grammar or words a few times which I found helpful but also a bit embarrassing. Overall, I’m not as happy with this conversation as I was with the two from last semester, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.