La fin

So I'm back at Mudd and getting back into research. It's hard to believe how quickly you can get readjusted after being in a foreign country. On the other hand I asked Terence at dinner the other night if we were allowed to put our elbows on the table at meals in America. So I've done a lot of thinking about whether or not it was really a good choice to go abroad. I've fallen a little behind in terms of classes for my major, my English has been set back a little, and somehow I'm having problems loading gels in lab. At the same time, seeing France gave me a viewpoint I could never have found elsewhere. Above all, it showed me a surprisingly different way to think. The lifestyle is a lot different, and it was really cool to see how the thought process can lead to so many of the differences I noticed. I can make up the missed classes, I can go back to English, and I can spend 12 hours a day in lab to relearn the basics, but I'll never have another opportunity like studying abroad. It was definitely a great decision, and if anyone reading this is on the fence about doing the same thing, you gotta go. I miss Paris a lot, but I really hope to get back there soonish, maybe even taking a job over there for a while between college and grad school. I'm finishing this post and probably this blog with my favorite photo of the semester, taken the last night I was in Paris. I think it was take number seven on the backflip in front of the Eiffel Tower project, and somehow Glennis caught me right before takeoff. I think it perfectly expresses the unimaginable anguish of having to leave the Paris that I had come to love. But I'll be back.