Cultural Centrism Prevails: I miss the States.

I cried today for the first time. I feel like quitting. I want to go home. Today: I hate France. I knew today would come, and that there would be shitty times, but it really sucks a lot more in the moment than you imagine it beforehand. I came home from class this morning to find a note on my bed saying I had to see the director of the dorms right away. Turns out they have a handicapped student they are trying to accommodate. Long story short that involves taking my room and moving me back to the original building I was in, except into a new room. A new room that is smaller, with no balcony, just one tiny window and squished into the corner. The only room left available for obvious reasons. The start of classes and adjusting in general is overwhelming but my current lack of comfort and total feeling of disorientation has been multiplied by twenty. I feel homeless, thrown around and out of place. To add to it, they couldn't figure out what was going on and only managed to get a hold of me today when they've know about the problem for several weeks. So I have till Saturday to move. I have class for the rest of the day and I leave for Germany tomorrow afternoon. I will be able to move tomorrow morning, but it will make the errands I have to run and the hw I have to do before leaving difficult, not to mention it will put all my belongings back into bags again and leave me with a piles of stuff to reorganize when I return on Monday to another new week of class. On top of everything, the dorms we were placed in are actually quite expensive (not what we had been told at all), and considering where I've ended up (for now) are not really worth it in my opinion. Especially when nothing gets done, and no one knows what's going on. Like: telling me that I need to move in the first place, sending my mail to completely random places (that was fun) and not even knowing the answer to questions like: How much rent do I owe? When should I pay by? Why doesn't my Internet work? Also, the location of the dorms in town is lame, close to nothing except campus; it's even a long walk to a grocery store or the tram.

However, this makes it clear to me that the dorms, like I had believed all along, are not for me. I am now officially in search of a host family. It will have its own unique challenges as well, but my gut feeling says it is what I need to do now, and I have noticed in the past few years that my gut tends to be right a far amount of the time. I can always move again if it's truly terrible and the thought of living in the tiny, dark hole of room I've been given for the next year is not even slightly appealing. BUT it will get better. It's like things move in slow motion here. I'll get it figured out and I'll find a home eventually, but I just need to expect it to take five times as long as it would in the States. Until then I'm going to Germany! And it's a good thing too, some good German Beer, Sausage and Pretzels are just what I need this weekend!