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.

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.

High Tea, High Hat, Cymbal, Scat

Today I am more glad than ever I am not making a video blog, because I sound as husky as a husky who smokes a forty-pack a day. This is because I have been getting very excited about English, services we offer in the mediatheque, and switching from French to English with only the occasional missed step.

Today was inauguration day for my new mediatheque (which won't be mine in a mere two months time) and so we cracked out about 400 scones, 8 kilos of jam and enough clotted cream to fill a fridge. We also brought forth tea in 4 varieties; Darjeeling, Ceylon, Breakfast and, of course, Earl Grey. I also managed to find a site where the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was hosted, and so the beautiful words of Jerusalem, Danny Boy and Flow'r of Scotland floated over the heads of my cheerfully babbling students; babbling, from Babel; the many different languages weaving a fabric of community.

All shared over scones and tea. My job gets better every day.

It was all over too soon, in fact, and before long I was back in my French class, where we had great fun with French text language. It's a mess, and I can't stand it, but I confess I over-reacted a little when a fellow student said it would mean that kids wouldn't be learning "proper language skills".

I don't agree. Some very smart people I know use text language, and it's representative of a fascinating look into the way a mind works. The spelling is literal, brief, saving space and time. It requires thinking in a certain way, and when you think the way another mind thinks, you're a little closer to them as a person. There are no "proper language skills," language is a continually evolving hydra. If you try squashing one part of it, it'll simply spring up again somewhere else. Teach "proper language skills", sure, but then realise that people will break them. From Shakespeare to Dizzy Rascal, the "rules" can be broken. Let's be jazz musicians, and learn the rules just to break them.

Ella Fitzgerald, ladies and gentlemen:

Mayday! Mayday!

Days off in the middle of the week are weird. I am struggling to reconcile my day, which was spent tutoring, with the fact that tomorrow is not Sunday but in fact Thursday. This is weird and I don't like it.

Still, on the other hand, tomorrow is High Tea day! I'm very excited; I'm going to be spending the morning spreading jam and cream and cutting scones, and the afternoon just giving them away. In addition,  my colleague from the Association went on holiday this morning so I shall be swinging in the breeze, with no work to do. Apart from the cutting and spreading obviously.

Quick question, British brethren - cream then jam, or jam then cream?

This morning was a lovely start; stayed in bed until 9am and then pootled about, trying to put off the moment when I would have to face up to the fact that I had not a scrap of food in the flat. Today is - was, for you future people - the 1st May, the first of many public holidays during the month of May. Everything was shut; everything except McDonalds, which was where I had dinner. French haut cuisine at its finest; even the chips looked offended, as if they'd never wish to be seen dead in such an establishment.

I ate them anyway. McDonalds is to food what cement is to interior design. It'll do the job, but you wouldn't want to see it every day.

Dinner, such as it was, came after a surprise four hours of tutoring. It was only supposed to be two, taking advantage of the day off, but A started to struggle with some of the biology so two hours turned to three, which turned to four, and before long it was 6pm and I finally left.

Just as a notice for students on their year abroad - tutor. Tutor a mere ten hours a week, and you'll find that cash flows from your fingertips. You will wonder why you study. You'll seriously wonder why you ever worked in a bar. You'll question why you worked on a shop floor. You'll start doing it more and more until every hour of your life becomes a race from one house to the next, drinking two coffees per house and vibrating from the caffeine all night in your money-bed.

Tutoring. It's like heroin, only you make money.

So now it's late, and I've booked tickets to the States, because sometimes when a river crashes into you you have to go with the flow. My parents have booked their hotel, and they'll be here in July. My T.F.I test is in June, my project is (weirdly) coming along quite nicely, and my girlfriend is paying me a surprise visit in a week.

Oh. And my student's mother gave me three whisky cakes she had been given as a present and couldn't imagine ever eating.

Year abroad is just a metaphor for awesome.

Avalanche!

I got a pleasant surprise in my inbox today; an email from the British Council congratulating me on the fact that I'd been approved to work in France next year.

This is pleasant because it gives me something to fall back on, should other career plans fall apart, but surprising because I've withdrawn my candidacy for next year. Or at least I thought I had. So I sent a quick email back, thanking the British Council for the opportunity but mentioning that regretfully I would have to turn it down.

A quick response pinged back; no problem at all. I would be taken off the system. Best wishes for the future.

Ten minutes later I got another email from the British Council, asking if I'd mind terribly if they placed me in the countryside rather than in a city. I am currently trying to formulate an email that doesn't question the reading abilities of those writing these emails. It absolutely isn't their fault, no doubt the system updates at midnight and the email blasts are being sent automatically. Which is why I shan't send the email.

I just find it cathartic to write.

In other news: our network went down this morning, so I was left twiddling my thumbs as I tried to find something to do. I was so strapped for work that I started on the essay I have to complete for university, which will be on manifestations - demonstrations - and why the French are more enthusiastic about it than we are. It will likely be a little fluffy, but should be fun to write - and to read.

I was sent on a mission - an errand, rather than an explosive adventure featuring micro-star-scientologist  Tom Cruise - across campus to retrieve an important cheque. The errand happily coincided with the rain that began to fall in sync with my first step outside, and by happily I mean unhappily. Once I got back, an avalanche of work fell into my lap, including two translations and an Excel project. Using a macro I have to match up questions from our questionnaire with state-approved questions, and it is proving to be something of a nightmare because the answers have to match state-approved answers too.

And neither list is in alphabetical order and there are about fifty questions on our side and 150 on theirs.

Cauchemar.

All the way through lunch I responded to students' requests for their scores, which arrived this morning, and then ran off to grab a swift bite to eat before my T.F.I class. Some good and some bad came out of it; my listening scores are now hitting the mid-80s which is a huge positive, but my grammatical skills still - and there is no other way of saying this - suck.

So that's what I'll be doing after this, after the other two blogs I need to write.

Anyone else ever get annoyed and frustrated that the only important part of their body is their brain and it petulantly demands petty things like nutrition and sleep?

Just me. Right.

While I eat, here's a guy doing some impressions of how other animals eat. They're excellent, you'd almost believe the animals were there in the room.

The comedown

After a weekend like the one I had, nothing could really compare. I've been back at work and unfortunately there's not a lot of work to do, so I've occupied myself with trying to find a topic on which to base my year abroad report. I'm struggling, because there's far too much choice, but I think I've settled on something. I'm going to check some facts and see if I can make something of it.

Other than that, work is quiet. No, that's a lie. There is not much work, but there's not much quiet either. You'll remember I was moved to a shiny temporary office while my new office is made ready. Today I was kicked out of the temporary office and into the office next door while my temporary office was essentially pulled apart. I don't know what the workers were hoping to find; by the looks of things the treasure of the Sierra Madre is somewhere to be found in that room.

That wouldn't be so bad, were it not for the heavy-duty power tools they're using to dismantle cupboards, desks, and a secret compartment under the floor. My new temporary office, located next door, positively vibrates to the cheerful sound of saws and drills. Thankfully it is very temporary; I go to Germany on Tuesday (Third year abroad, it's the best) and I get to stay there for a week. I'm incredibly excited by the prospect. I shall consume culture which will hopefully help soak up the copious amounts of beer I will inevitably drink.

Other than that, however, there is little more to say. Yesterday's regular student has made huge progress and has started autocorrecting, which means before long she won't need me any more. My other student arrives back from tennis tournaments halfway across the world this weekend, which is exciting, if only because I'll get to see how much English he's forgotten. And how much work we have to do.

So: one week to Germany, two weeks to new language hub, and six weeks until I have to hand in my year abroad report.

Yikes.

(Oh, and I'll find out about the job by the end of the week. It's only interesting to my mother and I, but she reads this so I mention it.)

As busy as a...?

Frantically busy today, which is just the way I like my life. A small equation to write into Excel tomorrow should result in the completion of the week-long statistics project and mark the commencement of the writing about the statistics project. The details are still being completed, but it's mostly good news - there are more women than ever in petroleum engineering - the ratio this year being 1:3 - and almost all are earning more than 40,000€ per year one year after graduation. It is a good time, to be in oil.

Alright, so that's hardly news, but it looks pretty good as a bell curve.

There was a panicked flurry of writing and translation this morning as my colleague in the marketing department summoned me to give her prose a once-over; an easy job as she is extremely proficient. A small change later, we thought we were done. We high-fived. This was a weird experience, not being an American or, indeed, at all sporty, but I did it anyway. We were sadly mistaken, however, as the ping of an email arriving gave us more work to do and a deadline that approached like a glacier; its movement was indiscernible until you looked up and it saw that it had got half an hour closer.

That done, and my brain having used many millions of calories, my stomach cried out. The noises it made are called borborygmi, a fact I share with you because I know you've always wondered, and so with haste and with my colleague I made my way to the canteen. We will say nothing of lunch, save only that figs should be left out of food. Forever. Figs should not be allowed in kitchens. Chefs should not smoke, spit, or have figs near food.

I am intolerant only of intolerance. And figs.

And lactose, but that's actually a real thing.

The afternoon was a steady buzz of activity; I start English lessons again next week so I'm going to be planning like crazy once again. Researching things to talk about, finding movie clips, all good fun. There is nothing better than re-greeting old students and meeting new ones. I'll also be running grammar classes and plan on producing an entire semester-plan over the weekend because organisation is my watchword.

I'm also going to Rouen over the weekend. Watch how I juggle these things. You will be astonished.

Now I have to go and, you know, juggle, so here for you is a trailer kindly shared with me by an absent friend. Joss Whedon only went and did Much Ado About Nothing.

Just a heads up - if you join my English class and this comes out in France, we will be going to see it.

Also: dat beat.

I'm an alien

I'm feeling less and less like an alien as I live here longer and longer, but it only struck me yesterday that I have been here six months. I've only got another five months and the past six have literally flown by. 

I am genuinely horrified by time and the speed with which it is passing.

Today has been an incredibly good day, with lots of exceedingly complex workbooks and data sorting to be done. I also got to look at the accounts after my supervisor emailed them to me; they have to be clearly marked as my own and only worked on in my folder, but she will work on her copy and I on mine and hopefully, at the end of the month, they will be identical. There will not be a single cent's difference between them. It's a really exciting prospect, and means if I plan on running as treasurer for anything next year then I'm well and truly prepared. Very exciting!

Accountancy. It's interesting.

The afternoon was more complex data, this time a survey that was sent out to last year's graduates to find out how they're doing and if they've got jobs. I worked through the tasks in an hour and then, since I had an hour still to spare, made graphs to show the data in as many exciting ways as I could. I've got bar charts, pie charts, and a few hundred tables. The next task is to write it up into a presentation and make sure my French is exceptional and my prose neat and professional. 

Data presentation. It's even more interesting.

This evening - which, by the way, is glorious; warm and fine and dry and absolutely what you'd expect from France - was spent in the company of C, who's taking her TOEFL on Friday. We did some really intensive work on speaking, because the test has very strict time limits and diction is the only area in which she has issues. Not big problems, but the university in the UK at which she wishes to study is asking for a really high score. She made some progress but like most people got a little flustered at the strict time limits. I have confidence that she's going to ace it, though. I'm back to see her brother, L, tomorrow, as my other potential Wednesday client - you remember, the crazy house of five boys - has not rung me back. It's not a big thing, to ask or to do, and so for them simply not to bother just tells me that I needn't either.

I know I'm not running an office, but realising that my time here is limited just makes me more irritated at people who waste it - another reason I'm so glad I have so many things to do at work. 

Being grouchy. It's not interesting at all.

So as not to finish on the boring note, here's an ad for whisky featuring the gorgeous voice of Robert Carlyle and the glorious countryside of Scotland, to continue my theme of:

"seriously, Scotland is gorgeous, and Scottish voices to die for."

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.

Freedom!

Upsides and downsides. A informed me today that he could be absent for the next two to three weeks, which gives me either a) lie-in time or b) exploring time. I've amassed a few pennies from the extra hours I do, so I'm pretty tempted to take the latter option and do some exploring - Rouen is a mere hour away by train and is pretty gorgeous, judging from my friend Adeline's trip. That blog in Mandarin Chinese and English, because as well as knowing beautiful people I know some seriously smart ones too.

In fact, from here I'm looking at loads of different trips and directions - I could head south towards the glorious (and, according to my French teacher, exceedingly expensive) town of Nice or north towards Rouen or even Normandy. Paris is gorgeous, but I've all of France to discover - and a new appreciation for the fact that in Scotland there are a hundred beautiful little corners that are waiting for me.

I've started re-reading The Great Gatsby after seeing a very exciting new trailer for it. If you've not read Gatsby, then please go and do so - if you have any sort of electronic reading device then it will not cost you more than a euro. Or a pound, if that's what you use. I can't say how much it would cost you in dollars, but I can't imagine it'll be very much. In any case, buy it and read it immediately. It's a story about people, about mystery, about striving to be something other than one is. According to the French, it's the 46th best book of the 20th century. I couldn't be that specific, but I would say it is an incredible work of the English language and well worth a read.

The rest of my day has been taken up by writing, laundry, and dishes, that trio of chores that take up my time. I despise the latter two for taking time from the first, which is why several students found me in the laundry room tapping away at this laptop. I'm working on a few things, but nothing that's yet worthy of publication.

In all, then, not as exciting a day as you'd hoped, but rather filled with the minutiae of the things that must be done, the little responsibilities one must look to if one wishes to stop drinking straight from the tap and start using a glass like a person in France in the 21st century. Who has access to several glasses.

I like writing and I hate doing dishes. But I need to eat and I can't eat off what I write. Still, buying plastic cups, plates and cutlery is getting more tempting by the minute.

Final request: if you love France and know where I should go, leave me a comment. I'd love to know what you think.

Beef stew bubbling on an open fire

So: I didn't write anything yesterday. I got an awful lot of flack for not writing anything yesterday. I'm gratified that I have such eager readers, and I enjoy writing more than anything, but please realise that I'm only human and sometimes I need a night off.

Last night was that night off, but let's start in the morning. The morning started badly; my colleague was somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half late and, since I have no key to the upstairs office, I instead went downstairs and continued to record the DVDs we have. Four hours of that later and I was just about ready to end it all, my very will to live reduced by the illogical way the pile of DVDs appeared to get no smaller. I seemed to be stuck in a parallel universe.

Lunchtime came and went, and that was just about the highlight of my day - a Portuguese student of startling vivacity and a regular in my little mediatheque came in at the same time as me and so we ate together. She speaks Portuguese, of course, as well as excellent English and is attacking her ignorance in French with vigour. She was curious about where I'd come from and what I did, and I likewise was curious about her - I see students so rarely and they all have such interesting stories. Nearly everyone does.

After lunch I lent her La Fille sur le Pont, a black and white French comedy/romance/drama that I really enjoyed. The copy we have is not subtitled so it may be a struggle, but I think she'll profit from it. If you've not seen then I'd highly recommend it. The trailer is just about the most wonderfully...French piece of film I think I've ever seen, and although the quality is abysmal, I hope you'll get a sense of it from the clip below.

If not, imdb has a great quality copy (that I can't stick in my blog) over here, although the voiceover adds a dimension of reality to the whole thing which is somehow disappointing.

The afternoon was given over to more of the same and I left feeling utterly drained and itching for a drink. The drink was to come, but first I had my two new students, who are 12 and 15 and shall be known as C and B. Teaching anything from basics is very difficult, but language more so - I learnt English through assimilation, and so I have a sense of what "feels" right. Going back to the start and trying to explain the tenses is difficult, and I almost wish we'd been taught the rules in school. In any case, it was a success, as it relied on me being able to explain in French, so I taught pretty much 50-50 French and English. All was understood and some small amount of progress has been made, and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy, like a blow-dried panda bear.

B, on the other hand, has a good level of English, so I've set him a writing task to see if his written measures up to his spoken. We talked a lot about past tense, and that seems solid, though as with many French students he wants to say have where we use be, in examples like j'ai quinze ans - I am fifteen (years old).

A minor blip, though, in an otherwise strong ability. I'm really excited about these kids; new challenges and new things to be taught.

And after? I headed into town for a games night. This was my night off; spent in the company of international people, with tapas on one side, pastis on the other and the whole gamut of humanity before me. People were playing go, from China, abalone from France, chess - which has taken a roundabout route from India, where it was called chaturanga in Sanskrit - and poker, which may have come from Germany or France but took off in the States.

It was a really fantastic evening, and I'm already looking for ward to the next one.

Today has been my normal weekend student, A, with whom I'm exploring problems requiring linear functions to solve. Nothing too complex, but again I'm having difficulties in slowing him down. He answers the question before reading it, and it's causing no small amount of headaches. Does anyone have any advice on how to encourage students to slow down and consider their work more carefully? Comment below and I'll be eternally grateful.

For the rest of the afternoon I'm scaling Mount Dishes, another physics-defying construction which can never quite be utterly conquered. I've thrown together a stew too, which bubbles merrily behind me. I've crunchy, still-warm French bread to go with it, though I confess I'm starving myself for dinner and it's looking more and more likely I'll need to go back to the shops before long. The smell is intense.

Finally, and most importantly, my baby sister is 18 today. If 200 people say happy birthday to her, then something amazing will happen. She's on twitter. Go forth and wish her happiness.