Latest pescetarian gaffe: condemning the fact that so much vegetarian food includes goat cheese. Then purposefully buying pecorino cheese. Which comes from sheep. Not too dissimilar animals - sorry goats and sheep everywhere, but it’s vaguely true, surely?
It’s a nice cheese, in moderation.
Goat cheese on my face
This year I have decided to fully embrace my Catholicism for Lent and give up meat.
For forty days and forty nights
Just like Jesus in the desert.
(With the devil)
Except that I’m not a massive fan of meat anyway. And I’m still going to eat fish. So basically I have become the easiest -tarian that one could possibly be, YET this is still inexplicably creating unforeseen issues for people.
Despite the fact that I’m essentially pescetarian at university anyway. IT IS THE EASIEST OF ALL OF THE -ARIANISMS
And let us remember that I am not becoming vegan. It is not that difficult. Really, I should be making more of an effort.
My first pescey issue (oh yes, I love puns, I do study English after all) occurred just over a week ago, as I was buying my lunch in Coventry train station. I believe I have previously described the aforementioned place in a rather unfavourable light, so I won’t bore you with more details. Needless to say, the only shop present at this station is a WH Smiths, with a pretty poor selection of products which is fair enough really, seeing as once I was inside with my bags there wasn’t any room for anyone else. It is tiny.
So I should not have been surprised that the only two non-meaty meals on offer were cheese, cheese, and more cheese. With pickle. I do not like pickle. And I do not like soggy cheese. Which were the only options available to me.
Luckily it wasn’t Lent yet so I had chicken.
Oops.
The next pescey issue is the somewhat mocking support I have received. My boyfriend’s main concern was, “Will it affect me?”. My reply: “No of course not, I’m not giving up meat for any ethical reasons, you can eat it and I’ll even cook it for you” (I know, lucky right?). Alas, his dad is the one doing the cooking, and last weekend he presented us with the choices of vegetable or prawn curry. Neither of which my boyfriend likes. Definitely not my fault.
To further prove that the above episode was entirely not my fault, on Valentine’s Day we made pizzata together (YES THIS IS A REAL THING) and I allowed him to put pepperoni on his slice after we had served it. It didn’t touch my meal, so all is well.
My mum has also been in a tizz as to what to cook for me. I am not eating meat. I am eating everything else. Indeed, I am even eating seafood. I am essentially cheating. I am a bad person.
Mind you, I couldn’t think of any ideas as to what she could cook for me when she asked. Oops. Also not my fault… maybe.
My boyfriend also likes to call me pesky… pescey… Everyone loves this pun. I even love this pun, although it is at my expense.
I have come to appreciate the trials and tribulations full on, committed vegetarians have to face every single day. I don’t think I will miss meat, but I do think that I will miss the lack of judgement that I for some strange reason must now put up with, and the vast array of options that I seem to be purposefully avoiding as I skim past the meat section in shops, restaurants and supermarkets, thus making my lack of choice ALL MY FAULT. Well done vegetarians, you are certainly better than me, and you’re probably better than everyone else too. WH Smith has taught me this.
I may just not eat meat ever again. Take that, cruel, meat-eating world. But save the prawns for me…
It has been hard starting afresh after Bordeaux. I always expected the return to university to be difficult, especially seeing as I’m now in final year and the volume of work is tremendous, coupled with the necessity to think about the uncertain future of life afterwards. I am not, however, looking back upon my year abroad with nostalgia. Certainly, I did enjoy it, but I’m not particularly eager to rush back across the channel.
I have always been a real home-bird, unenthusiastic to leave the nest to find my own way sans parents. University has changed that - or so I thought. It would appear that the only way I was going to take flight on my own was by being forced into completing a year abroad in France. Ultimately, this said obligatory experience made me realise why it remains so necessary. Would I have ever willingly chosen to throw myself wholeheartedly into another country, knowing how many difficulties I would face? Probably not; indeed, admittedly beforehand I barely gave this portion of my degree a second thought. All I needed was a not-so-little push to take off, encounter obstacles and delights in what would become one of my favourite places in the world, and eventually ready myself for the return to Warwick.
But have I been readied for the return? I don’t feel as though I have. Granted, the year abroad was a pleasant interlude and gave a significant boost to my confidence and to my language skills. But the very notion of essay writing makes me feel as nauseous as those creepy French men once did. It’s notably quite difficult to acclimatise once more to university life, so I have to keep trying.
I will always sort of look back fondly upon my year abroad, and encourage others to undertake a similar endeavour if they get the opportunity, but ultimately I don’t think I could do it again.
Especially as I sort of promised my boyfriend that I never would, and even more especially because I promised myself that I never would either.
Best ending to a preface I’ve ever read:
“and, above all, I cannot repay my wife for the time I have stolen from her”
- J.L. Styan, Shakespeare’s Stagecraft, 1967.
I chose to read about Shakespeare. Good choice.
Shakespeare or early modern French thought?
Decisions decisions.
Read so much French today that English looks and sounds weird.
How was I completely unaware of this?
Having heart palpitations
I have been back at university for nearly three weeks and it’s almost as if the summer and the year abroad didn’t even exist. A memory that I can sort of fathom but not really define as a concrete entity.
The pile of work has started to increase, and so I am officially back. For final year.
Which means that the job search and the quest to define the rest of my life has well and truly commenced.
I’m firing off CVs and starting the process of application for a MA in Translation. Career research is continuously on my to do list, along with reading Shakespeare, preparing my French oral presentation and the study of early modern French thought.
Keeping my head above water. That is the short-term aim. The long-term aim is much more difficult to obtain.
… and I’ve been too busy to write in my own personal journal, never mind this very public one. Yet simultaneously I’ve not done anything that seems all that significant in comparison with that year abroad I just finished.
However, I really want to draw attention to this article about a plight that my Granddad is currently going through. I know that the audience for this blog is probably not interested in this story but somehow I feel like sharing on this much-neglected blog will highlight this injustice. I know it’s a personal, local issue, and this blogiverse is impersonal, international, but sharing this article surely cannot do any more harm.
About two years ago I became disillusioned with national politics. Now I have become disillusioned with local politics.
This time next week I’ll be sat in Gatwick airport waiting (im)patiently for my plane to Manchester.
Enfin.
Bordeaux, as much as I love you, it’s time for me to leave now. I’m ready to go home. Unless all my friends, my family and Martin suddenly decide that they would like to move here instead, but knowing the likelihood of this scenario, I think it would be for the best if I just left.
Sorry. We’ll stay friends and stay in touch.
Now I’ve finished teaching, finished my final essay of this year and all my friends here have up and left (wisely I now realise), I am not really doing anything productive. And I could be equally unproductive at home. Who knows, I might even find some work experience or a job as well…
I wouldn’t even mind just spending the summer trying to distract myself from the ever looming presence of final year. New York is on the cards.
Yes, my year abroad has been so much better than I could have ever possibly imagined, but I would like it finish now please. If that’s okay.
So I am still completely clueless as to whether I’m supposed to be teaching tomorrow. Personally, I think I’m slightly inclined as to not wanting to teach. I’ve got quite used to getting up whenever I please (and then feeling a little bit guilty about it) and working away without a really big scary deadline looming in front of me. But we’ll see. Even if I do have to go to school, this really will be my last day.
It doesn’t surprise me that I have no real feelings about this. Throughout this assistantship I have felt almost indifferent towards teaching, a sentiment which I didn’t expect prior to my year abroad. I thought I might love it, and that would be future career sorted. I would take hatred over indifference, at least I would be able to rule out one possibility for the future. Instead I still have no idea what I want.
I have finally finished Education sentimentale by Flaubert. Not a lot really happens to be honest, but the language was impressive all the same. After having read this incredibly long lesser-known-than-good-old-Madame-Bovary oeuvre, I have turned my attentions to Justine by Marquis de Sade. I have no idea why, I honestly cannot justify this except for the fact that it was a free e-book and I was trying to fill my Kindle with French literature. I maybe should have done some research first.
The thing is, I don’t usually have any aversions when it comes to literature. I am fairly good at distancing myself from books, it’s films where I have more trouble because I can’t control the image in front of me with the latter format. I am the person who read American Psycho unflinchingly on the bus to college and just before my English Language A Level exam (something which required very little revision, evidently). I will never watch the film, although I am told that the book is actually more explicit, something which shouldn’t really surprise me when I recall some of the plot details. I am also the person who cites Chuck Palahnuik among her favourite authors. I’ve read all of his books and the only time I came close to feeling the nausea I have been experiencing whilst reading Justine is maybe during the short story Guts (in the Haunted collection of short stories), and to be fair at least I didn’t faint like many people did when Palahnuik took his stories on the road and read them aloud to the delight (and horror, admittedly) of many.
So why is the book so gut-wrenching? I am approximately 20% of the way through (as my Kindle informs me, one useful property which still doesn’t entirely convince me that this device is in any way superior to books in lovely printed format) and part of me is tempted to give up. I have only ever truly given up on reading two books in my whole life (I eventually returned to Pride and Prejudice though it took some courage…). The first was It, just because I was genuinely petrified. I’ve never liked clowns. The second was Angels and Demons, and I think there is no need to justify myself here, it’s fairly obvious why everyone should give up on this book. I don’t want to give up on Justine, partly because of my pride (also known as stubbornness) and partly because of the fact that I’m reading French which can’t do me any harm, linguistically that is. I think the worst part of this book is the fact that now a routine has been established, and that I know that whenever the pauvre Justine encounters a man (or several, for that matter) I should anticipate what will follow, and this feeling of dread in picturing what will happen to her next (because everything can and will happen) is actually worse than the graphic details. You would think that the same would go for American Psycho, but actually the ‘reality’ always exceeded the gory horrors conjured by my imagination.
I think I need to go back to reading Murakami or something that will cheer my soul and not make me feel physically sick…
