And a few more of your least favorite things

My girlfriend's best friend turned me onto a group called +Vitamin String Quartet, who do stringed covers of bands. They are just incredible, so click play below and enjoy this band as you read on.

Today I finished the first cut of the Alumni video, which is turning out to be an absolute headache because the star is uncontactable for the foreseeable future and, regretfully, it's seeming like we might need an extra take. Still, the first cut is certainly watchable, and with a few cuts and some movie magic (I immediately regret writing that phrase) I'm sure I can make this project awesome. All the same, his voice was getting a trifle annoying, so while the film exported I started work on some statistical analysis.

In this particular project I'm looking at how many students said they'd take part in extra-curricular activities, how many actually turned up, and how many of those filled out the evaluation forms at the end. The numbers decrease exponentially.

(Side note, evaluation forms that are not anonymous are, to me, little better than useless. Nobody's going to tell their instructor they're rubbish and put their name to it?)

Still, it's a good opportunity to get grubby in Excel, and some string covers of rock bands (a combination of my two favorite things; their cover of +Panic! At The Disco is especially excellent) helped me power through and create some lovely shiny graphs. A short break from that brought me back to my Alumni colleague, with whom I'm working on some designs for our annual dinner - I'm feeling Gatsby Le Magnifique with an art-deco, monochromatic, angular style (say, do I know any event planners/graphic designers?) and then lunch with five women speaking in rapid French. I understood at least 3/4, which I'm counting as a massive win, because the quarter I didn't understand seemed to be a joke based around me. Not in an unpleasant way, but more in a "isn't-the-foreign-boy-cute-and-clueless" kind of way.

After lunch I got on with a couple of translations and was visited by a few colleagues, who seemed shocked that I had DVDs. I'm leaving in 22 days, and they discover this now.

I'm leaving in 22 days.

That's a really upsetting thought.

I don't want to go. I've got crazy stuff lined up; a holiday in Chicago with my girlfriend, a (paid!) fortnight of work with PRCA, and the chance to write a thesis in French. I'm going to see Derren Brown, and if I'm lucky he'll sign a couple of books that I had to summon demons to acquire. And yet -

and yet, I'm speaking to my replacement, and she's so excited and nervous and I remember being there. And I want to be there again. I want to taste that nervousness, and curse every tiny mistake, and meet again these enormous, wonderful characters that I've known while I've been here.

Nostalgia is cruel and kind in equal measure.

Still, there's nothing else to be done. Life must go on. I've got to take the next step, and fight the feeling that the struggle is Sisyphean.

Also, rediscovering +Spotify is amazing. 

Introductions

Alright, double blog. I can only apologise; things have been a little hectic and my side projects are nibbling at my time like a shoal of piraña. Let's see: Friday I worked with the Association on their video presentation, for which I'm learning more advanced iMovie techniques. Still in French, mind, when it comes to editing footage in English I shall be hopelessly lost. The afternoon was spent working on the HSE video project, which is ready to start filming, so I'll be out and about with my camera over the next couple of weeks and will, with any luck, get some good footage of students.

The evening, as usual, was spent teaching, and once again C was doing very well. Teaching her has been eye-opening for me, because I've suddenly had to face up to the fact that a lot of English verbs are irregular and thus very frustrating. I'd given B a much harder task than normal, because it was more about comprehension than grammar, but he did very well considering. The two of them only have one more week of school and then it's hols, which is might depressing. Turns out in the real world you don't get summer hols, you just get a hotter office.

I got back quite late, having dawdled in a coffee shop practicing something I'm working on. There were a few kinks in the method but it's fixed now; all that's left is the delivery. I understand this is cryptic and, if you are anything like me, enormously frustrating, but I want to share as much with you as I can without giving too much away. Hopefully it will become clear before long.

In any case, on the way home I got a text from Adeline - asking if I was going to the last BDE-organised party of the year. I replied in the negative; one BDE party per year, I have learnt, is my absolute limit. She wasn't going either, so I invited her up for orange juice and The Princess Bride, because she had apparently never seen it before. I showed her a little Rocky Horror Picture Show before, but I suspect that wasn't entirely her cup of tea. I literally don't understand why not.

(be honest, it's kind of hypnotising)

Why would you not 

love this show?

Stop whatever you're doing right now, by the way, and do the Timewarp again.

(Alright, maybe it's not for everyone.) In any case, we finally said goodnight to each other at 3am, because when it's The Princess Bride you don't stop watching just because it's 2.30am and you're teaching at 10am the next day. You watch and you try to work out who all the actors are under the thick make-up, struggle for ages, and then stop caring because it's so damned good. 

Today, Saturday, was spent with A in the morning. His mental maths is getting faster and there were a couple of times when he almost caught up with me, which is really encouraging. He's benefitting from not being given the answers; as he's following an internet-based course the majority of questions are multiple choice, which I think makes it too easy - one needs only to eliminate the incorrect answers, rather than seeking the correct one from the get-go. So instead I read the question and he cracks on with speed and only infrequent mistakes.

For lunch I made fajitas and discovered once more than living by oneself is wonderful, right up until the point you realise you can't get fajitas for one. So you've got to store it in the fridge, and the wraps never taste so good the day after, and so you always eat just one more and end up utterly rotund, eating a carrot for dinner and wondering how on earth someone could love you.

Saying that, carrots are tasty as anything. Getting on the raw-veg-baton-and-hummus bandwagon when I get home. Hummus recipes from all please.

So that brings us to here, where I say goodnight, because I'm going to drop off before long. Thank you all for bringing your lovely eyeballs to bear on this page. It means a lot.

New tricks, old cats, and keys. And this damned tooth.

Parents arrive in four and a half weeks. I leave three and a half weeks after that.

This is not making me happy at all.

Still, following Third Year Abroad on Twitter is giving me just a little glee in a sort of schadenfreude way, as I watch my fellow year abroaders try to pretend that the unhappy day has arrived and they have to go back to Blighty. I'm still here, just, and the desire to return gets stronger every day. I can definitely see myself coming back for a Master's, especially if the UK continues to raise the price of Higher Education. In any case, you're not interested in my musings on my future. You want my day. Here you are then.

My wisdom is increasing, and now my teeth feel very strange - as though they no longer fit together correctly. I strongly suspect that this is going to require some minor surgery, which is a deeply unhappy prospect, so if it comes to that wish me luck and hope that I come out of surgery only missing the teeth I don't need. Ultimate test of French right there.

My morning was interesting; a translation and an update to a couple of things. Nothing too taxing, but it was quite enjoyable and I was given free rein to give the text a little more bounce that it got from the straight translation. At lunch I tried out a new trick I've been working on and I'm very pleased with the way it turned out; only one major error and it was brushed aside as "nobody's perfect." I believe, looking back, that if I'd pulled it off flawlessly it would somehow have been less impressive.

Back to the office for the afternoon and more translation as well as a brainstorming session with my colleague in the Association. She wants to do a video do, and has some really interesting ideas that hopefully I'll be able to realise. So far I'm confident, but she might come in tomorrow with something completely hare-brained.

This evening I went to see C, my Monday night student. She's going away this weekend, and last week she mentioned how frustrating it was that people charged her 60€ to look after her cat. Since her going away would mean no lesson (and thus no cash) I immediately stepped forward and offered to do it for half price. The deal was struck, and so today I went over and was shown how the microwave oven, coffee machine, and WiFi work. That's all a chap needs, really, so although I shall be twenty minutes from work (instead of thirty seconds) I'm rather looking forward to a morning commute. I shall be able to stagger into the office and complain about the traffic, it'll be awfully fun.

After showing me round we had sashimi and a glass of wine. I still can't like sashimi. I'm not a fan of raw fish at all. Fried, steamed, poached, roasted but cold - yeuch. Sling it on the fire.

Finally home, to find eating an apple is surprisingly painful. It's going to have to be M. Le Dentiste, isn't it. Yikes.

Have you had any French dentistry experience? How was it? How expensive was it? Please help out with any knowledge you've got.

Meeting and storyboards

That was the theme for today: meetings and storyboards. And essay writing. Third year abroaders, if you need to do an essay/project, do it early. Find something in the town in which you live and write the heck out of it. Make like I did and blog every day except instead of just talking about nonsense, try to frame at least three posts a week around a theme. That way, when it comes to writing it, you'll have material.

Rather than making like I did and learning the entire French political system in fifteen evenings after coming home from a day of work. It's not conducive to good essay writing.

So: this morning was sent polishing the aforementioned essay and then starting to storyboard Project#1, which will be several videos of no longer than 5-6 seconds. I'm actually considering filming them with Vine, and trying to get students sharing them. It might be a long shot, considering the subject material, but it's going to be quite light-hearted. There's also a larger video, and I'm going to need volunteers for that. If you're a student of mine and you're reading this, come and see me in the médiathèque on Tuesday. I'll bribe you with food. Probably.

I've also got Project#2 to be thinking about, although it's a little easier - ice breaking exercises for next year. I've got a few ideas, but if you know any, I'd really love to hear from you - you can contact me all over the net from the home page. So far I've got - ah, but I shan't say. Let's keep it on the down low for now.

Project#3, which I got given yesterday, should be quite fun. That will require more storyboarding but also working with some older gentlemen who are a little...set in their ways, shall we say. Still, they've got incredible presence - comes of being massively experienced in one's field, I suppose - and if I can channel that then I think we'll be home and safe.

Lunch was solo, and thus a little depressing, though I got some thinking done - I was offered an internship in August after I bought tickets to go and see my girlfriend in Chicago. The internship would have been an incredible opportunity, but also only part-time - but then I could do bar work part-time to make up the hours, but then I wouldn't see Mary - the thoughts had been circulating like this for a little while, but I got an email today which seemed to suggest I'd be able to pick up the thread of the conversation I was in with my potential boss when I got back. I really hope so; this could be a massive opportunity, and theoretically even a part-time remote-working job while I'm at uni. Turns out that being massively passionate and knowing what your potential boss is looking for is a massive bonus when asking for internships. In any case, it's good knowing that I can put that thought to bed and fully enjoy the States.

In the afternoon I had to do a more unpleasant part of my job, which is to break down a CV that a student's spent considerable time on and essentially tell them they need to rework it completely. I try to be as jocular and fun as possible, but there's always a moment when they realise I'm not going to stop until I reach the end, and I feel horrible every time.

On the other hand, the student seemed pleased, and he's got a good idea of where his CV needs to go next, so I'm both hopeful and pleased for him. Immediately after that I had a meeting with my Project#1 team, who assured me they'd get (get or bully, I'm not sure about the word I heard) students to volunteer for acting with me. We also went over my storyboards and had several really fruitful discussions. I think one idea may have to be vetoed, but it wasn't my favourite so I can live with it. I'm learning that flexibility is key to almost everything, something I look back on and realise with horror that I never knew before.

Finally a quick look over an Economics thesis (fascinating: if I had my time again I would actually listen in Economics. I'm so sorry Ms Ancrum.) and only a few errors. This is always a delight, in part because it makes my life easier and in part because the students get so frustrated at themselves when I point out "loosed" instead of "lost" and "form" instead of "from."

(I'm checking this blog right now for that last error.)

Finally, teaching, where C has sprained her foot, making it three injuries in three weeks. It also allowed us to revise body parts and how to communicate where something hurts, and how (sharp? dull? achy? Things that are important to know and I never learn til I dislocated my knee at Disney.). Went over the hero work with B and had an excellent discussion about heroes and villains, and how to construct them in stories - opposite, but not too opposite.

A quick jaunt into Paris to get something for the weekend and home. And blog: typed.

Now to get cleaning. This essay's meant my room's got a little cluttered.

Don't panic, Mr Mainwaring!

A title there that only my parents, my parent's generation, and the people of my generation whose parents showed them the glories of Dad's Army will get.

The reason that's my title is because the deadline for my year abroad project has suddenly appeared on the horizon, and rather than appearing on the horizon like a lost lamb it has appeared like the ravening hordes of Genghis Khan. I have written the vast majority of it, it's true, but I've been hamstrung at the last minute by the sin of not researching properly. Let me explain.

When writing an essay, what one ought to do is read 10-15 sources and amalgamate their content, referencing at all times - remember, if you copy from one person it's called 'plagiarism'. If you copy from everyone it's called 'research', and only one of those two is allowed. Now I work full time and struggle to find the energy to read 10 sources. However, one source is about enough for me, and so I had read some excellent research on one particular website and had gleefully written it into my essay, with a reference, because the university uses Turnitin and I'm not an idiot. However, for the look of the thing, I tried to find other sources to back up this one. Nothing.

This is a worrying occurrence when a full third of your essay is based on this particular point.

So I tried searching for the law in question and had plenty of hits, all of which were from news sites, and all of which had the word "abrogé" in them - "repealed".

Bloody cocking wank.

The law had been repealed before it had even been made a law. So there went a third of my essay, but it taught me a valuable lesson.

Just as I got that particular bombshell, my Monday student texted me and asked if she could move the lesson to tonight. When, I asked? About now came the reply.

Magnificent. In this day and age of instant connectivity and email programs where you can simply write "Hey, how about 7pm Monday?" and your calendar will freaking add it in automatically I still only get thirty minutes warning. Incredible. I'd put a load of washing on not ten minutes before, too, which meant I had to abandon it to sit in soggy dampness for two hours before I got back from the lesson.

Gross.

Still, I got back, I've shared innocent's mango and passion fruit smoothie with a Colombian, who says its as good as the ones he drinks at home (where he takes the fruit off the tree outside his window, the lucky man). High praise indeed.

This is what the carton looks like, so you can identify it when you next go shopping. There are six portions of fruit in each carton. Lovely. Plus, they promise never to cheat at Monopoly, and I'm willing to buy anything from a company that can make that sort of commitment.

innocent France. I love you like magnets love iron.

The flea market, where Kate got monkeys (but not fleas)

If anyone knows the root of the phrase "flea market" (and honestly, Sheila, I would be amazed if it's not you) please let me know, because I've never seen a flea in a flea market. Just tons, literally tons, of antique crap. Crap that people once valued highly and is now being sold alongside corkscrews and miscellaneous forks, 4€ for as much as you can fit in a bag.

The flea market was after class with A, who was a little unfocussed today. I've found that if I wait until he thinks he's finished the question, rather than correcting his errors as he makes them, he checks his answers himself and spots the mistakes himself - a far more fruitful learning process. I can imagine those wonderful teachers who read this blog - Hannah, for example - rolling their eyes at the fact that they learnt this years ago, but hey. I'm relatively new to this game.

After work I caught the tiniest bus in the world (seats: 20) to the station, and from the station a speedy little train to Paris where I met the girls at La Madeleine, a gloriously imposing church in the 8th. Mary had just thrown down 240€ on perfume for a friend of her mother's while wearing skinny jeans and the most broken down converse you've ever seen. I would have paid good money to see the shop assistant's face when this girl asked for a frighteningly expensive perfume. I would have laughed and laughed, if flies could laugh. As it was, we made our introductions, and at one point Kate put the bag on my head. It smelt of roses and paper, if you were interested, but if that's what 240€ smells like I'll just take the cash and sniff it.

On arrival all three of us were feeling a little hunger and we set off in search of some grub. As we were walking, I spotted an interesting storefront: Chick-can. Intriguing. On closer inspection, the food sounded great - a quarter roast chicken plus two hot sides for 12€. Bargain, but we weren't expecting much - this close to Concorde and the Champs d'Elysées, a bottle of water will set you back 2€ - but upon entering we found beautifully clean premises and a host who was enthusiastic and charming in equal measure - and both of those measures were enormous. He asked first if we spoke French or English, and when we proposed French he rattled off the menu and the way it was prepared slowly enough for us to understand but fast enough to make us feel as though we were absolutely winning at French. In essence, for your 12€ you get a quarter of a roast chicken - and you can see these chickens roasting behind the counter - in a sauce of your choice. In addition, we could choose two hot sides from between roasted baby new potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potato, ratatouille or quinoa. Every single sauce sounded delicious, every side looked exquisite. Our host ladled our plates high with the food, instructed us to help ourselves to glasses of water that he'd placed in the fridge so that they'd be cool, and moved quickly on to explaining this marvelous prospect to a new set of customers.

The food - oh, gods, the food. The chicken was amazing. The sides were amazing. The water was, well, water, but it was chilled and therefore amazing. Never underestimate chilled water. Knowing how my mother loves a roast chicken, I'm planning on taking my parents there when they come to see me in July. There'll be high class meals too, but sometimes you need to get down and greasy and rip into some chicken with your hands. Do not, like me, wear a classy shirt, because that delicious sauce will make a break for freedom all over your shirt, and then you'll have to fight the urge to then eat your shirt. And that will endear you to absolutely no-one. So that's my Paris meal tip: Chick Can, 12 rue Vignon, 75009. Wear a t-shirt. Or a bib.

The afternoon was given over to a flea market in the northernmost reaches of Paris, where we had to walk a veritable gauntlet of shifty looking people offering us glasses, belts, shirts and phones. They had probably fallen off the back of a lorry (an English euphemism which means stolen), and so the chances of me buying any of the goods was slim. All the same, it's a trifle intimidating, and made me realise I should start asking to be paid by cheque. At the market, Kate haggled down a fellow from 40 to 30€, displaying a mastery of the girlish pout that has toppled nations and brought low the mighty. And saved her 10€, so that's pretty good. She bought the three monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. I myself spotted several julep cups (a julep is a kind of cocktail; you can see I'm already planning my return to the Aberdeen scene) and a beautiful shaker which knocked in at 220€. Temptation tried to slip her hand in my back pocket, but for the moment I resisted.

Once we quit the market we made our way to Chatelet, where there are plenty of bars and cafés where one can sit and watch the world pass by. So we grabbed a table and did so. There is no greater pleasure, in any city, than to sit and be surrounded by the hurrying people, to watch them and make no move at all to join their hustle and bustle. A couple of drinks later we made our lazy way to St Lazare where I said goodbye to Kate (by pulling a bizarre face and banging my face against hers) and goodbye to Mary (she's my girlfriend. If I need to tell you how I said goodbye to my girlfriend you need to step away from the Internet).

A journey home and a careful avoidance of my takeaway heaven - with a liter of excellent Belgian beer coating my insides, and despite my enormous lunch, a kebab was looking exceedingly delicious - brings me to here, finishing up the second of two gigantic blogs.

Thank you always for reading. And Fiona, if you've got this far, you may now rest.

For everyone else, here's a Youtube entertainer that my girlfriend (a concept that is apparently utterly alien to my sister) has got me hooked on. She's fantastic, but this video did make me question a lot of things.

No, don't ask what things. Just watch the video.

Really. Don't ask.

Pavlova'd

I've Pavlova'd myself with this blog.

For those who didn't know, Pavlov was a behavioural scientist who found that if he rang a bell before he fed some dogs, those dogs would soon start to salivate at the sound of the bell - not the scent of the food. They had been conditioned to respond in an abnormal way to a stimulus.

I have done the same thing to myself with this blog and the weather. When I started writing this blog, it was as it got dark - around six. I'd write a bit, fix some dinner, sketch out some ideas, speak to my friends, and then polish it off around nine, feeling satisfied and totally missing at least one glaringly obvious spelling mistake.

So now, instead of looking at the time and starting to write at around six, I look out my window, see it's still light, and continue working on my year abroad project or putting a watermark on videos or reading more about the woman-shaped target that "bleeds" when you shoot it, because everyone needs a solid dose of WTF in the evenings. Gender violence is not really gender violence when you present it as a joke. Apparently.

In any case, that means I eventually get round to writing (and eating) at about ten now, as the sun sets. In addition to this total upset to my workflow I'm also running for the position of School of Language and Literature convener at the University of Aberdeen, in absentia, which is proving to be a logistical nightmare and a missed opportunity to harass students outside Taylor building, which I know they pretend to hate but really love.

This morning was a mad stack of recordings as I tried to avoid missing a deadline (a fairly big one, since we've the next five days off) and, aside from one hideous outtake, the recordings are done and I am exceedingly pleased with the results. In addition, Adeline borrowed some more books, although as she did so she also managed to misplace a blank cheque for 3.000€, so perhaps she felt it wasn't worth it in the end.

Don't look at me, I haven't got it, and even if I did, I wouldn't cash it.

Well I mean I probably wouldn't.

The afternoon was given over to more research and more writing; for the first time since arriving here I'm thankful that the work has momentarily dried up because I've got a lot of pages to write and a lot of complex French to wade through. I foresee the next couple of days being dedicated to the same thing, which is good - it'll get me back in the swing of essay writing before going back to uni.

I was given the names of the two potential new stagiaires today, too, which is very exciting. I'm sure whoever gets it will be brilliant, as they're both fantastic candidates. Though - just so you know - you'll never replace me, and sometimes your colleagues will sigh, or look at you strangely, and they'll be wondering why you don't wear waistcoats, or have rugged good looks, or crawl in hungover to high heaven.

And then you will make them love all the things you do instead.

The afternoon was given over to TFI practice where I (still!) need to improve my grammar. It's better than it was but still not good enough, so that'll be an extra hour of work per day until the test. Posts may well get shorter.

To compensate for the huge length of this one, here's a pavlova, to complete the circle.

P.S:

If you are a student at the University of Aberdeen,

You can vote in the elections happening right now!

Just go to www.ausa.org.uk/elections and log in!

So British!

"So British" is a catchphrase, used by the French, to encapsulate all that is glorious about my fellow countrymen and me. Our accents, our stiff upper lips, our sartorial excellence and the furtive, shifty way we speak French.

I like it. It makes me feel as though I am the keeper of secret knowledge, a wielder of the flame of Britannia, a member of a secret club - a club I was apparently born into it. I rather imagine it's how Prince Harry feels every day of his charmed life. "So British" has followed me since I arrived, and only recently have I realised what a strange people we must seem to our brothers and sisters from foreign lands.

Tea, for a start. Trying to convince the French catering department at the school to provide me with kettles to boil water is turning into a Escher-themed tennis match. They simply do not understand why the water has to be boiling. Why can they not simply boil it at 9am and leave it in the huge urns? It'll still be hot by 3pm.

Tea has to be made with boiling water, I explain. Not tepid, warm, or even hot water. Boiling. A sigh, a shrug, and a rueful look at colleagues. "So British!"

Second: scones. We've bought a lot, and both students and staff are going to enjoy them. However, they're having serious trouble deciphering what they are. Are they biscuits? Cakes? What's this on top? Jam? And this? Cream? English cream? Crème anglaise? What do you mean, they're not the same thing? A sigh, a shrug, and a rueful look at colleagues. "So British!"

It is an odd thing to insist on, but I'm also certain that High Tea is going to go over a storm. It'll be bally marvelous, what what. I might even break out the tuxedo.

So: this morning was mostly calm. A few bits and pieces to do in Excel, including a formula I worked out to separate names into two columns rather than one. I could have looked it up on Google, of course, but there's a great pleasure to figuring it out by oneself.

The afternoon was crazytown central. I got the certificates for students who'd taken the TOEIC and they descended, not en masse but in dribs and drabs, to collect them. This wouldn't have been so bad were it not for the other students whom I was trying to help with an article on an explosion that killed three people. Tough to dart between light banter and "So, here we need to stress what killed these people."

Lunch was a rapid, half-hour job, as translations needed to be finished and I had a meeting about another presentation I had to do. My colleague showed me the software and how to use it; it seems very simple and I should be able to rip through it in about thirty minutes on Thursday. After that was big-brained Alexander, whose nationality my friend Adeline could not figure out (Alexander speaks like a villain from a Bond movie; his Russian accent is so beautifully clichéd that I want to record him saying things like "You have a message, Mr Kerr" for my phone alerts.).

Finally, Alexander's article was finished, my door was closed, I was reaching for my keys when -

"Can we have our diplomas?"

"Certificates," I hissed between gritted teeth, and turned, smiled, and opened my door again.

That brought me to my French lesson, where we did negation.

I'm not going to say anything else there because I'll be either sarcastic or mean, and neither is appropriate.

Instead we shall skip ahead to tonight, where I find my privacy invaded by a colleague who desperately needs work done now because she didn't do it earlier.

I caved and did it. It only took thirty seconds, and it made her happy.

I'm a flake.

Tomorrow is a day off! And I'm probably still going to get up at 7! Hoorah for body clocks!

Not.

The belles of Notre Dame

So I saw this poster on the way home from today's travels:

"The number 1 site for extramarital affairs thought up by women."

And after uploading it to Facebook I decided that this was what I should write my year abroad project on - the fact that the French apparently invented the word "blasé" to describe how they feel about extramarital affairs. It should be interesting, and hopefully suitably culturally-centered. We can but hope.

To get to that point, let's go back to this morning. I though I was meeting Kate and Mary at 11, and not 10, which is why I was stepping out of the shower when my phone rang this morning. Kate wanted to know if I wouldn't mind meeting them at a different location - one that would be easier for me since I was already on the train.

(I definitely was not already on the train.)

I got dressed, grabbed my camera, and bolted out the door. A speed-walk to the station and a mere three-minute wait and I was on the train and on my way into town. Once again I'm stunned with glee that a ticket for all public transport in Paris on the weekend for young people is 3.75€. It's incredibly good value and stands in stark contrast to, say, First Aberdeen, who charge a little under that for a student day ticket. First Aberdeen are thieving whatnots, and it's an ongoing struggle to make them lower their prices even a smidgeon.

But that's Aberdeen's problem, and not yours. Onwards.

I arrived a mere five minutes after I was supposed to and snatched a moment with Mary before greeting Kate. Greeting is really too small a word for the huge bosie I gave her and she in return gave me. I felt ribs creak. They'd stowed their luggage at Gare de Lyon - the luggage storage at St. Lazare is now closed, for reasons currently outside the wit of man - so that's where we met, and from there we headed to Chatelet-les-Halles. A short hop on and then off the train again and we found ourselves strolling through the warm morning with blossom showering around us. To get from where we were - Chatelet - to where we wanted to be - Jardin du Luxembourg - we could have caught a train and sunk once again into the stinking underground. The system of trains in Paris is wonderful; the smell of sulphur, however, would make even a Satanist baulk. Instead we strolled across the river and took the opportunity to sit outside the cathedral and take some snaps.

I say we. I gave Kate the camera, since the last time I did so she got some cracking photos - and I got it back before she left with another 200 snaps to work through. They're almost all golden. Kate sings like an angel and takes photos like a pro. Being around her is jealousy-inducing to the highest order. All of the photos that follow are credited to her.

It also means that rather than being behind the camera all the time, I got to be in front of it. Very much in front of it, on one occasion.

A little too close for comfort perhaps.

We strolled in the direction of the Garden and along the way ducked into my favourite Parisian haunt. I'm pretty sure this is the third time in a week and is now bordering on an obsession, but Shakespeare and Company is the greatest English-language bookstore in Paris.

There's barely enough room to squeeze past books upon books, all ordered but not only on shelves but tables too. Books spilling out and words, just words, everywhere.

I love this shop.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat in a pizza and pasta place run by genuine Italians, which meant they understood English better than they understood French - don't know how to feel about that - and which made Mary roll her eyes just a little.

The reason Mary rolled her eyes is because she is essentially sensible, and if she were to have a food intolerance then she would avoid that food in particular. Since Kate has an intolerance to gluten and I have an intolerance to lactose, a pizza/pasta parlour is literally the worst place for us to be. Everything is made with dough and cheese. Everything.

Did we listen? Am I a sensible person?

Hello...friend

What do you think?

In any case, after our grub stop, we made it to the Garden. They looked incredible, with flowers in full bloom and small children setting boats free on the central pond. One of the children had a pirate boat, and I suspect I was not the only person feeling just a pang of jealousy. I mean look at it, it's a pirate boat. I wanted a pirate boat.

How much did I want a pirate boat? Enough to make me pull a very ugly face. How ugly? I can't say. It would make your eyes pop out, one-two, and then you'd never read this blog again.

We did a tour around the Garden, encountering a Giant Sequoia (that "only" reaches around 40m in Europe, according to the delightfully understated sign) and a woman doing sprint yoga.

By this I meant she would do a yoga stretch in the middle of the path and then carry on walking and then, as if she had received instructions from some other place, promptly did another one. She hopped, skipped, jumped and stretched around the circumference of the park, and by the time we parted ways we all felt absolutely exhausted. The girls had only an hour before their train, and so we wound our way back to Gare de Lyon, and stood outside it for a second.

Oooh...moody.

I have very strong memories of this place, and they all seem to center around this particular girl:

Pictured: Demon-spawn. And a blueberry muffin.

Your year abroad - I make a huge assumption in saying this, but I think many of you will be going on a year abroad - will expose you to new cultures in ways you could not possibly imagine. It will change the course of your life, and sometimes that course will collide with someone with whom you will click in every way. And sometimes these relationships won't last; you've only got a year, and so do they. Even with Skype, and aeroplanes, and Facebook, some things can't survive the distance.

So seize the opportunities that I know you'll get.

Pictured: Opportunity being seized.

Also: blueberry muffin.

And blog about it, so I can read your adventures.

Anyway, before the nostalgia set in, I was talking about Gare de Lyon and the girls. We had a quick drink and retrieved their luggage. Kate rushed in and assured us we needn't come in with her, which was transparently both untrue and crafted to give Mary and I another moment. She is a great friend, and I can't wait to get back to studying with her next year. I owe her a lot, and it may well be repaid in dinners.

We seized the moment, as if you need to be told.

On the way down to the Metro, the escalator was out of order and the train was at the platform. Kate dragged her suitcase down the stairs at some speed and she had almost managed the whole lot when we heard an awful crack. We leapt onto the train, manhandling the suitcase, and took stock of the damage. The handle had snapped right off the bag and so had a white tube that was previously hidden inside the handle. It seemed to be made of fibres, so I grabbed it to try to twist it and snap it completely. It was, indeed, made of fibres - fibres of glass.

Nasty, nasty little fibres of glass that were now stuck in my fingers and next to impossible to see because glass, of course, is transparent. Hilarious when this property results in children and small animals running into it, less fun when microscopic fibres of it are jammed in your fingertips.

In any case, with the judicious application of gloves we got the suitcase on the train, said our goodbyes, and parted. 

I hate parting.

So that's been my Saturday. It's only six now, but I don't foresee anything interesting coming up before midnight. A massive thank-you to thirdyearabroad.com whom I am sure are responsible for the vast majority of my readers, as well as running a site that got me really prepared for my own third year abroad.

That's all for today folks. I read something lovely the other day that I'd like to share with you:

"The evening news is the only television programme that opens with 'Good Evening' and the goes on to tell you why it's not."

It amused me, and I hope it's amused you too. Thanks for reading.

17. Qd8+ Rxd8 18. Rxd8# (Sacrifice)

I've just beaten the computer at chess and, since this marks the high point of my nerdiness, I thought I'd share it with you and then craft a bit of a blog about it. It's about the time I'm spending here, and what I'm spending it doing.

Oh yes. We're going to get reflective. I'll understand if you're entirely uninterested and only come for the gossip, chicanery, and other tomfoolery. There'll be more of that tomorrow, but for now -

The last 8 months have been a time of enormous personal growth for me and, simultaneously, a time of enormous frustration. If you have been reading this daily - and if you have then may flowers rain down from heaven and blessings come upon you like ninjas - then you will have read the subtext that, on occasion, I have been frustrated and felt that perhaps I was not using my time to its full potential. And yet from that has sprung this blog, and poems, and a newly-renewed love of chess. I have used the time to perfect translations, apply for internships, and cultivate new friendships both among the students and among old friends.

I have drafted and designed the layout of a new library and seen it installed, gained a budget - the majority of which I will probably leave to my successor - and, most recently, planned High Tea, complete with scones (with jam and cream), strawberries (with sugar and cream) and tea (no. No cream.).

I've also taken time to go around Germany, begin dating an American (if you knew me when I was younger, you'd be just as surprised as I was when I fell for her) and start translating +Derren Brown's book Tricks of the Mind, which will doubtlessly stand through history as one of the worst translations of an excellent book ever attempted. If I am to fail, I shall endeavour to make it memorable.

The point is that learning French is now, and always will be, the small part of my degree that makes up the marks. At university I have met incredible people whose views have continually challenged mine, from Aric at one end of the spectrum to Rob at the other. At every point in my education I have been challenged, frustrated, elated, impassioned and quite frankly murderous, especially when Student Council members -

But I digress. My point is that what I sacrifice by going to university, by spending 10 months abroad instead of 6, is not time that I could otherwise have spent earning money because money is not really the point of university or, indeed, of life. It is nice to have more money than less, but I don't know if I'd give up these earnings in the face of the people I've met, both here and at home.

The fact remains that this language, the seeds of which were sown at the age of maybe eight or nine years old, remains both constant and constantly fascinating. It has opened doors to me that I had never imagined opening, and as I look forward to the mere 3 months still ahead of me I know I'll be back before very long. There will be internships and possibly even jobs to be seized and friends with whom I  would to be reunited.

In short, then, languages are my passion and the skeleton key of my life. I don't know what lies ahead.

But I'm starting to get an outline.

Up-and-down-day

My day started badly. The internet still didn't work - more on that later - and I spent too long trying to fix it by unplugging it, staring hard at it, and then plugging it back in. That didn't work. It never works, but one day it will, and that will be the day I become "The Man With Laser Eyes."

It actually picked up once I got to work; it's roasting hot and I'm in a nice cool office by the window, which means I never overheat and simultaneously have absolutely no chance of seeing the screen as I am blinded by the glare. Today I was working on a mini-guide to help computer illiterate alumni connect to the network. I had done a French and an English version when my colleague mentioned that there were a couple of German people on the list, and would I mind rattling off a version in German quickly?

Give her her dues, she held a straight face remarkably well while I spluttered and reached for the words in French to convey how touched I was that she'd asked me and how utterly awful that same idea was. I must have been a ridiculous figure, and she finally relented and admitted she was joking. The rest of the day passed as always; another chapter to re-read (I keep thinking I've finished with that, and I keep getting more chapters. It's bizarre.) and more students coming and borrowing things. Hurrah! I'm going to work on a survey for other students as well and offer a prize to bribe them into doing it. I love bribes. I love anonymity too, anonymous surveys are absolutely the best. Anonymous everything: job applications, exam papers, feedback forms.

I think a 50€ Amazon voucher would be in the theme of things.

I also corrected a blog post by a student who was writing about an explosion (and who'd tried to make it light-hearted but instead had made it scarier, like a gorilla with an Uzi) that occurred in a petrochemicals plant in Carling, France. The students have to write in English, and I was struck once more by the curiously narrow band of errors all French students make. Missing articles and prepositions  and having real trouble with the third person singular ending -s. Is this common to all students, or only those for whom French is the langue maternelle? 

My afternoon was given over to T.F.I practice, which is getting fractionally better week-on-week. There's one other student who's leaping ahead of me, and being naturally competitive I keep having to remind myself that I'm not trying to beat her, I'm just trying to get a good score.

(I am definitely trying to beat her.)

Following the lesson I headed back to my little mediatheque, saved lots of little pochettes from the bin - I have big plans for those bad boys - and then went to La Défense, to recover my shoes, which I'd worn a hole in from tramping around Versailles. I should have gone to a concert tonight, but I discovered before leaving work that my ticket had fallen out of my pocket at some point during the day and, despite tearing the room apart, I couldn't find the thing. I can guarantee that when I go in tomorrow one of the cleaners will have found it and put it on my desk. You'll be able to hear the cry of anguish wherever you are.

There's a silver lining, though. I've got my room tidier, my washing up done, and my laundry freshly...laundered, I suppose. And, even better, I've got the window open and the sounds of a little town on the outskirts of Paris are drifting in like smoke.

Let's not let this ever end.

Installing real life...99% complete

Exciting day today, which started with me being locked out of my new office. This happens too often.

However, I found a key, and sat myself down. No computer yet; while books can be lugged around any old how, computers must be signed for in triplicate, because people are more likely to steal a computer. Even a four-year old computer with less processing power than the A5-sized tablet they have in their bag. It's crazy, the thing must weigh a ton.

In any case - this meant I was on my laptop, and since I prefer +Gmail over Outlook (sorry Microsoft, sorry Apple, my next laptop's going to be a Chromebook and I'll always be an Android fanboy) my supervisor has started emailing me on that address. However, since I also use it for personal stuff (emails to my dad, getting tickets to En attendant Godot, my weekly hairdressing appointments) I decided now was the time to take control of my inbox. I said it with force. I said it with conviction. I said it with absolutely no idea how I'd go about it.

Step forward +Lifehacker, my favourite find ever. They output around 20-30 articles a day, and almost all of them go in my trash bin because they don't apply to me. But I always scan the titles, because once in a while an absolute gem comes up. Lifehacker is my go-to guy; if Stephen Fry were a website, he'd be Lifehacker. Maybe. Whether he would or he wouldn't be, I knew Lifehacker would help me out, and they did. Page after page on how to take control of your Gmail inbox, and before I knew it I'd so totally organised my inbox that I had a folder for everyone, subfolders for topics, and I'd lost three hours of my day.

Students came in and out throughout the morning, and I'm hoping that's going to become a common theme - I really want the huge new space I've got to be more than book storage. I want it to be a place for conversation, for improving English, and for rediscovering classics of English. English is my first language and my first love, and I'm so excited to now have the opportunity to share it with even more students.

I'm also right next to the coffee machine, so I'm expecting my five hours of sleep per night to be further abbreviated. I will carry on regardless; I would do anything for love. Apart from that weird thing with ketchup and apples, you can keep that to yourself. Weirdo.

Lunch today was kids' menu; turkey nuggets and chips. This is what I count as a weekend treat; going out on a Friday night is not feasible with a 10am start. I'm confident that other students reading this will shake their heads and laugh mockingly, but I'm old now. I'm 23, another few years and I get my pension.

(As I get closer to graduation I'm realising more and more that the world doesn't work that way, but I'm clinging to my delusion like a lifejacket)

My weekend looks pretty good, with lessons in the morning, a walk along the Seine with some work colleagues and I think a visit to Paris on Sunday. I've not been in for a while and I've some things to see before I leave - a date which is approaching with alarming speed.

For tonight I'll leave you with this from my new favourite musical, Matilda, which has just opened on Broadway. 400 Americans read this blog in the last five days; if any of you are New Yorkers I implore you to go and see this wonderful production.

Skip to 0.40 for the good stuff and to avoid David Walliams.



When I grow up, I will eat sweets every day
On the way to work 
And I will go to bed late every night
And I will wake up when the sun comes up and I
Will watch cartoons until my eyes go square and I won't care
'Cause I'll be all grown up.

(Hands up if this was you not so long ago.)

Moving about again

I am in my new (new) and (I pray and I beg) permanent office!

The workmen finished off today, and I now have a gloriously open space, with a table for meetings and lessons as well as shelves for books and DVDs. I also have a blank wall, on which I could put posters or project English-language video clips. There will be Blackadder, Ab Fab, Fawlty Towers and the Office before my time here is out.

I arrived this morning feeling utterly washed out; I've not been sleeping particularly well recently and apparently staying up until you almost fall asleep is not the cure I thought it was. However, calls in rapid succession from my supervisor and my co-worker had my brain turning over like the finely-tuned engine it is. My supervisor needed a very boring task done in Excel, so I made a macro and watched with glee as my boring task got a lot easier. Macros are exceedingly cool little things, and if you use Excel a lot I recommend you learn how to use them.

I also had a small translation to do and a copy-edit to do on someone else's translation. A small nightmare, because the translator had translated the present tense in French to the present tense in English. This doesn't sound even vaguely nightmare-like, but in French you can describe events that happened in the past with the present tense - the same way you do when you tell a story in the pub:

"So I'm in the club and this guy comes up to me, he starts talking to me and flirting with me and I'm like..."

Unfortunately, it's not suitable for written text. Thus for half an hour I went through an otherwise perfect translation making "is" into "was" and "have" into "had" and "explodes" into "exploded". I actually really enjoyed the text, which is lucky, because there are another 12 chapters to come.

That brought me to 5 o'clock (which I almost wrote as 1700h, my French ambushes me in unlikely places) and my French lesson with Raphaël, who's my favourite French teacher. He loves tangents as much as I do and we have a good rapport, which is really cheering. We were doing the passive tense, which is old hat for me, but since there were only three of us we worked together, and I tried to tease the right answers out of my friends - which to their credit they hardly needed, leaping to the correct response like gazelle.

After that, I went back to see my supervisor, where we worked out a few kinks in the copy-edit, talked about some more work she had for me, and how I can improve my written style and grammar. Before I knew it was 8pm, and she kindly offered me an hour off tomorrow. I've taken it in the morning, which means I will be staying in bed until the glorious hour of 9am.

I'm telling you. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.

For dinner I have accidentally bought a baguette that could be considered a loaf. Take a butcher's at this bad boy:

French secretaries

Some things in life make you want to explode out of sheer rage at being made to wait. Sometimes it's in the coffee-shop, where the person at the front of the queue has apparently been asleep and is now unsure of where they are or what they're doing. Sometimes it's in the laundry room, where someone has left their clothes in the dryer and, as the minutes creep past, it becomes clear that they have forgotten.

And sometimes it's being made to wait for twenty minutes, sent away, brought back, abandoned and then shot up 45 flights in a lift only to be abandoned again.

Let me start from the beginning. We had some important documents in the office that needed to be signed by a man who works in La Défense, so at 3pm I girded my loins, pulled myself up by my bootstraps, and made my way into town.

At this point it was raining. I say this now because the rain continued throughout this little misadventure, and I really want you to understand my soggy unhappiness from the offset.

So after finding the tower in which the elusive Monsieur was hiding I was blocked by four elegant, beautiful, bespectacled secretaries. I felt like Don Draper. I stepped up, presented my credentials, and had them returned with a blank stare. Not a good start, I felt, but perhaps my French had deteriorated after a week in Allemagne. I started again.

- Je suis - I was cut off.
M. is not available today. He will be available later this week.
When?
Four perfect pairs of Parisian epaulettes moved in time.
Later this week.

The frustration notched up a little.

- I need three signatures, that's all.
The look I received might have floored a rhinocerous. I beat a hasty retreat and rang my supervisor, who is also a secretary. She snorted derisively, told me she'd call me back, and hung up.

A moment later, one of the secretary's phones rang. She answered in tones as clipped and polished as her nails. Her eyes widened. She looked down. She looked at me. She looked at the phone. She put the phone down.

I didn't do a victory dance. At least not on the outside.

I was escorted to a life, where a number was punched in and I was ushered inside. Before I had a chance to ask the number of the office, I was flung up 45 floors. The height of a room is 2.4m, which means I shot up 108m in a time that was unpleasantly fast. Several of my vertebrae cracked. My ears popped. I got shorter, and at this height, that's not a fun thing.

I stepped out, trying to get used to the fact that my chin now touched my shoelaces. I waited there while people gave me suspicious looks as they swept past. Finally the Monsieur's own secretary came to find me, and then took my documents and left me in what might charitably be called a broom cupboard. She returned thirty seconds later, scowled, and gave me back the documents. She ushered me back to the lift, which re-cracked my vertebrae, re-popped my ears, and returned me to my normal size.

I then had to rocket home to drop off the documents. I literally ran past, dropped the documents in my intray, ran out and leaped back aboard a bus. Three metros later I was in the right area.

I then managed to take a wrong turn that would give me a lovely mile long walkabout before finally reaching my destination - a meeting with the next President of the CIPR.

Love Day

Today has absolutely flown by. I'm sure this happens to everyone, but I've just sat down at my laptop to start writing a blog and had to do a double take at the time. There's no way it can be 10.

Don't forget that clocks go forwards this weekend, meaning we get robbed of an hour of sleep. Or whatever else you might be doing on Saturday night; whatever your activity of choice, be aware that you'll be doing it for an hour less. Everyone who works in a bar is understandably staring daggers - because technically the clocks don't go forward until 4am, nobody in a bar gets to go home early. They do get to wake an hour earlier though, which means this weekend is my least favourite of the year.

In addition, it's Easter, and there is the usual mass of milk chocolate offerings stocking shelves left, right and centre. Milk. You ever had the bottom fall out of your world?

Milk makes the exact opposite happen to me.

There's also a resurgence in religion, but luckily this blog isn't where I talk about that. I will say props to the people who melted down their prized possessions to make a new statues, well done to the Pope with a fortune who claims to represent a carpenter's son and super-well-done to the bigots who claim God is love but marriage is only for certain people.

That's all about religion.

I started my day checking over my statistics work and talking it over with my supervisor. As I was leaving her supervisor wandered by and asked how I was doing, if I was enjoying myself, if I was attending all the French lessons. I stammered out that last night I was called away to something else, and his eyebrows came together in a frown.

He has impressive eyebrows. They're like caterpillars, and when he frowns they meld into one salt-and-pepper line across his forehead. Distracting but impressive caterpillar-brows.

You must got to lessons, he insisted. That's why you're here. That's why you have this opportunity.

Yup. Got told off for doing work for my colleagues instead of going to simple French lessons. This year abroad is the greatest thing ever.

Lunch was followed by an interesting meeting with a student who puts biblical quotes in his emails. He is one of the sweetest guys I've ever had the good fortune to meet, but he tells me he's struggling to get past the interview stage. I do not want to suggest it, but I strongly suspect that might be the reason. How does one gently tell a man with such great faith that he needs to tone it down in order to be more employable? Should we? Or should we encourage them to be themselves?

On the one hand being true to yourself is incredibly important, but on the other moral fibre has no nutritional value and can't be made into a roof.

Tricksy!

My evening finished with my students who are making leaps and bounds in progress; nervousness is still a limiting factor but they overcome it with greater ease each time. In addition, every lesson I teach I believe I become a better teacher for them, learning when to push and when to ease back a little. It's really, really exciting to watch them grow.

Soppiness does not become me, but you'll pardon it this once.

Today is good Friday (good Freya's day) in German Karfreitag (sorrowful Freya's day) and in French vendredi saint (holy Venus day.) Merely from looking at the words you'd think it was something to do with love, and to some people it rather is. Whether it is or it isn't, one major feature of today in the West is the Stations of the Cross. These always fascinated me growing up, but the carved images I saw were ancient even then. However, a parish priest who's on twitter (and doing it really well) has been posting modern images under the names of the stations. The whole series is well worth a look, so I collected them for you here.

That's all for today folks. Happy Easter. I hope you enjoy your milk chocolate.

Bitter? Me? No.

Versailles, where the Sun and the Moon rose together

Versailles is the most incredible monument to one man's ego. It is so vast, so immense, that I hardly know where to begin.

Let's start with a little history. Louis XIV reigned in France from 1661 to his death in 1715. He single-handedly neutralised the power of the old families and rebranded himself as the Sun-King, identifying himself with Apollo, the Roman god of the Sun. He revolutionised the law, the army, and the power of the crown.

And he did a lot of this with Versailles.

Approaching the gates of Versailles is intimidating even today. It is hard to imagine how it must have felt to courtiers who knew that their lives and their livelihoods were in the palm of the hand of the man who lived at its centre.

Gold leaf covers spikes, a potent metaphor for Louis' court. Smiles were false and the only thing that counted was appearance. Being seen, and being seen to be seen, were far more important than being clever or even useful.

Let me give you an example. Louis expected, upon waking, to be surrounded by courtiers who hoped for some favour from him. This was not an entirely new system; instead, it harked back to Roman times, where it was necessary for people to visit their patronus, a man of greater wealth or social stature, in the morning. This was called salutatio, and served to remind the inferior of the power of their patronus. Louis, who saw Rome as the pinnacle of civilisation, reinstated this, and so expected his ministers and courtiers to greet him when he woke up. This was known as lever, the rising ceremony. It was split into two parts, but that's a little heavy for this light little blog. In any case, once the King put in place this ceremony, it became fashionable to copy it, and consequently lower level courtiers would need to rise at a ferociously early hour in order to rush to the lever of their superiors who, in turn, would then hurry off to the lever of their superiors. Consequently Louis' lever was towards noon, and he would actually get in a good couple of hours of hunting before re-retiring to bed.

There's your little history lesson over. Onwards to Versailles!

I was at Versailles with Mary who, apparently undaunted by last week's meeting, had agreed to keep me company as I wandered around the grand château. My entry was free; hers, regretfully, was expensive - citizens of the European Union under the age of 26 get in gratis. Americans, sadly, do not, regardless of age. Entering, we followed the signs around the building. A sign two metres in expressly forbade the use of cameras and videocameras. Despite the sign being in three different languages many of our fellow tourists ignored it completely; I, being British, could not bring myself to do so. Consequently I have no pictures of the inside, which is an incredible shame, because it's glorious.

The tour leads you through several rooms, all of which have breathtaking paintings on the ceilings. Mars, Diana and Hercules all tower above you as you move from room to room, and it wasn't long before Mary and I felt our necks stiffening up as we did our best to drink in every image. I know it would take up too much space, but there's a lot to be said for putting long benches in these rooms. People could lie back and stare up and thus better appreciate the incredible artwork.

The opulence of the rooms doesn't stop at the ceilings, however. The walls are clad in marble and finished in gold. At every step you are reminded that you are in the home of a near deity. At its centre, like a spider in a web, is the bedroom of the King. It is magnificent in its opulence. Gold thread, gold leaf, silk - all adorn every feasible surface and ensure that everyone in the room is aware of who has the power.

The tour was over far too quickly and Mary and I escaped to the grounds, which even in overcast weather were beautiful. They are free to enter (free for all, without concern for the country in which you were born), and we strolled together around the enormous cruciform lake which is the centerpiece of Versailles' gardens. We were lapped several times by eager joggers, bikers, and one chap on what I can only accurately describe as a cross-trainer on wheels. We took a more leisurely pace, discussing Anglo-American differences and future plans and ideas. We stopped off for lunch at a little eaterie; Mary had a sandwich and I had a roast chicken. I confess, I am something of a glutton. Some people look at vices and see sin. I see a list of achievements waiting to be unlocked.

We were halfway through when a family of seven or so Texans sat down next to us, clearly unsettled by the prospect of being sat next to people they didn't know. This is a peculiarity of the continent that Brits and, apparently, Americans are not used to. It can be summed up very simply as: if you fit, you sit. You can be friendly or you can ignore your neighbour, but that's just the way it is.

In any event, eavesdropping on their conversation caused me to have to bite my lip a couple of times while Mary cringed just a little as they remarked on the differences between the States and Europe. It would be easy to mock, but the fact that they've made the journey is greatly reassuring - I read recently that only 3.5% of Americans will ever travel overseas on vacation. So anyone who leaves that country and tries to get some of the ancient culture they lack is a hero to me.

All the same, it shouldn't be a surprise that Macdonald's is different here.

The long walk brought us to the top of the cross. To give you an idea of the sheer size of this lake, Versailles is the central building in this photo. The dark blobs in the foreground are 4-man boats.

Vast.

On the stroll back I attempted to explain cricket to Mary, a task of mammoth proportions because cricket is not the simplest thing to explain. We've made a deal, though - if I go to Chicago she'll take me to a baseball game and she, in return, will accompany me to a cricket match in England.

I cannot wait.

Today, in a nutshell, has been recovery. I lay around until 10 feeling stiff; apparently I am now old and cannot walk a few miles without needing to rest my bones for a day. Orange juice and a baked potato have restored my vigour, however, and I am now off to teach. If you'd like to see a few more pictures from Versailles, including a few shots from the garden, then just click here.

There's something wonderful about snow

Yesterday, as I strolled home and spoke to my smallest sister, it started to snow. Great big clumps. This morning when I awoke it was to find that the snow had not, and everywhere was covered in a thin blanket of sparkling snow. I say sparkling because, despite its whiteness, there was a sparkle that lay just below the powder. In any case, as I scurried across the car park (I can run from my bedroom to my office in thirty seconds) those thoughts were the ones that struck me with the greatest force. Snow adds an ethereal beauty to anything, and anything already beautiful merely has its beauty magnified - be it a town or a person.

Enough proselytizing. You love snow, and I'm sure I need not convince you of how wonderful it is.

This morning was spent completing the task I started yesterday, a task for which I was rewarded with a bottle of something novel and exciting. It's an apéritif, and not one I'm familiar with. Normally I'd put a picture of it here but, in the dash to get home and do shopping, it's still in the office. However, I promise if you check back after 11am GMT there'll be a photo of the gift in place of my grinning face.

See? Looks exciting, non?


Having delivered the goods, completed the assignment, and been incredibly surprised by the kind gesture of my colleague - perhaps I'm cynical, but every time a colleague gives me a thank-you gift for some work I've done I'm completely bowled over and stammer thanks in two different languages.

That's how you know you're getting better at second languages. You use it to thank people because it provides useful filler while you try to get your brain back in gear.

The only other thing that happened today was that I called up my interviewer to fix a time and date for the aforementioned interview, time being a bit weird between here and London. She answered the phone with the distinctive "'Allo?" of almost all French people. My resolution, which had been to speak exclusively in English, went swiftly out the window. Hearing that "Allo?" at work has become a signal, for me, to speak in French rather than English. Like a Pavlovian dog, I switched into French. (The following has been translated:)

- 'Allo?
- Ah hello, am I speaking to --
- Yes, speaking.
- Hi, we spoke yesterday via email, I'm just calling to confirm the interview time and date.

And so on, as you would expect that call to go. Except it was totally in French, and at no point did either of us suggest switching to English. It just seemed completely natural, and that pretty much made my day. A genuine French person who's never met me felt more at east speaking French than English. Joy.

The afternoon was absolutely full of work, which was also really pleasing. After lunch my colleague and I did a coaching session with the same colleague who'd gifted me the scrumptious looking bottle above, and ten minutes from the end my supervisor rang me on my mobile.

-Tu es où, Jonathan? Where are you, Jonathan?
-Je suis à l'école, Madame. I'm in school, Miss. Bear in mind that the coaching session we were conducting took place not more than 100 meters from my supervisor's office.
- But why aren't you picking up your phone?
I walked into her office.

It was a good moment. She looked completely nonplussed, stared at her own phone for a good ten seconds, and then looked at me. I apologised and explained why I'd (apparently) spontaneously materialised outside her office. She told me that the marketing and press department were looking for me, hoping to utilise my knowledge of English. A press release was ready to go out, following an interview with a CEO and alumnus of the School. All that remained was for me to okay it.

You can imagine how my ego swelled. Coming on the heels of the interview that I confirmed this morning this fresh massage of my ego (well recovered from its bruising descent yesterday) and so I stormed up to the department and spent a comfortable hour discussing very tiny variations in language. English is so rich but also so very sensitive to change; anyone who has looked up the difference between get on and get off knows what I mean.

Now, at this point I'd love to talk about how my evening was interesting, how the French lesson was brilliant, and how I trudged through snow that crunched underfoot.

Instead, I'm somewhere between elation and terror, so I'm going to close this blog here, take a dram, and prepare for my interview.

If you're slightly perturbed by the abruptness with which this blog has finished, permit me to recommend you a blog by a schoolmate, Sophy - who's in Vienna - and another German assistant +Joanna Ford, who I don't know personally but writes with the elegance and easy wit that is so often lacking from this blog.

I'll see you all tomorrow.

EDIT: Sophy, not Sophie. I'm an awful person.

Moonday, Loonday, Mad Men, Come Play

Exciting news sports fans!

You'll remember I mentioned a French PR firm back on Friday. An update for you: I have a Skype interview next week with the firm in question and I'm incredibly excited, although at the moment it is only an interview. Let us be calm and not overdo it.

Alright. That'll do.

That email came this morning, meaning I had to balance replying in French with a translation I'm undertaking for a colleague's daughter. That's a little unfair; it's not a translation. The daughter has written a little presentation on Simone Veil, she told me, would I mind checking it over quickly?

I was honoured to be asked and agreed, of course. I went over to my colleague's office and had a look over the printed document.

Alright, five sides. Not a quick job, but a half hour maximum. And then I read the text.

Nothing else will be said on the subject save that I will need some time tomorrow to finish it.

So: aside from my happy dance and the translation, nothing else of great interest happened today save for the recommencement of an oral class; some debate this evening on prostitution, drugs and guns. Because there are safe topics, that students will never talk about, and there are topics that are dangerous, cause arguments, and absolutely will come up in everyday life.

I would rather teach students about them.

Plus, one of them argued passionately that the 1st Amendment of the Constitution protected the right to bear arms, and he was doing so well and flowing so easily that I couldn't bring myself to point out the flaw in his argument. I hope someone else does.

Following my oral lesson I was off to another oral lesson; this one private. It was excellent as ever; her errors are becoming less and less frequent and are centered more around complex tenses and sentence structure. As I left she told me about some more holiday she'd be taking; I'm a little gutted that I won't get to see her but it does give me some free evening time to catch up on some reading I've been meaning to do. Silver linings are everywhere.

On the way home they were directly above me, and the lining parted from the cloud and landed on my head with a soft flump. The snow had arrived, having swept down past Scotland, blanketing London, Normandy, and now blowing into my face in rather large clumps. 

I got home eventually, looking more like a panda bear than I have done in a long time, but also terribly dramatic: a long black coat, turned up, a scarf covering my mouth, nose and neck alongside my naturally pale skin. Apparently my sudden apparition from the snow was unexpected, because one of my students caught sight of me as she left and skidded marvelously on the fresh snow. Legs, arms, bag, windmilling everywhere. It was a work of art in its gracelessness. 

It was matched only by my own performance as I made it through the door and onto the tiled floor. The tiled and recently polished floor. I didn't stand a chance.

In any case; I'm back now, I'm thoroughly warmed up, and I've just read Mary's account of our trip to Rouen. It's here. You may need a strong stomach.

Rouen

What a day.

I'm going to start off by saying that it was an incredibly long day and my head is all over the place. Thank you for sticking with me until the end.

So: I awoke this morning at 6, threw coffee at my coffeepot, threw the coffeepot at the stove, turned it on, and wrapped myself in a dressing gown. I had turned off the heat last night and going from warm duvet to cold room was proving a challenge. The smell of the coffee helped.

My coffee brewed, I stepped briefly into the shower to encourage my frozen blood to recirculate. Wrapped in a towel with that elixir of life clutched tightly in my hand, I must have looked quite the ridiculous sight - but no matter. I dressed casually - I wore a suit without a waistcoat or a tie, which barely counts as dressed - and made my way into the morning, guidebook, sudoko book and camera all crammed into my little bag. From my little flat it is a short bus ride to La Défense, and from La Défense a hop on and a hop off the RER to Auber. From Auber a walk (briefer still) to St Lazare and there, yawning and bleary-eyed in the crisp morning sunshine, I boarded my train.

And fell asleep.

I can almost hear my mother's horrified gasp. The rest are eagerly waiting to see in what new way I have made a fool of myself. In what new and exciting adventures did I partake, willing or not?

I am sorry to say no such story will follow. Having carefully planned every aspect of my travel, I knew that the terminus was Rouen and, as such, I would be gently ushered off the train at my destination. As it happened I woke in good time, and set out on my journey newly refreshed and eager to face the day. I had a short wait before my travelling companion arrived.

Mary, whose blog you may have seen gracing these pages had offered herself as one half of this two-man fellowship, and so I settled myself into the little bar at the station, took had a coffee, and bent my brain to sudokos. 

Before long the hour arrived, and Mary along with it. We exchanged kisses, because we're almost French, and discussed the weather, because some habits even months abroad cannot break. With gloom in the sky but joy in our hearts (and the hefty and glorious +Lonely Planet guide to France as our comfort) we stepped forward into Rouen and into one of the most picturesque, one of the friendliest, one of the nicest towns I've ever had the privilege of entering.

We started down the hill and turned at the sight of the Palais de Justice, a building that seemed like a cathedral but was in fact the law courts. Looking up we spotted gargoyles and grotesques, and though I wanted to capture them all this cheeky chappy was the most photogenic:

It is at this point that I must confess a flaw of mine. I like teaching, and what poor Mary did not know is that I am consequently a hideous companion. I rambled at length on every subject of which I have some little knowledge and, being the philomath/polymath/sponge that I am, those subjects are numerous. She bore my badgering with patience and had the good manners to seem interested in what I am sure were uninteresting trivia, and so for that (and for many other things) I am indebted to her.

Onwards!

Past the Palais we turned right and were strolling down Rue des Carmes when we exclaimed at the same time. I had just seen the sky-scraping turrets of Cathédrale Notre Dame while Mary, facing the other direction, had caught sight of the Gros Horloge, the gorgeous clock set in a bridge over a street that was only just coming alive. 

We examined it in detail and Mary informed me that the orb at the top represented the phase of the moon. "Waning gibbous." she said, by means of explanation, and I nodded sagely. We passed the door to go in but it was resolutely closed. The sign posted beside it said that visitors could tour from 10 and yet the portal remained obstinately unopened. We strolled under the bridge, stopping to examine the figure of Christ the Shepard carved over our heads, and roamed around the town for a little bit before making our way back to Notre Dame.

I love churches. I love cathedrals. I love that there are monuments to the glory of men, monuments to the ability of an idea to drive us to greater and greater heights. There is no more solid reminder that we are small creatures whose dreams are bigger than they have any right to be. There is no more beautiful souvenir of the truth that we are greatest when we work together.

Hand carved statues. Hand carved.

There is nothing like an electric light to bring ugliness to anything.

On the other hand, the crucifix that forms the centre of this and all churches is an explicit and violent reminder of the centre of the faith; of the sacrifice that a bloodthirsty god demanded as the wages of sin and that a perfect being gave for love. As I have said before, the story is a fascinating one, and if buildings like this were its only output then I could not love it more. 

But they're not.

It was here that I took a picture of which I am immensely proud, and which I am sharing with you without any form of touching up . I would very much like to know your thoughts.

How can it be improved? Nothing is perfect, least of all this, and so I'd really appreciate input from anyone with an opinion on this.

From the Cathedral we made our way to l'Eglise Jeanne d'Arc, although admittedly by a circuitous route which took us halfway across the bridge into Rouen Central, a nice enough place, I daresay, but hardly what we'd come to see. An abrupt about turn and a check over the map in the Guide (p.195, for those keeping score at home) found us at the church. 

L'Eglise Jeanne d'Arc

We nosed around it and then, as the sun broke gloriously through, basked like lizards and allowed our conversation to flow like the Seine we'd so recently crossed and recrossed. People passed around us like a time-lapse film and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone lock up the church. Even vergers need a two hour lunch in France.We decided to follow her good example and stopped at Les Maraîchers, another excellent tip from the Guide, where we were served by attentive and friendly staff who smilingly coaxed French from our uncertain lips. Mary had scallops and I turbot, both exquisite. Alongside these fish dishes - the region being famous for these fruits of the sea - we had a bottle of Riesling (2009). I had a dessert on top; sliced apples in a calvados sauce - exquisite. We finished the rest of the bottle and, having paid and waved goodbye, made our way to the church.It would be hard to find two Catholic churches in such physical proximity whose design was so far apart. From the inside it seemed that we were inside an upturned boat, the ribs stretching high above us to form the keel. The stained glass on the north wall faced windows shaped like abstract fishes on the south and the congregation were to be seated in a wide arc around the sanctuary, rather than the standard cruciform layout. It was beautiful again, but in a vibrant, colourful way. Notre Dame fixated on the sacrifice; here, at least, was the message of hope and new life.Making our way back past the Gros Horloge we saw the door open but a sign advising us that the tours were full. Disheartened, we inquired as to when we should come back, and were told that we would need wait only a few minutes. This we did and when the tower was less clogged with people the gentleman behind the counter - having sussed our accents - asked if we would like the guide in English or in French.We glanced at each other. This was a test, and I suspect neither of us would have admitted to trepidation in the face of explanations only in French. "Français," we said, and he handed us the guides and sent us on our way up the tower.The tower has hundreds of steps and five floors. At various points you are invited to punch a number into your audioguide and press it to your ear whereupon a charming Frenchman talks you through what you can see in front of you. The material is presented clearly and is utterly engrossing, allowing you to almost (almost!) forget the steepness of the staircases and the tightness of the helix.(Staircases that wind upwards in a column are helical, not spiral. A spiral staircase would be a gigantic waste of energy and money. To understand why for yourself, draw a spiral on a piece of paper. Starting at the centre, cut around the line, and then pull the shape you've cut downwards. You now have a spiral staircase and understand why supporting it would be an architectural nightmare.)Mounting stair upon stair and with my legs turning to jelly, we were introduced to the original mechanism, the internal cogs and finally the bells at the very top of the tower. Like Notre Dame, the solid mass of stuff seemed to bend my reality around it, and I was almost grateful to step out onto the parapet for some air.I say almost because heights give me a giddy feeling in the back of my brain. I am not scared of being high up, you know. I am simply terrified of suddenly being high up and falling, and even that's not as terrifying as stopping suddenly. Neither heights nor falling will kill you. It's the sudden deceleration caused by your body going from speedy to zero in fractions of a second that will splatter your brains across the pavement.In any case, the view was gorgeous:

Though admittedly easily distracted by birds.

And the company offered a charming counterpoint to the unchanging buildings.

From there - well, there's an awful lot more to say, but this is a very heavy post already, so perhaps I'll tell what happened next tomorrow.

Oh, and in the UK it's past midnight, so happy Mother's Day to any and all mothers reading this, and especially my own.