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. 

Got up this morning and felt crêpe-y

I made crêpe batter last night, and if there is anything that can pull a chap out of bed 45 minutes earlier than is his custom it's the thought of making wafer thin, lemon-juice-and-and-sugar crêpes. They are best when devoured quickly, and to ensure the rapidity of my breakfast I made like the professionals and ladled in my juice and sugar while the crêpe cooked. Folded, folded and folded again, my breakfast was three of these beauties in quick succession:

I tell you, when I have my flat in Aberdeen, and my coffee machine installed, every morning will be crêpes or eggs and toast or something glorious and hot and filling, because Aberdeen is where the Winter lives. Paris at the moment, it seems, has been gripped by solid, stultifying heat - when a step outside means an assault on the eyes, the nose, and the skin. It is as powerful a blast of heat as you might experience upon opening an oven door.

And so I, in a dark suit and a dark shirt with dark hair and dark shoes, near melted into the ground. Mary assures me it will be hotter still in Chicago. Splendid. It will be nice to have melted on both sides of the Atlantic.

This morning, as you can tell, started well. Yesterday ended well as well; I finally sat down and watched much ado about nothing via a wicked site called +Digital Theatre. There are plays on there that you can rent or buy, and my choice (since there's another version coming out soon, whose trailer is below) was Much Ado About Nothing, featuring David Tennant and Catherine Tate as Beatrice and Benedick. It's absolutely fantastic, with the laughs coming thick and fast courtesy of the brilliant leads and supports. My favourite is still this version, though, because Emma Thompson is beautiful and lovely and speaks Shakespearean English as though she were the lost sister of Elizabeth herself. Please, I implore you to watch it. It's how Shakespeare should be done.

This trailer is for the upcoming Joss Whedon (Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) version of the same, and it's out in the UK on the 14th - hopefully not much longer after that in France. I'm really excited for it, because a new look at the best Shakespeare play - and yes, I said it - is always welcomed.

But I've been massively sidetracked, and I suspect I've lost some readers in Youtube's labyrinthine corridors. Onwards.

This morning I was faced with an extensive translation and a couple of articles to check, one of which the author had written in English. Though it seems cynical I suspect he had done so with the aim of sneaking past the committee the fact that it was essentially an extended advert for his professional services, since they do not speak a lot of English. I passed it up with a note attached to that effect. With a little spare time I lent a hand to a friend of mine, who'd written a cover letter to a very prestigious company without mentioning the prestigious company once.

Cover-letter-writing should be a class. Ditch an afternoon's PE or geometry and teach kids how to write a decent cover letter. Please.

At about half past ten I was cornered by a PhD student who wanted me to take a look over her thesis, which is "only" a third finished and "only" 120 pages so far. There are times when I wonder what happens in the polished corridors of Academia, where 120 pages can be graced with an adjective like "only". In any case, we set to it and cracked through 80 pages before lunch, which I ate in half an hour. This will seem normal - nay, luxurious - when I work at a desk,  but in France it is a sin. No, worse than a sin, because sins are forgiven. It is almost high treason.

The reason for my hurry was that I had an appointment with the head of security to do some filming. I spent about an hour and a half with him and his colleagues, directing a brief bit of film entirely in French. And then we went off to secure a filming slot with the nurses. I went away almost skipping; some days I only speak English due to teaching or reading. And then there are days like these, when I can feel the rhythm of the words and look back at how abysmal I used to be and see the progress - these are the best days.

After that it was time for round two of the thesis, as well as instructions from my supervisor and a call to update the project leader on what progress I'd made with the filming. It felt great to be able to say how much progress I'd made, and also to tell him what I'd organised for next week. Great day.

Finally, I had a French lesson, where I spoke more French and tried not to tear my hair out as a classmate tried to convince me that the soul exists because we can be moved by Art. Having emotions does not signify a soul. Still, it was a useful practice, and I managed to give the teacher a minor heart attack by demonstrating "soudain". I did this by sharply banging both palms on the table at once, without warning, demonstrating the rapidity with which attraction can strike. And apparently how swiftly heart attacks can come on, as I looked up to see him collapsed in a chair. I also managed to bring a little Wilde into the room, explaining that it is important to get engaged several times in order to be perfectly practiced when one does it for real.

Jack.  Gwendolen, will you marry me?  [Goes on his knees.]

Gwendolen.  Of course I will, darling.  How long you have been about it!  I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.

Jack.  My own one, I have never loved any one in the world but you.

Gwendolen.  Yes, but men often propose for practice.  I know my brother Gerald does.  All my girl-friends tell me so. 

Well now. I think that's quite clear, don't you? No lady wants a man who is unpracticed in getting down on one knee and doing what it is necessary for a man to do.

A long day. I grabbed a bag of cherries on the way home and got them for free because of loyalty points. Today has been just a gigantic win. I hope tomorrow is the same.

Countdowns are beginning

Things are constantly in motion. You are in motion at the moment, spinning on a planet that's spinning around a star that spinning in a galaxy and that's the kind of thing that make a person nervous.

This might go some way to explaining why I'm feeling a little stretched out at the moment, like I know the finish line is coming up but I can't see it yet. I don't think it's helping that the people around me are making ready to leave. My whole world currently feels like half past four on a Friday afternoon back in school, when you could feel the tension in the room. The clock would actually start to melt a little from the intensity of the gazes of the students. The energy in the room would be palpable, nervous energy wound tight and expressing itself in little scraping noises as students started preemptively pushing their chairs back.

I miss school, actually, which was why it was weird to see tweets from the school that took me in for my Sixth Form studies. The teachers haven't changed. The buildings are the same, even the ones that went up in 1965 "temporarily". They're still there. I rather suspect that if I'm not careful, my career will be like those buildings - falling into something "temporarily" and then staying there for fifty years before collapsing on someone and being condemned and retired.

That metaphor got away from me a little.

I spoke to my French tutor back in Aberdeen today, just to ask when we'll get marks back for our essays. The response I got was a sort of sighing acceptance that being in chilled out France had not rubbed off on me too much, and that they'd be marked when they were marked. Fair enough. Facebook updates and tweets from people at uni, the possibility of working with incredible people at the Gaudie, in Centre Stage, in AUSA - all of these things are driving me crazy with excitement but once again it's the finishing line I can't quite see. I'm getting into Limbo, neither Here nor There, but I'll be out soon enough.

I've booked - I say booked, I mean tried to book - tickets for +Derren Brown in August, but the wicked website isn't taking my money. I'd normally be pleased, but I like Derren. I went to his Svengali tour, and that freaked the bejeesus out of me before I even got there, because he engaged with me on Twitter. And I'm kind of a fangirl for this guy. I know, you're surprised, but the man can convince people to take payment in paper. Not paper money, actual paper. Check it out below.

Absolutely worth a watch.

In addition I've got some storyboards done - stickmen ahoy - and doodled some experimental dialogue. I'm really rather liking this malarkey, and I think I'm going to bash together a video about memory, taken from the book of the illusionist above. We'll see. It'll keep my mind off the finishing line for a while, in any case.

The students have all been warned about the test on Tuesday, which prompted some of them to come in and ask in French if they could have some practise material to take on a coach to Amsterdam where they're definitely going to study it. I said sure; it's only photocopied material and to be quite honest at this point getting totally stoned and trying to absorb the knowledge by eating the paper is about the only hope these kids have got.

I found out how to solve cryptic crossword clues, and while I am still as far from being able to solve them as Pluto is from being recognised as a planet, it feels good to know there's a system. I also learned that the Independent's quick crossword is a lot easier than the Guardian's. It was a bit of a slow day.

In recognition of this fact, the Internet threw all the distractions it could at me, including three charming internships and a job, all of which I want, all of which I absolutely must not take. To see why not, please see above for the metaphor.

I also learned - and this will be important for literally none of you, and yet I tell you anyway because I met the man and he's awesome - that +Stephen Waddington got elected President of the CIPR. Congratulations to that man. Johnny Walker black label on the rocks for everyone.

Finally, more teaching. Pushed C into the preterite (pronunciation of which is, for some reason, utterly beyond me) and she's swimming like a trooper, though every time I correct her because the verb she's using doesn't just take -ed but instead changes either:

• vowel 
• spelling
• pronunciation (read/read)
• some combination of the above

she looks so disapproving I cannot help but laugh. She scowls a bit more at that. B, on the other hand, has made huge leaps with his written work, which at the beginning was incredibly ambitious and utterly awful, and is now ambitious in line with his ability and has only small errors. And that makes me quite unnaturally happy.

Teaching. Might be something I'm actually good at.

Alright folks. Winding up here as I'm back to obscenely verbose blogs. Have a good weekend; I'm going to see a French translation of The Importance of being Earnest, because it's one of my favourite plays. Very excited. If it's brilliant I'll be dragging students back with me to see it and of course I'll be writing about it here.

Oh - and it looks like the slow route of invasion has beaten the quick route. The front page of Libération on Tuesday:

Apparently they're taking lessons from Cole Porter. You get points if you're on the Internet
and know who Cole Porter is. And aren't Sheila, because that's an unfair advantage.

Suddenly, love!

This morning I played the clown for my colleague, acting the parts of the older members of last night's trip to the exposition. Even if I say it myself, I'm a hoot, though I imagine that no small part of that is down to my accent. Foolishness over with, I went to greet my supervisor and find out what I'd missed yesterday evening.

Yesterday evening I missed a meeting for those volunteering with the huge careers day/forum event happening at the university. This will be its 7th iteration, and no drill sergeant in Her Majesty's Armed Forces has been so fiercely punctual of timekeeping as the event's organiser. She has given me the role of bad cop, with the responsibility of going around the rooms and essentially cutting people off when it's time for lunch. People who refuse to leave will be locked in their rooms and will have no lunch and, having already spoken about lunches here in France, you can understand why that would be seen as a Bad Thing.

The rest of my day passed uneventfully; the last few stragglers are signing up for tests, I have a brief translation to complete for "whenever" (Oh, how I love vague deadlines, how I adore them, how pleasing it is to be suddenly told 'I need that translation now') and, of course, hanging in the horizon like a star is my interview for -

I want to tell you all who the interview is with. I really do, because it's exciting and if I get it then I think it will realistically change the whole direction of my career and life. And this blog has readers who, despite the inanity of my life, keep coming back, and I should dearly like to reward those good and patient people with something exciting.

I assure you this sudden dip into seriousness will be temporary, but for the moment do bear with me.

Taken from
http://www.docnews.fr/data/classes/actualite/actu_7844_vignette.jpg

So: I have an interview with Agence ELAN, a French PR firm which opened an office in London in 2011. They've directed PR for companies like Moët Chandon, L'Oréal, and Eurostar. They are the essence of where I want to be; fast moving, European - my immediate supervisor will speak three languages fluently and has three degrees - and working with a broad range of clients. This would only be an internship, of course, but even the first inch of a toe in the door is sufficient for me.

Okay. So that's happening on Thursday and I'm fizzing with excitement, but I'll try to bottle it for the moment. I shall likely pop a little on Friday, but I will do my best to keep it off your lovely clothes.

I rounded the day off with a French film, which was incredibly good fun. L'Arnacoeur is formulaic and even features a frame-by-frame reproduction of the dance sequence from Dirty Dancing - 

You know which one. Don't make me -

I hope you're satisfied.

But it still had some great, laugh out loud moments, and I'd recommend it to most anyone, although it does see this poor guy get stood up by the girl he adores.

Aw.

Unfortunately this isn't the first time this has happened. See also: Love Actually 

Awww.

That's a hell of a thing to be typecast as, isn't it. The guy who gets his heart broken.

What a blog. And it's only Tuesday. Here's to the rest of the week.

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.

There's something curious at work here

The sun dawned today like a lover; warm, gentle, and incredibly far away. Everything looks more beautiful in the sunlight, I've found, and as it turns out not even engineering schools are immune to the beautifying powers of the celestial orb. Even the students, who might charitably be called bestial, were transformed by its radiance to something close to humanity.

Close. Let us not slip into hyperbole.

My morning was splendid and marred only by, once again, a lack of a meaty project into which I can sink my teeth. I have started researching for the future and lining up things I need to do for the year ahead, and the year after - preparation is the key to all things. Having completed the everyday tasks I went to see my supervisor, to see if she had anything problematic for me. She did. A table that contained 40,000 pieces of data and a list of demands; charts of certain data, sub-tables of other data. Ecstasy. A chance to turn numbers and, in some cases, binary responses into images. These pictures will literally be worth a thousand words, and I am really excited about the prospect.

My afternoon was given over to welcoming more students back, responding to students who had required a second and more vigorous reminder of the necessity of taking a certain test, and receiving DVDs from various members of staff. I enjoy films and cinema; I enjoy them so much that I have never even considered studying them. It seems my colleagues have been paying attention in our lessons, because I have been kindly lent two apparently excellent French films - Les Tontons Flingueurs and Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro. They look great but very odd side-by-side.

Along with kindness from my neighbours I did the usual housekeeping tasks for Mondays; booked rooms, planned lessons and wrote some things. I also stumbled across the following video; I know it's from the States but I would be willing to bet that the situation in certain other countries is relatively similar. I hope to make money one day; there's no doubt about that, but the figures in this video are just obscene. Do take the time to watch.

I'm sure nobody comes here to read political ideology or speechifying, so I'm not going to add anything except a question: do you think this is just?

Answer below if you'd like, or tweet me or write to me. I'd love to hear views on this and, for those who only come for the fun and the prose I've updated my Portfolio, so if you're new go there for the best of my writing so far. I think that's all the housekeeping.

That video is a little depressing, so to cheer you up I brought Audrey Hepburn back from the dead to advertise chocolate. It's perfect.

You're welcome.

Tantalising

I am exceedingly pleased with today's progress. French class was back up to full strength which meant I didn't have to answer every question. My supervisor has come back - she was away due to some personal matters, of which it is not my place to talk. And I've literally just finished Thursday's homework, so tomorrow afternoon will be dedicated to researching how best to teach two small children English. My mother has already given me spades of useful advice, so I strongly suspect that tomorrow after about 3.30 I shall be sticking, cutting, and writing in big letters with pens that are both colourful and highly addictive, if one gets one's nose too close to them.

I was up nice and early to watch my internet slow down to the approximate speed of a snail in treacle, and so instead I cracked on with the French work that I have just completed. If you have a desire to see a small and - most likely - badly written insight into my imagination, you may find it just here. If you don't speak French, I'm afraid it will be mostly useless, but if five people ask for it in English I shall gather the energy and do so.

This morning was actually full of false starts, now I think about it, because when I got in I sat in the office for a good hour by myself waiting for my supervisors, both of whom live out of town, to come in. As my door to door commute is about five minutes, including checking-myself-out-in-the-windows time, I didn't know that the road into town was absolutely blocked. So I kicked my heels for an hour with nothing to do; one of the dangers of working too efficiently. It leaves one with nothing on which one can work independently.

After lunch my colleague and I coached one of the administrative staff who's a main point of call for all international students and therefore has a pressing need to improve her English. We were interrupted several times, which was really good - it gave us a chance to see her in full flow with students. Remember that we have students who come from Russia, China, Iran...all over the world, and they bring a distinctly different cultural flavour - and English accent. Our colleague dealt with everything beautifully, and it was a real joy to watch her use phrases we'd literally just taught her.

The French class, as I say, was much better, and everyone seemed really energised. Perhaps the break that some of my classmates had taken had recharged their batteries. In any case, it's great to be back, though I think my teacher was less than overjoyed with the two page essay I turned in. I have absolutely got to learn how to edit.

A brief goodbye to my colleagues and classmates and I am home, having passed by the bank to drop off my hard-earned money. The BDE is having a party on Thursday in an ice bar, and three different students have insisted I come. The paranoid part of me has gone full Ackbar:

But the paranoid part of me can get stuffed. I'm excited about chilling with the students.

If that joke caught you by surprise then you have not read enough of this blog.

Oh, yesterday I asked you a question and nobody got the answer right. This is proof that I am making links that are far too far-fetched, even for the great minds who read this. The answer, by the way, was Lancelot, because a golf bag is where one keeps one's clubs. Lancelot is another name for the knave, or the Jack, of Clubs. Like all riddles it's annoyingly simple once you get it, and like all riddle-setters I am a smug twerp whose hat you'd pinch if you saw him.

It won't make me less smug, but at least you'll have a nice hat.

The absence of books (or, sadness is an empty library)

This morning I went into work and found out that the person for whom I had done the translation - for whom I had gone into work early - had had it translated by someone else as well. I have zero problem with this, understand, but when the email that came with it said "I could learn something from it" I confess I had to suppress just a little jolt of rage when the educating document had five errors in five paragraphs. The number of errors in mine, though I am loathe to admit it, was 0. I do not object to second opinions, but I object strenuously to those opinions being thought superior to mine when this is patently untrue.

Not a great start, you'll agree, but it got better quickly. I filed some cheques, I ran some errands, I located the memo with all the days off and put them into my agenda. I'm really excited about May, we have a five-day weekend so I'm tempted to grab the rest of my days off and make it a ten day holiday. Who'd like to suggest somewhere for me to go?

The afternoon was given over to settling into my new office. I should have been at a French lesson, one of only two a month, but unfortunately the teacher was ill, so I was at a bit of a loose end in the afternoon until H, my supervisor, asked me to update my little technical plan with the electrical sockets that had been found after the shelves had been moved. I trotted down and my goodness me, that room is a cold, empty cavern without books. It echoes. The roof seem suddenly very high and the walls very far, and it was unsettling in the extreme. I made my measurements and left Echo by herself.

Returned to the bosom of my lovely little office, I was greeted by all and sundry from the floor. The second floor is given over to economists and other intellectuals, so I shall feel quite out of my depth, but for all their brains they're very friendly and have coffee on a continual turnaround, which is a godsend.

I can't procrastinate any more, so here is the moment you've been waiting for - a dramatic reading suggested by Paula: Taylor Swift's I Knew You Were Trouble.

Please forgive me.

I'm working on something else, but for the moment - and I use this word in its widest possible sense - enjoy.

Holy frack!

The first order of business is to congratulate +Sheila Bennett, a friend and my intellectual superior by a factor of about ten thousand. She was the only one to tweet me the correct answer to yesterday's question, so she gets a big shiny mention at the top of the blog. She also brews a wonderful coffee. That's neither here nor there, but it's a skill that sadly very few people actually have.

(As a side note, and because I absolutely know I'll get a message in angry Spanish if I don't, my beautiful but absent friend Paula also got it right, because she's smart, but forgot to tweet me, because you can't be the beautiful and notice all the details.)

The reason this blog is entitled Holy frack is because it passed the 10 000 view mark sometime today, and quite frankly I couldn't be more humbled. I enjoy writing enormously, and this has just encouraged me to keep doing it, so thanks. You guys rock.

As a token of my appreciation, I would like to offer you guys a chance to be the boss. Tweet me (@jonodrew), or leave a comment, give me a monologue or dialogue or, in fact, anything at all and I shall record it and put it on this blog. Any requests received in the next 24 hours only will be performed to the best of my ability. Any.

So: this morning I went in early and absolutely smashed through the translation I was given at the last moment. Seriously chuffed with myself for that; it was only a page and not too hard but the credit I now have with my colleague (who comes in at eight) should stand me in good stead in the future. In any case, I've started getting up a little earlier; I actually find that on four hours sleep I work just as well as on six, and since time is limited and I have a lot of stuff to read I've just started waking up earlier. There are less people using up the bandwidth as well, so I can watch the French news as I read.

I'd not had time to pick up breakfast yesterday so this morning I whipped up a two-egg omelette, which I highly recommend as a day-starter. Went in at 8.30, translation was completed by 9.30. There was more administration to take care of, and before very long it was midday. I went down to my poor, empty, hollowed out mediatheque and spent the day with sleeves rolled up, packing away the last few books and video cassettes and transporting things to my new office on the 2nd floor.

Oh yes. I have a new office, and it is absolutely gorgeous. I have it for exactly 8 weeks. I must learn not to fall for it; ours will be a short love, but a passionate one.

I paid my weekend wages into the bank today at last, so with any luck my little travelling fund will swell a little tomorrow morning. This evening's French lesson was frustrating, the other students seemed completely uninspired and as a result the atmosphere was leaden. Everyone has days like that, and the teacher did her best, but it takes a great teacher to make the subjunctive "mood" exciting.

I want you to meet my very good friend Mary-Lyne. She's normally quite scary. Honest.



She just doesn't seem that way. She just seems kind of cute. However, once you're past the intro, she tells the story really well and with a lot of humour. Good storytelling.

So: once again, all requests for dramatic readings will be honoured, new office (groovy), subjunctive tense (not groovy) and my friend who pretends to terror but is really just terrifically cute.

Year Abroad winning again.

How to make someone fall in love with you in 29 steps.

More old books have gone!

In the same breath: I can't believe anyone wants all 29 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia has more information than all 29 volumes and it doesn't take up all that space on your wall. The teacher who took it told me that he was tired of looking things up on wikipedia and then printing them out. "It's just not the same," he said.

I have literally no idea how to react to that. I realise that paper copies of anything still hold a certain fascination for people; the debate and extended metaphor I got into with a friend of mine over on tumblr speaks volumes as to how passionately people feel about it. All the same, those 29 volumes weigh a huge amount, and he takes the bus to work. I'm struggling to work out how he's going to engineer getting them home. Maybe he'll take them one at a time, puzzling his fellow travelers, until one of them - who's had a quiet crush on him for a while - asks him about it. They talk, they make plans for coffee, they fall in love and out of it and finally get married.

And I probably won't get invited to the wedding, but that's life for you.

I've run out of things to do in my mediatheque as things are decided high above me, and so I've started making an inventory of our DVDs for the students who want to borrow them while they're in storage. So far I've found a ton that I really want to borrow. Oh, the glorious power. In any case, that's how my afternoon has been spent, broken up by lecturers coming in to see if there's anything of interest left on the shelves. A few more books went today, including a study guide to the GRE and a book about British motor cars. Last thing on the agenda today was a call from the (at least) trilingual marketing co-ordinator who wanted a second opinion on a student-targeted press release.

An early blog means I'm focussed on supper, which tonight is salmon with a creamy spinach, parsley and lemon sauce. The parsley is by accident; persil is a kind of laundry detergent in English but means parsley in French and, rather than admitting my mistake, I took the parsley and found the laundry detergent myself.

In the words of my ever-charming American friend Paula - so British it hurts. See also: British problems, real and terrifying situations natives of my little isle find themselves in every day.

I leave you with a surreal look at the most obnoxiously handsome French man I've ever seen, promoted to me by another American - my friend +Helen Alexis Yonov. Take a look.

Briefly:

I've written quite a long explanation of what I learned in my French class today and realised that you're probably not here for the French grammar lessons that I am. If you're interested in reading then by all means, it's over here, but otherwise my day was as follows:

Going into the office to discover that I had made two small errors the previous evening both, unfortunately, to the same person. Having finished a minor proofread and edit I sent the editor a cheery email, explaining that I'd only found some very small errors and that with my enclosed corrections the piece was ready to be published. As I sent it I realised I'd forgotten to attach the document, and shot off another quick message, apologising for the first and reaffirming that with my attached correction the piece could be published. I then went home.

You're all laughing, because you can see where this is going, but I couldn't and didn't.

So when I came in this morning I settled into my desk, opened my inbox, and got an understandably irritated message and, shortly after, a phone call. All was fixed in minutes, but the editor had a point - without the article he'd been left twiddling his thumbs. I try not to err, as it only reminds me that I'm human, but I do think that all email systems in the world could do with something like this from +Gmail:

I did! Thanks, Google!

Aside from that, however, my morning progressed as normal - I took some phone bookings for the cultural events we run for alumni and my supervisor and I adjusted the plan I've done for my old office. Since it's now finished with, I'm going to share it with you, because I think it's awesome and I hope you'll appreciate the huge number of hours I poured into it.

Isn't it glorious?

It's also a 3D model. Even as I type that I can hear the appreciative susurrations of future friends and acquaintances.

In the afternoon I discovered two things; one, that dates for the next TOEIC session had already been set - a fact I discovered by opening my inbox and watching 120 inquiring messages come in - and that someone high above me had given the order for my office to be moved, bypassing both my colleague and my supervisor. I suspect this is a danger in many large organisations; it's hard to ensure that right and left hand both know what they're doing at the same time. After sorting out a more suitable date for them to deconstruct everything the foreman and I had a pleasant chat about my internship and he congratulated me on my French. Happy days.

Last thing today was French class, which was interesting. I've done preceding direct object pronouns before but one thing caught me out; preceding indirect objects which, as it turns out, don't agree. The lessons are really helping with vocabulary and to clear up little grammar points I've always been a little shaky on and, as I love teaching, the professor puts up with my chattering as I try to nudge my classmates in the right direction. I really like this particular professor, although the fact that he's never read Calvin and Hobbes may prove to be a source of serious contention. 

In fact, here. Have some Calvin and Hobbes to warm your heart.

Bill Waterson, you magnificent, genius son of a gun. Come back.

Ce que j'ai appris aujourd'hui

French is an exceptionally complex language. I offer here a brief summary of my French lesson today, in the hope that it will help anyone struggling with agreements.

Let's break it down.

J'ai cassé mes lunettes. - I have broken my glasses.
No agreement at all. Lunettes is a feminine plural noun. (This will be important later.)

Mes lunettes sont cassées. - My glasses are broken.
The part participle agrees with the subject! An extra e and an extra s are added because lunettes is feminine plural. (I told you it would be important later.) Notice that the verb in this case is être.

So far, so good.

Now, there are a few irregular verbs in French that use être instead of avoir because of reasons that are really exciting if you're a linguistic nerd like me.

Working on the assumption that you're not, we'll move on.

Those few verbs that do take être also need to agree with their subject. Thus Je suis venu, because I am a chap, but elle est venue, because she is not. And elles sont venues because elles are all ladies and there is more than one of them, hence the addition of both e and s.

So far so good.

However, if we move the direct object of the verb in front of the verb, we agree the part participle. But not with the subject. With the object.

So let's imagine Yoko and John are talking.

J'ai cassé mes lunettes, she says.
Où sont les lunettes que tu as cassées? he asks in response. Where are the glasses that you broke?

First sentence: Avoir, object after verb, no agreement.
Second sentence: Avoir, object before verb, agreement.

Remember that sometimes we can replace the whole object with an object pronoun:

Où sont mes lunettes? - Where are my glasses?
Je les ai cassées. - I broke them.

Once again, object before the verb, agreement - even though it's avoir.

Now let's move onto way more exciting things.

Reflexive verbs!

Yoko and John are talking again, and Yoko's been in an accident.

Je me suis cassée la main. - I've broken my hand.

Poor Yoko. Note that cassé has an extra e not because la main is feminine but because Yoko is. Notice also that in French our body is not really ours: we hold it, as it were, at arms' length. See also je me brosse les dents, je me lave les pieds, and je me brosse les cheveux.

The conversation continues before dinner:

Est-ce que tu t'es lavée les mains? - Have you washed your hands?
Oui, je me les suis lavées! - Yes, I washed them!

John's kind of a controlling douche.

But: in the first we have an agreement with the subject, tu, who's Yoko and a girl. In the second, the agreement is with the preceding direct object les, which stands for les mains. 

I've added direct to my litany because there's one more stop on the grammar train, and it involves direct and indirect verbs. Indirect verbs take a preposition, direct verbs just get straight up in your grill. Most communication in French is indirect: je parle à, elle téléphone à, ils montrent à while receiving sensory information and doing things is more direct.

We've only worked with direct verbs so far, so let's add in some indirects. Yoko, John?

As-tu parlé à ta mère? - Have you called your mother?
Oui, je lui ai parlé plus tôt. - Yes, I called her earlier.

What the what? Preceding object but no agreement. French is a funny old language.

The reason is because lui is not a direct object pronoun. It's indirect. Preceding indirect objects get no agreements, but preceding direct objects do.

So: Never agree verbs with an avoir auxiliary, unless the object comes before the verb - in which case agree the past participle with the object - unless that object is indirect, in which case do not agree with anyone, do not pass Go, do not collect £200. Unless it's Sunday, in which case all rules are reversed and we'll all play Mornington Crescent until someone wins.

Now just for fun, translate the following sentence: I washed my hands. I washed them and scrubbed them, spoke to them and broke them. 

In which our hero discovers writing is hard

Today has been absolutely full of writing things. If using one's brain burnt calories, then I'd have the perfect excuse for the slice of coconut cake I had with lunch. As far as I can tell, it doesn't, and I don't.

This morning I liaised with an Association member who needed a rewrite of her MBA application letter. It was a complete rewrite, and at certain points I wondered what she hoped to gain from submitting a letter written in good English but having an interview in which she would struggle. Still, ours is not to reason why; I raised the question but she waved it away, assuring me that she could converse fluently in English if necessary. I was not reassured, mostly due to the fact that we spent two hours rewriting and spoke only in French. I also edited an article for our quarterly review by a super-hilarious guy who was pleased that safety was the number one concern for companies, "especially those working in remote offices where local workers have little or no education and no concern for the own health." Yup, those funny foreign people, they have no sense of self preservation because they're not really human beings. Git. In the same article he wrote about how the West is the best because we have democracy. Double git.

I took a nice early lunch today with my colleagues; a strange situation where I got to experience three English people sitting with a Colombian person and speaking French as the lingua franca. It's really exciting that there are still small pockets and combinations of people where English is not necessarily the only way in which to communicate.

My early lunch was because I had a French class at 13h30, and although several of my fellow students were missing the six of us had a very interesting lesson. We did a mini-test, a micro version of the full TFI that we'll be taking before long. Apparently the TFI is not as well known as the TOEIC/TOEFL, so I'll have to give some sort of addendum to it. The test did not go as well as expected, and I've now got a long list of grammar points on which I have to focus.

A good lesson though; a test is a great way to see where weaknesses are and saves me having to go through an entire grammar book getting frustrated with practising the things I already know. Now I can target my learning. It doesn't sound like fun, but it's the lesser of two evils - if you know you've got to study then rather than studying more, study smarter.

I've my post-apocalyptic French essay to write now and then to relax I'm going to write some more; I managed two acceptable sketches and then had to give up. This writing malarkey is tough.

A picture to close from my friend Meg, because it's funny in sort of not funny way at all. I can appreciate the pun but simultaneously be kind of horrified that it's an ad.

"Even I've been accused of penny-pinching. But I paid Penny off"

Sexual harassment in the workplace. Now it can sell conference calls.

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this!

Today my student returned to study, and he appears to have forgotten everything. Sport, while making him healthy, tall, and cheerful, has utterly robbed him off his wits. This is why I exercise so rarely; while I may get out of breath climbing stairs, my mind is a refined machine.

Last night I was chatting to a friend of mine who is out in Germany, teaching English like me. She suggested I take a brief meander over there and, since flights seem abnormally cheap at that time, I agreed. So in April I shall be in Germany, which is going to be unsettling for me - I like to be able to speak a little of the language of the countries I visit, and my German has deteriorated in no small way.

In any case, this year looks to be a good time to go around visiting things and places, so I'm going to start planning my August jaunt now - if I save up a whole lot, and prices plummet, I shall hopefully be visiting the States. If you'd like to make a donation to this fund or would like to commission a piece of writing - perhaps you're so enamored of my style that you want an original - then just ask.

I walked to my student's house this morning, a walk that takes an hour despite being only 2.5 miles. I should be able to manage that in about 30-35 minutes, but there's a hill. A hill that, because I walk back, is always easier to traverse in my mind than it is in real life. In real life, it's a 14% gradient and 600 meters, which back in the day I could run in about 4 minutes, becomes a fifteen-minute slog. Again, I should almost certainly be fitter, but it meant that the cold that caused others to wrap themselves in scarves did not touch me. My cheeks glowed. My blood pumped. My heart attempted to stop me doing anything that stupid again by beating so hard it cracked a rib. And I was early.

A first glance confirmed my theory that sport causes the brain to ossify; my student is a polite and charming young man who had set out a cafetière of excellent coffee, two small 70% cocoa solid chocolates and a spoon. He and I exchanged pleasantries, and we sat down. I looked at the cafetière, full of beautiful, dark, steaming hot coffee. He looked at it too.

We looked at it for another thirty seconds.

"Something's wrong?" he finally said, but with the rising intonation that implies it's a question because he's not sure what's not right.

"Yes." I said. I don't like to spoon-feed answers.

We looked for another thirty seconds.

"Cup!" he said, and scrambled for the kitchen.

Ossification, I say.

We settled in. Today was fairly basic mathematics, equations of lines and speed=distance/time. The formula he was given is D(istance)=Rate(speed)/T(ime)

This completely confused me because I learnt that it was v(velocity) = (s)distance/(t)time. Was I taught wrong? Or are Americans just being contrary. It seems simple enough to me, but there were multiple crossed wires and at one point he conflated the two and proved that distance = speed, which doesn't work at all. Not even for the Doctor.

We stopped at 12, and I stepped back out into the weak winter sun. This time next week, I thought to myself, I'm going to be in the Magical Kingdom. I set out, with the wind plucking at my scarf and the sun in my left eye. Blue sky beckoned.

Something pinged off my cold ear. I had barely raised my hand to my stinging scapha when a similar sting blossomed on my cheek and then, in a sudden din of stinging pings, hailstones by the billion fell out of the sky. I do not know where they came from. Like the FN flyers stuffed under the windscreen wipers of every car in the town, they seemed to have come from nowhere. My response was the same.

I buttoned my coat and ignored the tiny, irritating little things. Soon they would disappear. I don't doubt that there is some link between this sudden flurry of racist posters and the vote that took place took place today in the French Parliament. The law being debated - and which, happily, has passed by quite a majority - is for equal marriage. Not "gay marriage" but equal marriage. So that is enormously pleasing and hopefully will lead to the UK following suit.

I'm home now, and I've got my crêpe batter out of the fridge. My milk was probably good for another day or so when I made the batter, but I figured that my mother didn't raise a fool and made about 3/4 of a liter of batter. It's been in my fridge because apparently it needs to rest, and when I retrieved it and stirred it all up I've got to admit it look far, far better than it did yesterday. I've made a couple but I'm stuffed, so I may put it back in the fridge and have breakfast crêpes.

Oh yes. Here you can have savoury crêpes. You put an egg in your milk with butter and flour to make a crêpe, and then you put in another egg and ham and cheese because protein is the only food group recognised in this country. There is literally no term in French for the Atkins Diet, in the same way that there is no word for "predator" in Shark.

The deadline for two exciting projects closed on Thursday, and so now I get to eagerly sit back and wait calmly for a month while other people deliberate my worth. I am excited by this prospect and not freaking out at all. I radiate calm. I am a calm radiator. I'm so Zen that when I make a crêpe it naturally forms a taijitu.

You know what a taijitu is, even if you've never heard it before. Behold the form of my crêpes.

via wikipedia

Creepy, huh? Or should that be...crêpe-y?

Yeah. I've still got it.

The Guardians

Do we have "gardien(ne)(s)" in English? I'm sure if we did they'd be "building managers" or "block supervisors,"  because we seem to love over-complicating our jobs in English. This was the subject of our French lesson this evening, and it was quite fun. Apparently there's a stereotype, or cliché in French. I'm not being facetious; according to the excellent (and, for its excellence, incredibly cheap) book The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through The Hidden Connections of the English Language, cliché is "a technical word in printer's jargon for stereotype."

I much prefer Thursday lessons, and being partnered with an Indian guy is great - his accent is really, really peculiar and I have to pay attention when he talks. Although I probably won't meet any other Indian people whose only other language is French, the fact remains that not all French people have a Parisian accent, and being able to understand those who normally have difficulty will make me friends.

This morning was, I confess, like something out of my nightmares - my colleague came into the office sounding as though she was not only at Death's door but had married Death and was being carried across the threshold by the same. She could barely even speak.

While maintaining my distance as artfully as I could, I tried to convince her to go home. It worked, thank goodness, but I suspect I didn't manage it soon enough - I can already feel the tickle in my throat that indicates approaching sickness.

However, I have been cheered enormously by a package that arrived today from my family. Behold:

With the address blacked out, I'm lucky I got it at all.

At this point, you could be forgiven for thinking I was excited about a box. But it's not just a box. Inside:

That's right. They sent me a box of spices. I love spices, they make cooking more exciting and can turn any dish into a masterpiece. So imagine how upset I was when it turned out my mother had played a cruel trick on me, and sent me only old newspapers:

But wait! What's that, hiding underneath?

BAZINGA

Dark chocolate Lindt Lindor balls. Green & Blacks selection. An InterRail book, because I'm tempted to go adventuring and two tailor-made shirts my brother brought back from Hong Kong.

My family are awesome. 

Thank you for sticking with me through that, by the way, it was long-winded but I feel it was worth it.

Tomorrow is Friday; the weekend beckons with lessons aplenty to give. And possibly a frog to gut.

I should have eaten before writing that...

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.

The night I drank whisky

Whisky, like coffee and socks for Christmas, is something one really only appreciates as one gets older.  Last night I put some serious effort into appreciating a bottle of 12-year old MacAllan, along with about a litre of very fresh, very strong coffee and a bar of 85% cocoa chocolate. Considering the disparity in levels between the bottle when it was opened and the bottle when I opened bleary eyes this morning and saw it on my desk, I don't feel entirely awful.

Yesterday was a weird day. The move is almost ready to go - I foresee us heading upstairs in the next three weeks or so - but with my material all over the place I was pushed to my colleague's office, as she doesn't work Fridays. I managed to finish off the three translations I got on Thursday and emailed them to be verified by our - let's say boss. We have a sort of civil service system in place, which I find interesting as it's one of the places I've always seen myself ending up.

My colleagues are permanent assistants to the Association, and we all work for the Association. But the Association needs to be "lead" by someone, and those people are Alumni. They come from different areas of oil and gas and are fascinating people but they are also not translators, accountants or web designers. As a result, I find myself translating documents for someone who will read it and be able to tell, with 90% accuracy, if it's English or not.

I can see why civil servants get frustrated by ministers who breeze in and out and who are, from the viewpoint of a "lifer" in the service, here today and gone tomorrow. Gove is in charge of education, for goodness' sake, and the only contact he's had with that field is because he was once a child and was, despite all appearances, educated.

In any case, I got the work done to my satisfaction and also read through a CV and cover letter for a student. We also discussed interview techniques, and I've set aside some time for him to practise with me next week.

Today I've got several pages of work to do, including lesson plans for the new students (starting tomorrow, very exciting!) and for Monday's student. I've also got to learn a sketch for Tuesday's French lesson; I've set myself the task of learning "le tirade du nez" from Cyrano de Bergerac. This is how Russia's newest film star does it:

It's a little hard to translate, for those who don't speak English, but when Steve Martin remade it and called it Roxanne he updated them and, while they lack the flow of the French, they're not bad:

For those who do speak French, see if you can spot the one or two lines which have been literally translated. For those who don't...

Here is an English version. It feels a trifle forced, but it's otherwise excellent. Which is better, Martin's updated version or the translation?

Ah no! young blade! That was a trifle short!

You might have said at least a hundred things

By varying the tone. . .like this, suppose,. . .

Aggressive: 'Sir, if I had such a nose

I'd amputate it!' Friendly: 'When you sup

It must annoy you, dipping in your cup;

You need a drinking-bowl of special shape!'

Descriptive: ''Tis a rock!. . .a peak!. . .a cape!

--A cape, forsooth! 'Tis a peninsular!'

Curious: 'How serves that oblong capsular?

For scissor-sheath? Or pot to hold your ink?'

Gracious: 'You love the little birds, I think?

I see you've managed with a fond research

To find their tiny claws a roomy perch!'

Truculent: 'When you smoke your pipe. . .suppose

That the tobacco-smoke spouts from your nose--

Do not the neighbors, as the fumes rise higher,

Cry terror-struck: "The chimney is afire"?'

Considerate: 'Take care,. . .your head bowed low

By such a weight. . .lest head o'er heels you go!'

Tender: 'Pray get a small umbrella made,

Lest its bright color in the sun should fade!'

Pedantic: 'That beast Aristophanes

Names Hippocamelelephantoles

Must have possessed just such a solid lump

Of flesh and bone, beneath his forehead's bump!'

Cavalier: 'The last fashion, friend, that hook?

To hang your hat on? 'Tis a useful crook!'

Emphatic: 'No wind, O majestic nose,

Can give THEE cold!--save when the mistral blows!'

Dramatic: 'When it bleeds, what a Red Sea!'

Admiring: 'Sign for a perfumery!'

Lyric: 'Is this a conch?. . .a Triton you?'

Simple: 'When is the monument on view?'

Rustic: 'That thing a nose? Marry-come-up!

'Tis a dwarf pumpkin, or a prize turnip!'

Military: 'Point against cavalry!'

Practical: 'Put it in a lottery!

Assuredly 'twould be the biggest prize!'

Or. . .parodying Pyramus' sighs. . .

'Behold the nose that mars the harmony

Of its master's phiz! blushing its treachery!'

Not too long. Easy peasy!

The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

Work has blossomed like love - right when I'm in the middle of something else. My room plan is utterly complete with tables, shelves and other paraphernalia one finds in a library. It looks perfect and uncluttered, unlike my desk, which is straining under the repeated assault from translations in varying states of draft. Most of the actual resources one would expect to find have been moved to other parts of the building, and my office now needs a revolving door as students line up to ask the same question, apparently hoping that for them I shall leap out of my chair and say "YES! I sent everyone to another part of the building but YOU, random student whose acquaintance I have only just made! I have been waiting all day for YOU! Take the resources I have cunningly hidden! Go forth and learn!"

That does not happen very often.

However, I've also now got three translations to finish for tomorrow afternoon and two pieces of English work from students to check over, as well as learning some piece of theatre or sketch for my French class on Tuesday and writing a one-side piece on old people in Britain, which is going to be quite good fun now I think about it. Le boo and le hiss to the Tories.

I've also done all my laundry and met a chap from America who's come equipped with five sentences and assures me that it will be enough. The arrogance of anyone who goes to live in a foreign country and doesn't bother learning the language is so enormous that I never know whether to laugh or weep. Is getting by enough? I'd understand if he'd come for a week. But six months, on an English-only programme - what cultural benefit could he gain?

I don't know. Maybe a lot; maybe I'm being a language snob.

An urgent email punctuated an exciting 4.30 meeting; a friend of mine seeking help with revision who knows that flattery is the surest way to wrap me around son doigt. So at some point tomorrow I shall be dredging my brain for Economics information, which means tonight I'll need to go over my notes.

I'm still really energised from my French class, where I was helping the friendliest guy in the world. He struggles a bit with French but speaks fluent Spanish and English, so go figure, he's already way ahead of me. Class was huge fun, because we have a professor who, like me, loves tangents. We were reading a short article in which there was a Chinese name so I asked my friend Adeline how to pronounce it.

She did. We repeated it back. She shook her head and repeated it again. We tried it once more. Some of us got it, but the rest of us didn't, and it led to a good ten minute debate in very flowing French about languages and their roots and relative difficulties. The spelling rules of English (a phrase which is ironically demonstrative, as I had to rewrite it to avoid "English's"because I'm really not sure it's right) came up as a large hazard, but the Chinese way of writing a different character for every different word trumped it. Persian apparently lent the Arabic world their alphabet, but a few letters were lost on the way, and Russian, like its semi-automatic rifles, hasn't changed in years and sounds astonishing.

I also got the chance to share some very useless knowledge, courtesy of QI - we were discussing menu, a Middle-French word that cropped up in La Fontaine and in the article that we were reading today and means small or little. I have a theory that menu being a synonym for carte came from food served à la française - whereby every course would appear together as an enormous display of opulent and stupid power, since nobody could eat it all at once and so most of it would be cold before it could be eaten. Thus un menu, a little card displaying a smaller selection, could be offered to patrons who actually wanted to enjoy their meal.  Service à la française is no longer truly practiced because, as previously stated, wasteful and stupid. It still exists in the form of the buffet but is, hopefully, dying out.

It was surpassed by service à la Russe, which may be more familiar to you - I don't know how often you eat 14 course meals. At its most basic it is the form of service we know whereby food is served in courses, thus ensuring optimum temperature and avoiding melted ice cream and cold soup. In true Russian style, you are given an empty plate, and staff circulate and serve precisely as much as you wish - a host who serves you a full plate risks either seriously underestimating you, leaving you irritable, or overestimating you, leaving you insulted and unpleasantly bloated.

Bloating is acceptable among the upper classes, but insults - never.

Work - and love - is calling my name. I'll leave you with a beautiful Chinese poem.



Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

In a stone den was a poet called Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.


Or, in pinyin (the way of writing Chinese in Roman script):

Shī Shì shí shī shǐ


Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.


And she tells me English is difficult.

Girls, girls, girls

This morning was stressful. Soon my shiny new office will be ready and we will be able to start welcoming students to the new médiathèque. It may also be getting a rebranding, so that's really exciting - names are important, but not as important as the thing, as Juliet was so keen to point out - a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet. It's true; if you have a friend called Rose, ask her to pretend to be Jennifer for a day, and you'll notice she still smells of rainforests and sunlight. And sweat. Just a bit. She's human. We all are.

The problem with a shiny new office, however, is that it needs shiny new fittings and shiny new lights and that means shiny new drills need to be used to bore holes in walls, which would be absolutely top-hole and spiffing if my new office were not next to my current office. Making phone calls while a workman kicks his power drill up to 11 and goes to town on the poor wall is impossible, and conversation in the office became a little strained. Still, I powered through the tasks that needed doing, and before long I was ready to head into my basement to measure more things. My supervisor wants a plan ready for the new occupants of my basement office, and so I'm measuring and teaching myself Sketchup and very frequently cursing under my breath because I've accidentally spent twenty minutes making a gorgeous desk and only just realised it's floating two metres off the floor. And I have no idea how to get it to obey gravity, so for the moment whoever moves in next will need to make do with an anti-grav desk.

We also finally sorted out the books that we're keeping and the books that we're giving to anyone who wants them along with a load of VHS tapes and cassettes, in case Doc Brown turns up.

Not the Doc Brown from yesterday's blog. (Although thank you for reading so regularly.) The other one. Big hair. Owns a Delorean.

That's the bunny.

Incidentally, did you recognise him the first time you saw him as that destroyer of childhoods Judge Doom, from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I did, and it was not a pleasant moment. I kept expecting him to do this:

And he didn't. I got to the end of Back To The Future and was so tense I couldn't stand up. My mother actually used me as a doorstop for an hour before I relaxed. Sensible women, my mother.

All of that was a lot of verbiage for the joke that we have VHS tapes and they're old fashioned, but I am quite sure you'll agree it was worth it. If you are a student in the place in which I work and, for some reason, have a VHS tape player, you may come and see me and help yourself at lunchtime.

I had my first French class today, which was interesting. We focussed on the future simple tense, which was quite fun. The teacher is very animated and the exercises are quite fun, so I may well appropriate them for my own classes because plagiarism is the highest form of flattery. I would say without boasting that I am one of two students with an already good level, but it's really interesting to see how I've gotten rusty through needing only relatively basic French and tenses. Several times I found myself struggling for words that I really ought to know, but it was nice to get back into the swing of speaking French with a variety of people.

It's also interesting to see where I've changed; I've not been in a classroom setting (as a pupil) for quite some time, and so I was surprised to find myself encouraging my classmates to answer and pushing them to take centre stage. Those who remember me from shared classrooms in the hazy days of youth will attest to the fact that I was an insufferable know-it-all, a boy whose arm was the greatest short-twitch muscle ever seen. I could answer a question the teacher hadn't finished asking. Hell, sometimes I even answered questions they hadn't planned on asking. I was the uncool kind of disruptive kid, the one the teacher and the rest of the students hate.

I am now a thoroughly more chilled out chappy, though that's not to say I don't get a bit cross when things like this

Taken from artist's Tumblr, http://roseaposey.tumblr.com/post/39795409283/judgments

(which, by the way, is a piece of art criticising the slut-shaming, it's-your-fault-because-you-dress-like-that attitude which is way too fucking pervasive) appear on my feed titled "Use this as a reference guide." I'm bound to get a tiny bit irritated with anyone who is so apparently unable to control their animal instincts, so stuck in the Stone Age that they need women to cover up from neck to ankle. What utter twattery.

Do you know how to tell if a woman is asking for it?

She opens her mouth and she asks for it. 

She can be as naked as the day she was born and if she isn't asking then you need to man the fuck up and walk on.

Gorram, we live in a world where we have instant access to all humanity's knowledge, we live longer, we can fucking fly through the air and I still have dumbasses posting this as a "reference guide" like we're still living in caves and hunting saber-toothed-tigers and are literally only prevented from committing sexual assault because our potential victims cover themselves up. 

Gor-ram.

It's not my place to lecture anyone on feminism but: if you're a girl or a woman and you agree with that picture then think about what that means. It means you think guys should have the right to decide how you dress. It means that sexual assault is partly your fault.

And they don't. And it isn't.