la plus belle vie, c'est celle qu'on invente.

soixante-quatre: un autre erreur.

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:25:31 +0000

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

soixante-trois: le careme.

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 20:28:00 +0000

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…

soixante-deux: la pensee apres coup.

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:03:00 +0000

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...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:58:02 +0100

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...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:46:41 +0100

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

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 22:26:56 +0100

How was I completely unaware of this?

Having heart palpitations

soixante-et-un: le retour.

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 12:16:00 +0100

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.

So it's been a while since I posted but this link is important...

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 14:44:00 +0100

So it's been a while since I posted but this link is important...:

… 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.

soixante: ca suffit, c'est bon..

Fri, 04 May 2012 14:27:13 +0100

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.

cinquante-neuf: presque fini?

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:38:29 +0100

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…

cinquante-huit: c'est quoi l'identite?

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:39:00 +0100

So I’m in the process of writing my final year abroad essay for my university. How it works at Warwick is that you have three essays to write over the course of your stay in France, and it’s best to pick three different topics so you have a broad (ha!) knowledge of French culture in general so that you can tackle final year French classes like a boss. Theoretically.

I have just sent off my second of these essays which was about the popularity of Marine Le Pen, although I stressed throughout that she probably won’t become President just in case whoever the poor soul is that has to mark my work doesn’t think I’m completely insane. However, though I have just in fact waved au revoir to this particular essay I must now commence the final one in order to send it before the deadline near the end of May.

For those of you who don’t know me (which I think includes pretty much everyone in the entire world) I do rather enjoy worrying for no reason.

The hardest part of writing these essays apart from, well, writing these essays, is en fait choosing a topic. Which brings me to the point of this post. As I am considering writing about the French language in some way or another, I did some research and discovered that 91% of French people think that their language is the most important element of the French national identity. I’m not quite sure yet how exactly I’m going to use this statistic, but it did make me wonder: how important do other nationalities consider their language in the construction of their national identity?

Or is this just a really, really stupid question?

cinquante-sept: presque fini.

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:43:18 +0100

I think last Friday was my last day at school. This uncertainty pretty much optimises my experience as a language assistant.

Don’t get me wrong, I have quite enjoyed teaching English. My lessons on Friday reminded me of how much fun teaching can potentially be, even if I’m not sure if it’s the career path I am destined to take. Moments where I ask my students for the time and they respond by singing High School Musical or where I tell off some students in the corridor in French and return to a round of applause from my actual class. How can moments like this fail to make you warm to the idea of teaching?

It feels quite strange to think that in just over three weeks, I’ll be going home for good. No more Bordeaux. No more walking across the Pont de Pierre everyday to get to school with my massive cartable and laptop in tow. No more 12 euro formules allowing us to eat out cheaply on a regular basis. No more feelings of uncertainty when I go to school. No more creeps on the tram, in the street, everywhere. No more speaking French on a daily basis and forgetting what you wanted to say mid-sentence. No more homesickness. No more travel problems. No more wages.

I will be finished, and I will be happy. But a part of me will be sad. I have enjoyed this year so much more than I ever dreamed I would. Especially when I think back to 24th September in John Lennon Liverpool Airport, when I watched my parents and Martin disappear before me as I climbed more and more escalators towards the departure lounge. Back then I thought I would never come home.

But I am going home. And I’ll just find something else to complain about when that time comes. Comme toujours.

So this is how I’m perceived by everyone at the French...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:36:26 +0100

So this is how I’m perceived by everyone at the French school where I work… I would be offended but actually they’re pretty spot on.

Et voilà.

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:34:38 +0100

Et voilà.

cinquante-six: les raclures (francais?).

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:30:31 +0100

So my initial intention here was to rant about the abundance of creepy French men I have noticed during my stay in Bordeaux, but I would rather prefer to avoid any sweeping generalisations of the sexist and racist variety.

BUT

I had a rather unfortunate incident last Sunday which made me finally lose any patience I had remaining with the creepy male population of France.

Please note my repetition of the word ‘creepy’. Because it is the ‘creepy’ men in particular I would like to rage against. There are undoubtedly creepy men the world over, but it would seem that it is particularly difficult in France to avoid these such characters.

Especially when the sun comes out.

I do not go out of my way to wear very little clothing, which I feel is both necessary and unnecessary to point out. Necessary because I’d like to preserve a little dignity here, and also unnecessary because really, it’s nobody’s business and I’d like to think that in fact I don’t really care what anybody thinks. Unfortunately the latter is near-impossible, so I am forced to emphasise that actually, my skirts and dresses are not all that short and if I thought that they were for a second I wouldn’t wear them.

Nonetheless, what a girl wears (or doesn’t for that matter) should not be signalled as an open invitation. Malheureusement it often is. Needless to say that when the weather starts to improve dresses and skirts and shorts begin to make an appearance, and the men just get creepier.

It makes me appreciate my man all the more, really.

To return to the purpose of this rant, the fuel which fuelled my anger so to speak, last Sunday I was enjoying a rather lovely pre-summer’s day in Bordeaux as I walked to my tutoring lesson. Although pre-summer in Bordeaux is practically summer. I passed KFC, a delightful restaurant around the corner from where I live. Two men were sat outside, enjoying fried chicken in the sunshine. One of them felt the need to attempt to grab my arm as I walked past; something was said to me but I was too shaken and downright furious to understand the creepy words (in French, of course) coming from this ridiculous human being. So I decided to shout at him. In French.

“Qu’est-ce que vous faites? (I think the ‘vous’ was rather polite on my part to be honest)… followed by “DEGOUTANT” in a very loud, infuriated French voice which exploded from little old me as I power walked angrily away from KFC.

I’m not sure what the man in question’s response was but I hope sincerely that he was genuinely terrified.

From now on I resolve to do more than just shoot disgusted looks at these creepy men who think they have the right to comment as they pass me by. On that same walk on Sunday I passed several other creepy men who felt the need to make some sort of creepy comment towards me. I’m not going to stand for this any more, whether I am in France or chez moi. I must reiterate that it isn’t just a male French thing to do these creepy things, but these occurrences have taken place a lot more here than they have at home. I’m not saying that I’m going to let these creeps provoke me, because I am almost certain that this is the aim of their comments apart from obviously trying to entice me (who are they kidding???), but I am certainly going to make it perfectly clear to them that what they are doing is not normal and it is not acceptable. My year in France has made me a more confident person and I’m not going to let these creepy men get away with ridiculous things like this.

In other news, I’ve been to Paris and Archacon in the past two weeks and had a fabulous time. I do have a tendancy to focus on the slightly more negative issues at hand. Hence, I will soon publish some pictures of the aforementioned visits to lighten the mood of this rather indignant post.

cinquante-cinq: l'art d'etre une fausse Francaise.

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:01:15 +0000

Seeing as in my last (written) post I discussed the pitfalls of clearly being English whilst living in France, I thought that now I should turn my attention to what one should do if one truly wishes to fake it as a vrai(e) Français(e) (please note how I have included both genders, très gentil yes). Equally please note that I’m not sure how successful the following methods are, as I meet with varied levels of success on a day-to-day basis. The thing that terrifies me is that I don’t know if I’ll ever be fluent in French, because how can you quantify communication or the use of a language? But I’ll try not to let that worry me too much. For now, I shall continue to do the following:

1. Change Facebook to French.

2. Same goes for Skype.

3. Purchase a French cookbook, struggle laboriously to understand the list of ingredients and then equally to find them in the ridiculously huge supermarket, thus forcing you to give up and just make a stir fry instead, because it sort of looks like the picture of the meal anyway. Sort of.

4. Pass a French person on the street/in the school corridor/where you live/anywhere in particular and in engage in the French equivalent of what is known in the North as ‘Y’alreyt? Y’alreyt?’. Known on this side of the channel as ‘Ca va? Oui ca va et toi? Oui ca vaaaa’. So easy yet it makes you feel like a boss if you do it in public. Or at least it sort of makes you look French, which is the ultimate goal of course. Ensure that you do the exchange in a French, nonchalant manner.

5. Pretend to be French to a French person on a plane. Or anywhere, for that matter. I somehow managed to pull this off recently despite the fact that my French neighbour heard me speaking English in an impeccable Northern accent to the air hostess, as when he asked me in English if his friend could go to the bathroom I replied ‘ouiii bien sur!’ thus leading him for some reason to assume that I was French, and not in fact a clearly English girl just pretending. Badly.

6. Add or be added by a French person on Facebook/Skype/any other thing in this genre. Even if you never talk to them, it seems pretty impressive to have befriended them all the same.

7. Add ‘quoi’ on the end of every single sentence you speak. I have assumed (correct me if I’m wrong) that this is the French equivalent of ‘like’, which I, like, use, like, all the time. Like. Sorry, quoi.

8. Il en va de même pour ‘du coup’. Before coming to France I thought everyone used ‘donc’ and ‘alors’ in conversation. Although I wasn’t completely and horrifically wrong, it does seem that most of the people I’ve conversed with tend to use ‘du coup’, which is apparently too informal to use in essays but still useful enough to be chucked around as often as ‘quoi’.

9. Though technically speaking this one won’t qualify as pretending to being actually French, as for me it often involves letting the cat out of the bag that I am in fact English and spending my year abroad en France, it is very important to talk to everyone, even people you would usually flee from or at least avert eye contact. I mean, obviously avoid dangerous people, but as for Jehovah’s Witnesses (always friendly, even more so when you accidentally tell them in French that you’re one too), salespeople, shop assistants, random strangers who don’t have a creepy glint in their eyes, and so on and so forth.

10. Finally, do not write about or discuss ways of pretending to be French. Sort of gives the game away. Oops. Peu importe, I am English after all, and I can at least be content with the fact that my French and indeed my confidence appears to improved quite a bit this year. Merci la France.

Saint-Emilion is rather spectacular, even when the vineyards are...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:15:12 +0000

Saint-Emilion is rather spectacular, even when the vineyards are practically dead and covered in snow, and even when the tiny cobbled streets are icy and treacherous and me fait peur, and even when it’s so cold that one is forced to seek warmth and shelter in incredibly expensive wine shops. In fact the cold was so bad that despite our lovely day out in this pretty little town, we did a wonderful happy dance when the train arrived to take us back to Bordeaux. Note to self: must travel more. Super.

Cinquante-quatre: je suis tellement anglaise, quoi.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:37:27 +0000

I honestly didn’t think that being in France would be all that different from being in England. Apart from the language, slightly better weather (she writes as it is currently snowing in Bordeaux…) and the fact that I am just not at home, France doesn’t seem to me to be all that foreign a country.

We were warned at university that we would all experience a bit of a culture shock during our year abroad. The only things that I have noticed thus far, however, are the following:

1. The incessantly creepy men. Who become even creepier when they hear you speaking English, ‘hello ladiiiiiies’ and whatnot.

2. The fact that, no matter how I hard I try (n’importe quoi, you might even say), it is absolutely impossible for me to escape the harsh reality that I am incredibly English, obviously so. Sometimes I can get away with it by putting on a ridiculously overblown French accent but then once a French person looks at me and sees the very clearly English outfit that I am wearing it sort of gives the game away.

I don’t really understand what it is about me that is so typically English. It’s something that I wasn’t even aware of before I came to France. Apparently, according to one student at my school, it’s my ginger hair, but I HAVE seen French ginger people, definitely, because I got very excited and enthusiastic when I did. Or, as a teacher who organises the school newspaper remarked as we looked at a photograph of myself that she had just taken, maybe it’s the constant flower in my hair that I have become well known for in both my schools and in the foyer where I live. I’m not sure if many people at all, English or French, wear flowers in their hair on a daily basis to the extent that one’s hair feels literally naked without a corsage. I can’t remember when I even started to wear flowers in my hair but now I have a very large collection. Maybe this makes me very English, I honestly do not know.

I can’t really pinpoint the epicentre of my Englishness. But it has got to the point where whenever I meet a new French person or I am excusing a cultural faux pas or something of the like, I use ‘je suis tellement anglaise’ as a sort of excuse or even apology. I never really thought I would feel sorry about my nationality, it’s not that I’m patriotic, not in the slightest, but I think it would be nice if I was mistaken for being French more often than people realising that I am in fact, very, very English.

cinquante-trois: je reviens a Bordeaux.

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:14:17 +0000

Okay so the title is a bit misleading because I’ve been back in Bordeaux since New Year’s Eve, which was a delightfully cheerful affair as I returned to my abode in France alone, armed with a bottle of wine and a meal deal from KFC to find that no one was around in the foyer where I live. Thank goodness for Skype is all I’ll say.

The first couple of weeks back in Bordeaux were unfortunately not fantastique. It was hard to settle back into things especially as I had enjoyed being home so much. And especially because I found myself with fewer companions here than I had had before, tant pis. Luckily I do have some super friends here, without whom I would, I think it’s safe to say, be perdue.

School is much the same as before. I have some great students, some terrible students, and some incredibly entertaining students. Such as the boy who decided that everyone was ‘beautiful’, including Patrick Jane from the Mentalist, Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, but thankfully I managed to convince him that David Cameron is definitely not beautiful. There are many more examples of humorous students but I can’t exactly remember the details, another reason why I should blog more. Especially as I have recently discovered that this blog is useful. Pourquoi?

Because I have just updated my CV and I found lots of interesting things that I have done which I have recounted on this thing. I have sent off my CV to numerous translation companies which are slightly more local to chez moi in England so that I won’t feel like I’m wasting my summer once my year abroad is over. I am seriously considering a career in translation and I’m hoping with all my heart that it isn’t anywhere nearly as boring as I have heard through the grapevine. So here’s hoping. If so, a masters in translation may be on the cards. On verra.

I’ll leave you with yet another light-hearted tale from my experiences on the tramway of Bordeaux. Yesterday I was sat on the tram, minding my own business, when a man carrying a small plastic cage and a big bag of hay asked if he could sit opposite me. I said of course (in French, of course) and he seemed very happy about this. Then he opened the cage ever so slightly and a black furry head popped out. It was a rabbit. Which he proceeded to stroke for the entire journey.

I keep thinking that I’ve seen and heard it all in Bordeaux. Now I know that this will never be the case.

I really like being home, despite the fact that I have a...

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:50:58 +0000

I really like being home, despite the fact that I have a horrific cold. It is so good to be back enfin. But I must continue to listen to belle musique, like this. I will go back to Bordeaux eventually, and I will make sure that my French will improve.