Les Hortillonnages and la Nuit des Musées May 17, 2009

Yesterday was quite a random day in all; in the morning I went for my last supermarket shop to get my dinner for tonight, and in the afternoon I went into town to take some pictures of favourite places like Jardin des Délices and Retroviseur, to buy some more macarons and to meet Sonia and friends for a walk around the Hortillonnages. The Hortillonnages are an area of 300 hectares of wetland, very close to the centre of town, that have been inhabited and cultivated for 2000 years. Today only a few farmers remain and only about 25 hectares are cultivated; the rest has become a sort of park or fishing lakes. There are paths through parts of it, but to see all of it the best way is to take the punt barge from Quai Bélu and be poled through the narrow channels, between the islands of land. Some islands are just wildlife habitat, others are farmed, and others still have sheds or houses on them. Each house has it’s own bridge and some have even built steeply curved driveways over the channels. Each seems to have their own little boat as well.

Shed on one of the Hortillonnage islands

After we’d walked round a small part of the Hortillonnages (we seemed to have picked a path that didn’t go very far before we got cut off by water), we headed back towards town and the Parc St. Pierre, the big park that everyone chills and picnics in. There are also allotments along one side of it, which are all full of produce. Keeping allotments seems to be quite popular here; passing through Longeau on the train to Amiens you see lots of them and I’ve glimpsed a few in a green space between some house on the bus a few times; basically wherever they can be squeezed in, they go. We wandered through town a bit, got some crepes from a street stall, and sat in Place Gambetta until it started to rain, whereupon we dived into Mezzo di Pasta for a couple of hours, taking our time over some drinks and pasta.

At about 8pm we went to meet some others outside Maison de la Culture to start our Nuit des Musées tour. La Nuit des Musées is an annual European event where museums put on special tours or open their doors out of hours, and it’s free. It’s a sort of publicity event to try and encourage people to come to the museums who might not normally come. Two places in Amiens were taking part; la Musée de Picardie and Jules Verne’s house. Unfortunately, the Musée de Picardie is actually closed all this year because they are doing some major repair and improvement works; replacing the roof and putting in a new lift among other things. However, as was explained to us, they still wanted to be a part of la Nuit so they had invited a group of artists to put in a light installation in their courtyard gardens. To be honest it wasn’t all that impressive; partly because it wasn’t actually finished so there was no atmosphere, and partly because it hadn’t gone totally dark so the lights weren’t so bright. I still took a few photos though.

The second part of the tour was to Jules Verne’s house, but that didn’t open until 10pm so we wandered in that direction and stopped in a bar by the Cirque just down the road from it to wait. They had Eurovision on the big screen, so that was a laugh. I didn’t see the UK’s performance but it was fun trying to explain the concept of Eurovision to the Americans! We got to Jules Verne’s house just after 10 and there were so many people there! The house is not that big and the tower part has a limit of 12 people at once, so they only let 20 or so people into the house at once. This meant that we were standing in line to get in for an hour, which we weren’t too impressed with. The line was just as long behind us, and their last admission was going to be at 12.30, so they also asked us not to take our time looking round the house, which I thought was a bit cheeky. Unfortunately, all video and photos are banned inside the house which I was very disappointed about, especially since there were some wonderful old posters! There was a room devoted to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea which had portholes and all sorts of marine memorabilia, and one devoted to Around the World in 80 Days. I particularly liked that room because the floor was a big map with the around the world route marked on it, and the writing desk has the globe on which Jules Verne drew the journeys of his characters. Up in the tower there were stacks of huge old books, but there was nothing to tell us what they are. The house is certainly full of some very old, valuable and totally irreplaceable artifacts. I took some photos in the courtyard outside; the tower of the house has a giant blue globe on the top of it and one wall of the courtyard is covered in a mural depicting features of Jules Verne’s stories.

Jules Verne's house with globe tower

Wall Mural

You can see all the photos I took yesterday here: Album 3.

One Week to go! May 15, 2009

Just one week left! This time next week I will be well on my way to Cornwall. I’m sure it will seem like less than a week though as I have several things lined up to do; tomorrow I’m going to town and meeting up with Sonia, we’ll go for a walk round the hortillonages and then in the evening there’s a “night of the museum” event going on which involves a light show in the gardens of the Musée de Picardie and an evening tour around Jules Verne’s house. Sunday will be a day of chilling and then on Monday the packing and cleaning begins, with a short break in the evening to have a farewell dinner with the Cardiff crowd, who I haven’t actually seen since February. Tuesday to Friday will zip by because of mum and Alan being here.

I now know I won’t have any more assessments or classes between now and leaving as well, since the blockades have been voted through again until Monday, and I wouldn’t go to classes even if we had them from Tuesday-Friday for obvious reasons. One of my lecturers emailed me on Wednesday about coming in for an assessment on the 19th, which I replied to saying I couldn’t do but that I could do Thursday, Friday or Monday. I also explained that I was leaving on the 22nd. Well he didn’t reply until today, and suggested an alternative date – the 26th! I honestly don’t know if he just didn’t read my email properly or what, but now we have established that there is no time both of us are available, so there’ll be no assessment for that. I haven’t heard from any of my other lecturers and I doubt very much I will now. Even if I do find an email in my inbox on Monday the reply will be “sorry, too late.” I don’t intend to rush work and I need time to prepare for leaving.

So at this point, I think I can officially call time on my academic year abroad! Next week will just be socialising and packing.

A Day in (and under) Paris May 14, 2009

I did head for Paris yesterday in the end, and gambled with the weather. As it turned out, it didn’t rain at all and was even quite warm with a peek of sunshine. Certainly enough for people to be out lounging and picnicking in droves in the Jardins de Luxembourg. I didn’t get everything on my list done, but I did see the things I most wanted to see. I ran out of time as I wanted to get the train back before 5pm in order not to have to pay extra on my train fare, but my feet were aching so much by that point I don’t think I could have faced walking round all the other things on my list! I can always do those another time; I doubt very much it’ll be the last time I go to Paris.

To begin with I headed the furthest south in the city I’ve ever been, to Place Denfert-Rochereau and the Catacombs. Although macabre and a little claustrophobic this was something I really wanted to experience. I had it down on my list to do on my first “grown-up” trip to Paris two years ago, but never got round to it.

Walls of bones in the ossuary

The Catacombs de Paris are an underground network of tunnels leading to an ossuary containing the remains of around 6 million people. They were created in the 18th century as a solution to the problem of disease caused by Paris’ many overcrowded city cemetaries, in particular the Cimetiere des Innocents which was in close proximity to the sprawling and busy food market of les Halles. The transferral of remain from les Innocents began on 7th April 1786 and continued for two years, with the remains being carried in carts accompanied by a religious procession under cover of darkness. Remains from all the cemetaries of Paris were deposited in the Catacombs until 1814. It became somewhat of a curiosity, with many noble men and ladies paying visits to the Catacombs. They were eventually opened to the public for a couple of days each week, and are now open every day except Mondays. The section of catacombs which are open now is 2km long, but in reality most of Paris is hollow underground! The carrieres are the former quarry galleries, of which some are open to the public, and then of course there are the vast sewer network which follows the street layout, and the 14 metro and 4 RER lines! All this tunnel-work under the city means that there is a whole department whose job it is to keep track of all the tunnels, maintain their strength and monitor all new building work to ensure no collapses occur.

As well as the Catacombs I had a small list of curious places in Paris that I wanted to see; such as the oldest tree, planted in 1601; the oldest house, built in 1407, and a wall with a cannonball from the revolution of 1830 still embedded in it. I had lunch in a lovely café called Berko on Rue Rambuteau, which consisted of a salmon and spinach quiche, salade du jour and a small sweet tart for €9.50. It looked like this;

Lunch

Pudding

Unfortunately the two cake shops on Rue Rambuteau I wanted to visit; Pain du Sucre and Pralus, were both closed, so I continued on my wandering tour of curious places to an Astrological Tower near the Louvre entrance to les Halles, an ornate entrance to the Palais Royal metro station and a WWI mobilisation poster still on a wall of a building near Place Concorde. By that point my time had run out, so I didn’t get to see the Chinese house, art nouveau building, or the house designed by the same architect who did the curly-wurly metro signs I like, but never mind they can wait for another day!
As always, full sets of photos can be found here: Album 1, Album 2 Album 1 also contains photos from trips in 2007 and 2008; yesterday’s pictures start with the Catacombs on page 2.

I didn’t get back too late in the evening so I went out with Sonia and some other Erasmus/ISEP students to Retroviseur to enjoy the usual Wednesday night Jazz. They were actually selling a CD of their music for 5 euros, which I considered a good investment. I didn’t take any more film as I was too involved in conversation but as I plan to take mum and Alan there next week I might take some then.

I will leave you with a couple more photos from Paris.

Jardins de Luxembourg

A hazy Eiffel tower overlooking Place de Concorde

Another AG and Stars sur Glace April 9, 2009

This week has tumbled by fairly quickly it seems, which doesn’t surprise me because there’s been a fair amount to fill it. Today I went to pick up some of my marked literature work from a lecturer who’d organised a rendez-vous at a café in town, and we sat with some of the other students and chatted about the strike and the experience of studying abroad for a while before I left to go to today’s AG back at campus. The results were predictable, and nothing unusual happened. Here’s the summary:

1) Motion to invite Georges Fauré to the next AG to debate the electronic vote: 40 abstentions, 4 against, passed by visible majority.

2) Motion to increase the number of principles/reforms the movement is against (I didn’t entirely catch the details of this motion but it matters little because…): 108 abstentions, 142 against, 25 for, therefore motion refused.

3) Motion to continue the strike: 16 abstentions, 4 against, passed by visible majority.

4) Motion to continue occupation: 35 abstentions, 53 against, passed by visible majority.

5) Motion to continue blocages until next vote Tuesday 14th: 30 abstentions, 141 against, 272 for.

So, there we have it; the movement continues in all its glory for another few days, and the next AG on Tuesday will likely determine the fate of the final days before the Easter break. I am still waiting to hear from Keele but I am definitely moving towards leaving end of this month.

Last night I went to Stars sur Glace; a showcase from members of the French ice skating team that has been touring the country over the last few months; last night it came to Amiens. The headliner was due to be Brian Joubert, a world champion, but unfortunately he sustained an injury over the last week and has decided to cancel his performances in the hopes of recovering in time for the championships he’s due to compete at soon. It was a disappointment not to see him but injury is a hazard of course with a sport like skating, and competing is his priority! As compensation they told us our tickets are valid for any one of next year’s shows, anywhere in France, so I’ll have to keep an eye out to see if I can get to one.  As is tradition with the show, it was kicked off by the local skating club who had three solo performers currently competing at national level; two young girls and a teenage boy who were all excellent – and then the rest of the club came on for a group number. I filmed most of the professional performances and I’ve organised them into video compilations for youtube. Make sure you select the high quality version by clicking the HQ button so it goes red – the standard youtube version really doesn’t do this justice! Oh, and the rink is the same one I’ve been skating on each week.

Tomorrow I’m off to Brussels so I’ll be back with an update on Sunday or Monday!

Jazz and skating April 3, 2009

As promised there is a jazz video in tonight’s installment! I went out with Sonia and an assortment of her friends on Wednesday night; to begin with I got the bus over to Sonia’s accommodation at Castillon – it was further out of town than I thought! We sat around drinking and chatting for a bit and then walked into town to St. Leu. One of the bad things about living in Castillon is that there is no evening bus service and the streets are small, quiet, residential with bad street lighting – not good for walking alone! It’s surprising (or perhaps not, we are in France after all) that the route between town and a major uni accommodation area would be so badly serviced. Anyway jazz at Retroviseur was great, we got there a bit after 10 and left at midnight; me and one of Sonia’s friends were both going to get the last bus back to campus so we walked Sonia most of the way to Castillon and then came back to St. Leu for the bus. Here is the compilation I made of the music:

Yesterday I managed to sleep half the day away and in the afternoon did laundry; nothing more exciting than that! Today I got up a bit earlier and went skating this afternoon with Sonia. It was good, didn’t really work on much but it was a quiet session and above all it was nice to have someone to chat to. After skating we walked into town and stopped by Alice Delice, a fancy cookware shop that sells posh pasta, coffee, chocolate etc as well as cooking utensils. Most days at 4.30 they have a short cooking demonstration in the mini-kitchen downstairs; today it was making banana muffins with blue and yellow lemon icing. It was fun to watch and we got a little taster of the muffins at the end!

I’ve had a couple of emails today from the International Office. The first was asking what courses I had been taking this semester because they apparently didn’t know, and had any of them been affected by the strike. I replied telling them they did have a list which I gave them to send to Keele for me at the beginning of the semester, and that all of my courses had been affected to some extent by the strike, but I could come and explain everything to them on Monday. Then a bit later on someone else in the office sent out a general email to everyone asking for lists of our courses that have been affected by the strike. This struck me as a bit late in the game; it’s like they’ve only just accepted or realised that this has affected us and will impact on exams! Anyway I will fill out this list and go explain it to them on Monday, and hopefully might get some concrete answers at last! Even if they have nothing to say I am still emailing Keele on Monday to outline what has happened, what I have to show for this semester and what I intend to do.

I think you know the drill… April 1, 2009

Yes so this morning brought another AG and I think you know the drill by now. I took my camera but didn’t bother filming since there were nowhere near as many people as on Monday. It was rather more subdued; the debate didn’t go on that long and this time mainly revolved around the possibility of an electronic vote that the presidence is pushing for. The main objections to this are issues of verification, democracy and the fact that the current set up of open debate followed by the vote would be unavailable. However, an electronic vote would potentially open up the vote to everyone, not just those who can make it to the AG. Although as one debater pointed out, if they really care enough about the mobilisation to vote meaningfully they will come to the AG. The motions voted on today were as follows:

1) Motion to boycott any electronic vote:  passed by visible majority

2) Motion to put in place anonymous or secret voting: blocked by visible majority.

3) Motion to send a delegation to a) the CNU (Conseil Nationale des Universités) b) the CNE (Conseil Nationale des Etudiants),  c) both, d) neither: visible majority voted for c) both – but it seemed there were problems getting volunteers to make up the delegation!

4) Continuation of the strike: passed by visible majority

5) Continuation of occupation: passed by visible majority

6) Continuation of the blocage until the next AG Monday 6th: passed by counted majority; 29 abstentions, 170 against, 277 for.

There was also a summary following the seige of la presidence on Monday; I didn’t realise this but for a while there have been “guards” on the door of the presidence building. Other administrative people are in there, such as the International Office who I went to see the other week; and I was asked by a man on the door who I was going to see and then escorted to the office, but since they were doing refurbishing works in the main hall I assumed it was to prevent me straying into that and had no idea it was connected with “protecting” the president from unwanted callers. Anyway, this article from Le Courrier Picard sums it up pretty well; Le president sommé de s’expliquer but since it’s in French I’ll recap.

Georges Fauré speaking to students, image from Courrier Picard

A couple of hundred students went up to the presidence after Monday’s AG to demand that the president Georges Fauré finally explains clearly his position with regard to the strike. They had to wait an hour and a half before he made an appearance and agreed to speak with them. One of the members of the mobilisation committee is quoted as saying “he’s been fleeing us for weeks; in the press he claims to support the movement but in reality he’s trying to undermine it.” Fauré’s main objection to the blocages seems to be that it is the biggest threat to the validation of everyone’s degree – how can you award a degree when it is supposed to be for 6 semesters and you’ve only done 5? One student spoke out and said that he was willing to sacrifice his semester and therefore the year in order to preserve the university for future generations; this was greeted with enormous applause. Fauré didn’t really seem to give a definitive stance one way or the other; obviously he doesn’t want to see his university “marred” by setting all the students back a semester as a result of this strike, however he does not declare himself in support of the reforms and therefore one might conclude he is against them and supports some form of resistance. He said that it was not his place as president to declare himself on strike. And he still seems unable to accept that this is a steam-train of a movement that shows no signs of slowing down; this week he sent an email about the assessments merely asking that classes be resumed from this week. Well, that just isn’t going to happen, so I think it would be better if he took his head out of the sand and made an executive decision, such as putting the exams back until September. That way, those students who are currently in crisis, unsure whether to support the movement and risk their semester or support their degree and go against the movement would perhaps regain a clearer sense of direction, and the movement would be the stronger for it.

I really didn’t intend to write just about the strike for yet another post, but to be honest not much else is going on and it takes up so much space! I had a really great skating session yesterday, tonight I’m going for drinks and jazz at Retroviseur with Sonia et al (expect another video), tomorrow I might go down to Paris for the demonstrations but more likely to leave that til next week. Apart from that just chilling and enjoying the sunshine!

Lazy weekend March 29, 2009

I have taken it easy this weekend, as the title suggests. Slept in yesterday and this morning, and haven’t done too much work. I finished my essay on The Tempest on Friday, so ran over a final draft and then emailed that and the other piece of work I did to my lecturer. Also emailed my answers to some set questions for Sociolinguistique to that lecturer. With Easter looming I am beginning to plan alternative forms of assessment with my lecturers so that in the event of there not being any exams I can take, I have something to show Keele for this semester! In other modules where I cannot contact the lecturer via email (because they don’t use it) and I can’t physically get into the buildings to find them in their office, there’s nothing I can do so I feel I should do as much as I can where it’s otherwise possible. To that end, the other piece of work I made a start on today is my presentation for Spanish on the subject of the Basque country. Normally this would be brief notes because the presentation is meant to be given orally, accompanied by a handout with diagrams or pictures. Because it looks unlikely I’ll get to give this presentation, I am writing it and formatting it as if it were a written presentation so even if it never gets marked by a lecturer here, I can show Keele that I was doing something. After I’ve finished that I’ll be done with the work for classes, but there’s plenty else I can do – learning Russian and practicing some free translation between French, English and Spanish are all on my list to do.

Something else I got done this weekend was finalising the trip to Brussels that’s been in the pipeline over the last few weeks. To begin with I mooted the idea of four days in Brussels, then it got switched to Bruges, then reduced to two days and moved back to Brussels, and now finally we have settled on that – the train tickets are booked now so there’s no going back! I met Sonia yesterday in a hidden-away Salon de Thé called Alice-Anne which has Wifi access for the price of a drink; useful to know in case of a future internet emergency. We are going early in the morning on Friday 10th April and returning in the evening on Saturday. “We” is me, Sonia and her friend Allie, whose family friends we are hopefully staying with. They live just outside the city apparently, and have kindly agreed to let us stay with them! The train journey is in two parts; from Amiens to Lille-Flandres on a regular intercity train and then from Lille-Europe to Bruxelles-Midi on a TGV. The stations of Lille-Flandres and Lille-Europe are only a short walking distance apart; Lille-Europe is the international station through which TGV and Thalys trains pass to Belgium and also Eurostar between Paris and London. The reason we decided on Brussels rather than Bruges is because of the train journey; with the one we’ve chosen we are always travelling north, whereas to get to Bruges made less sense, since it involved getting 3 trains; intercity south to Paris-Nord, Thalys north to Bruxelles-Midi (not via Lille) and then Belgian intercity to Bruges. So since we’d be travelling through Brussels anyway we thought we may as well just go there. I have yet to do my super-internet-research-whistlestop-tour planning but never fear I will have a manic list for our two-day stop!

Tomorrow brings another AG, another vote on the blocages – so until then I don’t really know what to expect for the week ahead. I want to say that blocages will continue, but following Thursday’s negative AG I’m not so sure as I would have been a week ago. Anyway it doesn’t really matter, because the promised sunshine is back and I have plenty of other things to fill the next few weeks, so time will pass quickly even if I don’t have lectures. I hope the presidence gives an answer on what they’re going to do about exam scheduling soon, so I (hopefully) have some ammunition with which to email Keele and justify me leaving in a month instead of two.

Where did that week go? February 15, 2009

I can’t believe it was Tuesday when I last posted! The rest of this week has just vanished, I really don’t know where the time went! It’s bizarre because I was so tired by Friday, and I have been feeling like I don’t have time to do the little work I have – and yet half my timetable is still cancelled due to the strike and skating was the most active thing I did this week, so it makes no sense! I did in fact mean to go skating on Friday afternoon but in the end I was so sick of rushing around and backwards and forwards from lectures I decided to stay and chill out with some reading instead. There will be plenty more time for skating – I’ll go again on Tuesday definitely. I’ve finished les Fleurs du Mal, next will be Horace’s Oeuvres I think. Apart from that there’s just a few pieces of Spanish work to do and some other notes to read. I have the second Approche Litteraire du Picard lecture tomorrow, and then another week off because of the February holiday!

I went shopping yesterday but didn’t find much really, the sales have finished now and it’s down to one rail of random items at the back of the shop that no one really wants. I bought a few bits from Sephora and a new pair of shoes from my favourite shoe shop, but no more clothes finds. Of course yesterday was le jour du St. Valentin, so there were quite a number of couple walking arm in arm with single roses or bouquets, and also I noted quite a few holding shopping bags from lingerie shops! I spent the evening with the Cardiff girls and a friend they’ve made from Bristol uni who is on an assistantship. We watched the England vs. Wales 6 Nations match at My Goodness and then stocked up on junk food from MarchéPlus, went back to Alice’s and watched Mamma Mia! Unfortunately I didn’t pay attention to the time and missed the last bus, but oh well. We then moved on to the Mamma Mia! singalong parts and decided that since Katie and Alice were going to have to get up at 6.30am to walk Vicky to the station (she’s going home for the holiday a week early), it would be better to avoid going to sleep altogether. So we pulled an all-nighter and spent the rest of it exhausting youtube’s supply of disney singalongs, and then when that was done we sat and chatted about music, art, talent and language. We all got a bit of a second wind after 4am and were quite perky walking Vicky to the station. I got a bus back at 7.30 and slept from 8 until 2pm, which was in hindsight a mistake because I felt rough when I got up. Never mind, I will try for an early night tonight and hope the balance is regained by tomorrow morning.

I fully expect this week to whizz by like the last did, since I have plenty of things to fill my time. Tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday will include lectures, work and skating; Thursday lectures, laundry and packing and then Friday I’ll have 4 hours of lectures in the morning, lunch and a final tidy up and head for the station at about 4pm. I’m getting the TGV again so I don’t have to leave so early, otherwise I’d have to get the 15.08 slow train and since my lectures don’t finish til 1pm, that would be a bit tight. Actually technically my lectures shouldn’t finish til 2.30pm but the last one is one of those on strike, and I expect that will still be the case this week. There is no word or sign of the strike letting up; there have been fewer meetings and less activism than there was at the beginning, instead it has become the norm not to have these lectures! In some ways I’m not looking forward to it ending because it will be a nasty shock; having now got used to that extra time in the week it’ll seem like I have none at all if we go back to a normal timetable!

Skating up a storm February 10, 2009

It’s been a slow start to the week again what with no lectures yesterday and only one this morning, but I’ve got some work out of the way. Even though half my lectures are cancelled there is plenty of reading material; at the moment I’m working through the Spleen et Idéal section of Baudelaire’s les Fleurs du Mal, and there are of course handouts to read that have been left by the lecturers on strike. There was a demonstration in Paris today for this education sector strike, with some discrepancy between the numbers of attendees; some say 50,000; the police say 17,000 – a large movement either way. Yesterday evening the Education Minister Valérie Pécresse announced that the proposed legislation would be “reworked” in light of the unrest it has caused, but reiterated that reforms would still be made in September 2009, at the beginning of the next academic year. The teachers still aren’t happy with that though, and see the government’s back-pedalling as evidence that they can win their case and have the whole thing thrown out, so it isn’t going to stop the strike just yet.

Along with parts of the UK, most of the north-west of France has been hit by a big Atlantic storm over the last 24hrs. The wind and rain built up all through Monday until it was really howling; last night and this morning there was rubbish and debris blowing everywhere and the wind snatched the

Vendée Globe pavilion damage

breath right out of my nose! It had mostly blown out by lunchtime though and with the exception of a few sudden downpours this afternoon, it is now eerily quiet; the calm after the storm! The Vendée Globe headquarters, on the coast at les Sables d’Olonne, was badly hit with their main pavilion and some equipment being damaged and wind speeds of up to 140km/h were recorded.

I did brave the weather today to go skating again, and I’m glad I did. As expected, it was much quieter than at the weekend, and to add to that it was on the big rink (the same one as in the pictures from the hockey match) rather than the smaller one which I’ve been on previously. To begin with however this didn’t seem like much of an advantage, because we were coned into 1/4 of the rink while the rest was taken up with kid’s hockey training. There were about 10-15 of us skating round in this little patch of ice and I was less than impressed, but then after about 45mins the kiddies packed up, they took away the cones and we had the whole rink. Ahhhhh the space! It was brilliant, suddenly it seemed like there were about 4 of us on the rink, not the same number as before. I worked hard on that rink; apart from working on circles, switching from forward to backward and general blade control, I spent 15 mins just skating round, concentrating on maintaining a good upright posture and strengthening core muscles. And I felt it; towards the end and afterwards my core muscles and thighs were aching splendidly, but this is good because it shows I’ve worked at something.

To cap off this post, I am happy to report that the accommodation staff have come to their senses and finally the kitchen is accessible with just our swipe cards, and we no longer have to faff with going down to reception to exchange a key for our student card. I don’t know what’s prompted the change – probably they just got sick of constantly exchanging and keeping track of the key – but I found out when I went down to get the key last night and was told “new system – the kitchens are open”. Whatever the reason, I’m glad as it should make things much simpler. I have touched base back at Keele this week with my accommodation application for 2009/10 being sent off; after finding out last week that they would email us forms (because obviously we can’t be at Keele to come in person as would normally be the case), we finally got them through today – and they want them back by tomorrow! Good job my internet is working at the moment eh?! Honestly sometimes I wonder if these people engage brain at all sometimes. Natalie – another Keele French student who is one of the group I’ll be living with next year – sent them an email last week to ask about our application, and the reply she got was “please come to the Darwin building to discuss this with a member of staff”. Err….didn’t really grasp the context of the email there did they?! Anyway despite some rather worrying moments like that everything seems to be sorted in that department and we should have a nice little flat for our final year.

Ticking along, still the strike goes on February 9, 2009

I’ve been a bit remiss in the frequency of my blog posts this week, but to be honest there’s not been much new to write about. I was going to blog over the weekend but time slipped by and I didn’t get round to it. I woke up on Saturday morning all set to hit the sales with a major mission, opened my shutter…….and stared in dismay at the sheeting rain outside. After the blue sky and sunshine of Friday, which was also forecast for the weekend, I was not impressed that it should dare to rain on the day I’d chosen to go out shopping! Anyway I left it for a bit while I had breakfast, and then it started to snow lightly rather than rain, so I went down to the supermarket to get my week’s food and it wasn’t so bad out, so I decided that after lunch I would go to town after all. In fact it had stopped snowing as well by the time I left (it didn’t stick), and I found a couple of bargain tops in the sale although the wind had gone out of my sails a bit. I might have another go later in the week.

Yesterday I went skating in the afternoon, although it was busy and I didn’t do much. There’s too many of either extreme; wobbly people who are apt to fall over in front of you or make sudden unexpected changes of direction, and too-big-for-their-skates teenagers who are very good but reckless, and fly round the rink diving at each other and showing off, but with no regard for anyone else. And of course the ones with hockey skates love to carve up the ice with their flamboyant stops. So while I might continue to go on some sundays when I haven’t got much work to do (like this week), I have decided that I’m going to go on Tuesday afternoons instead because I figure the idiots will be in school and I stand half a chance of actually being able to work on things. After skating (which was by myself again) I dropped round to the Cardiff group’s residence to see if anyone was in and if they wanted to go for a coffee. I knocked on Joe’s window but he wasn’t in, and since I didn’t want to put credit on my phone (there’s a time limit to use it or lose it) I was just about to go and get the bus when he walked round the corner, and told me that the girls were in a bar (Au Bureau – “At the Office”, ironic for a bar, no?) watching the football. I went to find them for a bit of a social even though I’m not really interested in football, and found them polishing off some pints and chips. We ordered some more food and drinks and must have sat there for hours! In the end they switched the tv channels so poor Katie only got to see about 30 minutes of the UK football match she had come for; they switched it to a French match. We tried bargaining with the waiter – “we’ll buy another round if you’ll switch the channels!” – but he said too many people had already asked for the one it was on. He was a bit of a flirt but funny and ended up swapping numbers with Alice when we paid the bill!

The teachers’ strike continues this week; in total four of my lecturers are striking, all from the Faculté de Lettres and accounting for 3 modules and 9.5 hrs per week of my total 20.5 hrs, so roughly half my timetable in that respect. I found out from Marion on Friday that some of the Spanish lecturers are also striking, just none that teach me so that’s why it hadn’t affected my modules. I asked her when she thought it would end and she says it’s difficult to tell – the one last year lasted 3 months. The turning point for this one will probably be when the government votes on the legislation that is being opposed; a no vote will most likely end the strike and a yes vote will prolong it and provoke stronger action. In the event of a long strike, exams will either be written off or be extremely easy; based only on the material covered before the strike began. I asked Keele what the repercussions would be on my year’s credit if I couldn’t be assessed for some modules, and they said that when there is no mark for a module due to circumstances beyond the student’s control then they just calculate for the year with the marks you do have.

The weather continues to be changeable here; while yesterday was dry but grey, today brings lashing wind and rain/sleet. The forecast is for more rain with a lonely day of sunshine on Wednesday, with temperatures dropping through the week to snow by the weekend. Still nothing compared to what the UK has had in terms of snow, and I just hope that it starts to peter out now to give everyone a bit of a break – and not least because I don’t want any travel delays in a fortnight! It seems unlikely the airport or trains here would be affected if we had a sudden dumping of snow, but I can imagine that the flight would not be able to land at Exeter for example, or it wouldn’t be safe for mum to drive up and collect me. Hey-ho, we shall just have to see. Two weeks is a long time in weather terms I suppose and it’s difficult to predict now what the situation will be.