Ok, so I haven't written anything in like forever and even when I did it was normally about, like, fictional people or whatever and not so much an account of my year abroad. But still, my french adventure is nearly over! I head back home on Friday.
Only, before that I have this exam. This important exam. Tomorrow. And I really should be frantically trying to get through all of the notes for it right now. As you can probably tell, that is not what I am doing. But there is good reason for that!
Well, actually, there isn't. Unless you count the fact that french family law is boring. And that I'm completely starving to death but I have no food and can't leave the house in case the people who are meant to be shipping my crap back to the UK show up, so I can't go buy something and so that box of dried split peas I bought six months ago because I was far too hungover to shop sensibly is getting worringly enticing. And that I'm FREEZING but have packed all of my hoodies and stuff into the cases awaiting the shipping people. These might not be good reasons, per se, but they do explain a lot.
Also, I need to invest a fair amount of time and energy into Not Thinking about what happens if these mythical shipping people don't show up. Because I have this kind of horrendous record with post, which is pretty inconvenient when it's a pile of very important forms at stake, but positively disasterous when it comes to all of my worldly belongings, y'know? And the intricacies of french divorce just don't grab my attention. So I have no choice but to think about other stuff. You know, like Tim Riggins. Or how awesome the Busted musical will be as soon as my sister and I get off our asses and write it. That sort of thing.
I'm doomed, aren't I?
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est la belle france. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est la belle france. Afficher tous les articles
mercredi 10 juin 2009
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 27 octobre 2008
Why I hate French people.
Obviously, this is a massive generalisation, totally unfair, and bordering on the racist. Perhaps it would be better to say Why I Hate The French People I Personally Have Come Across. Because, despite the fact that I live in France, my contact with actual french people has been kind of limited. Which, if the few francophones I actually know are anything to go by, may be just as well. In fact, apart fom a few very nice students who I have had relatively little contact with, the french people I know fall pretty neatly into three categories.
1. Random French guys who like to hit on people inappropriately. Like, all the time. Day, night, dressed up, hungover, face covered in impetigo, whatever. And it's not even because I'm foreign (although that does tend to exacerbate things). It crosses the line between flattering and creepy. They don't take no for an answer, they never leave you to carry on the conversation you were clearly having with your friends and they have literally no concept of personal space.
2. Then there's my A level french teachers. Two women who delighted in asserting their moral superiority over the english, whether it be because we drink ('It's just so sad to see a girl drunk at prom') or because we eat things that came in microwaveable packets ('My son Jude has never eaten anything that wasn't organic'). This, combined with the fact that I was never the most model student and they weren't the sort of teachers who would let homework slide provided you were still doing well on external examinations, led to a strained, at best, relationship.
3. Finally, there's my roomate. Or should I say, former roomate. Because last Wednesday, without warning, she asked me to leave the apartment. The reason for this is that she is a freaking mentalist. Basically, reread the description of my A-level teachers. Then imagine living with one of them.
It was clear that we weren't going to get on from the day I arrived, when she followed me round as I unpacked making helpful comments such as 'I don't hang my trousers up that way, it doesn't keep them perfectly straight'. But it was a very nice apartment, and I was prepared to keep my head down, do what she wanted regarding the shared kitchen and bathroom and make the best of it.
Unfortunately that was not good enough for her. Not only was the very clean kitchen not spotless enough (and she wasn't a neat freak, she just liked to say that she was so that I would feel obliged to be super tidy while she did whatever she goddamn wanted), but I apparently neglected her as a friend by having a social life of my own. My mistake, I was looking for a roommate, not a BFF. Which, incidentally, is also my fault for not making that more clear to her before I arrived.
My many, many faults, on top of selfishness and lack of personality, also include chronic rudeness. Apparently it was horrifically impolite of me to arrive, invited into her house (as opposed to being a lodger who paid half of the rent) without a gift for her. When I WAS EMIGRATING. I paid £35 in excess baggage because I had to fly my entire life to France by Easyjet and she was upset that I didn't have room for a bunch of freaking flowers. Similarily my friend Mel, when she came to visit me in the room that I had paid for, should have brought her a gift. And, when we came in and she was sitting in her pyjamas in bed , complaining about how tired she was, we should not have gone to my room and made an effort to be extra quiet, we should have invited her to join us for a glass of wine. Seriously. I give up.
But it's ok now, because I'm set up in a new place, where I can happily lock the word out if I feel like it. And I do have some french neighbours who I share a kitchen with. Yet to meet them, but hopefully they can do something to improve my opinion of the nation. Because otherwise I have a long 8 months ahead of me...
1. Random French guys who like to hit on people inappropriately. Like, all the time. Day, night, dressed up, hungover, face covered in impetigo, whatever. And it's not even because I'm foreign (although that does tend to exacerbate things). It crosses the line between flattering and creepy. They don't take no for an answer, they never leave you to carry on the conversation you were clearly having with your friends and they have literally no concept of personal space.
2. Then there's my A level french teachers. Two women who delighted in asserting their moral superiority over the english, whether it be because we drink ('It's just so sad to see a girl drunk at prom') or because we eat things that came in microwaveable packets ('My son Jude has never eaten anything that wasn't organic'). This, combined with the fact that I was never the most model student and they weren't the sort of teachers who would let homework slide provided you were still doing well on external examinations, led to a strained, at best, relationship.
3. Finally, there's my roomate. Or should I say, former roomate. Because last Wednesday, without warning, she asked me to leave the apartment. The reason for this is that she is a freaking mentalist. Basically, reread the description of my A-level teachers. Then imagine living with one of them.
It was clear that we weren't going to get on from the day I arrived, when she followed me round as I unpacked making helpful comments such as 'I don't hang my trousers up that way, it doesn't keep them perfectly straight'. But it was a very nice apartment, and I was prepared to keep my head down, do what she wanted regarding the shared kitchen and bathroom and make the best of it.
Unfortunately that was not good enough for her. Not only was the very clean kitchen not spotless enough (and she wasn't a neat freak, she just liked to say that she was so that I would feel obliged to be super tidy while she did whatever she goddamn wanted), but I apparently neglected her as a friend by having a social life of my own. My mistake, I was looking for a roommate, not a BFF. Which, incidentally, is also my fault for not making that more clear to her before I arrived.
My many, many faults, on top of selfishness and lack of personality, also include chronic rudeness. Apparently it was horrifically impolite of me to arrive, invited into her house (as opposed to being a lodger who paid half of the rent) without a gift for her. When I WAS EMIGRATING. I paid £35 in excess baggage because I had to fly my entire life to France by Easyjet and she was upset that I didn't have room for a bunch of freaking flowers. Similarily my friend Mel, when she came to visit me in the room that I had paid for, should have brought her a gift. And, when we came in and she was sitting in her pyjamas in bed , complaining about how tired she was, we should not have gone to my room and made an effort to be extra quiet, we should have invited her to join us for a glass of wine. Seriously. I give up.
But it's ok now, because I'm set up in a new place, where I can happily lock the word out if I feel like it. And I do have some french neighbours who I share a kitchen with. Yet to meet them, but hopefully they can do something to improve my opinion of the nation. Because otherwise I have a long 8 months ahead of me...
dimanche 21 septembre 2008
So, lost in France.
There are times when I just wonder; why? Why on earth did, as a 18 year old English student decide that a three year law degree at a top uni was simply not challenging enough and I would love to pick up my belongings, take off to some French city I've never even visited where I know nobody and spend a year attempting to study law in French?
And why, after I applied late and without the correct form, and after I turned up for my interview too hungover to focus on anything but Burger King, did my uni think it would be a good idea to let me go? Even after my attendance and exam records had shown that my devotion to my studies was, well, questionable at best?
And, for the love of God, why did I not think to worry about any of this in the year between being offered my place at Rouen university and my actually going? WHY DID I NOT REALLY TRY TO PRACTICE MY FRENCH?!
But then I go calm down and take off the caps lock and think it through. And it makes a little bit of sense.
Because, you see, it is a little bit insane for me to be studying French law. But anybody who examined my academic record and disposition would see that it's not so much the French part as the law part that's crazy. I bore easy, and self motivate rarely, and they are two things which are decidedly not useful in a lawyer. What's more, I am truly, hideously, unorganised (see above re. incorrect form, late application etc.). I send a lot of my time sending frantic emails to various authorities assuring them that things must have gotten lost in the post. Soooo not model law student behaviour.
France, on the other hand, has always been my thing. Not so much the grammar, but the language generally, the atmosphere, the country. Cheese, wine and baguettes have always appealed to me. So, yeah, I wanted to go to France. That's what I'd been telling people since I was thirteen, and when the opportunity came up I applied.
Why my uni opted to send me is a little bit harder to understand. I mean, I am far from stupid (I wouldn't have been at that uni in the first place if I wasn't), but amongst the people on my course I'm average at best intelligence-wise and considerably below average in terms of commitment. And my grades, in first year especiallyhave always reflected this.
But what I am, besides lazy and disorganised, is a good bullshitter. I mean a tremendously good bullshitter. I am the girl who wins national debate contests from the floor because I'm not on the team because I forgot to prepare a speech for audition day (yeah, people totally hate me). So my innate bullshitting skills must have come to the fore on interview day, through the hangover, and persuaded the law department that I was exactly the sort of confident go-getter who would reap all of the benefits a year abroad has to offer.
Why I didn't prepare for France in the subsequent year is completely simple. I told you already, I never prepare properly. In short, I am rubbish (but good at concealing that fact). And now I, at the age of 20, live in France. And it is really... weird.
Like, completely weird. Not bad, just strange. Surreal, really. I've managed to procure an appartment (score), a roomate (hmm) and a student ID (just amazed I got round to it), but I still really have no idea what this year is going to be like. It's a mystery.
So, I thought, what better reason to attempt keeping a blog (again)? It's not like I have that many people to talk to - and I'm fairly limited in what I could say anyway - either by my french vocab or by the fact that what I have to say might offend french people. And who knows - something interesting might actually happen.
So, a plus tard!
N
And why, after I applied late and without the correct form, and after I turned up for my interview too hungover to focus on anything but Burger King, did my uni think it would be a good idea to let me go? Even after my attendance and exam records had shown that my devotion to my studies was, well, questionable at best?
And, for the love of God, why did I not think to worry about any of this in the year between being offered my place at Rouen university and my actually going? WHY DID I NOT REALLY TRY TO PRACTICE MY FRENCH?!
But then I go calm down and take off the caps lock and think it through. And it makes a little bit of sense.
Because, you see, it is a little bit insane for me to be studying French law. But anybody who examined my academic record and disposition would see that it's not so much the French part as the law part that's crazy. I bore easy, and self motivate rarely, and they are two things which are decidedly not useful in a lawyer. What's more, I am truly, hideously, unorganised (see above re. incorrect form, late application etc.). I send a lot of my time sending frantic emails to various authorities assuring them that things must have gotten lost in the post. Soooo not model law student behaviour.
France, on the other hand, has always been my thing. Not so much the grammar, but the language generally, the atmosphere, the country. Cheese, wine and baguettes have always appealed to me. So, yeah, I wanted to go to France. That's what I'd been telling people since I was thirteen, and when the opportunity came up I applied.
Why my uni opted to send me is a little bit harder to understand. I mean, I am far from stupid (I wouldn't have been at that uni in the first place if I wasn't), but amongst the people on my course I'm average at best intelligence-wise and considerably below average in terms of commitment. And my grades, in first year especiallyhave always reflected this.
But what I am, besides lazy and disorganised, is a good bullshitter. I mean a tremendously good bullshitter. I am the girl who wins national debate contests from the floor because I'm not on the team because I forgot to prepare a speech for audition day (yeah, people totally hate me). So my innate bullshitting skills must have come to the fore on interview day, through the hangover, and persuaded the law department that I was exactly the sort of confident go-getter who would reap all of the benefits a year abroad has to offer.
Why I didn't prepare for France in the subsequent year is completely simple. I told you already, I never prepare properly. In short, I am rubbish (but good at concealing that fact). And now I, at the age of 20, live in France. And it is really... weird.
Like, completely weird. Not bad, just strange. Surreal, really. I've managed to procure an appartment (score), a roomate (hmm) and a student ID (just amazed I got round to it), but I still really have no idea what this year is going to be like. It's a mystery.
So, I thought, what better reason to attempt keeping a blog (again)? It's not like I have that many people to talk to - and I'm fairly limited in what I could say anyway - either by my french vocab or by the fact that what I have to say might offend french people. And who knows - something interesting might actually happen.
So, a plus tard!
N
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