... because after writing that last post, I went on the Sephora website. You know, thinking that maybe outside of the magical aura of the shop it would lose it's power over me. I was wrong.
What actually happened was that the first thing I saw was a huge makeup set that I spent a good portion of yesterday lusting over, reduced from 45 euros to 30 in a special online offer. I immediately got very excited and started buying, sendng my friend Mel the following two messages in the process:
1. Sephora have a website, Mel. A website with OFFERS. I have lost my everloving mind. Why could I possibly need 84 eyeshadow colours? And 60 different shades of lipgloss? Because I've bloody well bought them (I think that's what I bought anyway. French website).
Between this and my hummus bill it is no wonder I'm poor. Poor and fat, but with excellent makeup. Arrgh!
2. Ohmigod, now they want me to choose between a variey of presents to go with my purchase. I fully love this shop. Do I want a sac noir or a box elegante? What use could I have for either? It's all wonderfully impractical and expensive. OH, and I got get to choose three free samples. Tiny things! AWESOME.
I need help. I think I'm just losing my mind because the kid who lives below me is practicing for grade 1 piano and I've heard Rock Around The Clock butchered 843 times this week. As Lydia said, somebody should go tell her now that she'll always be shit.
But shortly after sending the second I discovered that sephora.fr only accept payments from French bank cards, and I have no money in my french account. So what did I do? Give up? Nope. First off, I tried to buy the same thing from Sephora America, because there is no Sephora UK (totally ignoring the fact that the cost of shipping would make it cheaper to just go pay the 45 euros). When this proved impossible I decided it was time to turn the crazy up a notch, walk into town, buy a gift voucher, come back and buy it online.
I used the half hour walk to talk myself out of this plan. The sane portion of me pointed out very wisely that this set contains nothing that I don't already own thanks to my many previous Sephora trips, and that I was actually just being mental. This is the portion of me that won the debating contest in sixth form, in case you're wondering.
The other part of my brain, which I fear is gaining in strength, took this on board and decided that the decision to not buy the makeup meant that I had 30 euros to spend on something else. I then wandered round Zara for a while looking manic. Adding to the overall air of insanity is the fact that I left the house today dressed like an 80s hooker. I bought shiny plastic ankle boots a while back and apparently they were making all the decisions. Seriously, several people at the law faculty came up to me and opened conversations with 'English girls wear such short skirts'.
When nothing leapt out at me I decided that I should at least go and look at the makeup. Somehow I left Sephora without buying the gift card (or the set at full price, which was a distinct possibility by this point). I did, however, buy some sort of illuminating stick thing (at this rate my entire face will glow by the end of the month. Which could be handy as every night I have to navigate two flights of stairs in total darkness so as not to wake my landlord's family, and these people keep vases on the stairs). And I got a Sephora card.
Which means, of course, that the first thing I did when I got back was rush to my computer and check whether the card would somehow make it possible for me to buy the giant set. It didn't. So now I don't have a sac noir either (though I totally got samples with my illuminating thingy. Score).
I give it three days max before I crack and get my hands on that set somehow.
Did I mention that I literally have NO MONEY? Yeah? Ok. I'm going to book a ticket to Disneyland now..
mercredi 26 novembre 2008
Sephora is my happy place
Ok, so as addictions go a moderately overpriced beauty store may seem relatively harmless. And it's certainly not very rock and roll. But I am poor, people, and that makes my constant Sephora cravings dehabilitating as fuck.
It just that it's such a lovely place. Honestly, it's magical. It's like, you're having a shitty day and then you go in and it's all warm and calm and it smells nice. And all these pretty, colourful things are laid out neatly, and there are intriguing contraptions marked 'Tester' just begging to be played with. Plus, there are a bunch of perfectly made-up women and studiedly metrosexual men wandering about wearing, these artillery belts filled with make up brushes, like the minions of an army that just wants to make things look nice.
All which would be fine, if I could just soak in the soothing atmosphere for a while then leave, finances intact. But there's something in the air in Sephora that makes me want... stuff. All kinds of stuff. I'm not entirely sure what I bought yesterday but it was pink and sparkly and totally had miniature snowflakes pressed into the powder and I wanted it.
This is new to me. Like, last Christmas my sister got a load of posh makeup and I totally scorned her, all 'honestly Faye, what a total waste of money. I only ever buy Collection 2000'. But in Sephora, £35 Givenchy blush cubes make total sense. How could the world carry on being lovely without them?
What's more, they give you PRESENTS. If you buy a ridiculously overpriced eyeshadow, or some magic-pink-snowflake-powder (the label is in French, ok? I'm pretty sure I'm meant to put it on my face), you get home and discover that in the bag there's a teeny tiny perfume sample, or a thimbleful of exfoliator that smells of freshly baked cheesecake or something. How is anybody supposed to resist that?
I might well have discovered this luxury cosmetics addiction sooner, if it wasn't for my absolute terror of department store makeup floors. Seriously, enter Liverpool Debenhams and not only is it all so white and sterile and shiny that you worry somebody might take out your appendix, but you are immediately descended upon by a hoarde of ladies with drawn on eyebrows who are only a penis away from very successful careers as drag artistes, who will paint you orange and bully you into spending millions of pounds. Worlds away from the tranquility of Sephora.
In fact, the only part of the Sephora experience that is not blissful is coming home and checking your bank balance. Which... oh God... is pretty damn stressful. I need to calm the hell down.
Maybe a trip to Sephora is in order...
It just that it's such a lovely place. Honestly, it's magical. It's like, you're having a shitty day and then you go in and it's all warm and calm and it smells nice. And all these pretty, colourful things are laid out neatly, and there are intriguing contraptions marked 'Tester' just begging to be played with. Plus, there are a bunch of perfectly made-up women and studiedly metrosexual men wandering about wearing, these artillery belts filled with make up brushes, like the minions of an army that just wants to make things look nice.
All which would be fine, if I could just soak in the soothing atmosphere for a while then leave, finances intact. But there's something in the air in Sephora that makes me want... stuff. All kinds of stuff. I'm not entirely sure what I bought yesterday but it was pink and sparkly and totally had miniature snowflakes pressed into the powder and I wanted it.
This is new to me. Like, last Christmas my sister got a load of posh makeup and I totally scorned her, all 'honestly Faye, what a total waste of money. I only ever buy Collection 2000'. But in Sephora, £35 Givenchy blush cubes make total sense. How could the world carry on being lovely without them?
What's more, they give you PRESENTS. If you buy a ridiculously overpriced eyeshadow, or some magic-pink-snowflake-powder (the label is in French, ok? I'm pretty sure I'm meant to put it on my face), you get home and discover that in the bag there's a teeny tiny perfume sample, or a thimbleful of exfoliator that smells of freshly baked cheesecake or something. How is anybody supposed to resist that?
I might well have discovered this luxury cosmetics addiction sooner, if it wasn't for my absolute terror of department store makeup floors. Seriously, enter Liverpool Debenhams and not only is it all so white and sterile and shiny that you worry somebody might take out your appendix, but you are immediately descended upon by a hoarde of ladies with drawn on eyebrows who are only a penis away from very successful careers as drag artistes, who will paint you orange and bully you into spending millions of pounds. Worlds away from the tranquility of Sephora.
In fact, the only part of the Sephora experience that is not blissful is coming home and checking your bank balance. Which... oh God... is pretty damn stressful. I need to calm the hell down.
Maybe a trip to Sephora is in order...
mercredi 19 novembre 2008
Always A Wildcat!
So, I made it back to England for a few days this weekend, and I put my time to good use. Contacting my family? No. Doing any of the mounting pile of paperwork that I need to send to various institutions in the UK? Of course not. But I did manage copious drinking, a trip to Primark and, most importantly, to see High School Musical 3.
Seldom have I enjoyed two hours of my life more. It is quite the experience. And my friends Mel and KP felt the same way. Literally, it went went like this:
Opening shot of Zac Efron's intense and sweaty face
Mel: Ohhhh.. (begins laughing as silently as she can). He's not hot.
Me: Just wait
KP: Unconvinced
After inspirational sports speech the singing begins.
Myself and KP's shoulders are also shaking at this point.
V Hudge stands to sing about her belief in Zac's basketball prowess. Apparently, that's all he needs.
Me: Ha! Also, put your sneakers on
(Also, the first of many squawks of laughter escapes the only other group of people in the cinema who do not have a preteen with them)
First of MANY love ballads begins in a treehouse. V-Hudge utters the immortal line 'I'm looking at you and my heart loves the view'
Mel: That's... That's just the best lyric I've ever heard. I'm so using that in real life now
(Incidentally, she did go on to make it her facebook status, and somebody actually asked her permission to use it as a lyric. When she explained it's origin he went off on one about how he hates HSM and X Factor and the commercialisation of music, and accused both of being fixed. I am not entirely sure how this accusation applies to HSM. Also, he clearly admires the somewhat retarded songwriting they employ, so whatevs. Anyways, I digress)
Sharpay enters
Me: I love her. I love everything about her. I love A-Tis.
KP: Shut up
Me: OK
The 'English' girl is introduced
KP: Best. Accent. Ever.
Mel: I'm going to start talking like that all the time.
After every costume change in Sharpay's big number
All three of us: Ohhhh.. I need one of those. Seriously, how have we survived this long without sequined unitards?
During a spectacular rooftop dance sequence
KP: Wait... this feels normal. Oh my God, my sense of reality has been completely distorted. I'm totally acclimatised.
Zac wears a super tight tux and humps the air during the prom song
Me and Mel: HA!
KP: OK, not entirely acclimatised...
Ryan and Kelsi have 'chemistry'
Mel: What? Is he not gay?
Me: Well, it is Disney
KP: It's enough to ask me to accept that Efron' s straight. That man has being wearing pink pants for half of this film.
Tiny Zac and Chad emerge during highly homoerotic song
KP: Excellent.
Me: Yeah... That is actually kind of adorable.
Mel: Look at that one's hair!
(Loudest squawk yet from the back of the room)
Zac and V-Hudge eat chocolate covered strawberries in a vaguely erotic fashion
Me: OK, they MUST be doing it.
Mel: Seriously. Actually, maybe he is kind of hot...
Me: Told you!
KP rolls eyes theatrically.
Zac and Chad share boy style emotional talk
Mel: Heh. Man.
Me: I know, dude.
Much snorting all round whenever either man or dude are used for the rest of the scene. Which is pretty much exactly once per line.
Zac removes his shirt with his back to the audience
Me: Yay!
Mel: Officially hot.
KP: Maybe...
Me: Hey! Turn around!
He puts on another shirt without turning
Me: Boo to you, Disney. I want gratuitous pec.
KP: That's what One Tree Hill is for.
Me: Fair. Carry on, Zac.
Zac appears in prom suit in tree (it makes a little bit more sense in context. Only a little)
KP: OK. (sighs) That is hot.
Mel: Wait... Did he just drive over a thousand miles in the truck that has really conspicuously not been working for the last hour?
Me: Yes. Yes he did.
Mel: Oh. OK.
Big final show
Mel: And then he drove back.
Me: Yes.
Zac proudly announces that he chooses basketball AND theatre at the University of California.. Berkley.
Mel: Are they even the same institution?
KP: And did Berkley just offer him a place?
Me: He is Zac Efron. He can attend every university in the world should he decide to. Simultanously. Just accept.
Zac tells us solemnly that 'Once a Wildcat.. Always a Wildcat'. Chad pumps his fist equally solemnly
Me (solemn fist pump): I am always a Wildcat
KP: Tard
Final Curtain. Lights come up.
Mel: I want to applaud.
Me and KP grin inanely in agreement.
Seriously. See it. I may go and see it dubbed into French - I suspect it might be even more fun!.
Seldom have I enjoyed two hours of my life more. It is quite the experience. And my friends Mel and KP felt the same way. Literally, it went went like this:
Opening shot of Zac Efron's intense and sweaty face
Mel: Ohhhh.. (begins laughing as silently as she can). He's not hot.
Me: Just wait
KP: Unconvinced
After inspirational sports speech the singing begins.
Myself and KP's shoulders are also shaking at this point.
V Hudge stands to sing about her belief in Zac's basketball prowess. Apparently, that's all he needs.
Me: Ha! Also, put your sneakers on
(Also, the first of many squawks of laughter escapes the only other group of people in the cinema who do not have a preteen with them)
First of MANY love ballads begins in a treehouse. V-Hudge utters the immortal line 'I'm looking at you and my heart loves the view'
Mel: That's... That's just the best lyric I've ever heard. I'm so using that in real life now
(Incidentally, she did go on to make it her facebook status, and somebody actually asked her permission to use it as a lyric. When she explained it's origin he went off on one about how he hates HSM and X Factor and the commercialisation of music, and accused both of being fixed. I am not entirely sure how this accusation applies to HSM. Also, he clearly admires the somewhat retarded songwriting they employ, so whatevs. Anyways, I digress)
Sharpay enters
Me: I love her. I love everything about her. I love A-Tis.
KP: Shut up
Me: OK
The 'English' girl is introduced
KP: Best. Accent. Ever.
Mel: I'm going to start talking like that all the time.
After every costume change in Sharpay's big number
All three of us: Ohhhh.. I need one of those. Seriously, how have we survived this long without sequined unitards?
During a spectacular rooftop dance sequence
KP: Wait... this feels normal. Oh my God, my sense of reality has been completely distorted. I'm totally acclimatised.
Zac wears a super tight tux and humps the air during the prom song
Me and Mel: HA!
KP: OK, not entirely acclimatised...
Ryan and Kelsi have 'chemistry'
Mel: What? Is he not gay?
Me: Well, it is Disney
KP: It's enough to ask me to accept that Efron' s straight. That man has being wearing pink pants for half of this film.
Tiny Zac and Chad emerge during highly homoerotic song
KP: Excellent.
Me: Yeah... That is actually kind of adorable.
Mel: Look at that one's hair!
(Loudest squawk yet from the back of the room)
Zac and V-Hudge eat chocolate covered strawberries in a vaguely erotic fashion
Me: OK, they MUST be doing it.
Mel: Seriously. Actually, maybe he is kind of hot...
Me: Told you!
KP rolls eyes theatrically.
Zac and Chad share boy style emotional talk
Mel: Heh. Man.
Me: I know, dude.
Much snorting all round whenever either man or dude are used for the rest of the scene. Which is pretty much exactly once per line.
Zac removes his shirt with his back to the audience
Me: Yay!
Mel: Officially hot.
KP: Maybe...
Me: Hey! Turn around!
He puts on another shirt without turning
Me: Boo to you, Disney. I want gratuitous pec.
KP: That's what One Tree Hill is for.
Me: Fair. Carry on, Zac.
Zac appears in prom suit in tree (it makes a little bit more sense in context. Only a little)
KP: OK. (sighs) That is hot.
Mel: Wait... Did he just drive over a thousand miles in the truck that has really conspicuously not been working for the last hour?
Me: Yes. Yes he did.
Mel: Oh. OK.
Big final show
Mel: And then he drove back.
Me: Yes.
Zac proudly announces that he chooses basketball AND theatre at the University of California.. Berkley.
Mel: Are they even the same institution?
KP: And did Berkley just offer him a place?
Me: He is Zac Efron. He can attend every university in the world should he decide to. Simultanously. Just accept.
Zac tells us solemnly that 'Once a Wildcat.. Always a Wildcat'. Chad pumps his fist equally solemnly
Me (solemn fist pump): I am always a Wildcat
KP: Tard
Final Curtain. Lights come up.
Mel: I want to applaud.
Me and KP grin inanely in agreement.
Seriously. See it. I may go and see it dubbed into French - I suspect it might be even more fun!.
jeudi 13 novembre 2008
What To Expect On An Erasmus Year In France*
1. You will attend a meeting, where a lot of big, scary forms will be mentioned, along with Very Important Deadlines. These warnings will be as ominous as they are vague; big on the fear, light on the actual detail.
2. If you choose to check your university's website for the forms, you will find all of the paperwork necessary for an erasmus student... in 1986.
3. You will eventually track down a Learning Agreement, and be instructed to choose your modules, get it signed off by your departmental co-ordinator and post it to France before a given date, or you will be flayed/thrown off the programme. This will be twelve hours before said deadline.
4. Your departmental co-ordinator will blithely inform you that he/she is in fact in Cyprus for the next fortnight, and suggest just posting the form after their return. If you harass them sufficiently, you should be able to get your hands on an emailed course list at this point.
5. Your host university will attempt to hawk a Highly Recommended Language Course. This will not be massively helpful, but is a good way to meet other erasmus students.
6. You will finally meet with the co-ordinator, get your Learning Agreement signed and post it nect day delivery to France. This will cost you whatever remains of your overdraft.
7. Nobody at all will care that you missed the deadline.
8. If, on the advice of previous erasmus students, you chose not to live in halls you will spend you summer searching the internet for somewhere to live and cursing those who gave you advice. You will find that your budget increases dramatically as your departure date looms closer. Eventually you will either resign yourself to searching on arrival or agree to live with a totally random french person.
9. You will spend the last night in the UK trying desperately to make your life weigh less than an easyjet baggage allowance, swearing at your family and contemplating illnesses which would be just serious enough to stop you going without inconveniencing you too much.
10. You will spend an incredibly stressful day hauling all manner of luggage through an exciting variety of transport systems. If you haven't found somewhere to live yet, this will be followed by an equally stressful day or two of attempting to understand french estate agents' abbreviations.
11. Eventually, you will move into a room, unpack and feel vastly relieved.
12. You will phone your mother and tell her how wonderful it all is.
13. You will realise that you have absolutely no idea where, when or how to enroll and start your course. You will contact the host university's co-ordinator and any other students you may know before collapsing in exhaustion.
14. The next morning nobody will have replied. You will be mildly hysterical at this point, and your google search history will be full of such gems as 'can I quit erasmus?' and 'why does anybody live in France!?'.
15. Another student will find you, through facebook or something. They will calm you down immensely, introduce you to others and show you around. You will never hear back from the university co-ordinator.
16. Eventually, you will find out how to enroll and get started, but only because you and a group of your fellow erasmus students stormed the faculty and refused to leave until clear instructions were given.
17. There will be an erasmus social event. People will sing karaoke with amusing accents. It will be hilarious. The highlight of the evening will almost certainly involve Celine Dion. This will be followed by a trip to a club with a group of your new BFFs, where you will receive a flattering amount of attention. You will feel highly exotic.**
18. Courses will begin, and you will realise that the course list you were given in the summer bears no relation whatsoever to the courses actually offered. You will choose new courses.
19. Two weeks after the start of term your faculty will hold a welcome meeting, during which they will instruct you on how to attend the courses you've already started and give you a map detailing how to reach the Fac. This meeting will be held in the Fac. On the bright side, there will be free Orangina.
20. By now you will be beginning to realise that attention from guys is not reserved for appropriate places, like bars and clubs. You will be being hit on from dawn till dusk in every imaginable place. At least one of your friends will be being stalked by a guy she inadvertentl encouraged.**
21. By 'encouraged' I mean 'did not shoot in the head'. If they find out you speak English it gets worse. Learn Slovak, or Dutch. Or at least how to make a string of nonsense words which sound passably like a real language.**
22. You will realise that, while a lot of the people you have met are great, some you either actively dislike or at least have little in common with. Simply not being French does not provide the basis for a lasting friendship. Slowly, the erasmus group will break up into smaller groups of people who actually like each other.
23. Your 'skipping of the occasional lecture' will snowball wildly.
24. If you opted to live with a French person you will know by now whether you hate them or not. They will make it extremely clear if said hatred is mutual. If, like me, you managed to move in with a total crazy you will probably be kicked out.
25. Should this happen, you will be fine. Househunting is much easier when you know the area and your French has improved. Speaking of which
26. After a month, your French will have improved. You will also have fallen into a routine, and learned to accept that 'France Rage' will ebb and flow continually, depending on whether or not you've had a good day.
27. A trip home or a visitor from home will simultaneously cheer you up and make you nostalgic. Afterwards, however, you will settle back into your French life surprisingly quickly.
28. It will take a minimum of seven weeks to become accustomed to the ludicrous price of beer, but eventually you will be able to simply sigh heavily when faced with a drinks menu instead of exclaiming over it to all of your friends. One day this may even be reduced to an eyeroll, or perhaps you will start handing over your money without batting an eyelid. I have yet to reach that stage.
29. You will realise that you do actually have exams in January, and make thousands of empty promises to start doing your work and attending your lectures. If you have paid a visit to your home uni, you will be smugly aware that academically you are having by far the easiest year of all of your friends. So you won't be too motivated (and, in all honesty that probably won't matter).
30. By your third month, you will be well and truly settled, and probably fairly confident in your own ability to do this. However, you will note that at some point you have stopped thinking of the whole affair as an amazing opportunity for adventure, and instead as a 'worthwhilelife experience' to be endured. In short, it'll have become mundane. But at least mundane isn't, you know, hellish or anything. C'est la vie.
*Disclaimer: Many of these points may not be applicable if your home university, your host university or you yourself are in any way organised. If you have never spent two days making increasingly hysterical phones calls to the passport office because you sent your renewal request in less than two weeks before a holiday, you'll probably be ok.
**These points are (probably) only really applicable to girls. I have a feeling France is a very different place to those endowed with a penis.
2. If you choose to check your university's website for the forms, you will find all of the paperwork necessary for an erasmus student... in 1986.
3. You will eventually track down a Learning Agreement, and be instructed to choose your modules, get it signed off by your departmental co-ordinator and post it to France before a given date, or you will be flayed/thrown off the programme. This will be twelve hours before said deadline.
4. Your departmental co-ordinator will blithely inform you that he/she is in fact in Cyprus for the next fortnight, and suggest just posting the form after their return. If you harass them sufficiently, you should be able to get your hands on an emailed course list at this point.
5. Your host university will attempt to hawk a Highly Recommended Language Course. This will not be massively helpful, but is a good way to meet other erasmus students.
6. You will finally meet with the co-ordinator, get your Learning Agreement signed and post it nect day delivery to France. This will cost you whatever remains of your overdraft.
7. Nobody at all will care that you missed the deadline.
8. If, on the advice of previous erasmus students, you chose not to live in halls you will spend you summer searching the internet for somewhere to live and cursing those who gave you advice. You will find that your budget increases dramatically as your departure date looms closer. Eventually you will either resign yourself to searching on arrival or agree to live with a totally random french person.
9. You will spend the last night in the UK trying desperately to make your life weigh less than an easyjet baggage allowance, swearing at your family and contemplating illnesses which would be just serious enough to stop you going without inconveniencing you too much.
10. You will spend an incredibly stressful day hauling all manner of luggage through an exciting variety of transport systems. If you haven't found somewhere to live yet, this will be followed by an equally stressful day or two of attempting to understand french estate agents' abbreviations.
11. Eventually, you will move into a room, unpack and feel vastly relieved.
12. You will phone your mother and tell her how wonderful it all is.
13. You will realise that you have absolutely no idea where, when or how to enroll and start your course. You will contact the host university's co-ordinator and any other students you may know before collapsing in exhaustion.
14. The next morning nobody will have replied. You will be mildly hysterical at this point, and your google search history will be full of such gems as 'can I quit erasmus?' and 'why does anybody live in France!?'.
15. Another student will find you, through facebook or something. They will calm you down immensely, introduce you to others and show you around. You will never hear back from the university co-ordinator.
16. Eventually, you will find out how to enroll and get started, but only because you and a group of your fellow erasmus students stormed the faculty and refused to leave until clear instructions were given.
17. There will be an erasmus social event. People will sing karaoke with amusing accents. It will be hilarious. The highlight of the evening will almost certainly involve Celine Dion. This will be followed by a trip to a club with a group of your new BFFs, where you will receive a flattering amount of attention. You will feel highly exotic.**
18. Courses will begin, and you will realise that the course list you were given in the summer bears no relation whatsoever to the courses actually offered. You will choose new courses.
19. Two weeks after the start of term your faculty will hold a welcome meeting, during which they will instruct you on how to attend the courses you've already started and give you a map detailing how to reach the Fac. This meeting will be held in the Fac. On the bright side, there will be free Orangina.
20. By now you will be beginning to realise that attention from guys is not reserved for appropriate places, like bars and clubs. You will be being hit on from dawn till dusk in every imaginable place. At least one of your friends will be being stalked by a guy she inadvertentl encouraged.**
21. By 'encouraged' I mean 'did not shoot in the head'. If they find out you speak English it gets worse. Learn Slovak, or Dutch. Or at least how to make a string of nonsense words which sound passably like a real language.**
22. You will realise that, while a lot of the people you have met are great, some you either actively dislike or at least have little in common with. Simply not being French does not provide the basis for a lasting friendship. Slowly, the erasmus group will break up into smaller groups of people who actually like each other.
23. Your 'skipping of the occasional lecture' will snowball wildly.
24. If you opted to live with a French person you will know by now whether you hate them or not. They will make it extremely clear if said hatred is mutual. If, like me, you managed to move in with a total crazy you will probably be kicked out.
25. Should this happen, you will be fine. Househunting is much easier when you know the area and your French has improved. Speaking of which
26. After a month, your French will have improved. You will also have fallen into a routine, and learned to accept that 'France Rage' will ebb and flow continually, depending on whether or not you've had a good day.
27. A trip home or a visitor from home will simultaneously cheer you up and make you nostalgic. Afterwards, however, you will settle back into your French life surprisingly quickly.
28. It will take a minimum of seven weeks to become accustomed to the ludicrous price of beer, but eventually you will be able to simply sigh heavily when faced with a drinks menu instead of exclaiming over it to all of your friends. One day this may even be reduced to an eyeroll, or perhaps you will start handing over your money without batting an eyelid. I have yet to reach that stage.
29. You will realise that you do actually have exams in January, and make thousands of empty promises to start doing your work and attending your lectures. If you have paid a visit to your home uni, you will be smugly aware that academically you are having by far the easiest year of all of your friends. So you won't be too motivated (and, in all honesty that probably won't matter).
30. By your third month, you will be well and truly settled, and probably fairly confident in your own ability to do this. However, you will note that at some point you have stopped thinking of the whole affair as an amazing opportunity for adventure, and instead as a 'worthwhilelife experience' to be endured. In short, it'll have become mundane. But at least mundane isn't, you know, hellish or anything. C'est la vie.
*Disclaimer: Many of these points may not be applicable if your home university, your host university or you yourself are in any way organised. If you have never spent two days making increasingly hysterical phones calls to the passport office because you sent your renewal request in less than two weeks before a holiday, you'll probably be ok.
**These points are (probably) only really applicable to girls. I have a feeling France is a very different place to those endowed with a penis.
lundi 10 novembre 2008
Why Lorelai Gilmore Is Not Such An Idiot, by me
I’ve been rewatching some Gilmore Girls lately, and the episodes I’ve happened to watch have made me thinks about one of the show’s OTPs. Not the OTP, I am more than happy with Luke and Lorelai (Lukelai? Loreluke? Whatever). I’m talking about Emily Gilmore’s OTP. Lorelai and Christopher.
Christopher, for the uninitiated, is a character who pops up a lot over the course of the show’s seven-season run. He kind of has to, because he is Lorelai’s high school boyfriend and the father of her child. The other thing that Christopher is, is kind of an asshat. Season 1, he shows up and is an irresponsible tool who hasn’t matured one iota since Lorelai refused to marry him at sixteen. Season two, Chris has ostensibly got it together, and is ready to make a real go of it with Lorelai and Rory as a family. Until he finds out that his other girlfriend, Sherry, is totally pregnant. He then gets abandoned by Sherry, sucks at single parenting without Lorelai’s help, and eventually marries Lorelai before finally screwing that one up as well. For elaboration on why Chris is a total douche, see www.televisionwithoutpity.com. They do snark better than me.
Looking at that track record, it’s easy to call Lorelai an idiot. Why does she keep taking him back? Will she ever learn? (The final answer to that one seems to be yes, praise the Lord). But really, doesn’t everybody have a Christopher lurking somewhere in their past? I know I do. Fortunately, for most of us (myself included) that somebody didn’t knock us up and so will probably not be hanging around screwing with our heads in sixteen years’ time.
But still, think back to that guy. That early, if not first, love who was just… totally useless. Fun, for a while. And you liked him enough to really try and believe it could work. But in the end it just couldn’t, and afterwards, you had to admit that you always knew that breaking point was coming. But even with all the clarity of hindsight there is a nagging doubt, a fear that if he came back and promised that things would be different, that he would no longer be in love with your best friend/sleep with other women/be emotionally retarded or whatever it was, you would fall for it.
That guy is the secret shame that every girl carries with her into womanhood. He is the memory that makes would be feminists squirm in discomfort. And he is ubiquitous. Seriously, I doubt anybody can make it past the age of twenty-five without finding that one guy who made her act like a total idiot, and could quite possibly do it all over again were he of a mind to. It’s terrifying and more than a little embarrassing. It doesn’t even matter how well you know him and his faults. And it’s easy to identify him. He’s the loser you’re still complaining about to your friends when the period of time since the break up is longer that the relationship itself was. If you haven’t seen him in that time, you’re in deep shit.
Still, it seems there is little anybody can do to escape this. So consider him a rite of passage. Be glad that you’ve survived him intact. Some of you will get off more lightly than others (I myself suffered only fair to moderate humiliation and emotional scarring). And beware of him in future. TV is more than just entertainment – it’s an education (that’s what I tell myself as I waste my life, anyway). And if we can learn anything from Gilmore Girls, aside from drink more coffee and buy a lot of scarves, it’s this; never, EVER go back to your Christopher. Even a shared child isn’t enough to make it work.
Christopher, for the uninitiated, is a character who pops up a lot over the course of the show’s seven-season run. He kind of has to, because he is Lorelai’s high school boyfriend and the father of her child. The other thing that Christopher is, is kind of an asshat. Season 1, he shows up and is an irresponsible tool who hasn’t matured one iota since Lorelai refused to marry him at sixteen. Season two, Chris has ostensibly got it together, and is ready to make a real go of it with Lorelai and Rory as a family. Until he finds out that his other girlfriend, Sherry, is totally pregnant. He then gets abandoned by Sherry, sucks at single parenting without Lorelai’s help, and eventually marries Lorelai before finally screwing that one up as well. For elaboration on why Chris is a total douche, see www.televisionwithoutpity.com. They do snark better than me.
Looking at that track record, it’s easy to call Lorelai an idiot. Why does she keep taking him back? Will she ever learn? (The final answer to that one seems to be yes, praise the Lord). But really, doesn’t everybody have a Christopher lurking somewhere in their past? I know I do. Fortunately, for most of us (myself included) that somebody didn’t knock us up and so will probably not be hanging around screwing with our heads in sixteen years’ time.
But still, think back to that guy. That early, if not first, love who was just… totally useless. Fun, for a while. And you liked him enough to really try and believe it could work. But in the end it just couldn’t, and afterwards, you had to admit that you always knew that breaking point was coming. But even with all the clarity of hindsight there is a nagging doubt, a fear that if he came back and promised that things would be different, that he would no longer be in love with your best friend/sleep with other women/be emotionally retarded or whatever it was, you would fall for it.
That guy is the secret shame that every girl carries with her into womanhood. He is the memory that makes would be feminists squirm in discomfort. And he is ubiquitous. Seriously, I doubt anybody can make it past the age of twenty-five without finding that one guy who made her act like a total idiot, and could quite possibly do it all over again were he of a mind to. It’s terrifying and more than a little embarrassing. It doesn’t even matter how well you know him and his faults. And it’s easy to identify him. He’s the loser you’re still complaining about to your friends when the period of time since the break up is longer that the relationship itself was. If you haven’t seen him in that time, you’re in deep shit.
Still, it seems there is little anybody can do to escape this. So consider him a rite of passage. Be glad that you’ve survived him intact. Some of you will get off more lightly than others (I myself suffered only fair to moderate humiliation and emotional scarring). And beware of him in future. TV is more than just entertainment – it’s an education (that’s what I tell myself as I waste my life, anyway). And if we can learn anything from Gilmore Girls, aside from drink more coffee and buy a lot of scarves, it’s this; never, EVER go back to your Christopher. Even a shared child isn’t enough to make it work.
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