New Year, New Outlook January 18, 2009

Well, another week rolls around and I’ve switched countries again! Last week’s jump back home to Cornwall went smoothly, and I really enjoyed having that extra time. The Christmas holidays went far too quickly and when I came back for exams I really didn’t feel ready to leave.  Now I feel better and am looking forward and up towards the months ahead.

I’m even getting used to the travelling! It doesn’t seem like so much of a journey any more, and I don’t end up so tired at the end of it. I noticed a big difference getting the TGV to the airport rather than the normal system; it seemed much quicker even with the bus transfer from Amiens taken into consideration. You don’t notice the speed of the train while you’re on it, but while I was waiting in the station a few others passed through without stopping and that was impressive! It made me jump the first time, because I heard a low rumbling but didn’t know what it was, then suddenly there was a WOOSH and this train was screaming through the station, literally screaming from the noise of the wind and the tracks. Three seconds of blur later, and it’s gone. In future I will look at getting the TGV first when I book flights, but they aren’t as frequent as the normal trains so sometimes I will be back to the slow system, just so I get to the airport when I want to rather than waiting around for hours, which is boring. On the way back to Amiens yesterday I was on the normal train, because I hadn’t booked a return TGV and it was a choice of waiting at the airport until the 11.37 TGV or slowly making my way to Paris Nord for an 11.37 train.

As my post title suggests, my outlook has changed and is brighter than before Christmas. This time I haven’t felt the same depression that previous returns to Amiens have brought, and instead I am looking forward to the months ahead. I’m sure that in part this is due to the fact I know I only have a few weeks between “home” events; the first being my 21st birthday weekend in a fortnight, when Dad, Mum and Alan will be flying over and we’re spending the weekend in Paris. Then after that it’s only three weeks until the February half-term holiday, for which I am likely to go to Keele as I did for Toussaint. After that there will be a 6 or 7-week stretch to the Easter holidays. Technically it’s 7 weeks, but the week before the holidays there is a 4-day weekend due to Easter weekend jour fériés falling on the Friday and Monday, resulting in only a 4-day week until the holiday. Combined with the fact that most courses finished their lectures early before the Christmas holidays, I think this makes it likely that in practice the Easter holidays will start a week earlier than scheduled. Then I’ll have about a month at home before returning for a few weeks of final assessment.

So suddenly it doesn’t seem so long until the year is over! There are other factors that are helping to make me feel more confident than before; my money is holding out well and having lived here for a semester I have a better idea of how far it stretches, so I know now that I can afford to take a weekend break or two between February half term and Easter if necessary. Also I am feeling more settled here in general; it still doesn’t feel like home, or even like being at Keele, but it doesn’t feel so alien as it did at first. And I have a new laptop! This is because I spilt coffee on my old one and the keyboard stopped working. A home repair attempt didn’t appear to work so on Friday (my last day in the UK) I hopped the train to Plymouth to go and buy a new one. It’s fortunate that we now have an Apple retailer within striking distance otherwise I would have had to buy online and wait! As it turned out, when I got home and started transferring files the keyboard on my old laptop appeared to be coming back to life. In the process of drying it the day before we’d melted some of the key tops, but if I can find replacements and it turns out it is working again I will either sell it or keep it as a spare. Anyway, having a new machine has given me peace of mind because I can be more confident than I was with the old one (especially after its November tantrum) that it won’t give out on me while I’m here.

The weather here has changed from cold and snowy to wet and windy; the wind has been howling round the shutter since yesterday and the rain is forecast all week. I appreciate the rise in temperature but I’m not impressed with all the rain! Tomorrow I have to go round and collect up my various bits of timetable and then try to create something that gives me sufficient ECTS credits and is actually possible to attend. This semester it’s likely I’m going to be taking mostly modules from the licence Lettres Modernes, which is mainly French language and literature. Hopefully I can also continue with the Spanish modules I took last semester and I won’t have to change groups. If there’s any space left in the timetable after that I will see if I can get some token science modules to fit, but it’s a problem because of factoring in travel to and from town. Once that’s done it’s back to normal routine of lectures for a few weeks!

Battling On November 5, 2008

Today I had my first exam, and I really did have to drag myself out of bed for it this morning! It was a fairly easy 1hr30 exam, there were only 4 questions each with a few parts to them, but that wasn’t surprising because we only had 6 weeks of material to be tested on. The setup for the exam was quite different to what I’ve been used to though. Although at Keele we don’t have mid-term exams, I expected them to follow the same principals and format here as they do for uni exams back home, but it was much more informal. At Keele, and generally in UK Universities I think, the desks in the exam rooms have to be a certain distance apart, every student that should be sitting the exam is on a list and is allocated a seat, and you get a question paper and an answer paper. The front of the answer paper has to be filled in with various details, you have an anonymity corner to fold over and stick, and an attendance slip to tear out from the booklet. You also have to have your keelecard with a photo on it for the invigilators to come and check when they take your attendance slip. Bags and phones must be left at the front of the room, and you must have clear pencil cases or none at all. Oh and you aren’t allowed to take any papers out of the exam room. Here however, we were just in a small lecture theatre, anyone around you could easily see what you were writing. There was a list which you had to sign for attendance, and just add your name and student number at the bottom if you weren’t on it (like me). And you could take your question paper and rough notes out of the exam room, something the lecturer looked surprised I didn’t do! The answer papers they use have almost the same format except there is no attendance slip and the blank space for answering begins on the cover page.

I have another exam tomorrow but this will be quite different because it’s a listening exam for Spanish. Then there’s Ancien Francais on Monday and Spanish Grammar on Thursday, and the last two the weeks after. Then there will be just three weeks until Christmas holidays! I’ve been trying to fight off the bad feelings but I have had a few moments today where I just wanted to go home, plain and simple. I realised I don’t mind living here so much as the fact I HAVE to be here, I don’t have a choice in the matter, I can only go home at certain times. Despite myself I have already put a countdown of days on my whiteboard. I told myself I wouldn’t, but it makes me feel a little bit better to be able to wipe another number off each day.

I have a few things to look forward to other than the exams; I’m trying to plan some weekend things with the Cardiff students, Ceri our tutor from Keele is visiting next Thursday, and I’m sure there will be more evenings with Marion. I’ve also been looking ahead to January and thinking about booking flights for the February holiday. I hope that some family and Alex can come out for my 21st at the end of January, and I need to find out if people will come visit me in February otherwise I shall book some flights back to the UK. I think I might go for that anyway to be honest, I need that to break up the semester. I think I’d be bored out of my mind here for a whole week with no lectures or work, and 15 weeks between the end of Christmas and the beginning of Easter seems way too long to spend here!

Back to Business November 4, 2008

It was straight back down to lectures today, and although I was still very tired this morning I dragged myself out of bed to get on with things. First job was a quick trip to the supermarket to stock up on some food because the cupboards were almost bare after my week away – I had no breakfast, no milk, no juice, no bread, nothing but some tinned stuff and rice.

Then I had a lecture and found out about another mid-term exam in two week’s time. My next lecture was cancelled because I was the only one who turned up to it (out of a class of three!), and my final lecture of the day was also cancelled because the lecturer couldn’t make it for some reason. I tried to get some forms signed but once again the woman I needed from the Faculté des Lettres was not available. So all this resulted in me having more time to think today than I’d anticipated…not what I wanted.

Yesterday I was feeling very weak on the train back to Amiens but I put it down to exhaustion, and actually as the bus pulled up the road to campus I felt a sense of relief and of finally being back somewhere familiar where I could relax. I took this to mean that to a certain extent I have settled here, even if it doesn’t feel like home, and I hoped that I wouldn’t be tossed back into missing home like I did when I first got here.

Unfortunately today I have been feeling a bit wobbly, a bit down, a bit empty. I do miss Keele and Alex, and I’ve had to pick myself up today a few times after just finding myself standing or sitting staring off into space. I think it’s because the last week I’ve been with people all the time, and at Keele, I’d fooled myself that I was back studying there, that it wasn’t just a holiday.

But I’m determined not to go through all the emotions of the beginning all over again now. I’m sure the exams of the next few weeks will take my mind off things, Ceri our tutor from Keele is coming to visit next week and then I’ll have some more labs to prepare for…..the 7 weeks until Christmas will fill up quickly and I’ll be getting my suitcase back down to pack before I know it.

Nearly the holidays! October 16, 2008

I’ve been a bit neglectful of the blog this week; once again it’s been a case of meaning to write a post but time getting away from me! I decided to blog now rather than this evening to avoid that happening again. The rain’s made a return, we had three or four days over the weekend of bright sunshine, clear skies and the information board up by the supermarket informed me that it was 24°C on Monday. But it started to go downhill on Tuesday and now we’re back to drizzly rain, cold wind and grey skies.

This week I’ve found out some of the dates for the first exams; it turns out that not only do we have “partiels” in January, we have “first partiels” in November! So far I’ve got dates for a listening exam and a written grammar exam for Spanish, a written exam for Ancien Français and I know of a commentary that is written in class time for Litterature Française and another exam for Methodologie de Recherche. I’ve also been looking at what courses I might like to do next semester, although it’s a way away I decided to revise my plan based on having experienced some classes. Given the problems of fitting my timetable together I’ve already had, I also wanted to simplify my plan with the minimum of faculties and courses. I’ve decided to continue with Ancien Français and Spanish, but all my other courses will change. The science subjects are the problem really because their courses aren’t worth so much so I have to try and fit in more. I will need 12.5 points, which I can either get by doing two 5.00 point courses and one 2.5, or one 5.00 and three 2.5, etc. However the 5.00 courses have lab time, so it’s a case of weighing up the pros and cons. Lab time complicates things so I want to avoid that if possible.

I’ve had a bit more of a social life this week; last night I went to the cinema with Alice and Katie to see Mamma Mia! I went to a sing-a-long showing back home with friends over the summer, and found that truly surreal! It turns out that’s still more strange than having it dubbed in French. Obviously the songs weren’t dubbed but they were subtitled, and half of it was wrong! Often they missed entire lines out. Tonight I’m probably going out for dinner in town with Marion, and on Saturday I think there might be trip to the zoo planned.

I am feeling much more settled now; while it’s still odd and every now and again I get reminded things are very different here, I am feeling more confident. I am still counting down to Toussaint (8 days!) and I’m massively looking forward to it, but because I’m excited about seeing Alex and my friends, not because I’m desperate to get back to the UK.

Sunny Saturday October 11, 2008

The sun’s come out again! It’s been blue sky and sunshine for a couple of days now, although the mornings are still cold and it takes until lunchtime for the sun to burn off the morning mist.

Been tatting around a bit today, tidied my room up and cleaned everything, took my recycling out and generally organised things a bit! I also went to town to get a few bits from the supermarket, the stationers and I walked over to the Coliseum to get some leaflets of information for the ice rink. I also picked up this month’s listings for the St. Leu Cinema, which seems to show the more arty films rather than the mainstream hollywoods. The Cardiff lot are planning a trip to the cinema this week so we might go there, although there are lots of others to pick from St. Leu is the nearest to them.

Speaking of St. Leu I was waiting in the bus stop yesterday to come back to campus, and a car drifted into the bus bay. It transpired that his engine had died and he tried in vain to restart it, but then had to give up a call for a tow. As soon as he pulled in though I thought to myself; there’s going to be trouble when a bus comes along! Sure enough, two minutes later a bus pulls in, people get on and off and then the bus wants to pull away, but he’s come up too close behind this car (probably deliberately), so he can’t pull out without the car moving. MEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! Bus driver hangs on the horn, peering round when the car doesn’t move, clearly annoyed. Someone else waiting for a different bus went and explained that the car was broken down which elicited a rather amusing french shrug from the bus driver, who then began to reverse his bus so he could pull out. Meanwhile another bus comes along and as he’s waiting at the traffic lights alongside the broken-down car he opens the doors so he can shout abuse at the poor man. The bus who was behind him does exactly the same thing when he finally gets past. I did feel a bit sorry for him but at the same time he really should have been able to see it coming! The bus drivers must have put it out on their radio though because the next bus to come along didn’t bother pulling in but stopped in the next lane over instead.

This week I’ve also made my first French friend; a girl called Marion who is in my spanish classes. She also studies English and has studied Italian and Russian in the past. She came up to me in Wednesday’s class and asked if we could go for a drink or dinner because she wants to improve her English. We have swapped email addresses and I’ve been chatting to her on msn but she goes home for the weekends (like most people here; Friday and Sunday evenings are a chorus of suitcase wheels along the corridor) so if we meet up outside of lectures it will be during the week. She actually lives in town in private accommodation, and her family lives in Beauvais which is the next nearest major town. One of the things we’ve been chatting about is the massive difference in attitude to university between the UK and France. She confirmed my theory about the French way of doing things; students don’t go far to uni “unless there is no other choice” because the parents don’t want them going too far from home. Completely the opposite to the UK where in most cases it’s the major life leap from living under your parent’s roof to managing your own life. It makes me wonder what their equivalent transition time is – clearly they don’t live with their parents forever, so when they’ve graduated and move off into the world of work, do they do so with no “halfway house” experience of life?

Ticking over October 1, 2008

I meant to post yesterday but time got away from me in the evening and I didn’t in the end. As things settle into a routine and some semblance of normalcy I find there are less things to write about so I expect there will be fewer posts than the one-a-day rate of the first week! Tomorrow will mark the beginning of my fourth week here. This week seems to be going more slowly than the previous ones but I’m looking forward to Toussaint. After that I think it will go quickly to Christmas and the January exams.

Not much has happened since my adventures on Saturday, I’ve just noted down a few things. It makes me laugh now how much Keele went on about how welcoming people are here – I think the students who’d just come back from their year abroad must have been paid to say it. I know that some of the other Keele french students have managed to break into some french friend circles but there are many others who’ve found french students totally uninterested in us, and staff and lecturers dismissive and rude. A prime example came up in my Ancien Français lecture yesterday; the lecturer was trying to find a common two-hour slot of free time to reschedule a lecture later on in the semester, which turned out to be quite difficult. When a slot was proposed that I couldn’t make, I said so. The response? “Ah, but you’re Erasmus aren’t you? Well, you make your timetables fit however, I’m on about the rest of us”, after which everyone exchanged snide looks and laughs, and they continued with their discussion. Way to make me feel included, eh? Not to mention the idea that just because I’m an Erasmus student, it doesn’t matter if I miss class material. I still have to get the grades.

Something else that annoys me here is the kitchen. The door is controlled by a swipe card but more often than not it’s also locked by key. This means I have to either a) take my food to the kitchen (at the other end of the corridor), try the door and if it’s locked, take my food back to my room, go downstairs to get the key, open the kitchen and then go back to my room to get my food and back to the kitchen to cook it, or b) go to the kitchen, try the door, if locked go get the key, open the kitchen and then go to my room to get my food and back to the kitchen again. Either way is a faff and irritating. On top of that, the reception staff take your student card or at least your room number if they give you the key, so if someone else comes into the kitchen before you’ve finished you then have to pass the responsibility, which isn’t popular. Overall it’s a totally unecessary system and it doesn’t work efficiently.

One more thing; another general observation about life here – the French kiss. By this I mean the greeting, not the more intimate version! It is very common, and I’ve seen extreme examples of this formality being carried through; like the girl who was hurrying down the corridor but passed a group of 5 friends who were waiting for the same Spanish lecture as me. Despite being in a rush, she stopped and kissed each once on each cheek, before waving goodbye and carrying on her way! The noise they make is not a “mwah” or even any kind of expulsion of air, it actually sounds more like they’re sucking air in through their teeth. I can’t recreate it; I rather think it’s something learned from childhood. I have also seen men greeting each other with a kiss but in general a handshake is more common. It still looks bizarre to me as generally in England we only shake hands at a formal first meeting or in some other formal context; this morning there was a bloke sat on the bus and two separate friends passed by to sit further back; both shook his hand before moving on, even though like the girl in the corridor, they didn’t stop to chat. It also looks strange to me when I see young boys of anything from age 8-14 shaking hands – like something from a bygone age!

Anyway that’ll do for today, I will just finish with a quote I came across online this week, which I think can be suitably applied to my year abroad. It is from the Tao Te Ching, poem 64.

What lies still is easy to grasp;
What lies far off is easy to anticipate;
What is brittle is easy to shatter;
What is small is easy to disperse.

Yet a tree broader than a man
can embrace is born of a tiny shoot;
A dam greater than a river
can overrun starts with a clod of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
begins at the spot under one’s feet.

Therefore deal with things before they happen;
Create order before there is confusion.

A week gone already September 22, 2008

I’ve survived one full academic week at UPJV! Still, one of my modules didn’t actually start until today but at least I can now say I’ve had a lecture of everything. What has surprised me most is that the science lectures are the ones I find the easiest, both to follow and in content. I had a three hour “Techniques d’analyses biochimiques” lecture today and 99% of the material was not new to me – TLC, chromatography etc that I’ve covered in Forensics over the last two years. In some ways it’s a relief that the science is easy because it turns out the french is hard, although interesting! I started reading Gargantua today, the novel we are studying in 16th-18th century french literature, and it’s in old french with lots of annotation to explain it – which makes for difficult reading. Still, since I’m also taking Ancien français as a module that should help me understand it.

I didn’t do much over the weekend, hence no posts. I spent most of saturday doing laundry because I had to go to Thil halls down the road since our machines were broken, which was inconvenient but it did mean that I came across Faith, the other student from Keele studying here, which I hadn’t managed to do via the internet. Another connection that’s helped me feel more settled in here.

A few more random musings:

Englishisms! Like the word “sandwicherie” applied to takeaway sandwich bars, which I very nearly laughed out loud at the first time I saw it.

French milk bottles: are opaque, don’t have handles and have much larger openings than UK bottles. They also all seem to be UHT because most shops don’t keep them refrigerated….haven’t quite got used to this yet.

Deference to old people: something else you don’t often see in the UK. If an old person gets on the bus, a young person sitting in a seat near the front will without hesitation stand up and make way. Old people can shuffle down the street in the slowest and most wandering fashion possible, but everyone makes way for them without complaint – this is in comparison with the impatience everyone seems to have with everyone else for space on the pavement or on the road!

Opening hours – have I ranted about this yet? I can’t remember but the two-hour lunch break is not a myth, in fact that’s the bare minimum. I have actually, genuinely seen the office hours “9-11.30, 2.30-4″. So if my maths is right that person spends a total of 4 hours a day behind their desk. Anyone fancy swapping?

I think that will do for today. More to follow no doubt!

Parlez-vous anglais? September 19, 2008

I actually spent most of today with english people! I met up with four students from Cardiff and we just hung out in the park and at their accomodation for a few hours, chatting and generally getting to know each other. It was so great to be able to chat and be normal!

I’m also getting more relaxed at speaking french; instead of having to think and check sentences in my head and then garbling them when I actually say them out loud, I find I can be more spontaneous now and it’s coming more naturally.

Booked some flights to Birmingham for the week’s Toussaint holiday at the end of October, so I’ll definitely be seeing my boyfriend and friends then, looking forward to that. I got parcels today too! I got one of magazines and hot chocolate from my nan and a big one from my boyfriend Alex which was a great surprise! It was packed so nicely I thought it deserved a picture:

I got two bubble bars from lush, a little froggy light/keyring that croaks and my favourite Hotel Chocolat product; kirsch cherries. A wonderful surprise!

Haven’t done much else today but I thought I’d list a few things I’ve observed over the last week.

1) “Espace culturelle” would be better named “Espace fumeur”

2) Following on from that, I can’t believe how many teenagers are badly addicted to nicotine already! In two hour lectures, the lecturers usually call “une pause” halfway through. Well, before they’ve even finished their sentence most of the class is halfway out the door, cigarettes in one hand and lighter in the other.

3) The stereotype that old french men smell, I have found is largely true.

4) The general obedience of people. The example of this I’m thinking of is the validation of the bus pass “carte vert”; basically a machine reads the chip, flashes a green light if your card is valid and that’s it, and you do this every time you board the bus. Even when it’s busy, everyone files past and one by one validates their card. The bus conducter has no apparent way of seeing whether your card has been accepted or not, you don’t get a receipt and nothing is recorded. In other words, it serves no real purpose and you could just as well have an invalid card and get away with it – I can’t imagine that in the UK such a system would be adhered to, people just wouldn’t bother.

There were more but I’ve forgotten them, I’m sure I’ll be reminded next time I’m out and about.

Looking brighter September 18, 2008

I’m feeling better about things today. Thanks to everyone who’s sent me supportive comments one way or another, it really helps. I needed to vent yesterday and in many ways once I’d got it out of my system and stopped holding back, things suddenly didn’t seem so bad. I’m still missing home but I’ve now made plans to meet up with the four law students from Cardiff, who seem very nice in the emails we’ve been sending. Knowing there are some other english people here has helped enormously in making me feel less isolated – even though I haven’t met them yet just knowing they’re there is reassuring.

One or two other things are nudging me towards feeling more confident here; I am now confident that we have a faculty-wide holiday at the end of October for which I am going to book flights back to England to catch up with friends and my boyfriend who I’ve hardly seen all summer, so that’s a 6 week goal to look forward to. I also found myself on the spot in Spanish today (yes I know, it’s mental doing Spanish in French…don’t ask) when I realised that particular class was the conversation class. Which means speaking out loud. Fortunately the language assistant was very nice and the whole lesson was conducted in Spanish, which I find easier than some of the ones conducted in French, bizarrely. I’m surprised how much I remember considering I’ve not touched the language in two years. Anyway as a tester of our levels we did the standard “round the class, say a bit about yourselves” thing, so I had to reveal I was english whereas up until that point I could have been anyone. And guess what – no one seemed to care! At least I didn’t get stared at which I was a little wary of. Oddly the ages in that group happened to range from 17 to 22, which I haven’t quite figured out since it was a 1st year degree course.

I also spoke briefly to two German girls who were in the kitchen when I went to do my dinner this evening, they’re also on Erasmus although they’re only here for one semester. They’re doing courses run by the Fac des Lettres so I’m sure I’ll run into them again there as well as in halls.

Soon I will have to start doing some work once the first lectures are all out of the way and we actually start getting set essays and things, so I’m sure the time until the Toussaint holiday will fly by.

A difficult day September 17, 2008

Well, I’ll be honest, today’s been shit. It started very early in the morning with having to get up and get the bus to town for a two hour chemistry lecture from 8-10. The lecture itself was actually one of the least crap things about the day because I found it surprisingly easy. Partly this is because of the universal language of chemistry but also we were actually covering material that I learned two years ago, as if they’d never seen it before. I always though that in France they covered more material in a shorter space of time so that I’d struggle because everyone was ahead of me, but today proved an exception.

After the lecture I spent a lot of time walking round town looking for somewhere that sells microwaves, to no avail. I’m giving up on this idea, I’ll just have to cope with the communal kitchen and the uni restaurant. At least it’s a guaranteed way to lose weight if I don’t eat much! I remembered to time the bus journey from the station to campus and booked my flights home for christmas, which seems an awfully long way away. I am feeling very isolated at the moment – I have no desire to go out and try to make friends with the french people on my corridor or in my classes because what I’m struggling with is the lack of familiarity, of anyone english or that I know from home. I was totally fine for the four days mum and Alan were here with me, partly because I was preoccupied with sorting paperwork out but also because we had the car and they were in a hotel just down the road…..the minute the door shut behind mum when they left on sunday it hit me like a ton of bricks that I was alone here for the next few months, and that feeling has only got stronger since. I have spent a lot of time crying and today when I asked in the International office for the contacts of some other english students it was all I could do not to break down again. I have now made contact with a group of students from Cardiff so hopefully things will get better, but as it is now all I can think of is getting home. I’m angry with my university for deliberately having a policy of sending students to different places in France to “force” us to strike out on our own when it’s so emotionally draining – you really need someone familiar to relax with. I’m emotionally exhausted and physically aching from being tense all the time and I realised today that in three days I’ve hardly spoken out loud at all, and none of that has been in English.

Things have to get better frankly because otherwise I simply won’t make it to Christmas, but at the moment I’m counting the days and that’s all I can do.