Ma Vie Fantastique en France... Or Something Like It

Catch Up

2010-05-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

I am soooorrreee :( By which I mean sore, but with emphasis.

I burnt my back over the weekend on a trip to Nice (I am ultra careful and reapply my suncream every hour but this was a bit of my back I just couldn't reach :( ) I've put so much cream on but it's still sooooore. And I have toothache. Which is sooooore. Gosh I am such a baby.

The weekend trip to Nice, sunburn aside, was fab-u-lous, lovely to see my tante and oncle and cousins, and wonderful to say 'trois jours, trois villes, trois plages!' We spent the first day in Monaco and saw someone who was possibly famous, spent the second day in Cannes and saw people who were definitely famous (Kate Beckinsdale, Kirsten Dunst, among others) and then spent the last day in Nice, and imagined we were famous. Such a good weekend, it was up to 30 degrees and I really felt like I was on holiday, it was a real escape. Now that I'm back in Avignon I feel a bit trapped again.

Since my last post I've been home (and had to stay an extra week because of the volcano) S had her bday (lovely pizza meal and bbq) we had to say goodbye to a lot of our friends :( we were ill for a while (sadly garlic didn't suffice to stifle it a second time) and then C came to visit and we went to Orange, Nimes and spent some time in Marseille and in Avignon. It's so sad he's not coming back, there was so much more I wanted to show him. Starting to look forward to seeing him properly and not just for a fleeting visit though... a month to go.

Oh yes and I'm still happily vegan. In fact, out of the blue my flatmate Cl said that her friend is hosting a vegan dinner at our house tomorrow, and Cl is making a vegan chocolate cake... I am salivating already!!! I'm not sure there's much that anyone could do that could make me more excited, having vegan food cooked for me is definitely up there somewhere on my 'Ten Things that Make Me Sooooo Happy' list. Along with Chris, and my hippo teddy bear Francis. (He's actually called Kirsti but it's a bit embarassing having a teddy named after yourself so let's pretend he's called Francis. I'm secretly not sure that Francis is actually in the top ten but he's under my arm and can maybe see what I'm writing, so I'll say he is.)

Also last Tuesday we drank toooo much whisky with the obvious unpleasant consequences. But on the plus side we did it to a great 'indie nostalgia' playlist! I think I should just stop drinking. I always hear my idealist fifteen-year-old self saying 'I'm never ever going to drink, it's bad for you. Why would anybody poison themselves?' Of course my usual drinking habit of one glass of wine a fortnight at most is hardly going to kill me (or at least is unlikely to speed up the process of my death that much...) but things like whiskey night should never happen.

I think being in Avignon has really made me change as a person, but (I hope) in a good way. I think I'm more self aware now. Aware of what I want(ish), aware of what impact I have, aware of things I do which I don't like but which I can't seem to stop doing, like being antisocial when I'm tired, or saying one thing then changing my mind three minutes later. And I've learned that I'm rubbish at keeping up with a blog.

Here's hoping I remember to write again at some point before I leave for good.

Oh and I've learned that sometimes I need to force myself to be an optimist. So fingers crossed!

The V Word

2010-04-09T04:47:00.000-07:00

What do Pythagoras, Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci have in common? There may be many things which come to mind, but I doubt that one of them is that they were all vegetarian. In fact, Da Vinci was a vegan.

I'm currently at home in Glasgow for two weeks over the Easter holidays and have had a lot of time to think, and my thinking has been going a lot in one direction. I have been a vegetarian for almost 20 years, most of my life, and this choice was, in a way, made for me by my parents. However I have never once even considered, not even for a minute, becoming a meat eater and consuming dead poultry, cows, fish, pigs or sheep. The idea of flesh passing my lips disgusts me, plus the more research I have done into animal welfare and factory farming, the more I have been convinced that meat production involves exploitation, abuse and cruelty, and that you cannot be an animal lover and still eat meat if you are truly aware of the conditions of the creatures slaughtered- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4. I am often asked why I am a vegetarian, and rarely put it in such blunt terms. I hate confrontation, and have a fear of alienating my friends if I express my views in a way that attacks part of their lifestyle. I also believe in personal choice, and part of me feels that if I truly explain my viewpoint, I may be seen as trying to 'convert'. But then again, if someone asks me the question, am I not entitled to give an honest answer?

Moving to France was a large challenge for my vegetarian lifestyle. There are simply far less vegetarians there, and in my experience fewer people who seem interested animal welfare- after all, this is the country where disgustingly force-fed ducks is a speciality- although I must admit that I have never been chastised for my opinion in France. Nobody I've met in Avignon has said anything against my being a vegetarian, unlike some people in Britain, and all my friends have really tried hard to accommodate me when I go to dinner parties, to the extent that I start to apologise for my beliefs- I feel guilty that my beliefs inconvenience people. In my last few days in France before coming back for Easter I was actually starting to feel quite depressed that nobody really understood my vegetarian mindset, and I felt real need of the company of other 'people like me'. This is the first time I've felt this way, and was compounded by the fact that my research had led me to make a new and highly controversial decision- to become vegan.

This has been a long time coming- maybe three or four months that I've been considering it- but recent discovery into how unhealthy dairy is, how it contributes to the veal industry and how dairy cows are just as, and perhaps even more, abused than cows bred for meat purposes, really turned my stomach. I have been drinking soya milk instead of milk and eating soya butter for around two years now, since my dad started doing it, and so I figured the transition on a personal level wouldn't be that difficult. I'd miss cheese, but there were alternatives available, and as far as cakes are concerned, I am spending my two weeks at home honing my baking skills and am planning to try as many vegan cake and biscuit recipes as I can- I have already made vegan trifle several times for family occasions as I have a vegan aunt. As for eggs, the fact that chickens are slaughtered when their peak egg production is over and they produce less eggs- looong before their natural lifespan- and the fact that male baby chicks are murdered at birth, often minced alive- made me think what is the point in not eating chicken but continuing to contribute to chicken deaths?

Anyway this was a highly personal decision that I made for my health and my conscience. In fact, I have found it surprisingly easy to shun dairy and egg produce- I even had a dominos pizza the other day with vegan cheese, and it was yummy. The very idea of milk puts me off now- why do we drink something designed for a baby calf? It's really weird if you think about it. Plus I always remember two years ago being at a cheese factory as part of one of my legal placements (the factory was our client) and having a chat about cheese with a man who had used to be a dairy farmer. He didn't know I was a vegetarian, and he said "you know these vegetarians are so hypocritical. They don't eat meat, but from what I've seen the most painful thing ever done to a cow is seperating it from it's baby. They cry for days." I told him I was a vegetarian and he just shrugged, like 'well more fool you.' Getting this kind of info from someone who wasn't a vegan or even a vegetarian, and had no motive for putting me off milk, was more powerful than anything else could be. Yet for some reason it took two years before I changed.

My biggest challenge as a vegan will be other people's opinions, plus the whole 'inconveniencing people' factor is going to increase by about 200% and I'm not sure what I'll do about that. But I'm sure in my mind. The main thing I need is support- thankfully my Mum and C are trying really hard, C wasn't too happy at first, which is understandable, but then he took me to the supermarket and bought me a bunch of soya yoghurts and soya cheese, which made me really happy. Being vegan is something I'm not sure I'll go back on, but I may have to compromise somewhat in France where there is so little available, I have yet to find a margarine without buttermilk.

Well I have to go now as I've got to sort out applying for the diploma next year, but I'm thankful to have my blog where I can post my thoughts and opinions, and clear my head.

A Garlicky Situation

2010-03-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

Ugh, I am a little down just now, and I don't know why. This happens occasionally, after all it is hard being away from Chris and my family, but I'm seeing them on Sunday so it's really annoying to feel so sad. Normally I'd call Chris but he's working late and I'll need to go to bed before he'll get back. It's really stupid though, I've had a very nice week and can't complain, so my melancholy mood is inexplicable.

We had our Roman party on Saturday and even though my costume looked just like I'd tied a bedsheet around myself (possibly because I had in fact tied a bedsheet around myself) it was a nice night. The honey and rosemary toasts, rasberry cheesecake, apple tart, and muscat were all particular highlights. However I do recall being rather down over the weekend as well as I barely went out. S's friend A was here since last Thursday and so they were doing things together which I was also invited to, but which I had done before recently and didn't much feel like doing again. On Friday I went food shopping with Cl for the roman party and we spent 3, yes that's three hours in Auchan (a supermarket) which was a bit crazy, and I managed to spend an inordinate amount of money on food considering I'm only here for a few more days then I go home. On Saturday and Sunday during the day I did basically nothing, although Sunday night another friend from India came round and made us curry which was very nice. Then on Monday S and A went to the Calanques- the sea- which I would have really have liked to have done, but I was working, so when I got home from work I spent the night in alone. Yesterday was a good day- I didn't need to work, as the school had the previously mentioned Challenge Langues Vivantes so I spent the day playing Happy Families with the kids and met some English expats. After school I took the bus back to Avignon with S and A who were also in Cavaillon, and then I went yet again to the shops and impossibly bought even more (all I needed was chopped tomatoes and margarine but I ended up buying 23 euros worth of stuff). When I got back to the house, there stainding in the kitchen was a strange and very tall man, plus A, who immediately took a photo of my puzzled face.

The man turned out to be D, a guy S and A had spent time with at Villeneuve on Sunday and at the Calanques on Monday, and who they had met by surprise at the bus stop in Avignon and had invited back. He was a Canadian who was travelling around Europe for 9 months, and so he stayed for dinner- lentil soup (with groans from the boys who I think wanted something more substantial or meaty, although in the end they liked it) and pizza which was surprisingly given to S by our most mysterious housemate- Mr Sh, who lives downstairs next to the garage and who we almost never see. After dinner me and S and A went to a friend's house for a 'Nutella party' which comprised of biscuits and bread and breadsticks all of which were spreaded with or dipped in nutella- a fairly calorific but pleasant affair although by the end I was completely shattered and desperate to go home.

Today I went out with S and A as A wanted to look for presents to take back to friend's and family, and then we met D and a girl we're friends with N, at the Palais des Papes and went up to the Jardin Des Doms and passed an agreeable afternoon picnicking on the grass in the sunshine. We then went to the bus stop with A, to say goodbye as he went back to Germany. Then we came back here with D so he could give S his photos and we drank ginger tea.

The reason behind the ginger tea is a battle I've been having over the last couple of days with a cold which I am determined not to succumb to. Basically on Saturday night at the party Cl wasn't very well and she even had to go to bed early because of it. Then on Monday morning I awoke with a really sore throat and constant thirst which for me is usually the first sign of a cold. I can just about deal with the sore throat, but I hate what usually follows- a nose so blocked I can't sleep, losing my voice, a hacking cough and then eventually a nose so runny I either need to sniff or use a tissue every two seconds- and it just so happens that I had recently found out that garlic was good against colds.

The reason I knew this was that last Tuesday, just over a week ago, I had some bread that needed to be used up and decided to make garlic bread, the problem being that I wasn't so sure how to make it- in the end I chopped up about 3 cloves of garlic for about 12 very small pieces of bread (think a slice of a baguette) and mixed the garlic with margarine, spread it on the bread and toasted it. This I then offered to S, and apparently I'd used way too much garlic, which wasn't a problem of taste- it tasted pretty good, kind of spicy- but after we'd finished eating it S pointed out that eating garlic can often result in smelling like garlic. Which could be a problem, considering that this particular night S had a date. I thought it would be fine- just brush your teath and it'll go away, right? Wrong. I then did some research on garlic. Apparently it sticks to your lungs or something and the smell comes out when you exhale whether you brush your teeth a hundred times or not, plus the smell actually comes out through the pores in your skin. So, whoops! Nonetheless I tried researching contra-garlic measures, but the most effective seemed to be eating fresh parsley, which we didn't have, or not eating garlic. But while I was doing this research I discovered that garlic also had antibiotic properties, and was therefore good for colds. Which brings me back to....

My battle against the ever approaching cold. When I felt the sore throat coming on, I decided to see what natural anti cold remedies might be available, by doing my usual form of research- typing 'natural cold remedies' into google. Zinc, vitamin C, ginger, echinacea, and of course, garlic. Phase one was a fairly disgusting, but actually better than I thought, concotion of two crushed cloves of fresh garlic in a cupful of boiling water mixed with ten drops of lemon juice (for the vit C) which I drank on Monday night. Yesterday morning I awoke with a similarly sore throat, but no other symptoms. Yesterday evening after the nutella party I drank another garlic-soup concoction, plus a carrot-apple and strawberry drink I'd bought which contains half the RDA of vitamin C, plus in the morning I'd eating a vitamin and iron rich cereal, to which I added raisins, for the iron, the reason behind this being that as a vegetarian I am susceptible to anaemia which in turn lowers the immune system, which isn't good in the battle against a cold. Today I awoke with a sore throat again, but still no other symptoms, and the first thing I did was drink the vitamin C juice after which the sore throat got better throughout the day- phase three involved buying some ginger today and making ginger and lemon tea. Now my sore throat is almost gone, but who knows, it may be back tomorrow. Which is just about where I'd got to in my evening I think...

Anyway D left for Lyon, then he's going to Rome, so he has continued on his travels. After he was gone we made a quiche (phase four- eggs for the zinc!) then I prepared for school and tutoring tomorrow (though I am still rather unprepared for school, there may be some improvisation involved tomorrow), then Stefanie was tired so she went to bed, then I came on my computer, had a look at the roman party pics on facebook, felt rather down and decided to write in my blog...

...and that's about it! Who'da thunk it but I actually feel a lot better now, maybe I needed some spiritual cleansing in the form of spewing out my life and boring contra-cold eating habits! So now I'm going to sleep. If anyone actually got through this labyrinth of a blog post, well done, I'm a bit all over the place right now. Oh but if you have any other cold cures, let me know- I've still to try echinacea but I'm working my way through the list!

P.S.- If you're wondering what happened on the date after all the garlic, apparently he didn't seem to notice the smell but sadly S decided she didn't like the fellow any more, he just wasn't her type. So if you know any young, handsome, eligible bachelors in the Avignon area let me know and I'll pass the information on!

The Visitors

2010-03-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

Well it's now nearly a week since the arrival of my beloved, who only stayed the weekend and left on Monday, and nearly two weeks since my parents and aunt came, and a week since they left. And now S's friend A is here, so March has been quite the month of visitation.

I had a fab time with my family and also a really great time with C, and I will be home again in just over a week, for the last time until the end of the Avignon Experience. It's really true when everyone said 'it will all go in so fast'- can't believe there are just 3 months left, and two weeks of that I'm in Glasgow. There are so many things I've yet to do- The Camargue, Les Calanques, Aix-en-Provence, and further afield, Toulouse. I also want to visit my aunt in Nice at least once more. To be fair the weather has only just perked up enough to go visiting, and I got to see Orange and Arles with my parents when they were here. Clearly I am working hard on doing all my sightseeing, sitting as i am in my bed with my pc on my lap at midday on one of my days off. On the other hand I am going shopping shortly to buy food for our Roman Party, our second soirée deguisement after the 80s party was a success. I may also need to think about a costume, as I haven't got one yet. If I have my way we will also have a fancy dress party the weekend after my birthday- A Spiderman Party! Rachel I will give you adequate warning if I in fact decide to do this, not sure there will be enough people here to do it as most of my friends leave at the end of April :( having only seven month contracts. I can only think of about 4 or 5 of my friends who will still be here for May and June. I am getting pretty sad about this, having to say goodbye to everyone in just over a month :( but I am really glad that my flatmates will still be here!!

In other news my friend's cat just had 5 extremely cute kittens, photos will be forthcoming on Facebook!!

Anyway I'm off to do something, something being my new favourite word as I use it uncommonly often... or something like that.

Where the Hell Are We Jumping?

2010-03-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

The title of this post refers to our blatant rip off of 'Where the Hell is Matt', us being S and Cl and I. Basically, whenever we go anywhere we haven't been before, we take a photo (usually several) of us jumping. That's pretty much it. But our plan is that somehow this project will grant us funding to travel the world, see loads of different places, and in each of them, to jump. We could even have a theme song, like 'Jump!' by Girls Aloud, or that jumping song in Glee when they do the mattress advert. We could try and do different style jumps in each place visited, and interview other jumpers, and learn the local culture in reference to jumping, and we could do a 'who's the oldest person we can find who wants to jump in our photos?' feature. This is going to make us famous one day, just you wait and see. If you have any more ideas with reference to our future jumping project let me know- i.e. who would you like to see jumping? We could try and get celebrities to jump, so if you are so inclined to tell me, which celebrity would you most like to see jumping, and why?

In other news, I did not get a snow day yesterday after all, and most of it has melted, but I am still blinking freeeezing. I'm not going out tonight, already have my PJs on and am chilling out at home, obviously, since I am writing in my blog- twice in 3 days, I may be getting better at this. I have just about gotten over my anger at one of my schools (where I was today) for not telling me they were bringing a new English teacher in. Well it's not quite like that. Basically I was told that for the three eldest classes (CM2, CM1, and CE2 CM1) there would be a high school English teacher coming to help bridge the gap between secondary (or college) and primary education. When this happened, I was to spend more time with the 5 younger classes (CE1/CE2, CP and the three Maternelle groups) but they weren't sure when she was coming. I said this was fine but could I please have at least a weeks notice because otherwise I would do unnecessary preparation for the older kids and not enough for the youngers, and was told 'of course!'. So I turn up the next week having prepared for all 8 classes and am told 'oh, we tried to call you last night, you're just doing the younger classes because the teacher was here last Thursday, so you can just spend extra time with them.' Ehhh great, so an attempted call the night before= a weeks notice. Not wanting to complain, I smiled and said 'yes of course that's fine but I haven't really prepared to spend longer with the little ones' and was told 'oh don't worry.' Eh, yeah right, don't worry, well it's not you that has to go unprepared to entertain a bunch of 3/4/5 year olds in a foreign language and underprepared for an amount of time which is frankly too long for their attention span. I coped, because I always have a few extra things up my sleeve for emergencies, but have to admit I was a bit (very) pissed off with the way it was handled. Moreover, in a few weeks it's the older kids 'Challenge Langues Vivantes' which is like a day of games and activities in English related to a theme- this year 'La Maison'. So I had prepared a four week plan of work which would get the kids up to date on the words for the rooms of the house, and objects in each room, which I was told at the start of the year would be what they'd need to know. And just when that four week plan was about to start, this new prof comes in, and I've seen what she's doing with them and it's nothing to do with the challenge. So in now 3 weeks I go with the kids to the Challenge and they will probably do very badly and not know anything and I will feel guilty even though it's not my fault. I'm pretty angry about this too as I was looking forward to the Challenge and now it's set to be a shambles I think. I did leave some of the stuff I prepared at the school today with a note for the English teacher explaining about the challenge, so fingers crossed she might cover it but it's out of my hands. To make matters worse, she goes on maternity leave in a couple of weeks and I'll be back with the kids again- so what the bloomin' heck is the point of that, a few weeks with her and then I'll have to work out all over again what they've been doing and retailor my lesson plans- the whole thing is a mess and just writing about it gets me annoyed.

But my anger is mostly dissipated by the fact that, while I'm only teaching the little kids, I can leave school nearly 2 hours earlier and get the earlier bus home, meaning getting back at 5 and not 6- score!

Well I'm off to skype with C- he comes in a week and a half, wayhey!!! :D Hopefully this current mood of writing frequent blog posts will continue, and I'll write again soon.

This Fire(nze) is out of Control

2010-03-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Oh my giddy aunt, it's snowing!! Can't quite believe it, in Provence and in March. Pros: Possible 'snow day' and no school tomorrow (everything really does grind to a halt here when there's snow on the ground) Cons: Wet feet- all of my boots and shoes have long ago lost their waterprooficity except my hillwalking boots but don't really fancy wearing them out and about. So if I do have school I will most likely have soaked socks and cold tootsies, *sigh*.

I have decided that I will just hope it will be a snow day tomorrow and instead of preparing for school, will write a blog post and try and keep this thing rolling. First, would like to briefly mention the weekend which consisted of a Friday night Algerian (i think) fashion show in a Maison Pour Tous which featured some amaaazing dresses, photos to be added sur facebook soon. After this, getting home about 11, S and I made a cake, a Shokonusskuchen (sp?) or chocolate nut cake, with rum, yum! It's now Sunday and most of it is gone, oops. So much for the regime. Anyway back to chronology, on Saturday we started off the day in a similarly regime-ruining way at Utopia with a breakast of croissants and biscuits and brownies, oh my! Followed by some short films about the current situation in Mexico which were very touching and enlightening. Then about 12 we had to rush home and change clothes, and put together a packed lunch before heading out in Cl's car to Fontaine de Vaucluse, where we climbed a hill with some of Cl's uni friends. It was a really great day, and at night we went back to one guy's house whos birthday it was and ordered pizza. That was what the Shokonusskuchen was for by the way, the birthday. And then today I've been working out how to go home in April, and for how long. I'm thinking of trying the train, which is sure to take all day but I'm bloomin' fed up of airports plus I can take as much luggage as I can carry on a train- no 15kg limit.

So that was this weekend. But I wanted to use this post to describe my holiday in Florence in early Feb. I went with S and with D, a Sicilian friend who's also an assistant, and we stayed there about 4 days. It was absolutely amazing and I took sooooo many photos which I am still in the process of uploading onto fbook. The hostel we stayed in was fine, a bit shabby but clean, although they did try and fob us off into a shared room instead of the private room we'd ordered, plus it was terminally freezing at night until they gave us a small storage heater which I hated leaving on, being a bit of a paranoid freak and thinking it was going to set fire to the place. But ca est allé as they say. During the trip I even learned a little italian, spoken not written so I can't really put it into the blog without looking like a misspelt fool. Nonetheless, rest assured that my Bonjournos and Bellissimos were fantastic *cough*. We visited all the usual tourist attractions, and even managed to take a daytrip to Siena, but what I really want to document (so that everyone can laugh at me of course) is that I had one of the most silly language barrier confusions of my life. We went to this amazing vege cafe named Brac (reccommended to us by an italian assistant whose sister works there) twice during our stay, and the first time, after our meal (a delish seitan tortellini for me) we decided to order coffee. Now, I am a relatively recent coffee convert, and can only drink the stuff with a fair amount of sugar and a lot of milk, but I've recently gone off milk and taken to using soya milk instead when I can, but it obviously isn't very widely available in cafes. But I had noticed that it was listed in the menu that coffee with soya milk was available and so, after D ordered two cafes, I ordered a 'latte de soja' vaguely remembering that that was what was written on the menu. Looking rather bemused, the waiter told me that they were out of soya milk, so i told him 'oh ok then i'll have just a latte' in french (he spoke french but not english). He still seemed a bit confused and said in italian 'latte caldo?' but i didn't understand so just nodded away...

Anyone who speaks Italian probably knows what's coming next. You might have guessed it anyway. The waiter brings D and S their expressos, and brings me a lovely glass of hot milk. At which I ask D 'why do I have hot milk? I ordered a latte?'. And she replies 'yeah that is latte.' And I cotton on that latte means milk and that therefore when I go into starbucks and ask for a soya carmalatte, they understand me because we're in a coffee shop and because in English 'latte' would usually signify coffee, but if I ask in Italy for 'latte' without saying 'cafe latte', I am asking for milk, and I will get milk. I drank it by the way, but forgot to take a photo to bookmark my shame, so here's a blog entry instead.

My embarassing experience in Florence... or something like that.

That Spring Feeling!

2010-02-26T01:40:00.000-08:00

Well I am told it's officially Spring and this can really be seen today by the gorgeous, sunny blue sky, the little flowers pushing their heads out of the ground and the busy sounds of various people outside working on their gardens. I really need to get out today and benefit from the lovely weather, but not sure what to do exactly. It's too late for a spontaneous day trip, so it's either town centre (might have a quick look at the shops anyway, after all it was just payday!), Isle de la Barthelasse, or Villeneuve, both slightly north of Avignon and walkable.

It's just a week since I got back from my February holidays spent in Florence and Glasgow and already I'm really missing C. Have to say that this long distance thing's not exactly my cup of tea, and once I'm back home in July, I don't plan on ever being apart from him for this long again. My hippo teddy with Superman t-shirt C gave me for my 18th birthday provides some comfort but it's not exactly the same. At least he's coming soon in March even if it is only for 2 days. We're planning a futuristic party for the night he gets here and I'm still not sure if it's a great idea and if he wouldn't rather just have a quite evening in but he says he doesn't mind and I've already suggested a costume to him of Captain Kirk which I think would be great. Haven't actually thought of a costume for myself yet. Read online some suggestions including wrapping self in tinfoil and/ or clingfilm but that raises the questions of what one wears under it, and whether we are in fact likely to go around dressed up like sandwiches in the future anyway.

Since I've been back in Avignon I've still only been working one day a week so have spent a lot of time 1) listening to the Glee soundtrack bought in Glasgow 2) Watching Gilmore Girls 3) Watching the Tudors 4) Reading mindless chicklit 5) Cooking and 6) Sleeping in. Did go out on Tuesday and Wednesday night, plus had mini dinner party (ok not really a dinner party when there are just 2 hosts and 2 guests, but still) last night, but not really getting very far on accomplishing my goals of vastly improving my French, improving my German and doing more creative writing. On the last front I did do a new plot outline at 1am one night which was bizarrely inspired by some experiences with ants in the house (thank goodness not yet in our part of the house, but still poor colocs downstairs) and could take this with some paper and a pen today and go to Isle, sit on the grass and work through the plot to see if I actually had some inspiration or just wrote some late night rubbish. It would be nice to do some writing outdoors on the grassy banks of the Rhone with the sun shining down... could take a French book with me and if the writing came to nothing could try and accomplish other goal of improving French.

Not sure... on the other hand lounging about on facebook in my pyjamas and having long Skype calls with Chris is tempting, but I really think I oughta get out for a bit. At the very least, I've got a washing hanging out so if nothing else I'll go bring that in, but I think a voyage a little further afield would be good for my soul... or something like that.

Lack Of Posting

2010-02-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

Is entirely inexcusable after everyone was so nice and left me some comments! Going to Florence in a week and I'll be sure to try and update afterwards to give my news on the trip. I don't know why I never have time to post when I only work one day a week atm (contract problems) guess I'm just lazy. Also my internet's too slow to update pics onto the blog, and after all a picture says a thousand words, so if there were more pics I'd not have to do so much typing! We had an 80s party the other night which was a lot of fun, looked an absolute state in multicoloured apparel and with 'boosted' hair haha. I definitely go to a lot more parties here than in Glasgow!

Furieuse

2010-02-01T09:43:00.001-08:00

Feeling pretty down today after the landlady came into our kitchen and practically accused us of living like pigs, sure the bin was a bit too full and there were some crumbs on the table but the kitchen was essentially clean and tidy, not, as she suggested, 'a health hazard'. Even if it had been dirty, since we're renting it it's none of her business. It was particularly directed at me as well 'Oh don't worry Stefanie I know you're clean, but after all there are two of you." This is after the comment a couple of days ago when having a late lunch that we're 'always eating,' really rude and not true. Really just wanted to say excuse me, stay out of our business and if you don't have anything nice to say don't bother saying anything to us. Can't remember the last time I was so angry at anyone!!!

Comments

2009-12-18T02:34:00.000-08:00

PS I know I barely write in this thing but I haven't had a comment in like forever! Will give homemade shortbread for comments (well, if I'm within a 5 minute walk of you will give shortbread, shortbread doesn't travel well!)

Noel en France

2009-12-18T01:34:00.000-08:00

Just found an extra brownie in my cupboard that I didn't know I had- score!!

Well, I'm writing this a day before I head back to Glasgow, as I can't pack my case yet- the femme de menage is cleaning my room. The past month has been pretty eventful- went for a walk in Orgon, went to Nice, Chris came to visit, saw the festival of lights in Lyon, and had various fetes at peoples houses, plus plenty of flat drama. I also know almost all the words and actions now to a German song about flying like a plane (und ich flieg, flieg, flieg wie ein flieger!), have found out that two of the schools I've been teaching at aren't in my contract and don't have insurance to have me there, I've learnt how to (well watched Stefanie) make mulled wine, and have found out what the 13 deserts of Provence are, have learned French for Christmas tree (Sapin, lit. pine tree,- not 'Arbre de Noel' as I was originally saying!), elf (lutin), snowman (bon homme de neige, makes sense), and reindeer (reine).

As well as the many good experiences there have been, there's also been some, well, not necessarily bad, as much as, bizarre (love that that word works in English as well as French, probably my most overused word here!). For example, one Tuesday night me and S and another friend, N, decided to go out and try some salsa dancing at some free classes advertised in an Avignon club. The 'free' part is disputable, had to book our coats in at 2euros, and when we went in the place was practically empty, the class was in full swing and everyone there had clearly been coming for some time and knew all the rather complicated steps. At one point there was a break and we asked the instructor whether there was any classes for beginners, only to be told 'no, these sessions aren't really for beginners', which is not the impression we got from the posters pasted all around town. To add to this though, there were people at the back of the room watching us and apparently taking photos as well. When we left, one guy came out and told us we were being watched for an anthropology project for uni- don't people need your permission before they do that kind of thing? Anyway, we left and headed to another bar which does salsa classes, even though you have to pay, to check it out. At the bar N met someone she knew and was chatting with him, and we were standing there for maybe 10 minutes at most when the proprietor of the place came right up to our faces and said 'what are you having to drink ladies?' I wasn't sure how long we were staying so didn't reply, but he just kept asking, and eventually we said we weren't sure yet, nothing at the moment. To which he shouted right in S's face in French that we had to leave. I couldn't really believe it until he said in English "Go Away!". It was the rudest thing ever and I still can't believe he treated his customers that way. Anyway me and S left and vowed never to go back again. If you live in Avignon I'd advise avoiding the bar with the initials B C, the proprietor is very rude!!

As mentioned above we've also had numerious flat dramas generally involving our landlady (nicknamed LoLo) and one or other of us very nice tenants. The current, biggest flat goss is that one of my colocs has acquired a kitten, and it states in the terms of us being here that we've not to have pets for 'hygeine reasons', which is hypocritical as LoLo has her daughters dog Sam over for days on end every other week (Sam barks maniacally every time he sees you, and once scared me half to death by barking at me when I came out of my room into the corridor... he has been a small source of flat drama himself) but nobody is quite sure what will happen when she finds out about the cat. I for one am really happy to have a moggy in the house, and I even got to babysit him in my room last night :D. Makes me even more excited to see my own kitties when I get home tomorrow- can't wait!!

Well there's loads more wee stories to tell that'll have to wait for another time- I really have to pack! But my New Years Resolution will be to write in my blog more often (along with a resolution to actually think a bit about what I'm going to do about getting a job after the diploma... so hard to be motivated as it seems so far away!).

Update

2009-11-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

Super vite update!

So I am not very good at keeping a blog, that much has been established. Been here for two months now! Time has flown in, but at the same time feels like aaages ago that I first arrived with my parents and a massive amount of stress about finding a house and having to teach for the first time. Now I have an appartment with great flatmates (including our newest edition) and standing up in front of the class is no longer a big worry- lessons can even be a lot of fun! Nevertheless, there will always be challenges, like today when I was dropped off a little late for the bus home and missed it, meaning I had to wait two hours standing in a dark cold street in the middle of nowhere for the next bus- after the first hour I was contemplating hitchiking, but really I would never do that unless the only other option was to lie down and sleep in the street! So basically it's not been an easy day. In fact the kids at school today were great, and I'm really impressed by my CM2 in particular- I'm excited that I'm starting to get them to speak an actual sentence as opposed to just a word. Hurrah! Also looking forward to starting Christmas lessons. Only 3 weeks of school left so I might start Christmas next week!

Besides school, I've been really busy. Yesterday I went on a walk with some other assistants to Orgon, and walked 13km which I think is pretty impressive, although somewhat painful in my flimsy trainers. Parents are sending me walking boots and a rucksack in Chris's case for when he comes on Saturday, so next time there's a walk I'll be prepared. Then last night went with Stefanie, Claire and Claire's friend Coralie to see "micmacs à tire-larigot", a film by the same director who did Amelie Poulain, and it was really good. Didn't understand a lot of the speech but the gestures and actions in the film meant that mostly I got the plot.

I've also done some travelling- last weekend I was in Nice visiting my aunt and family. Had a really nice time- we also went to the movies- saw the Petit Nicholas, a really cute and funny film, and that time I did understand most of what was said as it was spoken by primary school children. We also went to an archaeological roman ruin site and the Chagal museum (I got in free- being under 25 and showing ID in France can do wonders in museums, works at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris too), and had a nice pub dinner. Look forward to visiting again at some point next year!

Thursday night before I went to Nice we had a wee soiree at the flat, using my bedroom as the salon since the kitchen really isn't big enough. It was a really nice relaxed calm night, with good food (none of it made by me- my contribution to the evening was to tidy my room!) and good company.

There's been quite a lot of other dinners and parties at people's houses, and it makes me really glad to be in Avignon where there's so many lovely people. There's another one tomorrow night, and then on Saturday Chris will be here :D! Can't wait to show him my little town (compared to Glasgow, Avignon is not exactly a city) it's the first time he'll have been here. Hopefully I'll remember to keep this updated and write up how everything went after the weekend!

Chocolat

2009-10-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

A quick post to keep up the momentum of blogging before heading to Paris tomorrow- today my flatmate and I headed to the Parc Des Expositons (for those in Glasgow, a bit like the SECC) for a sort of fair thing which was all about one particular topic- chocolate! Heaven, right? It actually cost 5 euros to get in (or 4 euros if you haven't lost the voucher your flatmate gave you, like I did...) which is quite expensive considering it was just a bunch of stalls selling various chocolate based products and something called a 'show' which was in fact an hour long cookery demonstration. It was pretty good in terms of chocolate samples though, and I got to drink hot chocolate made from a real lump of chocolate on a stick. Oh and there was a sample of the 'chocolate tofu' cookies made in the cookery demo which was admittedly devine. I also have the answer to the question, 'can one get sick of eating chocolate at 11.30 in the morning and it's sadly yes.

We also got free entry to the homes exhibition which would have been great if I'd been looking to replace my stained glass or my jacuzzi...

Nevertheless an interesting morning!

Teaching

2009-10-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ok so my internet's kind of slow and it cuts out every two hours but it's free so I can't really complain. I've tried updating my blog a couple of times with pictures but the pictures always take aaaages and the internet cuts out before it's done. So here's a post with no pictures, and rather than trying to update about everything that's happened in the last 4 weeks (which is quite a lot!) I'll just rush up to date to the last two weeks and talk about what's probably the most interesting thing, the teaching.

I'm a 9 month assistant in primary schools and that means I'm effectively the English teacher. I have three schools in three little villages dotted around the Luberon, a Parc Naturel in the midst of Provencal France. As mentioned before I live in Avignon, so I have to get three different buses for each of my schools, and for two of my schools I actually have to get picked up from the bus stop and driven for 10 mins or so to the school itself. I've only been doing it for two weeks and it's okay really. I do spend a lot of time on the buses, probably around 5 hours per week, but the great thing is that I only have to work Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and Monday is really just a half day. Yup, I'm a slacker. It is hard work teaching the kids though, and I do spend a lot of time preparing- I get kids of every age and level, from the three year old babies who still have dummies to the 10 year olds getting set for college (a.k.a secondary school) next year.

For those unfamiliar with the French school system, it starts at 2 or 3 in what's called the Ecole Maternelle, which is really akin to nursery school or kindergarten. Here's the info off of wiki:

"The ages are divided into Grande section (GS: 5 year olds), Moyenne section (MS: 4 year olds), Petite section (PS: 3 year olds) and Toute petite section (TPS: 2 year olds). It is not comp2ulsory, yet almost 100% of children aged 3 to 5 attend."

I only teach maternelle kids in one school where there is just PS, MS and GS... but let me tell you, teaching 3 year olds is hard enough! They don't even really know French yet and I'm meant to give them English?! Even the 5 year olds were a tough crowd- I tried my self invented 'hello what's your name?' song which worked pretty well with the 6-7 year olds, but with the 5 year olds I just get blank stares. It's hard enough to elicit their name when I ask them in French! On the other hand when I showed the 3 year olds a picture of a dog one of them did tell me in French that his dog had just died... leaving me pretty speechless.

Anyway I only spend 1 hour a week with maternelle, so the other 11ish hours of my time is spent with those in ecole elementaire. In EE there are 5 levels:

CP: 6 year olds
CE1: 7 year olds
CE2: 8 year olds
CM1: 9 year olds
CM2: 10 year olds

At my schools the classes are mostly mixed, so for example I get CP/CE1 or CE1/CE2 or CE2/CM1... at all schools there is a separate CM2 class. There are 5 classes in each school, and in each school I get between 30 minutes and an hour per week with each class. As you can imagine, 30 minutes a week of English is not very much, but then again an hour is really too long for the kids to concentrate on English. Thankfully at the schools the teachers are all lovely and the directors especially are really helpful. In each school the teachers stay in the class while I teach, excepting some teachers who leave the class some of the time. The kids are all really cute, but they do (especially the older ones) tend to talk a lot and it's really difficult to control them if the teacher isn't there. I have some ideas for dealing with this in the future but so far I've just been overwhelmed with the planning and executing of lesson plans and haven't had time for a long-term discipline strategy.

This week my lessons were on halloween, and involved a mixture of different activities dependant on the level. For the younger kids I had a song about witches and a picture of a skeleton which we used for parts of the body, and after we sang 'head, shoulders, knees and toes'. For the middles, I also taught a few halloween words like 'witch, bat, cat' and then did halloween charades, followed by the skeleton, 'head shoulders knees and toes', then 'simon says' for the parts of the body. For the oldest, we did all the halloween words, the charades game, then some of them got a halloween wordsearch, then we used the skeleton for body parts, revised 'head shoulders knees and toes', then sang 'the hokey cokey', then for some of them I had a dinosaur skeleton worksheet to label, and for those who finished the worksheets early I also had a colouring in sheet which was to colour in the different body parts of halloween creatures (i.e. colour the spider's legs red!). For the first two schools I tried to mark their worksheets as I went along but it was really difficult to do and the pupils whose sheet I wasn't marking got rowdy, so in my third school I asked if I could take them home to mark and they said sure. So I did my first proper bit of marking and put stickers on the ones who got it all correct... I anticipate a bit of a nightmare when I give them back and those who got all but one correct see that they didn't get a sticker, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Also I noticed there are two or three in each class who are waaay behind the others and I'm trying to work out strategies to get them involved without making them feel victimised. Drawing a blank on that one at the moment, let me know if you have any ideas!

Well that's all for just now, it's the Vacances de Toussaint and no more school for nearly two weeks! I'm off to Paris on Sunday and back to Scotland next Thursday so it'll probably be pretty busy. Hope everyone else has a fun holiday!

How Apt!

2009-10-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, quick post to catch up some more then I reaaalllly need to sleep.

So, Tuesday night I went to O' Neills, the Irish Pub on Rue de la Republique, to meet some other assistants. I had been feeling slightly ill (sore throat, cough, blocked nose etc) since Sunday but by the Tuesday I was really feeling very run down, especially with all that running about flathunting, so I didn't stay for long. I did however stay long enough to find my roomate- an Austrian assistant who is tres tres sympa! She mentioned that she was still looking for somewhere and, knowing a room was still free at the house I'd be staying at, I gave her the address and phone number of the place (or so I thought, haha). After about an hour at O'Neills I left to find my parents who were having a drink at a nearby cafe and to go back to the appartment, because I really wasn't feeling fab. Then had an early night, as we had a plan for an early rise to catch the bus to Gordes (the village where one of my schools is) the next day.

Wednesday we got up and ready nice and early and caught the bus to Cavaillon, from whence to go to Gordes. On the bus my aunt called me to say she'd had a call from someone asking about renting a room... it took me a while to realise that I had somehow written my aunt's phone number instead of that of the proprietaire of the house! Had minor freak out and then phoned Stephanie just as I was getting off the bus, to explain my faux pas... only to notice that she was already standing at Cavaillon Gare Routiere right in front of me! Tres bizarre. Anyway she had managed to get an appointment for the room as I had actually written the correct number underneath so it was all cool... but after I said bye to Stephanie we found out that we couldn't go to Gordes because you have to phone to book the bus on a Wednesday... quoi?! So we had to do something else and the eventual choice was Apt, just cause it's easy to get to from Cavaillon.

There's not much to say about our day trip to Apt, but here's some photos to illustrate it:

Concise summaries aren't really my thing...

2009-10-10T03:20:00.000-07:00

Well I've been here two weeks now and haven't gotten past blogging about like the first 4 days so I really need to speed this thing up! So Monday was when I visited my school and Tuesday was mega mad stressful day where I finally found a place to live, huzzah. We visited a studio in the morning, and were almost going to just take it as the stress of not having somewhere was starting to freak me out, but really I had to admit to myself that I did not want to live alone in a tiny studio barely furnished and with no guarantee of internet. So, after that we went to the Espace Des Jeunes and I really started phoning people and organising flat visits. I really hate making phone calls in French, it's so much harder to communicate over the phone than face to face, but somehow I managed to drum up two rendez-vous at colocations, which I could add to the one that I had arranged (or rather my aunt arranged for me!) via appartager.com. So with three rendez vous to do that day (besides the studio) I was feeling a bit better. We went for a coffee, then waited for like an hour at the Phone House trying to buy a phone with them taking sooooo loooong about it that in the end we had to leave without one. The first flat rendez vous was on Rue De Vieux Sextier which was a really beautiful street, very central with lots of pretty boutiques. The flat itself was really nice, and would be shared with two girls who were both assistants. Me, parents and aunt were all really keen but unfortunately there was also another girl at the rendez vous who wanted it and she ended up getting it, leavng us all feeling really deflated.

The next rendez vous was in a tiny side street, something du Pont Martin I think. The street looked a bit dodgy and we just weren't really feeling it after seeing the last flat. In the end the guy who was meant to show us the flat never turned up, so it was on to our third and final rendez vous of the day. This was in a totally different location, near to the train and bus station but 'extra muros' (lit. 'outside the walls', as there are ramparts surrounding 'central Avignon' and then greater Avignon is outside the ramparts.) It's still only 10 minutes walk to the centre though. We found the place without much bother even though I wasn't that sure of the name and just knew the name of the larger street and that it was 'the first little street on the left'. We found the street and it was in fact very close to the station, and the house and garden looked huge! After pressing the buzzer we were greeted by the Madame of the house, and I got my first look at one of the little tortoises in the garden!

The arrangement concerning the house is that it is split into different appartments, 4 in all- one for Madame herself, one upstairs two bedroom appartment, one downstairs two bedroom appartment and one downstairs one bedroom appartment. There is a strict rule that only one person stays in each room, and no boys (although in fact the downstairs single person appartment is lived in by a man!). I was shown the two rooms of the currently unoccupied upstairs appartment- one was a smallish single room and the other a larger double, both featuring a bed, a tv, a wardrobe, a desk and a chair, the larger also has a bookcase. There is a shared bathroom (very small) and kitchen (fair size, with oven, hob, micro, frigo, freezer, bin, worktops, cupboards, plates, cutlery etc and table and chairs) for the two people in those two bedrooms. After discussing the particulars- was it possible to get CAF? (Yes) Could friends visiting from Scotland stay? (Yes) Was the rent all inclusive? (Yes) Could I pay in cash? (Yes) Could I get internet? (Probably) I decided to take it!

So this is my pad:
There is a short story about how I got my roomate but I'll save that for next time!

Ah tishoo ah tishoo we all fall down...

2009-10-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well, hello world! I am writing this blog after a whirlwind week of settling in to my new life in France, during which time my access to the internet has been rare and whenever I did get it I spent most of the time sending emails in French, which still does not come quickly for me! Lots has happened of course since I last blogged, including a lot of stress but overall a pretty good first week.

I got the plane from Marseille with my Mum and Dad (lucky me to have my parents for the first week to help me settle in, their help was invaluable!) and then we caught the train from Vitrolles to Avignon. During the train journey a couple of young girls asked us if we spoke English, and tried out a bit of it on us- when they asked if I spoke French, I just said ‘un peu’- I found it really difficult then to work up the confidence to speak at all in French, a situation which is only just starting to change. (Last time I was asked if I spoke French was at the bank, where the teller said “Vous parlez bien francais?” And I replied “Peut-etre pas bien, mais j’essaie!”). Once we were at the station, we had the first argument of what would be many- can’t even remember what it was about now though, think it was something to do with food. Then we were collected by the lovely Veronique, who was also a great help the first week. She is a primary school teacher in Avignon, and gave me lots of tips to find accommodation and even let me use her PC for the internet one night! The appartment we stayed in was lovely, and I got to meet Veronique’s two cats which managed to still my homesickness for my own two petit chatons for a bit- here’s some photos of them, I was told their names but can’t remember. In typical cat fashion, they always seemed to hide or look away when I brought the camera out!

So the first day was spent just doing a bit of shopping at Leclerc supermarché and then taking a walk into the centre ville, and really not taking it all in properly at all. So much of my first days here were spent feeling too stressed and overwhelmed to really look at anything. After having a drink in a café, I went to a phonebooth to phone a few numbers I had and arrange some viewings of flats, and ended up idiotically phoning one guy, getting all the details and setting up a meeting, then two minutes later phoning another guy who happened to be the friend of the first guy and who had already rented his place, but who gave me all his friend’s details- meaning that I arranged the same visit twice! It took me ages on the phone and my Mum got mad at me, so there was fight number two. I phoned Chris for 10 minutes, then we went back to the appartment to sleep. Things got better on the Sunday, when ma tante Donna arrived from Nice to sort us all out!! We picked her up at the station around 11am, took her back to drop off her bags, had some lunch, then it was all go again because we had a rendez-vous for a studio appartment. The studio was near the station and it was in a nice house but we weren't sure about it because the bedroom was quite small and dark and I would have no colocs. In the end a Senegalese student took it instead. After that we went to the tourist info and asked where were the best places to find out about appartments- because it was a Sunday, not a lot was open, but the tourist info guy said there were annonces up at a place called Cinema Utopia, so off we went to find it. I got some photos of the Palais des Papes on the way.

We got some numbers and had a drink at the cinema, and that was pretty much that day over, but we made plans to go to Cavaillon and Taillades the next day, Monday, to visit my school. I stopped at a café with internet access to email my directeur and let him know.

Monday was a really tough day. We left for Cavaillon quite early, and when we arrived it was market day so really busy. After having a look at the town we concluded that it might be better for me to live there, to be close to my schools. It seemed quite big, with some shops and bars, a train station, a bus station, two supermarkets and a cinema. We went to the tourist info to ask about Taillades and got excited when we were told there was a bus… only to feel dejected on discovering that it barely ran at all, with no buses at all that day. There was no other option. We had to walk.

By the time we stopped to drink a café and eat a croissant (at Loch Ness café no less) and then checked for location ads at Super-U, it was midday, and we had a long walk ahead of us. It was really hot, and we were all in pretty unsuitable shoes for the hour-long trek along the road side with about 10cm of pavement (where there was any at all) and cars rushing by. We finally arrived in Taillades and found the school like an hour and a half later, and met my headteacher and some of the pupils and found out that I will be driven to my schools from Cavaillon, so I decided to live in Avignon, I also discovered my other schools are in petit villages called Lagne and Gordes.

Anyway I know this is a totally lame way to end a blog post but I'm really tired and a bit ill :( and I have to get up early for the Stage d'Accueil tomorrow at Marseille, so I'm going to bed. I'll post again soon with more longwinded banter from France!!

There's something amiss...

2009-09-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

Well it's a while since I wrote last, and as there is only 2 days to go (silent scream!) I may not have time to write. This week has been pretty busy. On Saturday, there was an open doors day in Glasgow, so me, my mum and two of my aunts went to the Willow Tea Rooms, the Scottish Heritage Centre and the Art School, then we went to see where my mum and her family grew up before her house was destroyed in the storms of '66, and mum and the aunties had fun reminiscing. Best part of the day for me was going into the pub right next to where my mum's house was and seeing the Stone of Destiny!! Was going to take a pic to show to my French pupils but thought that the concept would be way to hard to explain and if I just showed them the pic they'd be like 'oh, wow, a rock :P'.

Sunday was a day of tidying up and messing about, catching up on X-Factor and watching the second part of Strictly. Gutted that I will miss all of my reality TV in France- hopefully there are plenty of good things on the French box that I can watch huddled up on the sofa on cold winter evenings.

Monday was my penultimate day of work, and then in the evening had a goodbye get together with my uni buds. I'm really going to miss you guys! I've started reading 'The Complete Merde' already (one of my presents from Jennifer) and it's really cool, I had heard of some of the phrases already and had no idea what they meant. Think that will be my 'on-the-plane' reading :).

Tuesday was my last day of work, which was really sad too. It was soo nice, they got me a big bunch of flowers, a huge box of M&S chocs and a pink beret style hat which I already love. They have asked me to send them a pic of me in the beret with a baguette, a stripy t-shirt, some onions and a bike :P. After work Chris came to meet me and I bought a new digital camera, which brings the amount of cameras I'm taking with me up to 3- my Flip (for vids), my webcam (for Skype) and now this one. I think I will have to carry them all in my pockets as my cases are absolutely crammed!

Yesterday was a morning jog with my friend from school, then an emergency appointment at the dentist due to my toothache. He told me I need a filling in one of my lower teeth but that my upper teeth (the ones I thought were hurting) are fine. I need to go get some special mouthwash from the chemist today. Also should refrain from tucking in too much to that big box of chocs.

Just two days to go now, and I feel it still hasn't really hit me. Chris is coming with me to the airport on Saturday- maybe when I'm leaving him behind and heading through the terminal gates that's when it'll really strike home. It's weird, as this week has been all about seeing the people I'll miss, but as it doesn't feel real yet I'm saying goodbye without really feeling like I'm going.

A final note, here's two little ladies I'll certainly miss, although they have no idea I'm going anywhere and certainly no idea what goodbye means.
Merrie is at the top there clinging on to a scarf and Pippin is at the bottom rolling about in her usual promiscuous style. These aren't the cutest pics of them, but they are pictures that show their characters and remind me about all the little things they do that I will miss!

Happy Birthday Jennifer!

2009-09-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I was 5 days late in saying Happy Birthday, but here's a belated birthday message for you, featuring a lolcat! Hope you had a really happy 22nd.... oops I mean 21st ;) birthday!!

Paperwork Overload

2009-09-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

Eating: Champagne chocs... yum!
Listening to: You Don't Know Me (Ben Folds, Regina Spektor) love it :)

I am strangely happy today, despite the fact that I feel slightly crushed by an increasing mountain of paperwork. I won't bore you with the details of the various paperworks, but it seems every time I think I've sorted most of it, I find another 3 documents I need to sort out. Current minor crisis is that I didn't get my bank card. Apparently I forgot to tick a box on the application, and rather than just call me and ask or send it back to me, Nationwide decided to destroy it. That's right, they sent me a letter saying 'we have destroyed your application form'. I'm freaking out a little because even if I go in branch tomorrow, get a new application and send it off, is there realistically any chance of it being sorted out and sent back within a week? Because a week is all I have left from tomorrow, as I leave really early on Saturday 26th.

I'm excited and happy though cause my lovely tante from Nice is coming through to Avignon to help me get sorted for a couple of days. Not only will it be great to see her, but I think it will be such a help to have someone familiar with the French bureaucracy on my side! She has been phoning up trying to arrange appartment viewings for me but all the potential colocs want to wait til I'm in country, tant pis. At least I feel I am taking steps in the right direction.

I'm currently trying to clear out my student email because I know they shut it down at the end of September...

...Not much of a blog post as my boyfriend has come round so I want to spend as much time as possible with him before I go!

Not long now

2009-09-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

Less than 2 weeks til France and I'm not sure if it's really hit me yet. I'm still waiting for my nationwide card to come through so I can actually spend any money in France without the insane charges I would get with my Bank of Scotland card... really should have phoned nationwide today but I'll do it on Wednesday if it's still not through. Other things I need to do are get some passport photos for my Carte 12-25 and get a letter of recommendation from my bank, but I just haven't been in the mood for paperwork these past few days. I also need to send off my paperwork to the University of Avignon as I'm hoping to do 3 hours a week of French there, but I just received an email from them and I'm not sure I understand it! Ah dear, at least this whole paperwork thing should eventually subside (fingers crossed!) after my first month or so in France. I'll be feeling much better once I've actually got accommodation anyway- people keep saying to relax but sadly I'm a worrying kind of person, especially as I've never lived away from home before.

But like I said, all I do on this blog is complain and I really should be over the moon- I'm going to France for 9 months! I have always wanted to do this, and while I never regretted not taking the opportunity while I was at university and doing Erasmus (I'd have had to have studied law in French and I'm still sure my language skills would not have been up to it) I'm really glad I can pick up the chance now and have an amazing time learning French and living the French lifestyle. It's also really great to be this close to France now after several months in limbo at the beginning of summer- it was aaaages before I found out if I was accepted to the programme or not, and I was considering being an au pair instead because it was taking so long to find out if I'd got in. Even once I knew I got in I had to wait to find out which academie- another couple of weeks- and then there was the waiting for the arrete, then there was the contacting my school and waiting for them to get back to me (they have now). All that waiting is over, and even though there's still all the paperwork and annoying organising to do, at least things are moving, at least I'm actually just 12 days away from life in Provence! I've been reading the guidebooks and it sounds like an amazing area. My school is actually part of the 'petit luberon', a sort of natural parkland with a few scattered villages across it which will be great for autumn/ spring walks and cycles, and hopefully I can live in Avignon and still have the city life with shops and restaurants. I can't wait to visit the Pont, and also the Palais des Papes, because I'm a bit of a geek and love history/ museums, and I can't wait to do some travelling around France. I'm also tres excited about going to Paris in October with my boyfriend, even though I'm practically forcing him to go as he hates flying, but I know in such a romantic city we'll have an amazing time. I was in Paris last summer and have already done the Eiffel Tower/ Arc de Triomphe/ Louvre/ Sacre Couer, but I wouldn't mind doing it all again (especially the Louvre, I only got to spend about 3 hours there last time which wasn't enough!) and I'd love to go to Versailles! And besides Paris I'm really keen on visiting Marseille, Aix, Montpellier, Grenoble and Lyon, as well as going to see my aunt in Nice and fingers crossed there will be enough time/ money during the 9 months to go to Italy, I am desperate to go to Venice! Scotland is technically in Europe but being on a little island is not really conducive to easy transport, so I'm looking forward to living on the continent as I think it will be much easier to travel around Europe from France.

Really what I need is a travelling buddy as I'm not too keen on train journeying and hostelling by myself, and I think besides getting a few days with him in Paris at Toussaint, my boyfriend will be working too much (in Scotland) to be able to go anywhere with me. So when I get to France I need to find a) accommodation and b) someone who's keen to travel! Maybe I'll even meet people who'd like to come visit Glasgow with me on one of my trips back. My lovely city is mocking me just now by being bright, sunny and warm when I have just checked the Avignon forecast for the days I arrive and it's cloudy and wet! Oh well, forecasts can be wrong...

Sorry this post has been rather a cathartic splurge, but it's good to be able to talk about it without boring my boyfriend/ parents to death! I had better go and do some more French though as I read about three pages of my book today and gave up and watched Jeremy Kyle so I think I still have a lot of work to do!

I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham!

2009-09-09T02:55:00.000-07:00

I ordered a copy of Dr Seuss's 'Green Eggs and Ham' and it came through the mail today. I'd never read it before (shock, horror), so spent a childish 5 minutes reading it aloud to myself and pretending I already had my French primaire class in front of me. That makes 4 story books I have to take with me, plus numerous other teaching materials, (wallcharts, maps, stickers, games, cds of children's music etc) as I prefer to be overprepared rather than underprepared, not that I really have the space in my suitcase.

This'll have to be a brief post as I'm volunteering soon- feel like I could do with the next two and a half weeks off just to prepare for France, but since I only work/ volunteer for three days a week I really can't complain! I think next week will be my last week volunteering though.

My learning French goal is not improving rapidly- my days always seem too full to get any French done, yet I never seem to get anything else done either! Hopefully my French learning needn't be too much of a priority now though as I have decided to do French classes at the university of Avignon once I'm actually in France- they're specifically tailored for language assistants, and they're on Wednesday afternoons which, being primaire, I'm told I'll have off anyway. It's another 200e I can't afford just now though! My main worry at this moment is financial. My parents have been fantastic at helping me out, booking my flights, paying for my first weeks accommodation (they're even coming over for a week to help me settle in) but I'm still panicky that my current total 'France fund' is just £750! I get paid just before I go, but I'll still fall way short of the £1500 reccommended by the British Council. It'll either need to come out of my other savings (which I'm trying to keep for a post grad I plan to do after returning from France) or my parents said they'll help me out, but I always feel bad about that, or maybe I'll just not eat for a month :P. Even though there's just two and a half weeks to go, my current attitude is just to wait and see what happens, at least I have my post grad money to fall back on if needs must!

Whatever else happens though I must must must not buy any more stuff to teach with! For some reason I get a real kick out of buying stuff to show to my classes, but chances are I won't even use some of it, and I have way too much as it is in terms of suitcase weight!

Gosh, this has been rather a whiny post, next time I'll need to write some more in terms of what I'm actually looking forward to regarding the assistantship instead of constantly complaining! Anyway I'd better go get some lunch, maybe I should gain a few pounds in advance so that I've got plenty to lose in case my not eating for a month plan has to be enforced!

Three Weeks, Two Cases and a Panic Attack

2009-09-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

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!