A song of ice and fire

This morning I was loath to get up, and the blame lies squarely with my inability to stop reading the books that form A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm profiting from reading them slower, exploring the links between the characters and the houses. I warn you that once you get into it, you find yourself making maps, drawing family trees, wondering, breaking, weeping. The game of thrones is a serious business, my friends, and the Martin does away with the literary convention where the named characters survive by killing at random. After a couple of books you realise that what drives the story onwards is not the need to tell a story but the characters themselves, living out the world in which they find themselves.

As I said. Enter at your peril. Enter the French version with even more care, because you will soon wear through your dictionary, though your mastery of the passé simple will be legendary.

Today, as I said, it was hard to get up, but get up I did. This morning was slow; my colleague is in a hurry to finish all her work before she leaves on Thursday, but that didn't leave her an awful lot of time to find something for me to do. Rather than take up space underfoot, I moved next door and worked a little on some writing, though nothing was going well. Sometimes there are days like that, and the best thing to do is try something else. So I relearnt A-level Economics, because that kind of thing cheers me up enormously, though it does have a very Keynesian bent. I like Keynes, I just wish we were taught others, if only so we can debate them better. Still, Keynes is better than nothing, and it was a very pleasant way of passing a couple of hours.

Yes, I enjoy Economics. Goodbye the brave few daily readers.

Lunch was spent in pleasant company and then came the afternoon, which was absolutely jam-packed with students needing practice tests (for the test they'll sit tomorrow) and the thesis, part four. I feel that needs more of an introduction.

The Thesis, Part IV - The Conclusion

Still a nightmare. And there's more to come and, o joy of joys, she's given my address to her colleague who also needs their thesis proofread. More geology. More reservoirs. More about faults, and coarse-grain and fine-grain stone, and more modeling and on and on ad infinitum.

Still, I did have French this evening, and that was enjoyable. We talked about love, and how it hits the French like a thunderbolt while the Czech have it at first sight; how a person who falls in (and out) of love often is a Spanish hummingbird but has a French artichoke heart. I can understand the logic of the Spanish, but the French thus far evades me. I daresay I shall get there in the end.

An interesting assignment to work on tonight and more Song of Ice and Fire - I can't stop, even though everyone's dead. Although I have just got the part where Joffrey bites the dust, and if you want to avoid spoilers I highly recommend not highlighting that space there. It's a good moment though.

My final thought is that I have strawberries, my window open, and a small glass of beer, and I could not be happier. Winter is coming, but for now let's have strawberries.

Reflected sound, as of underground spirits

I write this listening to Le Roi Lion. Those readers with sharp eyes and quick brains will note that Roi bears a passing resemblance to the English royal, which in turn is linked to the latin rex - as in Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is a vile mongrel of a word, containing Greek, Latinised Greek, and Latin. It means Tyrant-Lizard-King, and is quite frankly overkill. Clearly there's some overcompensation going on for those tiny arms.

Some people may well have not noticed, but it's Valentine's Day today. I've written at length about this particular festival, and if you are interested in reading that soft and squishy part of me, then I invite you to click here for love.

Otherwise, we shall say no more about the subject.

I only did a little translating this morning - some coding that a much smarter person than I had created needed its user-facing language translated - and spent the rest of my time deleting the records of alumni who'd died. It's a weird thing to do, scrubbing away the evidence that they were alive, but there's not much point in the in the automated system continuing to send out birthday cards and invitations to dinner. All the same - once our bodies have died, all that's left is echoes, and here I was systematically destroying one of those echoes. As I said, odd.

Lunch was spectacular again; the quality of the food keeps improving and I'm incredibly pleased by that. I'm eating more fruit and veg than I've ever done so take note, prospective third year abroad-ers - your complexion will clear up, your body will tone itself naturally, and your mind will leap like a salmon in spawning season.

I kid. You're going to eat way too much good food and have to be rolled home like the delicious cheeses on which you've been gorging yourself. You could be taken up to Montmartre and released, and virile young French men and women would chase you.

Cheese chasing. It's a real thing.

Because if there's one universal language, it's stupidity. Personal favourite moment is at the end, when a guy going at full pace sees what can only be described as a brick outhouse disguised as a human standing with shoulder pointed forward. Going fast, it has been said, doesn't hurt at all. Stopping suddenly - that's the kicker. Poor guy, he absolutely collapses. With friends like these, who needs enemies. Or kidneys, apparently.

My afternoon has been spent further expanding the inventory and an hour lesson with my favourite economist, who's given me homework. This is the problem with teaching teachers, it becomes something of a stalemate. Half the lesson is given over to checking each other's work.

In any case, I've got something called The Ascent of Money, which sounds marvelous, and have an article authored by the man himself about whether OPEC is still a cartel.

My brain is expanding in exciting ways.

In other blog news: Mary-Lyne updated her blog en masse, a French phrase which means while at church, and it's viewable here. The riddles are fiendish.

Finally: this blog will likely hit 10,000 views -

.gif stolen from http://www.crushable.com/2012/05/10/entertainment/nbc-cancels-parks-and-recreation-30-rock-community-wtf-888/

over the next week, and it's Valentine's, and I normally despise writers who break the fourth wall but -

To every single reader, from Finland to France and from Canada to Australia, you reading this means a huge amount to me.

You know, even if the Finns could perhaps be doing a little more.

How to make money and influence markets

Today has been an incredibly enlightening day. My crêpes progress magnificently and are getting thinner and more perfect all the time, and my pitch for tomorrow is almost ready. I updated the records of our magazine in preparation for its digitisation - hopefully members will be able to simply search for things they like and get articles from previous issues.

The afternoon was almost entirely given over to coaching. The first session was two professors who also interview prospective students, so I had to think on my feet to come up with answers that a geology student might give. They weren't very good but, in my defence, I have never studied geology. I know, I know. It rocks.

The following session was even better - one of my favourite lecturers, the head of the Economics department. He explained the derivatives market to me (if you're interested, I wrote about it over here) and lent me Inside Job, a film exploring the reasons behind the financial crash. It looks like fascinating watching, so I'm planning on kicking back and watching that tonight as my regular student is ill, poor lamb.

There's nothing much else to say about today; I've a French lesson tomorrow and some homework to finish off so to make up for the incredibly long blog from yesterday and the derivatives explanation I know you're reading, class is dismissed for the day.

Oh, but I think I'm in love with a Russian who said of my French-English transitions when I was helping our gardienne with a Chinese student: "You make them like a ballerina."

Nicest comparison ever. Especially as she is a ballerina. She knows what she's talking about.

The Age of Aquarius

January is drawing to a close, and work in the office is drying up. I'm casting around for a new project and have a little idea I've been kicking about for a while, so I might pitch that to my supervisor tomorrow. It involves filming and a multiplicity of languages, which are two of my favourite things. Fingers crossed I get permission and get the interest to make it happen.

Speaking of making things happen, my teaching colleague has outlined what she would like from a new and shiny "Language Hub" website. It looks like a three month job for someone who knows what they're doing and I don't know what I'm doing. I've not learnt HTML or CSS coding yet.

Yet.

The fact is, I like a challenge, and learning how to code will look fairly slick on my CV alongside a new website. Of course, to get the slick look she would like, I will have to squeeze money from the boss of bosses in a recession. It's going to be tricky, and I suspect I shall be stuck - without the money to make it shiny my colleague will be disappointed, but I can't imagine the funds being released at the moment. It's a puzzle.

I sat in in a couple of coaching sessions today, which were really interesting. The professors in question teach a lot, so their level of English is fairly high already, and I was pleased to be able to bring some new ideas to the table. The Economics professor in particular seemed puzzled that I could talk about elasticity, consumer surplus and the free market but I quite like Economics. It helped a little that I'd spent a couple of hours on the phone to a friend refreshing my knowledge, but I quite like learning as much as I can about everything. He offered me the opportunity to sit in on a few of his classes and help with translations where needed, and I have to say I jumped at the opportunity - a bit more education in disparate fields is pretty much what I aim for in life. Petroleum Economics Management, come at me.

This evening's class was harder, because we're moving into areas where my student struggles a little more. She knows the rules, and when she talks slowly she's brilliant, but she has difficulty getting the ideas out and the frustration clearly bugs her. We let up after forty-five minutes and moved on to conversation, and for next week I've asked her to write a small text. It feels very strange giving someone older than me homework, but it's what I have to do.

A frantic email got me worried but it was just a friend excited about a prospective future job, so with the wind snatching at my clothes I rang her back and we chatted as I strolled home. It still blows my mind, backwater redneck that I am, that I can talk to someone an hour in the past and hundreds of miles away as though they were right next to me. Mind-boggling.

I've finally sorted out a present for my sister, thank goodness, and now I am going to memorise a forty line monologue in French.

And some people say I'm boring.