Sobbing to my dentist & talking to cats

“Ooh, a year abroad! How exciting,” smiles the dental hygienist, putting on plastic gloves. “Where are you going?” 

There is a moment where I almost say Sydney. Toronto. Los Angeles. Heck, I almost say Melbourne, I even almost say Paris. Because then at least I haven’t lied about the country.

I swallow. “Brittany.” Silence. Does she need clarification? “Northern France.”

She is polite, and if surprised, she hides it well. “Lovely! You study French?” she coos, getting out the mini-mirror. I nod but say nothing. Mostly because there’s a mirror now wedged in my mouth.
“That must be beautiful! By the coast?” And it’s tempting to just murmur "mmmhmm" or some sort of affirmative, and be done with it. Because if I say no, she’ll look confused, and I’ll want to explain, and I’m worried it’ll all come out in one gushing torrent (tears and all) and she won’t be able to stop me even with a local anesthetic and dental drill:

No, not by the coast. Central Brittany – in what seems to be the only non-coastal town – and a tiny town at that. Smaller than Leeds by about six hundred thousand people, smaller than Guildford by about fifty thousand people. Tiny. An hour and a half from the capital city of Brittany. But you can get there by train? No, no train. But by bus? Nope. Two hours, sure, by getting a train north for an hour then southeast for an hour. The two longer sides of an isosceles. You see?! I'm so wound up and nervy I've managed to remember the word "isosceles"!

Didn't you pick where you were going? Only by vague region. But… there
will be another assistant, right? At your school? Apparently not. But there’ll be stuff going on in the town, right? All French towns have things going on! Well, a terrifying night using Google street view promised a few restaurants, a couple of banks and a MacDonalds. The height of French culture and cuisine, clearly. That night ended in sniffles, some hyperventilation and snapping my laptop shut so quickly in frustration I almost cracked the screen.

So all in all, it takes four hours to travel anywhere of note, I have hundreds of free hours per week but nothing to do with them, and am scared I’ll have fewer friends than when I was four years and old and went to nursery in Switzerland and everyone spoke French but me. Haha, oh wait, it's France, so it’s exactly like that time I went to nursery in Switzerland and everyone spoke French but me.

I can’t help but think it’s just another smidge of proof that if my life were transformed into a script and popped on Channel 4, it’d be the new farcical, Miranda-esque show for Britain to laugh at. "Rural" doesn’t even cover what’s happening to me. Come on, guys, show’s over, time to reveal the cameras. Nice prank! Where am I really going on my picturesque, romantic, chic French year abroad eh?
No?
For real?
Okay.

I'm worried I may devolve into a socially inept creature who scuttles around on all fours and speaks to cats. Or something. I’ll be rooting through people’s bins by fourth year!!! Look out, the Menace of Hyde Park strikes again!

That said, I know it's only daunting because it's a mystery. Certainly a mystery, but I’m sure I’ll live. It’ll be fun and great and I just need to have a lot of faith and hold tight, etc. etc. etc., thank you all for your advice and support. Expecting the worst means it must be better in comparison. It’ll be so different from anything else and today’s shudder-inducing nightmare is tomorrow’s hilarious blog post and so on. Yas yas.

...At the end of the day, in that dentist’s chair, I do just smile and nod ambiguously. Suuuure, it’s by the coast, why not? The woman isn’t a therapist so she doesn’t need me bursting into tears and sobbing until I choke to death on her dental implements. That’s not a fun day out for anybody.

I am so intrigued – perhaps almost excited? – to see how this year pans out. Expect blogs, maybe lots of them. Apart from that, expect absolutely nothing. Because I really, really don’t know what to expect myself.