Journal #15

Someone who I greatly miss lives across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe. Paul Boucherie was a foreign exchange student from last year from France. He was hilarious. Paul stayed with the Good family and became a very close friend. Some of my favorite memories with Paul happened in Madrigals. Tucker Good had been involved in Madrigals all four years and so it was no surprise that he convinced his foreign exchange student to join in. I remember one class when we were learning a French song for Madrigals and he just laughed at our sorry attempt to pronounce the French words. With his help, our accents were not horrible. Paul was also involved in band as a part of the drum line. The drum line was one of my favorite parts of the football games and I always yelled "Go Paul!" when he played. He later joined track with us and ran for the first time. To put it nicely, running was not his forte. Nevertheless, he had fun and it was nice to have him on the team and hang out with him outside of school. I love getting to know the foreign exchange students because they are so unique. One of the things is that I just love accents, but I also think it is so interesting to learn about their culture and what they like the most about America. It is funny to see someone's perspective of us and our country from someone who is here for the first time. One of the hardest things about becoming friends with a foreign exchange student is that you know you will eventually have to say goodbye. The year goes by so quickly and you do not even notice it until they only have a few weeks left in the United States. I remember going to his going away party with Micalister and promising ourselves that we were not going to cry. We broke that promise. It was very emotional and we left in tears, but it was so good to see him one last time. We promised to keep in touch though. One of the great things about Facebook and other social media sites is that they allow you to communicate with people all over the world. This, as well as skype, makes it possible to still keep in contact with friends even though they are thousands of miles away. I hope someday to visit him in France, but for now I have to settle with Skype and Facebook.