La Marseillaise

Pissy shite.

2010-11-21T10:32:00.001-08:00

Pissy shite is a phrase from a play I just operated the lights for.
It also accurately describes my recent mood.
I'm pretty sure I may be depressed again.
Best bust out the St John's Wort eh. Good old herbal remedy. Unfortunately it won't sort out the actual shitness of my life, but it will stop me feeling so crap about it.

Essay

2010-11-11T05:52:00.001-08:00

So basically while I was away I wrote the english version of my year abroad report - this is basically it without any editing. I'm currently translating the relevant bits into french for my actual coursework, so I thought I would provide the original for you to read.
Please bear in mind I wrote this while still in France - my actual coursework is far more impartial and reserved after having some time to calm down about the entire experience!

ESSAY

Improving my oral skills proved easier than first expected. When I arrived in Marseille, all of the English speaking assistants grouped together in a bid to make friends. Then we began to be friends with each other’s housemates, and their teacher’s daughter’s friends...and so it went on until we had a secure group of internationally cultured acquaintances, ranging from Italian to Austrian to French to german. This meant that social evenings and parties would have French as the commonly spoken language, forcing me to speak it because it was necessary to communicate. At first it was difficult as it highlighted the differences in ability between myself and my friends, but soon it became much easier and much less complicated to talk to each other in French. We also attended a local English conversation evening, in order to meet some French people and also to help them improve their English. It helped me in particular feel more at home in Marseille, knowing that at least some people were interested in improving their English, even if my students weren’t. My experiences of French within the school environment were very limited, as the only teachers who bothered to speak to me were the English teachers, who almost always spoke English to me or a strange mix of French and English. It seemed like other teachers were afraid to start a conversation in case I couldn’t understand them, and trying to start a conversation myself was very difficult because the lycee is so large and all the teachers seemed so busy. In the classroom itself I managed to learn a few words, but as it was not really the aim of an English lesson, French was kept to a minimum.

Writing ability is difficult to improve in day to day life, as it was not necessary for me to write any emails or letters in French past the initial emails I sent to my schools. Any improvements made were achieved by studying at home.

Listening was far easier to improve, just by being around people speaking French. However this also led to an improvement in the understanding of Marseille slang and accent, which are different to the rest of france and sometimes difficult to understand. The most common anomalies were the pronunciation of ‘t’ and ‘d’ which were often changed to ‘ch’ and ‘j’; for example, instead of saying ‘party’, some students would say ‘parchy’, and ‘sameji’ for ‘samedi’. The students themselves seemed shocked when I told them this, as if they didn’t actually know they had an accent. I have been told this change in accent is a mixture between youth culture of today and the influence of the Arabic language. Common Marseille slang included ‘degun’ meaning ‘personne’ and ‘tarpin’ meaning ‘beaucoup’ – although even these came with strange pronunciations. Words such as ‘tarpin’, ‘pain’, ‘demain’ etc are all pronounced far more nasally than the typical Parisian accent we have become accustomed to, which makes them difficult to understand until you are told about the Marseille accent.

There is a down side to trying to improve listening skills however. I lived with French people who spoke English when talking directly to me (for a decrease in rent.) This meant that when they spoke French to each other, they didn’t feel the need to slow down or make their word choice less complicated. This meant that any time I heard them speaking French, i couldn’t really make out anything past a few words, and I wasn’t privy to what the conversation was even about.

Integrating into French life seemed difficult to me, and with all of the free time I found myself with (assistants only work twelve hours a week) I did a great deal of thinking about how I work. I came to realise that I thrive in situations that are comfortable, where I am in control, and obviously the year abroad took most of that away from me. Adjusting to things such as opening hours, long lunches, random politeness (everybody in every shop says hello and goodbye to you), the metro’s ridiculous closing times and the general feel of the city was difficult for me. I lived in an area called Cours Julien which is supposed to be a very ‘happening’ area – I considered it similar to Camden Town, with it’s street graffiti art and eclectic shops and cafes. However I still found it difficult to find things to do with my spare time, and couldn’t get any help from my lycee as they were in a far northern quarter of the city so most of them either didn’t live in the centre, or lived in Aix. As time went by, we discovered some smaller gems of the city such as tea shops and boutiques, but as with every big city, things were expensive, especially nights out. Some club prices were 10 euros, which is rather steep compared to the £4 or even free entry prices we are used to in Nottingham and London. My flatmates were older than me and both had jobs as computer games designers. One had a girlfriend who was only 18, so i thought perhaps she would know some more things to do, but they all seemed very happy with a sheltered life of computer games and comic books.

We did go out as a social group occasionally, but the majority of the music scene in Marseille revolves around reggae, hip hop and electro music, none of which I managed to get into. During the day it was difficult to find a good cafe where a simple coffee wasn’t more than 3 euros, and the difference between the fashionable Rue St Ferreol and the dirty market streets only a few roads up were stark in contrast. Considering Marseille is the second biggest city in France, it certainly doesn’t seem it. The public transport, mostly the metro and tram, close very early during the week and still at about quarter to one on weekends. Sometimes Marseille was not a safe place to walk home through on your own.

I thrived for the things that I did enjoy, mostly museums and cooking. It took me until after the Christmas holidays to actually visit some cultural sights, but I did see some. I also travelled a little around the rest of the south of france, notably Nice and Monaco, which were lovely and providing a nice get away from the dirty streets of Marseille. My cooking was appreciated by most, my housemates and friends included, but i felt i could have kept myself busy for a longer time if we had had an oven. Our kitchen, although quite large, only had 4 hobs without an oven or microwave, so making myself feel better by baking was never an option.

The job itself was wonderful in principle. 12 hours a week of work, high school teenagers who should already have a good grasp of the English language, 780 euros a month which equated to just over 15 euros an hour...it all seemed like a dream. Except for the immense amount of free time I spent bored because I only worked Monday and Tuesday. And that the teenagers at the lycee knew barely any English. I was placed in Lycee St Exupery, which although seemed to have good facilities and good teachers, seemed to have focused on rebuilding their staff room and courtyard and installing a high tech registration system by barcode than concentrating on providing text books or white boards or computers. It was a dark difference to me, where all of my French lessons were spent talking in French, behaving, every student with a pocket dictionary and a notebook for everything the teacher wrote down. I observed lessons where the students talked over the teacher, had their iPods and phones out, and were barely ever reprimanded. I understood my lycee was a ZEP school, but even British students in bad schools didn’t act like these teenagers. I had a student actually tell me she hated me. The level of English was appalling, which only reinforced the things we had been told about the French educational system of repeat and learn by heart. Most students in the terminale could describe a little about the document they had to present, with pre-formed sentences like ‘this document is...’ and ‘we can see that...’ but followed by any other question, they were stumped. They couldn’t even ask questions properly, which astounded me because it is more difficult to ask a question in French than it is in English – we only have one structure, they have three!

There was a great difference between my lycee and my college also. My college i only worked at for 2 hours a week on a Monday afternoon, and I was led to believe it would be horrible as it was another ZEP school. The English teacher I worked with seemed far more laid back, people were willing to talk to me in the staff room because the staff complement was smaller, and the kids always participated willingly and were ready to talk. Their English ability was stunning, and it always made my Monday seem a little less wasted. I had in depth conversations with some girls of only 13 and 14 about how they wanted to study to be translators and interpreters and doctors, and how they wanted to get their degrees in Britain. Compared to the lycee students of the 15^th arrondissement who all wanted to be OM footballers or study at La Timone or Aix, it was a refreshing change.

I found myself wondering why the uptake of English was so low in some French lycees, considering how useful the language is in any business involving international communication today. As it turns out, the BAC scoring for English is often only a two or a three, compared to subjects like physics who have their score increased with a multiplying factor of six or seven. Teenagers living in a run down area of Marseille, which I’m sure nobody will ever see during it’s stint as the capital of culture in 2013, all think they are going to live in Marseille all of their lives. And none of them seem to want to change that. Their parents don’t speak English, the people who work in the city don’t speak English, and in fact their English teachers don’t even speak English to them in class, so why should they think it’s important? It’s shocking that England has to persuade students that a modern foreign language such as French, german or Spanish is still important while we all try to pretend the English language isn’t taking over the world, when in france we can’t persuade them that a basic working knowledge of English might get them somewhere. I observed a class of BTS students who were training to be personal assistants, all of whom said to me they wanted to work in London. In competition with all the new graduates with English as a mother tongue? I don’t think so.

The end of it all

2010-06-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

Welllll I haven't blogged in a while and this is mostly because I have been 'busy'. Not busy, but 'busy' which actually means I have spent a lot of time sleeping and pretending to be busy.

I left France behind me, after taking an extra week to get back there because of the insane ash cloud that covered the majority of Europe. However this did mean I only had to work for a week before everything was over. Wahey.

My mum and cousin came out on the 29th April for my birthday/leaving bonanza. We did some touristy things but most of my elaborate plans were unexpectedly foiled by the rain and the first of May celebrations which were not really celebrations but just a day where nobody at all works and there is no travel anywhere. Fun times.

My actual birthday was amazing. Loads of my friends turned up for my 80s themed shindig, and even my french friends made an effort with their outfits - Renaud came as Magnum PI. I did cry at the end because I was just so emotional that I'd bonded so much with these people in a short seven months and it was just so easy to be around them and not have to worry about anything, and it really hit me when Mo and Dom did a little speech to my video camera (even though I pressed the wrong button and took a photo rather than recording.) My cake was epic as well, it was creamy and delicious and Renaud got 'Nelson and Depp wish you happiness' which really reinforced how well he'd gotten to know me without me realising. It was ridiculously emotional and I didn't think for a second it would ever be that way. I'll leave the analysing of my 7 months for a slightly later post because I still haven't really dealt with it all in my head.

So I spent a couple of weeks at home, received presents, saw people etc, and it was lovely to relax and chill out and just not worry about anything. Then I tentatively moved back to Nottingham, which I was so scared about it was unreal. I was worried about how things were going to be with my old friends, and having to make new friends etc. But I really shouldn't have worried, because it's all been wonderful. I've befriended Lawrence's new housemates for September and got a foothold into the theatre by helping with the charity musical. I've also found myself a house for September which has really put my mind at ease. Work has been amazing too, the girls have grown up since last year and they're an absolute pleasure to look after. Cadets not so much but it's still really good to be back. We all went out for my belated 21st and I was really drunk so it was all good really.

All in all...happy :)

formspring.me

2010-05-21T09:46:00.001-07:00

I enjoy questions. http://formspring.me/BeccaButton

Elaboration

2010-04-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

So. I did say I would elaborate on my previous points. Following is an elaboration.

I left Marseille for my final 'vacance' on the 31st March. I was incredibly paranoid as I had managed (very cleverly, I feel) to figure out that TMB would be the last minute guests at Hadouken's live show in Camden that evening, and I had secured myself tickets...this is something I thank twitter for informing me. I had a very speedy journey through the check in and security, it never seems particularly rushed at MP2, and then sat in the waiting area. For like, 2 hours. My flight was delayed. I already worked out that I would get back to my house at around half past 4, which would have left me enough time to get changed and eat before making my way to a train station. I assumed TMB would be on first, therefore I didn't want to be late. It was almost pathetic how jittery I was.

We got there in the end (I took my cousin Eliott with me) and I paid about a fiver for a cup of what can only be described as blue piss with some sugar stirred in. However I did film the entire TMB set and got critical acclaim (that may be exaggeration) for my videoing efforts. I didn't just put the footage itself up, oh no. I made it part of my video blog. So now over 5000 people have seen me say 'I can now die happy' after having chatted to the band. I am, in short, a loser.

Poland was amazing however. I went with my Mum for 5 nights, and we visited the Old Town, Auschwitz, and the salt mines. Auschwitz is an experience I cannot even describe with words. If you have any knowledge about the holocaust at all, or in fact more importantly if you have NO knowledge of it, you should visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have studied the Nazi regime for almost every year of my high school life, and there were things I didn't know. I just didn't have a clue. The sheer scale of it really doesn't hit you until you see the physical evidence behind a sheet of glass.

When we returned, I went for a night out to Cheapskates for dear Sarah Morgan's 21st birthday. It was hilarious to say the least. I don't seem to go out in central much, mostly because it's a bitch to get back to Sutton and I'm really lazy, and it's far easier/cheaper to go to Kingston Oceana. However seeing as it was a 21st, I felt a London celebration should be had. I got drunk on rose wine before we even left Sarah's house. I get a little violent on wine, as Stephanie's boyfriend discovered. We met up with my friend Baz, and went to Wetherspoons. There is one lesson I would like everyone to learn from reading this section:

I DO NOT LIKE JAGERBOMBS.

Neither Baz nor Laurence could understand this, and kept buying me the filthy concoctions.

TMB came into spoons after we were already drinking. This made me happy, proving to the world that I am not a crazy stalker (or in fact that I am, and I secretly knew they'd be there. That's not true though.) I've desperately tried to be cool with these people because we have friends in common and I'm not a 14 year old fangirl. This illusion was broken when Baz and Laurence shouted 'Midnight Beast!' at them as they left. I hate them.

The actual club was smaller than I expected from somewhere doing student nights. The smoking area was terrifying (Sit down! Five minutes! *whistle blows*) but the music wasn't too bad. The most amusing part was the volume of people that chatted me up. Literally, a record for me. One guy was in the army and Baz had cleaned him up after a fight. Another was a random German guy. I do pick them, don't I?

Now it is Wednesday and I'm assuming my flight tomorrow is scheduled to go. My scheduled flight on Sunday was cancelled because an insane volcano in Iceland decided to screw everything up. To be honest, obviously I was appreciative of the few more days at home, but I was excited to get back to the sunshine.

Far too many things

2010-04-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

I have not kept up with this lately. I have sooo many things to talk to you about but I have been far too busy/lazy to put any of them into coherent sentences. So for the meantime, I shall give you a short list, upon which I shall later elaborate.

1. My flight back from Marseille was late
2. I went to see The Midnight Beast at a gig and I met them.

3. Video of said gig got over 5000 views so far on youtube including a comment from Stefan and Stefan's mum.
Video Part One
Video Part Two
4. Went to Poland with my mum, visited Auschwitz
5. Went to Cheapskates. Saw TMB. Got drunk. Got chatted up by a. a chav b. an army guy covered in blood and c. a German
6. Flight back to France got cancelled because of a giant ash cloud after a volcano exploded. new flight booked for thursday. not entirely optimistic about that happening, but we'll see (it's now Tuesday and London airports still aren't open)

On the up side, during my extended vacation time, I have been following this blog:

http://niche-capiche.blogspot.com

Go and read it. It is full of daily musings on various things that may or may not matter, but either way it's nicely written and gives me things to click and therefore use to procrastinate.

French keyboard etc

2010-03-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello all. This has no subject in particular, as none of my blog posts ever do. I would however like to point out my recently acquired proficiency in typing on a french keyboard. its almost as fast as normal typing.

if i were to type a sentence as if this keyboard were english, it would look like this:

if i zere to type q sentence qs if this keyboqrd zere english; it zould look like thisM

amusing, non?

anyway, im going home for my next holiday on wednesday, so only two more real days here before gatwick welcomes me back. then i have some good times at home, a quick trip to Nottingham to have a look at a few possible flats and to show John the sights and sounds, a couple of nights out (well one at least) and a trip to Krakow with my mum, which im really excited about cos were going to do the tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau. not an entirely jolly prospect but its something ive studied so much about in history that it would be really emotional to visit i think.

I would however like to express my severe disappointment at a small selection of my friends who have taken advantage of the option to be anonymous on my formspring. its very telling of your insecurities that you are willing to make judgement when i dont know who you are, but wont comment on facebook/my blog/ in person when you might actually have to justify yourselves. be ashamed.

Nights on La Plaine

2010-03-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

I had several moments today where I remembered something that happened last night. Luckily one of those things was that I had agreed to meet a friend on Wednesday (although she was drunk too so no idea if she remembers it)

My main point is that nights out in Marseille are often so surreal that when I remember them in the morning, I'm like...really?

Last night we stood around on La Plaine drinking from the bottles bought from the open-very-late shop next to L'Intermediare. I remember talking to lots of people in french (thankyou, wine) and also talking to a drunk man who had brought his dog with him. The dog was called Baz, and he was quite a young dog. I couldn't understand why you would decide to go and get drunk and take your dog along with you.

I also had a discussion with some other drunk men about how to properly pronounce 'motherfucker'.

Vive les nuits marseillais, but only if it's not raining.

In other news, I bought a video camera. See my new exciting things on youtube coming soon :) http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBeccaButton

also follow me on twitter (BeckyCarter20) and ask me anything you like at http://formspring.me/BeccaButton

thanks all xxx

My new obsession.

2010-03-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

After deliberating desperately about whether to post this or not, I decided I may as well. This deliberation came after googling Stefan Abingdon and finding a page that had all of the recent tumblr posts including his name. Most are girls saying they love him/want to marry him/want to have sex with him, and for this reason I shall not say any of these things. Wanting to have sex with him is a little true though.

When I look at posts like those, I feel like I'm a world away from them. Especially as I at least have the added bonus of living in London (rather than the fucking north of nowhere like some of the other randoms)

Anyway, my current obsession with the Midnight Beast and all of Stefan's current and past projects is intertwined with a rediscovery of my wish to be famous and a sad regret about the choices I have already made that led me down this road. I got an A in GCSE Music. I composed songs. I used to write lyrics all the time. I have a keyboard, and a guitar, and a voice. I've so far been in two complete failures of bands (the first being the Black Yaks at Nonsuch where I got kicked out after our one performance of Seven Nation Army at the talent show, the second being the Opaque Kidney Beans when I was 16/17, a band that never really got past Kes and I writing lyrics and playing a few chords to a song named after his aftershave)

I used to be friends with two guys who had a small independent record promotion company who organised gigs and made compilation CDs and were really involved in the local music scene. Sutton Council had Live and Direct, a band project, and instead I joined Youth FM (not that I regret that decision)

At the time, I didn't even consider other options for A Level. I could have gone to the Brit School. It would have been amazing.

I don't know how to rectify this now though. It's like Stefan Abingdon is my life as it could have been. He's my age. We may have once crossed paths when he was in Icarus Burning as a 15/16 year old (associated with the little company my mates had) One of his current band member's brother is mates with one of my best friends. They live in fucking Fulham, a couple of tube stops away from me. And there is him, having been in about a million different things, and knowing how to DJ and remixing all his own stuff and basically being a legend (they supported Alphabeat you know...why couldn't that have been when I saw them rather than stupid bloody Das Pop?) and here I am...in the south of shitty France, in a job I hate, waiting to go back to my sodding degree that I wish I hadn't taken and probably won't actually get my anywhere.

This sudden realisation of what my life could have been like (and I am probably dreaming totally at the moment, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be famous) has made me even more determined to actually get out there and be more bloody talented. Fuck not joining things cos my friends are already involved (aka New Theatre) I'm just going to join things that make me happy. It's annoying it's taken me almost 3 years to actually decide this (and I'm pretty sure the £18,000 of debt I've already amassed is not going to be entirely worth it)

What else is scary is that I'm worried I'll give up on it like I did the last time (aka when I bought that delightful red guitar...) and I'll be just like some of the people I constantly criticise for having no sticking power.

Stefan Abingdon, share your bloody wisdom with me and teach me how to do it?

(also, take me out? no? worth a try.)

Rantrantrant

2010-03-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

Hello again dear reader(s)

I would like to take this moment to rant a little. Rant about all the things that are wrong with this stupid place. When I get to the end, I shall then talk a short while about the small good things about being here.

Number one rant so far is MEN. In a city where the sun shines for the majority of the year and even in March the sun is beautiful, you can never have a moment of peace. I think this is why I spend the majority of my time indoors, because I just can't be arsed with the hassle of outdoor life. Yesterday evening, two friends and I went to a small local bar, which we normally don't do, but they're usually cheaper and you'll get served faster. Just because our conversation was in English, we were approached by two separate groups of men in the bar, asking us if we would help them improve their english. Now, one thing I value about British society is politeness, and knowing when your stay is unwelcome without making a scene. The first group of men were relatively polite and dealt with our rejection fairly well (although not before telling Charlie, in french, that the view down my top was lovely.) The second guy to talk to us didn't even want to talk to us himself, he was asking on behalf of his friend. At this moment in time we were discussing what we could see in each other's futures, ie husbands and jobs and kiddies and the like. We told the man that we were having a purely female conversation. He said he was sure he could contribute to this, and literally wouldn't take no for an answer. His friend then proceeded to sit on our table and start talking to us, absolute fucking gibberish. Firstly he had a little rant about his perceived knowledge of the differences between british and american english. This consisted of his impression of british english being full of 'indeed's and 'this is very important' and the occasional bout of 'i speak oxford english', while the american impression was a solid five minutes of him holding his nose and talking shit. I was literally crying with a mixture of amusement and embarassment, and despite my continued attempts telling him to stop and shut the fuck up, he continued. Then he harassed Charlie for a while because he was adamant she was french because her accent was really good. He would not take no for an answer. Then, as it got later and people had work in the morning, Charlie told him we were leaving as she had work in the morning and she needed to sleep. He took this as an insult, as if she were saying he clearly didn't have a job.

Nowhere in any kind of civilised society do you make a scene if somebody wants to leave. In fact, I don't thin I have ever been approached in the UK whilst eating/drinking and asked for a cigarette/lighter/money/conversation. You just don't do it. And to make such a fucking scene because people wanted to leave, you just don't do it. What's wrong with these people? You want to improve your english do you? Well it's what I do for a job, so if you want me to spend my leisure time in the evenings listening to your broken english and struggling to understand what you're saying, you can fucking pay me the 15 euros an hour i'd charge for it under normal circumstances.

Today was equally annoying. Charlie and I went for a leisurely sit down on Cours Julien, enjoying the sunshine and the peace and quiet. This was not destined to last long. A delightful aggravating and dirty Senegalese guy decided he would talk to us. Firstly it was just to ask for a cigarette, to which we said no. Then he asked us where we were from. We said England. He apparently didn't know where this was, although he then started to speak in English. My name is now Sonia. I don't speak French. He apparently has made a tour of Italy and Switzerland, but by the look of the holes in his shirt and the dirty sores on his hands, I doubted this very much. He kept telling us that he wanted to talk to us because we were lovely girls. He gave us his (short) life story about how he comes from Dakar but is working in Marseille to help his family. Wonderful, now please fuck off? No. He then decided he would spend his last 2 euros on some wine, and we should wait for him to come back so we can talk more. He eventually went away, and we waited for him to go into the shop before legging it to La Plaine, and avoiding Cours Julien for the rest of the evening.

What worries me the most is that you can't just tell these guys to fuck off like you could in the UK, because any person likely to talk to me in the UK is another student. And those guys, if they're drunk, you can generally make any excuse you like to get rid of them (my friend once went home and sent me a text saying he had to leave because he couldn't get signal and had to go home in order to text me...the wonders of drink.) But these guys all seem to be massive black guys, and knowing how Marseille is, they've probably got a knife in their pocket. And it might just be paranoia setting in because of all the rumours, but it's not something I'm going to take my chances on. I feel the bystander effect would be even worse over here, because we're foreigners, and passers-by would be even less inclined to help us out of a sticky situation.

My second rant is about crime and the police. I am a firm believer in the police. I hate people who whinge about the government and the police force and the justice system. I have nothing against people who want to get involved in politics and try to make a difference, but I hate back seat politicians. As far as I'm concerned, the police in any country don't generally have magic powers; they are people the same as you or I and cannot be expected to work miracles. The same with every governing body, yes they are in a position of responsibility but that doesn't make them invincible. Just because they're police officers doesn't mean they're less scared of a gun attack. This rant comes from the attempted break in of the shop underneath our flat. My flat mate caught them in the act and phoned the police. Clearly there is nothing the police could do about it once the criminals have scarpered, but my flat mate was adamant that there must have been something they could do because they're going to try again. Well obviously, but like I said, the police aren't magical. My flat mate's solution is to allow people to carry weapons. It seems to him that if we were allowed to carry knives and guns that we could then stop criminals ourselves. Wow, what a wonderful theory, lets all become fucking criminals shall we? FFS.

I told him people should let the police do what they can. I suggested the shop should get CCTV put on the building. He said this was stupid because the police would never catch the criminals because they OBVIOUSLY live out of the city and 'the police don't go there.' I told him if he wanted to have a gun, he should move to America.

On the up side, not long til I can leave. I went to the ice cream shop today and the owner was in there with her new baby, which was nice. I'm also trying to get around all of the local tourist bits and bobs in the next few days just so I can say I've seen them all, otherwise there will be a niggling voice in my head somewhere telling me I have to come back to see it, and I really don't want that.

where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

2010-03-15T06:52:00.003-07:00

in ten years time i shall be 30...i would hope i have settled into some career and i've found someone to at least start to settle down with. maybe a child. who knows. i want cats, whatever else happens.

Ask me anything

Recent goings-on...

2010-03-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks have actually been relatively active (surprise surprise). Just to let you know before I carry on with my rantings, I would like to alert you to my current countdown:

3 weeks and 2 days until next holiday
37 days left in France
55 days until home in total
17 days of work until home time

So there we go.

Things what have been going on, innit:

Laura came back from home.
We went out for Diana's birthday
Banoffee pie times
My horrible day at work today.
My attempts to be involved in the SU elections from roughly 900 miles away.

So firstly, Laura Jones dearest came back to Marseille after a month of being at home because she was ill. We had a small gathering in a club that I had not previously discovered called Maximo, down at Vieux Port. The place was actually alright, they sold flavoured rums and shizzle but I kept to the wine (standard) What we found ridiculously surprising is that at midnight on the dot, every fucker who was outside smoking came INSIDE with their cigarettes. Now, I turned 18 in the year that the smoking ban was introduced and so have never had the 'pleasure' of being in a club/pub/restaurant where people were smoking. I tell you, it was foul. My eyes stung more than I ever knew was possible. And so we moved to the Shamrock (a weird 'irish pub' on Vieux Port that is really not irish at all and is using the term 'pub' rather loosely) where it was absolutely stacked to the rafters with sweaty frenchies. I wasn't too bothered as at least they played some music I knew the words too, however others were not entirely comfortable with the sweatiness and the close proximity of some of the finest weirdos Marseille has to offer. And so we left there too, headed for home. The journey was made slightly more amusing by us running into a tramp (who would have thought it, a tramp, in Marseille...) who wanted to classify us by height. No joke. And when we kept walking, he shouted after us to do it ourselves. I found it amusing and was almost tempted to rearrange the group so we were walking in height order. What an odd ball. We refer to this evening as 'Smoke and Sweat.'

The first of Diana's birthday outings was to a chinese restaurant on Tuesday night. It was soooo good. I have missed chinese food. With chopsticks! We got free cocktails at the beginning, free sake at the end, and the guy gave Diana a present of a golden tiger because it was her birthday (it's the year of the tiger) She also got some sparklers and candles in her fritters, haha. Somewhere in between the cocktail, the 2 glasses of wine, and the sake with the naked man at the bottom, we all got a little tipsy and the night was rather amusing.

We ventured back to Maximo on Saturday evening for Diana's birthday. It was a far greater success than the first time, mostly because the majority of the smokers stayed outside. Diana called ahead and reserved us a couple of tables, complete with little jars of haribo sweets (nomnomnom) They played the Spice Girls and several other anthems to which we danced with vigour. It was an epic evening and I'm so glad I went, it was a much needed night out - I am happy to say it was the best night I've had in Marseille the entire time I've lived here, mostly because I was actually dancing so much that I could feel my make up melting. This is a common occurrence in Ocean and Oceana but this was the first time it has happened here. Success.

The amazingness of Saturday night was followed by Becky's culinary prowess on Sunday afternoon, with chicken fried rice and banoffee pie. We also made a short video for Lawrence as he wanted an overseas campaign video for the SU elections. More on this in a moment.

My day at work today was not really a day as such - I went to bed early last night because I knew I was sleep deprived from Saturday, and yet by jove I couldn't get to sleep. I tossed and turned literally until about 2am (I have to get up at 6 for work) Needless to say I slept through my alarm and woke up at about 11 (no chance of me getting into work at that time, my last lesson on a Monday is at 12) so I just had work at the college. I prepared lessons on Mother's Day. The first group were really good, they really got into it and made the pair oral work into a journalist/tv report which was good. The only bad bit was when one of my students burst into tears because something had recently happened to her mother. These kind of situations really confuse me, because I can deal with pastoral/emotional issues really well with english kids, but the language barrier stops me being much help with french students. Luckily she's not too bad in english so we understood each other and she was insistent on staying in the lesson rather than going back to the main group, which was good. The second group were far less enthusiastic but the lesson still worked. I was just pretty shaken up by the whole crying episode.

Back to the SU elections though, I rushed home from college to try and catch the activities candidates on URN but missed it, I'm now waiting for the podcast to come on the website. I've watched two candidate question times on online streaming and listened to the presidential debate on URN on Friday. I feel like I'm making a great effort to be involved from this far away, and it makes me wonder why student apathy is so great. It can't even be a case of people not knowing the elections are on, it's just laziness. If you want to be an informed voter, you can be; I've managed it without even having to be in the country. I think the main problem the SU is facing is persuading people to WANT to be involved, it's not as simple as just putting out more publicity.

I think that's it for now, I've been searching for somewhere to live in Nottingham when I get back in May and I may have found somewhere perfect (it's underneath Adam's current flat!) but the woman has yet to get back to me. John and I have started a joint YouTube account to document our adventures on the way to and during our Nottingham times (search for JohnniAndBexxi on YouTube)

lovelove xxxxx

formspring.me

2010-03-05T02:34:00.001-08:00

If you were the last person left in the world, what would be the first thing you'd do?

well if i were the last person left, i could do pretty much whatever i wanted for the rest of my life, surely?
so i'd probably go find a big house with a self cleaning pool and a garage full of cars. not too far from a shop. then i can use said cars to loot the shops and sustain myself until i begin to grow my own crops...i can also use the cars to transport the dead bodies i'm assuming were in my house when i found it.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2010-03-05T02:33:00.001-08:00

What family member are you closest with?

my cousin eliott. second place goes to my mother.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2010-03-04T16:11:00.001-08:00

Marseille/London/Nottingham.yeah bcus im not jelouse ur so cool.okay so i guess this wasnt really a question soo.WHATS YOUR FAV BISCUIT

Bourbons. Or maybe Hobnobs.

No, definitely bourbons. I can't get enough of the chocolatey goodness.

Ask me anything

Winter Holiday

2010-02-23T08:42:00.000-08:00

I believe the February 'vacances' are referred to as the winter holidays. And this much is definitely true. It snowed lots when I was home. It was an eventful two weeks, but also there were several occasions of snowing.

So, I went to visit my old cadet unit (again) which was nice. Had a big convo about how crazy our red tape society is. Was very pleasant. Among other things, I also went to the Natural History Museum with my mum, went to see Invictus for my nan's birthday, made pancakes, went to Nottingham's RNP and went to Ocean with Lawrence and Anna and Catherine. Also saw Anna in the Vagina Monologues.

Nottingham was wonderful - it was odd to actually be busy again, and to have to be on time to places. Also, queue jumping at Ocean. Lawrence, you're my hero sometimes. Being at cadets was really strange because I was watching rather than participating, and I've only ever been to one inspection ever where I watched and didn't take part, and I was about 17. I can't wait to get back, there's so much I want to get on and do.

Oooh one thing I noticed at school today - my students have no idea how to read for meaning. Like, you can ask them a question, and they will automatically try to find a bit in the text that will answer the question exactly. Except that doesn't work, so they just read out bits of the text in the hope it's the answer. The text one class had today was a bit of Nick's Diary from Youth in Revolt, and it was 4 different journal entries. The questions that followed it where along the lines of 'where, when, who, what' etc, with small expansion points, like under 'who' it said 'mother and father, nick, moral impressions'. So I was like...what can we tell about Nick's father? The actual answer I wanted would be something along the lines of he's lazy because the mother found him still in bed when she phoned, he doesn't care much about Nick because he didn't plan anything for him, he's late to pick up his son....but instead they just read out random sentences. So I tried 'what is your opinion of Nick's father?' and still got the same ridiculous replies. I tried to elicit the idea of his father being late/lazy by comparing the time he was meant to pick his son up and the actual time he arrived...still nothing. There was another time in the middle of the two times I wanted (the middle time was like 11.15 when Nick's mum phoned the dad) which kept confusing them and they just said random times at me.

I despair.

I had ideas. Now I don't.

2010-02-01T07:08:00.000-08:00

Throughout my recent days I kept having extraordinary ideas about what subject I should approach in my latest blog post. However, now I have completely forgotten them all and so will just rant sporadically as per normal. Why change the habit of a lifetime?

So. I do remember I wished to whinge about french education (again) The reason being is that Charlie and I moan about our classes all the time when we're in my house and my flatmate mentioned that normal french people don't really know about what we do or the problems we face, and he thought it would be a good idea that at some point we wrote an article or something about general problems we've noticed, especially as we have a comparison with the UK. I shall outline the problems we've noticed below...

1. Discipline.
Discipline? What iz zis strange thing of which you spik? Yes, my point exactly. It's like there's no boundaries here. And I was totally contented to think it was just my lycee due to where it's situated, but it can't be because Charlie has had problems (far worse than mine, I've seen video footage) at her schools as well. Strangely enough, the students at the college in which I work 2 hours a week are far better behaved than the lyceens, despite the rumours I'd heard about it. At the college, the students wait behind their chairs until they are told to sit down. They all say good morning/good afternoon and thank you for the lesson when they leave. It's a massive contrast to the lycee where the students bundle in, often late (it's not like they've been anywhere, they just like hanging in the corridor...) and sit down with their coats still on and their bags either on the table of their lap. Most of them are chewing gum, listening to music, or checking their phone. And it's like there's nothing you can do! I fear most of the teachers have given up trying after too long a time of disrespect from the students. I actually had a class last week where the students refused to speak English (honestly, 'je ne veux pas parler anglais' was pretty much all they said to me before they went back to their gossiping) and so I had to send them back to their class, although I doubt they were told off. Apparently, I discovered today, they can be sent to detention. But I doubt they'd even give a shit, they'd probably just sit there playing on their phones and listening to music without a heavily gelled hair out of place. I've seen videos of students refusing to sit down, acting out because they're vying for attention, walking around the class listening to their music and ignoring everything the assistante says. Worst thing being, she can't even send them back to their class because the teacher doesn't want them! It sometimes seems like we're given the worst classes just because the teachers don't want them anymore, not because we can actually help them (more on this point in a moment)

2. Expulsion
Continuing on the thread of discipline, I discovered recently that you practically can't expel a student. The reasoning behind this is that it's better to have kids in school than on the streets or in prison, right? Wrong, as far as I'm concerned. An education post 16 is not a right, it is not compulsory, it is something you CHOOSE to do and as such I believe you should respect it. If you fuck up and prevent others from learning and you don't legally have to be there, you should get chucked out. It's how it works in the UK and yeah, sure, we might have a load of rowdy kids that have been expelled causing trouble, but at the same time you then have a classroom somewhere with a quieter atmosphere where the students can learn and the teachers can teach in peace. Here, if you wish to expel a student (even post 16 when it's not even obligatory for them to be in school) you must first find another lycee willing to take them from you. In return, that lycee will send you a different problem pupil. This solves NO problems, surely?? It actually prevents some lycees bothering to try and expel students, for example one student who only had 3 months left at the lycee did something worthy of expulsion, but the lycee they wanted to send her to wanted to send a student 2 years younger than her in return - so instead of getting another annoying kid for another 2 years, they just left it, because she only had 3 months left.

If you screw up your education, that's your fault. And if you see the light when you're older, then there are always second chances and you can always redo your qualifications. Kids at 16, no matter where they're from, should know the importance of securing their future. And in my view, if they don't know that by then and they want to keep fucking about, they're not worthy of an education in the first place. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but so is the state's money.

3. Our 'job description'
There isn't one. It's a massive problem for some, a great wonder for others. It generally means you do whatever the school wants you to do, so within reason that means being a pronunciation model, being an extra pair of hands, listen to students read aloud for their oral exams...or it could mean taking 15 unruly 16 year olds, on your own, with no support from the teaching staff. And you can't refer to anything because there's nothing set in stone for us to abide by. All we have is that we must work 12 hours a week (that never happens either) and that's pretty much it. You could just sit in the library or study room and wait for students to come to you if that's what the school wanted (I bloody wish.)

This brings me to my next gripe, being how much we are wasted. Now, I wish right now that that had meant wasted in a good sense, ie on good french wine, however I meant wasted on the pupils we are allocated. I've seen from experience that there are some really good students out there, and some really good classes - mostly the ones where the teachers actually bother to teach in english. THOSE are the classes we need to be placed with, as they are the ones who will actually benefit from conversation with a native speaker. We were introduced to our conversation lessons at school in year 12. The lyceens have the opportunity to benefit from an assistant in seconde, and collegiens even earlier. Technically it's even better for them as they can experience native english speakers from an earlier age. However, by year 12 we were competent enough in French to read a text, highlight words we didn't know but elicit what they meant from context, summarise the main points of the story, and express our opinions. I have terminale students (equivalent to year 13) who literally cannot string a correct sentence together. Words are mashed together like a toddler playing with lego, as if they're honestly just scrabbling around in their brain for words that are english, whether they make any sense or not. Great, you know the words to a Lady Gaga song, but you can't have a conversation with anyone speaking English and you can't even understand me telling you basic instructions.

This is our main problem, because we are not trained to teach grammar. We are not expected to teach grammar. And as such, no matter how confident we feel with our personal grammar skills, we SHOULD not teach it unless we're a qualified TEFL teacher. I mean that's my personal opinion and people can attack it if they wish, but I wouldn't want to be responsible for explaining something incorrectly. I don't know how to explain the rules, I just do them, they're in my head and they surface at the correct points in a sentence. This is why we end up having so many problems planning lessons because there is only so much you can do conversation-wise with such low levels of english, and so most lessons end up as vocabulary or games because you can't do anything else. We rely on their teachers having taught them enough to keep up with a native speaker, especially when they're speaking as fucking slowly as humanly possible and simplifying their speech so much I'm sure a 3 year old could understand them. And is it really worth the french government paying us 792 euros a month for 12 hours work a week, when our lessons end up as playing endless games of 'Baccalaureat', Categories, minimal pairs games and hangman because that's all the students can understand/relate to? I understand that even these games and vocabulary work is beneficial to the students, but it doesn't need a native speaker to teach it. I helped a guy prepare for an interview in english the other week, a real job interview - followed by work the next day rearranging words in a sentence to create a proper question. I despair.

4. Chatel Reforms and strikes
Strikes are a whole matter on their own - yes ok, go and take time off work in protest that you aren't getting enough money for work...wait a minute, maybe you could just work harder (or just work at all?) and merit a pay rise? No? Ok Paris on a coach it is then. Anyway, recently the big thing has been the Chatel Reforms. And it kind of makes me confused. One of the things this reform wants to grant is autonomy for lycees, meaning the staff will be hired and fired by the directeur rather than the rectorat. Its how it is in the UK. But no, the french don't want this because then you would get good teachers going to good schools and bad teachers going to bad schools. Apparently. I don't think that's how it works though? Personally I don't always want to work with gifted pupils just because I'm intelligent. Sometimes I really enjoy working with lower level students because it's more satisfying. Similarly, if you have more intelligent pupils at your school, you need to employ a certain type of teacher to keep up with them, the same way that you need to employ teachers who enjoy working with lower level pupils so that they will actually give a shit. When the rectorat employs the teachers, I believe they just go where they're told. So it's not really for the benefit of the individual schools, in my opinion. But hey, I'm not french, I don't really understand, and the idea of going on strike is (and forever will be) one of those things that the English think is 'just not cricket, my dear.'

5. Support (or lack of)
Because of the lack of clear guidelines, the British Council cannot come close to being able to prepare you for what you'll face in schools out here. And most of the time the teachers can't support you either because they'll be teaching when you need to see them, or not in on the same days as you are, or in the case of every single teacher that isn't an english teacher, don't even know you exist. This lack of communication means your lesson plans aren't great, because you can't back up and reinforce what the students have been taught in their lessons, you might recover something they've already done in it's entirety, or you might approach something they've never learned. I suppose the benefits only come when you ask for help, but surely the schools should be helping us as much as possible to do our jobs to the best of our ability, rather than expecting us to just stumble around blindly with what we're given.

I think this is all I'm going to whinge about at the moment (it's gone on a lot longer than I thought it would) and there's nothing much else interesting going on in my life - going home on Thursday for 2 weeks which should be good times, and i'm feeling a lot better living here now (st john's wort is good shiz) so that will be all for now.

I apologise. I'm alive, though.

2010-01-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

My mother directed me to the fact that I haven't updated my blog in a while, which I had intended to do with all my spare time during the holiday season. This was even more worrying for me when she reminded me, as my last blog post was about my debilitating illness and how I'd let everyone know I was alive.
I'm sorry it's late, but I'm still here, hurrah.

However, I feel it necessary to elaborate on my ill feelings before the vacances. This is mostly because I decided to read some blogs from previous assistants and their experiences, and although I found a few that were like 'hey i love france and i love teaching and everything is fantastic cos im superwoman' there were also a few that were brutally honest, which I needed at the time. I felt like everyone I knew was having such a fantastic experience and I was the only one who wasn't enjoying myself, which wasn't aiding my feelings of doubt. Basically, reading these honest blogs actually made me feel a bit better about how I was feeling and made me realise I wasn't alone in my fear. After speaking to a good friend, I decided to go to the doctors when I got home because I was worried about having depression.

I know it's probably not the thing you write about in a blog, but I want this blog to be an honest one (and I need to be able to look back on it when it comes to writing my year abroad report/autobiography/film script of my life) and if some other future 3rd year reads it whilst trying to find someone to share their worries like I did, then they might feel better about it. I'm also not ashamed of it anymore; we all have bad days, it's just that mine are lasting a bit longer than everyone elses. It's also made me face up to a few things, like realising what's important to me and what makes me who I am, things that I had taken for granted before but now understand are completing integral to my very essence, and I only realised this once they were taken away and I fell into a bored and lazy stupor.

Soooo anyway I shall actually explain rather than just philosophising about the ups and downs of having depression. Let me get this straight first of all, I'm not a crazy manic depressive. I have, in the words of my lovely female doctor, 'mild to moderate depression'. I could have had anti-depressants but she said I wouldn't need much, so I didn't see the point. I'm taking St John's Wort instead, which isn't too bad and I think it's working a bit at least. It was nice to know that there is actually a name for what I'm feeling, that it's not just me being ridiculously lazy or boring or just having no friends. It's the kind of depression that comes on when you have a big change in your life and find it difficult to adjust, which I think totally describes the situation I'm in. New country, new people, new flat, no car, new language, no cadets, no uni, new job....the list goes on. What made me ME was having something to do all the time. Last year at one point I had my job, uni, cadets and my work placement. Now, I have work 2 days a week. That's a ridiculous change. I can't drive anywhere. I find it difficult to find extra curricular stuff to do because a. i have no idea where to find the info and b. when i do find the info, i either can't understand it or can't find the building. It's crazy. I'm never normally this disorganised. And it was SO good at first, cos I was like 'wahoooo I have a 5 day weekend, I can go anywhere!' and then you realise that organising travel is also difficult because all the english websites want you to travel to and from english airports, and the websites that run from France are in French, and I can't understand all of it. It all becomes very frustrating, so you just sit back and enjoy catching up on online tv programmes (for info: Dollhouse, Glee, House, How I Met Your Mother, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, Merlin...)

Anyway, enough about my craziness (which I have now come to accept as being one of those things I can tell my children about when I teach them life lessons) and on to my holidays. Ohhhhh they were good. My nan was in hospital a bit which absolutely sucked, but she got out Christmas Day and it all went ahead as normal (except this year I went with my aunt/uncle/cousin to the pub before xmas lunch and got a bit sloshed. Was amusing.

Presents included Sims 3 World Adventures, Guitar Hero 5 and Beatles Rock Band. I discovered the wonders of my nan's Wii Fit and shall be getting one for my 21st I think (I enjoyed the yoga, the man on the screen told me I had nice posture :) wahey) I saw various friends and had a few drinks, which was nice. Didn't manage to have a night at Oceana (for those people who broke the plans, that was the ONE THING I needed on my return from this hellhole) but I did go for a night in central London with a mate, which ended well in the sense that I got to sing karaoke at the end, but badly in the sense that I threw up on the tube on the way home. I felt like a criminal, it was horrible. I made friends with an underground worker when I approached him at the station and said 'excuse me, this might sound absolutely ridiculous but I think I might throw up and I don't know what to do about it...' He sat with me on the tube until Tooting Bec looking after me (which included watching me spew) But what a nice man. I felt proud of the London Underground employees.

New Year's Eve luckily was not as messy. I went up to Nottingham for the night, and it was lovely seeing all my cadety friends again, having a few drinks, lighting a few fireworks, wrapping Ian in yards and yards of clingfilm and sellotape....yes that really happened. Also we danced to Cartoon Heroes so that made me feel good too.

I've been back in Marseille for just over a week now, and haven't really made much progress towards finding more things to do - however I have been giving a few english lessons outside of work time, and I've actually been going out in the evenings when I've been invited somewhere. We went to see 'Bliss' at the cinema last night which has now made me hate everything Drew Barrymore stands for - she directed it and it was horrible. I haven't managed to sort out french lessons but I am doing a section of grammar a day. I worked out if I do a section a day I can complete the book before the end of April. I've also taken up doing a little bit of yoga before bed every night, having memorised the moves from my nan's wii fit, which makes me feel better and I can get to sleep quicker. I think that even though I haven't found dedicated things to do, whether it's the pills or not I am feeling better about being here and I know that I don't have to fill my days in order to improve my french. I just need to accept the invitation I get to places and just feel better about speaking french to people. Twice already since I've been back we've been out just to a pub or bar and spoke french and somehow it's better than before, like I've lost more inhibitions. And I think doing the grammar every day helps, so along with speaking it conversationally and reminding myself of the grammar I should have learned in first year, I think I'll be ok when I get back to uni in September.

On the up side, we don't have snow or crazy weather like England does at the moment, so there's a plus side to being in this shit hole.

Having a few bad days...

2009-12-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Ok so Phil from the Villa came to visit me. I thought this was my luck looking up - not so. Long story (if you are a good friend you've already heard it - and Mum, I'll tell you at Xmas!) but basically he turned out a bit strange and did not realise what a fantastic, cultured, brave and intelligent young woman I am. His loss.

So after this little scenario I felt pretty good about myself because I didn't see the point in getting upset for once (that's a massive jump for me...) And then I got ill. I was ridiculously ill since Friday afternoon and didn't go to work today because I still felt horrific. I thought it was tonsilitis considering that is usually my disease of choice. However I did not have a fever which usually comes with it, and no minging pustules on my tonsils, so really it was just an incredibly sore throat and other general symptoms. And then today - I HATE my immune system - I got a rash! I'm not sure if it's a rash or spots or what...I ruled out insect bites because I've had mozzie bites here already and the majority of mozzies have gone away, plus I haven't left my window open. And they're on my FACE, MY FACE!!!! Not impressed. I definitely need to go to work tomorrow because the amount of times I've been ill this term, I swear they just think I'm a massive liar/hypochondriac. So I shall go into work with random spots on the right side of my face along with spots on my wrists and arms. Which itch like fuck. Help me anyone? Allow having to go to a french doctor - that involves me trying to think of words for 'itch' etc.

I basically just wanted to whinge a bit. I can't wait to get home for Xmas - I do enjoy the holidays. I enjoy the tradition and the sequences and things...we discovered in my last blog how much I enjoy structure so Christmas really fits the bill there. I shall keep you updated on my illness as it progresses (obviously, if I stop blogging, I've died from some ridiculous tropical disease.)

Montpellier, followed by stereotypes.

2009-11-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

This weekend definitely made me think about how I deal with life (not that I haven't had enough time to do that already...) A load of the assistants all went to Montpellier. Wonderful, you say! Not for Becky, for whom the idea of going somewhere last minute without proper planning is akin to breaking both my legs. Seriously, I had never really thought about how my obsession with planning rules my life. I thought it was a good thing. Never late, always early in case something goes wrong last minute, always have a back up plan, know train times and locations, book hostels in advance, read up about the area...we went to Montpellier with about 5 hours notice, on a train where I swapped seats about 5 times because a man and child were sitting in our seats and we felt really horrible making them move. And we didn't book the hostel either - 12 of us and no hostel. We got there and luckily there was space but I was literally almost panicking. Well, not that much, because I could always get a train home...

Anyway, went out that evening but had to be back at the hostel by 2am. So I did, because I'm good and I follow rules. Others came in at 7am after sleeping outside the hostel for an hour. I got up in time, ready to check out at 10. Others woke up at 10...10.15...10.30. I was literally freaking out in my head. Why would people tell you to check out at 10 if they didn't want you to??? Argh. It was at this point that I knew I had to go back to Marseille. I was around a million other people where it took at least half an hour to make any decision, whereas if I went to Montpellier on my own I would have had time to have a shower and eat etc, followed by a leisurely tour of the city (which I would have already looked up and decided which bits I wanted to see) followed by some lunch, followed by a well timed arrival at the train station so I could buy a ticket and get my seat without having a family sit in it first. Literally, having things out of my control in a new city was like telling me the world was going to collapse, I've never felt so out of my comfort zone in my life. I didn't like it. What happened to my sense of adventure? I also felt I wasn't doing the field of history any justice by seeing historical monuments with no bloody clue what they were. I'll go back on my own and do it properly. I think.

So anyway, onto my rant about stereotypes. Everyone knows the typical steretypes of the french - snails, frogs legs, arrogant, stripy shirts, lots of garlic... Luckily only the arrogance is true. Or should that be unluckily? I'm not sure. I recently read 'Talk to the Snail' by Stephen Clarke, the same guy who wrote 'A Year in the Merde.' The entire book is about french behaviour. I expected it to be really steretypical but it's not. All of it is true. And not necessarily in a bad way - just in a way where this is how the french are, deal with it. I love it. The part that is especially true is the first chapter about how french people are always right. I genuinely have had a conversation with my flatmate about how 'all english people are fancy.' This stereotype was worsened further by his assertions that tea was fancy, the english accent is fancy, and Monty Python is fancy. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT FANCY MEANS?? And no matter what I said to persuade him otherwise, my opinion of my own culture is always going to be inferior to his, because he is french. Simple. Trying to explain to french people, as Stephen Clarke describes in his first novel (which I now relate to a hell of a lot more) is ridiculously difficult. I don't see it personally - our tea is your coffee. French and Italians and whoever else drink a lot of coffee during the day. You stop at a cafe and have a coffee. You have a coffee after dinner. We have tea breaks. We have tea with breakfast. I have tea in front of the tv before bed. It's all the bloody same. I even had to show my flatmate what an english tea bag looks like - here they're all about the individual wrappers and pretty boxes. It's a fucking tea bag mate, get over it.

Nice Nice.

2009-11-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

So far out of my amazon.fr purchases I have received two new music books (disney tunes and movie tunes, haha) and am awaiting the arrival of Lady Gaga's new album :) I do enjoy receiving post :)

I went to Nice this weekend, just to get out of Marseille and have some time to myself so I can be a tourist :)

Nice was so lovely, I went to the contemporary art museum which was really nice, some really thought provoking pieces in it (although there was some proper rubbish in there too...I'm lucky I can distinguish between the two eh...) What's really nice is there is an artist who is just called 'Ben', and when riding the tram I noticed that every tram stop had the name of the stop and a little thought like 'close your eyes and listen to the road' or 'think about smiling' written in a style that looked like when you write joined up from a paint bottle. And then when I went into the museum I found a section on him, it was like a small room inside a big room but the whole box was covered in bits of his work, where he's just written stuff on random things. Sounds a bit pants when I describe it I suppose but those are the kind of artists I always used to like, the ones that challenge people's perceptions.

Anyway I'm glad I went on my own - it was nice to be able to wander around and see what I wanted to. However I still think it would have been good to go with a few people. The good thing with being at a hostel is that we all would have had a key if we wanted to do separate things. Having coffee on your own isn't that exciting, I discovered (although I did read a significant portion of the copy of Frankenstein I bought at the second hand book shop near my house) I arrived the same time as a lady from Rotterdam who was like 30, but she was so lovely. We went out on the Friday afternoon and looked around - although this was where my wish to be alone came into things, because I wanted to follow the signs for specific things (you know how I get, i didn't want to get lost) Anyway we got back to the hostel and I was sad because the dinner the night before, which was still written on the white board when i left, was roast turkey and mash and veg and gravy (yumyumyum) but it had changed to friday's dinner which was fish pie (yukyukyuk). To give the chef's their dues, I did see some people eating the pie and it looked ok and didn't smell at all like fish and it had nice green beans with it. I opted for the pizza which is made on site and was only 5 euros. however the mushrooms were mushrooms from a tin (something the french are obsessed with but I can't get used to, just buy fresh ones :S really people)

Got a bit drunk friday night. After sitting talking to dutch lady until about 10.30pm, I was like yeahhh I'm really tired so I'm going to bed, so she went to bed and i went outside and just ended up chatting to various people including some of the staff and a random french guy who was impressed with my french, woop :) Got chatting to this guy who works there called Phil, and I can't quite remember what we talked about (bottle of wine to myself, you get the picture) but I remember having lots of good conversation, and then I went with him in the van to drop people off/pick people up at like 2am. Went to bed about 3, much later than I had expected from my 'relaxing weekend' lol.

Woke up at about half 9, felt really bad cos I was meant to meet dutch lady but slept in. Then didn't feel so bad anymore because I had the day to myself. Went into Nice and that's when I went to the art museum. Tried looking for natural history museum but couldn't find it :( ended up getting a bus to Eze village which is a medieval town on a hill, got some amazing pictures from the top and went into the exotic garden they've got. It was so lovely, and also quite strange because I ended up there as some other people that I noticed were staying at my hostel, and we ended up on the same tram later as well, crazy times. I was tempted to go to Monaco afterwards as well, but I decided not to - it was another half an hour by bus which wasn't too bad but the buses aren't very frequent and by the time I would have got there about 5, I'd only have 2 hours to see things and I only had about 10 pictures left on my memory card so I'm just going to go back and make some proper time for it.

Went back to the hostel for dinner (chilli con carne) and made friends with two indian guys who were travelling so I had someone to eat with. Dutch lady appeared and I apologised profusely but she was ok about it. Also spoke to an american guy (just being pleasant, he was on the minibus with me on the way back to the hostel earlier) but then he started flirting with me and he looked about 40 so I went outside and whinged to this guy Kane who works there, American guy came out and Kane persuaded him to go back inside, haha. Eventually Phil came back (he had a day off) and we stayed up chatting again til like 3, I also had a meaningful conversation with french man about french politics and education which made me feel very intelligent. Went for a walk with Phil and he said he'd come visit me in marseille so that's a good thing :)

Train back was pretty boring - ended up in the waiting room at Nice station for ages because I was so early and couldn't really go anywhere while I waited because I had my luggage. Had a nap instead.

That was my weekend, it was lovely and the staff at the villa were so nice, I'm definitely going to go back and I'm also considering working there for a summer or something at one time, they just seemed to have such a laugh there. It's called Villa St Exupery so you should all go if you get a chance :) It's got loads of character.

Toussaint Holiday

2009-11-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

I almost wrote 'vacation' rather than holiday in the title. I have officially spent too much time around different nationalities with crazy accents.

The first week of Toussaints was ridiculously boring. I did nothing. We all had high hopes of doing cultural things but I wasn't aware of any concrete plans so spent most of the week reading and playing the Sims 3 and catching up on online programmes.

Second week was much better. I went home which was much needed. I spent a day with my mum and we went shopping and had lunch together. I saw all my family including the new dog, and had the pleasure of my hamsters at home because they'd been taken away from my cousin for misbehaving. I also saw my other grandad briefly, as he was ill and didn't want me to catch anything :( Wanted to do a quick Nottingham trip but it didn't work out. Instead I went to my old cadet band night, which was lovely. Took Tim for a drink beforehand because he turned 18 last month, then we went to cadets and it was just nice to chat to people. I got to play the drum as well, which took me back a couple of years lol.

Friday I popped down to the Imperial War Museum in London to see my 1st Lt and some of my cadets who were in the London Remembrance Parade on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph. Was really lovely to see people although I was met with a few 'what are you doing here's.

It was sad to come back to Marseille. I know I should be 'completing aims' and shizzle like the uni have said, but to be honest I'm going to spank next year like nobody's business and I'm just concentrating on that to get me through. I'm so bored, dissatisfied, and just wishing for something to do! And I feel alone in my feelings as everybody else seems to be enjoying Marseille, some people even saying they'd love to live here permanently. I guess I just don't deal well with France...it takes me no time at all to get physically used to a place but emotionally is another matter.

And on top of it all I've been ill the last few days as well. I had to leave Laura's birthday party early because my mouth ulcers were killing me (they made it impossible to eat, talk, smile and drink for at least a week) and I just felt like absolute shit. Gash.

I've been making myself feel better by planning next year (bit early I know) so hopefully it will give me more things to look forward to so this time in stupid France goes by a bit less painfully.

Days 8...to 25?

2009-10-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. I have not blogged in a looong while. Things have been hectic. I think this may be one of those blogs where I have to use subtitles so I don't forget to write about everything I want to write about. Gash. They will be in no specific order because I have lost the ability to understand chronological time.

OM matches

So I generally thought that we were bringing bad luck to the OM (olympique de marseille, for those who don't know...allez l'OM) because every match we went to watch (mostly outside at Bar du Marche, just round the corner from me) they lost. But we went to one last night, in the rain, against Zurich, and they won 1-0 :)

Becky's First Strop

Friends from home (that's assuming any of them read this, most of you seem too busy to even reply to my facebooking attempts, selfish gits! grr ) will appreciate/understand how difficult this was for me. It takes me FOREVER to gel into a group properly. This was something I learned in first year when I was effectively told by friends that if I didn't stop being such a twat they'd have to stop hanging around with me. I get stupidly emotional over crap, combined with periods of time where I couldn't care less about anything. It's very odd, but I understand myself - one reason why I've always tried to be as honest as possible to people about how they should deal with me. There are only a select few people in the world (and Rachel Foster, if you read this, you are the queen of dealing with my shit) that know how to deal with me in any given situation. Sometimes I need to be left alone, sometimes I just need to be persuaded. Sometimes I need to be shouted at. Most of the time I need to be left to my own devices and after a short while I shall return with my metaphorical tail between my legs as I apologise profusely for my behaviour or talk out a problem like a normal, sane person. So, bringing me to my point - Becky's First Strop of Marseille. I'd been here probably about 3 weeks when this happened, maybe a little after. We'd all started off spending loads of time as a big group, and then we started sectioning to get to know people better, and I was hanging out with smaller groups of people most of the time, which I had been becoming used to. Then a party occurred at Kat and Kay's flat, and pretty much every assistant we knew was there. I got tipsy on wine (this is the first sign I should not be around people) and then we decided to go out on the town. We were given directions earlier in the evening by my flatmate's girlfriend as the club was just around the corner from where I live. The other people I was with seemed to be going the longest way around ever to get anywhere, and I started getting ridiculously paranoid that people didn't want to talk to me.

As I'm writing this, I can literally see people who know me laughing to themselves, thinking 'That sounds just like you, Becky.'

So anyway, paranoid, a bit tipsy. We were at the metro station really close to my flat and nobody appeared to be moving or going anywhere, so I just made the decision to start walking toward my house. In the state I was in, I just assumed that I could say bye to people as they walked past my door, considering I would still be trying to navigate the locks in my drunken state, and that it would all be ok. However, new people have not worked out that if I've got a ridiculous notion like that in my head, I will cause a scene, and people just need to be nice to me and say things like 'ok don't worry, we'll go out another time, I'll call you tomorrow and we can talk.' No, instead of this, massive showdown occurred. I had 3 people in my small corridor along with a bike. All three of them trying to persuade me I should come out. And that they loved me. And my brain in it's inebriation just started to fumble for random reasons not to go out. I swear I must have made up so many things on the spot. I told Charlie (who I have felt a real connection to, it's the hard-girl-londoner image I think we both share...) that I thought she was rude to me (this was a total lie I think, or paranoia) which was totally ridiculous. Anyway, Kat opened my door, obviously just wanting to see if I was ok, and I was like 'We're talking.' To which she replied something along the lines of 'fuck you then bitch' and slammed my door. I'm assuming she didn't mean for me to get annoyed at her opening my door, and all I was trying to convey was that I couldn't really fit any more people into either my corridor or my hysterical problems. Anyway, crossed wires and drunken minds, I ended up outside having a small go at her which I believed sounded a bit like 'who do you think you are, what are you fucking talking to me like that for?'

Luckily Laura/Kay/Agu/Charlie made me go back inside. I also hear Sam give a little bit of lip about me outside as well which just made me even more against the idea of going out. But anyway, eventually got outside and then ended up having a 'conversation' with Sam. Mostly involving him explaining how he feels he has to be honest with me. I'm all down with honesty, but at the appropriate time. However, I can't yet expect new friends to possibly understand that crying, emotional and pretty drunk Becky is definitely never the time to be brutally honest. In fact, I think I started crying again.

This whole incident made me feel like a massive twat and I feel horrific for exposing my emotional nature to these people. I thought this was behaviour I was previously forced to shove to the back of my brain.

Beach times

On a happier note, we got to spend some time on the beaches before it got too cold (currently it's pissing down with rain and has been for a couple of days now) including one day at Prado beach where me, Lucy, Laura, Agu and Kristina watched the sunset over the ocean. Which, as beautiful as it was, came with a price that we now know as 'le mistral' aka the ridiculously strong and cold wind that Provence is famous for. Nothing comes without it's downside.

Cockroaches and general flat whinging

Back to a bad note. We had cockroaches in our kitchen. Now I'm pretty sure I got rid of most of them, I went on a killing spree with a can of Raid. But I have this niggling feeling they're still there, watching, waiting to get into my food. The worst moment was just before I was about to leave for work last Monday morning, poured some cereal into my bowl and abracadabra, a fucking cockroach crawls OUT OF MY BOWL and scuttles away. No lie. I had nothing else to eat. I starved until lunch time because that bloody little creature infected my Kellogg's Fitnesse. Other things to whinge about are a. my rent going up, b. my rent going down again because my flatmate is letting a friend stay here for who knows how long, c. flatmate's previous flatmate coming back to reclaim his desk with no notice whatsoever, who also stood and watched me in silence as I had to move all my things and then went on to tell me that he might come back to take the other table but he could 'leave the bed if I want.' Of course I fucking want it, I'm not going to sleep on the floor. Oh, and d. being told in no uncertain terms that I had to leave my own flat because flatmate's girlfriend was having a birthday party. A birthday party where she turned 18 (we all thought she was about 25 - now I'm taking everything she's ever said to me in a completely different light) and where she told me of course I was invited (yes, invited to my own house) but I couldn't possibly expect her french friends to slow down their speech for me as she didn't want them to feel awkward. And she told me I couldn't stay in my own appartment, in front of Laura who I had round for a cup of tea. Who does that??? Argh.

How Much I love Laura Cotter

So speaking of Laura, she's a bit of a legend. I have always doubted my taste in men (thankyou Lawrence/Anna/James/Emily for planting all of those seeds of doubt in my brain) but Laura and I are exactly alike. It's ridiculous. And she's inspiring, she loves everything and is always willing to give things a go. She's optimistic about everything and it almost rubs off on me. I'll stick by her through anything (as I shall explain in a moment) and she's a good laugh. It's such a shame she's leaving at christmas, but I know she'll be down to visit me in Nottingham whenever we're free and I get to go to Liverpool :) I've even persuaded her to join the Sea Cadets when she goes back to uni - you're welcome, Sefton :P

So to demonstrate my love for Laura (which also led to my love of Agustina, who is also a wonderful friend) I shall tell you about Laura's house party. Laura enjoys parties. It is Laura's birthday on Sunday but she wanted abou 5 million celebrations for it, so she had a party last friday followed by Fiesta des Suds on the Saturday night (oh, a tip, look up Caravan Palace - gypsy electro swing. Best Thing Ever.) Party started out pretty chilled, Agu and Laura dressed me (I ended up in a translucent grey leopard print tunic with grey leggings and plimsolls with a bright pink bra underneath...) and I made a playlist on my laptop which got moved into their housemate Pauline's room to plug into her speakers. Loads of people turned up, other assistants, french friends, people Agu and Laura knew from Euromed etc, and it was pretty good. Then people started having a bit too much to drink and getting loud and ridiculous. This is why I disapprove of houseparties because there will inevitably be people there that you don't know, who won't feel any affinity to you and won't give a shit about screwing up your house. So anyway, the neighbours called the police (what kind of rude people call the police without coming round first??) and we had to get everyone to be quiet while Laura and Agu spoke to them. Some people were in the kitchen being absolute fools and my unwavering dedication to Laura and Agu kicked in and I span off into gestapo mode. I was speaking angry french to these idiots who were climbing in and out of Laura's kitchen window and throwing cutlery over the floor. I basically told them that they'd been given a fine, and either they left the house right now or they were helping to pay it. I was so angry afterwards, obviously contributed to by the wine, but mostly brought on by my realisation of how disrespectful people are. I would never go to someone's house and treat their house or the people there badly, and I don't understand people who do. Saying that someone is drunk is never an excuse either - people should know their limits enough to go places without wrecking them. What annoyed me probably the most though, was if Laura and Agu did get that fine, it would be their dedicated friends (ie about 10 of us) who would help them pay it. Not the fools who caused all the noise or who left bottles in the bushes or who left a footprint on their fridge or who ate their food out of their cupboards, not the people who actually caused the problems. No, those people are not decent enough to admit they caused a problem. And that's why I got so upset, because it's hurtful to think about how selfish some members of the human race are. It's a travesty to humanity.

The Pink Elephant

The Pink Elephant is my favourite time and place of the week. Tuesday evenings, 6.30pm, small ice cream shop that makes the best ice cream and coffees I've ever had in my life, coupled with an evening of english conversation. We get to meet new french people and help them with their english, but also they're giving us something back too, we're going for a meal together soon so they can help with our french. We've met such a wide variety of people, Fred for example works at city hall but he's an absolute legend, and this week we met Iris (12) and her dad Olivier who were so lovely, and we all had such a good chat with Iris who has an amazing ability at English for a girl her age. The last fortnight we've been going to the Foyer afterwards, which is the bar at the Euromed campus at Luminy. So yes, we're crashing a uni, but it's cool and the people are mostly internationals so it's nice to meet people. And the Desperadoes are only 2 euros.

Teaching so far

Well, it's been interesting. My timetable is the best thing ever (Monday at the lycee and 2 hours at the college, Tuesday at the lycee, and one hour on a Wednesday morning) so I have a load of free time. The teachers are all pretty nice, and I've actually started talking to some french ones! The kids are varied, some are quite good at english, and some even at 16 cannot understand a single word. It's very hit and miss. The kids I've got at the college are actually better than a lot of the lycee students. I now have a student who HATES me because she didn't understand what I wanted her to do. This is the problem we have, because we get given loads of ideas about how to get kids to talk and how to get them to learn vocab and what games to play, but what the hell do we do when a teenager doesn't even know the basics? We're not trained to do that. There is NOTHING I can do about a situation like that. And it makes me feel horrible because I can't even properly reassure her in her own language.

They seem to like competitions though, we did a couple of games to do with minimal pairs and pronunciation the other day. I'd rather do stuff like that than general conversation at the moment because none of them want to speak yet, and this way they can get used to me. Also, their accents are appalling. Marseille has such a ridiculous accent, and it's even worse amongst the young people. 'D' is 'j', 't' is 'ch'...they aspirate words without an 'h' but miss it off when it's actually there, and they can't say 'th' although we knew that already about the difficulties of the french language. The 'd' and 't' things are the bits that annoy me the most. Even in their own language. They say 'djit' rather than 'dit', which anywhere else in France they'd get a funny look for pronouncing it strangely. Also Marseillais slang is prevalent, including phrases like 'degun' to mean nobody and 'tarpin' to mean a lot of something. Although this did lead to an interesting conversation about cockney rhyming slang.

Toussaint vacation

So I've now got Toussaint's holiday. Two weeks off (i've really only worked 4 days so far) of which one is going to be spent here, possibly doing some extra teaching work, and the other I am GOING HOME. I wasn't going to but I miss home a ridiculous amount. I miss my Mum. I miss TV. I miss beans on toast and real tea and sliced bread and fresh milk. I miss iPlayer. I miss my car. I miss my cats. I miss my hamsters. I miss Sutton. I miss Nottingham and I miss cadets.

So this is the end of my essay/rant/emotional outburst, which I'm sure I'll end up editing/deleting/regretting when I read it back tomorrow.

Days 4/5/6/7

2009-10-05T02:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry, been busy with various things, and every time I get home I'm shattered from the ridiculous amount of walking that seems to exist in this city. My calves are going to be well toned when I get back.

So, Day Four in the Marseille city...

Thursday was a pretty nice day, managed to get an Ikea trip which was so necessary - I bought duvet and duvet cover and sheet and pillows and candles and hangers and a mirror...so well worth it. Then I went to Kay/Kat's for dinner and half an episode of Pride and Prejudice (interrupted as I had to host a rather inebriated assistant who had earlier got stuck in the metro station after missing the last tube)

So Day Five was not the best start-wise, as I had approximately 2 hours sleep what with all the fidgeting, and then we had to be at the bank at 2. Was meant to meet Kay earlier for lunch but got there late because I got sodding lost (I decided to walk rather than be lazy and get the metro) and ended up in Castellane (wrong direction!) but stumbled across a metro station so still ended up getting it to the Vieux Port. Had THE most amazing bagel in the world, so thanks to Kay for introducing me to that place (turkey, tomato, cheese, philadelphia and avocado puree...) and then waited around for 2 hours at the bank to open my account, accompanied by a man who tried to sell me insurance. He told everyone the same sob story about a girl last year who broke her leg and got 8000 euros or something. Yeah, ok.

Then helped Kat move some things into her new flat with Kay, followed by not really doing anything at all. Went to our new adopted bar around the corner from my flat, had some drinks, then went back to my new place for the first night sleeping in my new bed...

I literally did not want to get up on Day 6, my duvet was soooo comfortable, being new and all, and it has that lovely new smell as well....ahhhh. But had to get up for incredibly pointless meeting near the station, 9-12. This was where I learned that the documents I signed at my lycee were meant to be in my possession and not theres. Thanks, too late to get them now. Rest of meeting was ridiculously pointless, a session given by some previous assistants who couldn't really answer all the questions because they're not in a position of authority in any way, and most questions were american people asking about visas. I DON'T CARE, I'm an EU citizen.

Rest of Day 6 was spent on the beach at Plage de Prophete, cute little random bit of sand that is seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Had to leave at about 5.30 to get home and change before going to my CouchSurfing meeting at Fanny's house in the 2nd (Fanny works at my lycee and I found her on couchsurfing.org) Party involved everyone making a dish of food - my banoffee pie ended up ok despite me substituting most of my normal ingredients because I'm in France and the idea of dulche de leche in a tin like Carnation make hasn't crossed them. Neither has digestive biscuits, or a carton of double cream (I used what I thought was double cream; whether it actually was or not I'm not sure but it worked ok) Met some insane french people and had some wine, ended up walking back with some people who live close to me because the metro had finished, but it wasn't as far as I thought (or maybe it was but I was too drunk to notice?)

Day 7 was relatively relaxing, stayed in bed til gone midday, then ate lunch with flatmate and his girlfriend Lucie, then went into Vieux Port with Lucie and bought things in Virgin Megastore...most importantly Dirty Dancing on DVD, which I watched when I got back to alleviate my homesickness. Then met Charlie and went to bar near me to set up for watching l'OM (Marseille football team) lose another match on tv.

Day 8 is not turning out so well tbh. Had a day long meeting at the university near the station but needed documents I signed at lycee earlier in week (as previously mentioned) but assumed it would be ok and my lycee would post them or something....noooo, if I don't have them today I don't get paid. My school is 45 minutes away but the guy told me to go get them. Luckily Fanny got them for me and I'm meeting her at a metro station to get them from her so I'll be back at the university at about 1, so lunch time, lol. But what a shit bunch of communicators everybody seems to be.

Had a brief conversation with Heather from uni on fb about being homesick so I'm glad I'm not the only one atm. I want baked beans on toast and real milk and I want to watch Jamie in America and Hollyoaks. No 4oD, no iPlayer....argh. Also it appears university friends have forgotten about my existence already and I've only been here a week. Nice guys, nice.

Day Three...

2009-10-01T01:34:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was amazing. Feeling so much more at ease now. I took my mum to the station to get her bus back to the airport ( :( ) but then went to visit Kat at Vieux Port. We did a bit of shopping and then made lunch at hers, followed by internet checking at mine, and then quickly back to hers to grab some money and finally back to Vieux Port to meet Laura, Kay and Dom. We went to a cafe and got some Cokes - the waitress seemed like she really hated her job, she was so rude. It was so nice to just sit with other assistants and get to know them.

Alors, apres ca, we went to go and see Kay's flat (which is literally round the corner from my hotel) and it's so lovely, she's paying a bit more than me but it's got a cute view and nice rooms and a little living space. She's lonely in there on her own but now we're all going to keep her busy until she gets flatmates lol.

Then Laura had to go home but Kat, Kay and Dom came with me to my hotel and helped me move my stuff over to the new flat. Except i completely forgot that I told my new flatmate what time i was going to be there and his girlfriend was waiting on the doorstep for me...so we're all sitting there having cups of tea, and suddenly I remembered. Ooops.

So we dragged these suitcases, following Kat's amazing sense of direction, and I got us a bit lost because I was adamanti recognised somewhere when I totally didn't. But we got there eventually, and Lucie was being spoken to by some random guy who Kat thought was my landlord at first...anyway this guy wouldn't go away, so we opened the door and quickly shoved everything in. Lucie was so lovely, we all had a nice conversation where we had to speak french and she had to speak english :) She took us to a little ice cream place (passing a place on the way where they're putting on a show of La Cantatrice Chauve, post war french theatre ftw) and took the unicycle with her. Dom had a go. It was amusing. The ice cream shop was really cute, called the Pink Elephant, and they have an english conversation group on a Tuesday evening that the lady told us to come to lol. I got mint ice cream (which was the worst idea ever, it tasted like toothpaste) but Kay's peach flavour was amazing and so was Lucie's 'speculoos' which is the flavour of those little christmas biscuits flavoured with cinnamon and nutmeg etc. Amazing. They also have a competition for who can draw the best elephant, so we all drew elephants with blunt pencils. Mine was a zebra elephant :)

Then Kat went to meet Sam for dinner, and me Kay and Dom went to Kays and had some pasta, followed by Cours Julien for some football match watching. I have no idea what the score was, I was paying no attention. But I did have Desperado's for the first time and it wasn't horrible. It ended up as me, Kat, Sam, Kay, Martin, Dom, Adom, and Barbara, which was a lovely little gathering :)

Not really any plans for Day Four but we shall see how it goes...it's half ten already...hmmm...

Life is better.

2009-09-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Marseille today. I was bricking it all last night, I barely slept, all the things that kept going round my head was shit like what french I was going to have to speak to people.

Got the shuttle from the airport pretty smoothly, was only when we got to the station that I realised I had nooo idea where we were going and my maps weren't clear enough. Shizzle.

Gave up and got the metro one stop instead.

Hotel is nice, quiet, quite cute. We bought some things for breakfast and general snacking so we're pretty much set for a bit.

Saw two flats today - one we were late too but it was lovely, in the Panier, with massive high ceilings but also a lot of stairs. And a washing machine that you have to put in the bath. And probably no bed. And the sound of screaming children all day. But other than that, lovely...the guy said he couldnt make a decision because his other housemate is away til Sunday so if I wanted that one, I'd have to move all my 3 massive bags on my own to another hostel, and THEN move them to le panier. No thanks.

So my eggs were pretty much in one basket with the second flat. Guy who brought his rent down by 100 euros just because he wanted to live with someone english, haha. But the place is MASSIVE. Took us ages to find (again with the crappy undetailed maps) but it's a whole two floors and it's so big and airy and lovely. Little balcony. Nice big room to myself, view across the gardens - and right off the Cours Ju where all the nightlife happens :) So i ummed and ahhhed (for about a nanosecond, mind) and said I'd take it. Nobody else has contacted me back about visiting appartments and I've only got the hotel until Friday morning so I needed somewhere before then or I'd have to take all my luggage with me in one go, somehow. But this way, I can move it in stages :D go team.

He also gave me keys to the house and didn't ask for any money up front...so in theory I could go and burgle him tomorrow and steal his unicycle. I'm not going to because I want a place to live, I'm just saying he was very trusting.

Me and my mum also went with him (him now being Renaud) and his female friend to Subway for food. I had to order subway in french - I did not consider this difficulty until I got into the shop and realised that saying '6 inch subway melt on italian herb and cheese, yes toasted, lettuce cucumber pickles and sweetcorn...mayonnaise...diet coke' would actually be difficult. It's not 6inches for a start - its 15cm. And the white bread is callea 'blanc'. And i learned the word for lettuce (luckily they have those stickers on the glass that tell you the choices) but I've forgotten what it is already. Began with an l.

Tomorrow matin, I am visiting my lycee for some admin shizzle. I was meant to phone the teacher this evening but by the time we got back from visiting the flat it was a bit late and I didnt want to disturb her. I bet it all goes wrong now, eek.

My lycee really exists!

2009-09-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

I finally got an email from my lycee. This makes me very happy. I am phoning the lady this evening (and she wrote the email in english so I'm hoping it will be an english phone conversation!)
I shall update you with how it goes (well, I hope)
xx

UPDATE
I phoned the english teacher. We spoke in English. I have accommodation at the lycee, and I have actually never been this happy before in my life. Things are looking up :)

Today, I have been productive.

2009-09-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to inform you all that I organised my newspaper clippings today. Most are just topic based and I'm going to use them as conversation starters rather than anything else, but hopefully a couple of them might come in handy. Then again, the lycee I'm going to might have kids who can't say 'cat'. Who knows. Could be a struggle. But I'm attempting to prepare the only way I know how :(

5 days to go...and still a massive to do list...

2009-09-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

So here is my To Do list before Monday...

Pack. Obviously. But I can't start that yet, I'm always good packing in a rush. But I'm also worried that the longer I leave it, the more likely it is that I'll have forgotten something and won't have time to go buy it. Oh well.
Documents. I need to sort out my important documents. I haven't really read about anyone else making as much of a fuss about it all. And I must have been the only student I knew at uni who had folders for all my bills/payslips/other documents. But I arranged them all the other week with my mum, and now more stuff has come through the post and I haven't put it in the relevant folders yet and I'm getting all OCD about it. Everything in it's place and all that jazz.
Erasmus forms. I need to actually remember to take these with me so my 'employer' can sign them. Although tbh, the amount of time I've gone without a contact from my lycee, I suspect they might be of the calibre to sign anything I give them either with a crayon in their mouth or with mud they already had on their hands.
NPower bills. Ahhhh my old house. What a ridiculous bunch of crap that all turned out to be. Tip for the future - just live on your own and save the hassle, and NEVER rely on anyone else to do something to benefit others. I'm waiting for npower to estimate our final bills so I can prove to our landlord that they've been done. They're having to estimate them because no final meter readings were taken when the inventory was taken at the end of the tenancy (as told to me by my housemate who went with the landlord at the time) but my landlord has recently told me meter readings. Well, it's nice to be on time isn't it? I can't pay the bills until the other 5 tenants pay me the money. I can't ask them for the money until I get the bill. I'm going to be in France when this occurs. I don't see a solution right now.
Phone Lycee. This was on my to do list, but has now been scratched off said list because I tried phoning them today and it was the longest thing I've ever done in my life. I got through to a man introducing himself very quickly which took me by surprise as the phone didn't even ring. I explained myself, and then he put me on hold. Then he tried to transfer me somewhere and told me to hold the line. This took about ten minutes. I then got through to some woman who told me I needed to phone another number, which she said incredibly quickly. I asked her to repeat it, which she did...very, very slowly, as if I were a five year old. I then said goodbye and hung up, looked at the number...same bloody number I phoned in the beginning. Thanks, France.
Take hamsters to Nans. Sad times that I have to give my hamsters to my cousin to look after while I'm in France. Little Nickel and Dime, russian dwarves, bought them in January and they're so cute. Sad I have to leave them behind :(
Go to Sutton. I'm sure there is something I've forgotten to buy so I will have to make a trip just in case.
Buy a carry-on bag. I have to take my laptop on as carry-on. I can't have anything else because easyjet are knobs. I therefore must find a bag that is big enough to carry my laptop in plus a few extras as well as not being so big it can't fit in the little size checking cage things they have.
Print my insurance documents. I'm impressed I managed to buy insurance in the first place. Go me.

I think that's it so far. However...I'm sure there are a hundred billion things I've forgotten. I'll realise when I'm in Marseille on my own and can't solve the problems.

FUCKING STUDENT FINANCE

2009-09-16T09:53:00.001-07:00

I really hate Student Finance.

I HATE THEM.

All in in time, had no problems the last two years, all they needed to do this year was tick a box and say yes have some money...but no.

Can't get through to them either. Why not have an email facility? Why only have an 0845 number that costs the earth? WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A HOLD FACILITY??

Staying at home times...

2009-09-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

Wow. Really bored at home. So many things to do but it's such a big pile that I can't face it on my own. Realistically I need my mother here to crack the whip and force me to do things, but unfortunately she is at work so I am spending my days in bed/on facebook/ watching tv.

I have however sorted my phone, woop. I have a new Samsung Tocco Lite and I love it. It doesn't turn itself off and on like my old phone, and I don't want to throw it at a wall. All in all, a big step up.
I've rung orange as well to switch my number over, so until Monday I'm on my temporary number (see Facebook for that) but after 4pm Monday hopefully I'll be back on my old number. Yayyyy. Now just to unlock the phone and take it to France. And get a French sim. With a french number. Gah.

I have begun to cut out relevant things from newspapers to take with me. I say relevant, really I mean recipes and horoscopes. I want to order a book I found on Amazon but I'm a bit poor because I haven't got any work. I signed up to a childcare agency who said they'd get me some work about a fortnight ago. As yet, nothing :( Sad times. I hate being poor. I'd be quite happy to work and then I'd have an excuse for why I haven't started sorting out my packing or finished sorting all my documents or packed all the stuff I don't need into bags to go into my Nan's loft. Woe is meeee.

I'm so paranoid about the whole thing as well. I don't have anywhere to live yet. I found a cute little hostel place near the Calanques which looks lovely, but its 15 minutes from the centre, the other direction from my school. Hence half an hour from my school. But it's only for 2 or 3 days so I'm quite happy to do it, especially as I apparently get a student price. But who knows. Still no email from my lycee in Marseille. French people seem far too laid back. I don't want to have to phone them, but I also don't want to have to keep bombarding them with emails so that they think I'm ridiculously uptight and don't like me from the start. I'm so confused :(

However I have been keeping my hopes up about living abroad by reading various things online, one of which being my previous housemate Phil's blog. This has been keeping me in high spirits in regards to how things will turn out (plus it's very amusing.) You can read it at http://filology.blog.de :)

Lovelove xxxx

P.S. I am missing cadets a ridiculous amount. Never thought I'd feel so left out and out of the loop and at a loose end without having somewhere to go on a Tuesday and Thursday night.

Cadet Weekend

2009-09-08T03:19:00.000-07:00

Soooo last weekend at cadets this weekend, it was cool although I did get a bit disappointed with the kids. It's mostly because of how into the whole thing my unit were when we were cadets and it just seems odd to have a group who aren't interested. Sad times.

I'm getting so paranoid because the lycee haven't emailed me back. It's getting closer and closer to me having to phone them *dies* and that's really something I don't wish to do...at least in an email I can check my spelling and grammar rather than me just blabbering on and getting everything and having to say 'can you repeat that a bit slower please' every second sentence. Notice how I wrote that in English instead of french because i'll probably spell it wrong and you'll all judge me. Everyone is just like 'ring them it'll be fiiiine.' Will it though? WILL IT???

I'm off to buy my new phone today though which should make me a little bit happier about life.

Flights booked!

2009-08-25T08:55:00.001-07:00

I'm currently working through my list of shizzle (and writing a new list of things to pack...) and have just booked my flights! EasyJet on the 28th September :) Have an allowance for 2 bags each (my mum is accompanying me for moral support for 2 days) so hopefully I can get a load of stuff over.

Also looked into a new phone today (by the way I fucking hate the 3 network) but can't really get my new one until September now, mostly because 3 are charging me for another month after my contract ends because I didn't give them 30 days notice. Bastards. I want my Samsung Tocco Lite :(

Having a massive brain haemorrage over banking however. My academie sent me a piece of paper asking if I wanted to open an account with Credit Agricole, so I was like yeaahhh go for it. So that should be fine. But other info I have say that sometimes they want a letter of recommendation from my home bank. No problem, I think. Big problem, thinks Natwest, who have never heard of such a ludicrous request in their lives.

Also my mum gives me £50 a month. And obviously I'll be getting my loan paid into my normal account. So how do I access that in France without getting charged the earth? I hate money.

Anyway, on with my list, and I shall post again when I feel I have suitable information to update on.

Pre-Pre-Departure

2009-06-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

Okay so now it's time for me to leave the apron strings well and truly behind, and not only move away from home (I have been doing that for two academic years now after all) but move to a completely different country. I am moving to France for 8 months as my year abroad for university. I'm doing an assistantship, meaning I'm teaching english to french kids. Except they're not kids because I'm in a lycee and a college so the people I'm teaching will be 16 up.

And I'm in Marseille! In a place called Madrague Ville or something like that...

Now I just need to get myself organised. Now, any of you who actually know me, know already that I enjoy organising things. Lists galore. So I'm desperately trying to get my head around all the things I have to sort out. And I'm feeling a bit lost at the moment but also kind of laid back...I have a couple of months to think about it all I suppose.

So now, just to concentrate on work, cadets, and summer fun before I can go off and sun myself :)
(Also, anyone fancy popping over to Marseille in holiday time and take a break with me to St Tropez?)