Three Weeks, Two Cases and a Panic Attack

I have decided today that I love lists. I may not always follow them, but making them makes me feel so much better.


Things I need to do before France:

1. Drastically Improve My French- since I'm no longer seeing my tutors, I have had a fantastic idea on how to improve my French, involving reading a book I bought at oxfam, and noting down all the vocabulary I don't know. OK, so it's not technically my idea as one of my French tutors suggested it, but since they aren't going to read this, I'm taking the credit. The trouble with the French section of the oxfam bookshop is that it doesn't really have any contemporary books in it. I have nothing against classic novels, I just think my French is not really ready for Molliere yet. In fact, I know it's not. The reason I know is that I found the most simple looking French book in Oxfam, bought it, and it has taken me a week to get through three pages. The book is in fact far more complex than you'd expect. It's called 'Claudine a L'ecole', and what I've gathered so far, it's about a girl called Claudine, and she's probably going to be at l'école at some point but I haven't got there yet. It started with Claudine complaining about her town, and then in an early plot twist it turned out that actually she liked it. I think Claudine's a bit of a weird one, as she has an odd passion for trees, and kept going on about the bushes and the grass and the lilies of the valley and how she wanted someone to bring her a shrubbery. That's as far as I've got so far- maybe the fourth page will yield more exciting plot developments yet.

My other cunning plan to improve my French is watching some french films with the subtitles off. Surprisingly I can gather quite a lot about the films, despite understanding around 0.5% of the dialogue, which puts my faith in my ability to read people's faces and actions, but not in my ability to understand French.

2. Pack- It's still three weeks away, but I need to try and get my entire life for 9 months into 25kg worth of luggage so I think it will take a bit of practice. My dad keeps saying '25kg? When I go on holiday I don't even use 10kg,' to which my reply is, I'm not going on holiday, I'm moving away FOREVER. Actually not forever, I'll be back in a month for a few days, and I'll be back for good by July, but it will probably seem like forever as I'll miss my family (cats included) and boyfriend so much.

3. Find accommodation- this is unlikely to happen before I go. I'm already a member of appartager.com, but for some reason all the people who want to live with me are middle aged men. They are probably smartly dressed, respectable, nice, charming middle aged men but nevertheless I'm rather keen to meet people closer to my own age group. In fact, I'm not sure I want to live with men at all. Chris wouldn't like it, and I think I'd feel safer staying with girls. So I've put 'Filles uniquement' on my appartager ad and I don't get any messages at all now :(


Nevertheless despite my impossible to fulfill list I am really looking forward to France, despite being also terrified and really sad to be so far away from my loved ones. But they can come visit me in beautiful provence and we'll guzzle olive oil, frolic in lavender fields and stuff ourselves with truffles... or something like that!