Monday 25 May 2009

Journal Entry 3: 26th January 2009

So here we are, a new year, a fresh start, and I am back in Rennes.

I moved back out here on the 12th of this month, ready to tackle the second semester head on and get down to business with my courses. I managed to choose 39.5 ECTS credits worth of modules, which will hopefully be enough along with my YAJ to complete the year. Unfortunately when it came to timetabling, there was one module that I simply could not accommodate - the French tend to fit all their teaching hours in the first half of the week, mostly mornings, and I could not find a time slot that didn't clash with something else.

I've chosen a wide variety of courses, the most useful and important I feel to be my Italian grammar class and my French/Italian translation classes, which I hope will help me to master both languages, and also help me keep up with my Italian as I most likely be spending much, if any time, there before I return to Exeter for 4th year.

My time in Rennes thus far, as my previous journal entries have shown, has been little more than tolerable, and I have found myself feeling quite low a lot of the time, and in fact really didn't want to return here for more of the same after Christmas. I have suffered with depression in the past and consequently went to see my doctor over Christmas to try and get some support. His opinion was that the way I've been feeling is a result of my circumstances but that if these do not improve things could become more of a problem, and has suggested that I try to find a support network, or boost my support network, to help me cope with my time abroad, and also wrote a doctor's note for Exeter as acknowledgement of how difficult I have been finding my time abroad so far, and the effect it's having on my mental health, though was reluctant to prescribe medication as I wouldn't be in England for the required follow up appointments. I've ummed and ahhed about whether to include this in my journal, but I feel that not doing so would be quite a big omission.

One big difference I have noticed is how I feel about my own safety. At home in the West Midlands, and in Exeter, I am fairly comfortable and confident being out and about after dark on my own, unlike some friends I have who insist on always being walked home. Saying I am entirely relaxed doing it would be an overstatement, but I am not too afraid to do it. Here, however, in the space of a week there were three "incidents" in the space of a week when I was out after dark and was intimidated by groups of male youths/men. I found this very unsettling, partly because I'm not used to that feeling of intimidation, and partly because being in a foreign country, it is possibly more intimidating than back in the UK. It hasn't been anything physical, but on one occasion another girl and I were followed from the centre of town to the next metro stop along, and on another occasion a car pulled over opposite the entrance to my building and cat calls and so on were made from the car windows, with the car engine being revved at the same time as a friend and I returned home. It's taken some getting used to, not having that same almost automatic feeling of safety, and I asked a friend in Exeter to post me a personal alarm to keep with me when I'm out on my own. I don't know whether this is a problem that's considerably bigger in France, or if I just haven't encountered it in the UK before and that's what I am finding unsettling.

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