Soooo I've been a bit useless and not updated this in about 3 months. Truth be told though, not much that exciting has really happened! When I last updated I think I'd just got back from my week at home after exams and was just about to start the second semester. It's now nearing the end of the second semester, including this week we've got 3 weeks left of lectures and then we hit revision and exams. The most exciting thing that's happened was probs my weekend in Montpellier with my friend Hannah. She's working in a town called Nyons this year which is in the Rhone-Alpes region. I was going to go and visit her but her town is so obscure that the journey there would have taken me 13 hours, so we decided to meet somewhere in between and settled on Montpellier. Very glad we did because it is BEAUTIFUL. I had an amazing weekend, it was really nice to get out and see some more of France. I really enjoyed the train journey too actually, I got to watch France go by and we went along the south coast so I could see the sea! We stayed in a hostel which was really cheap (though I had to pay €15 extra to get my membership card), met a nice French girl and two really lovely Canadian girls whose contact details I have so I can go to Toronto/Nova Scotia when I go to Canada. Thennnn we did the general touristy sight-seeing stuff, went to the big museum and the guy there must've liked us because he gave us a free ticket each for our "next visit"... shame I probs won't be going back anytime soon! There was a really good photography exhibition too, not at the museum but in this park thing. And we just generally wandered around and saw the sights, had lots of amazing food and lots of COFFEE! Yes, this is more exciting news. Well, it's actually not very exciting butttt I think I LIKE COFFEE. This is a big step. I used to hate it and I was determined to have forced myself to like it before leaving France. The other night, I actually had a bit of a craving for a coffee! I'm very proud of myself haha. OH and there was an aquarium in Montpellier, with PENGUINS and SHARKS and everything! See photos on Facebook for more details :P
There've been a few more birthdays, notably Mel and Helen's. We went to the opera for Mel's to see the Magic Flute, it was a really modern production and we had shit visibility (tickets were only €8) but I really enjoyed it. The Grand Theatre is gorgeous inside, it was almost worth it just to see the theatre. Then we went out for dinner and stuff, €12.50 for three courses yes please. For Helen's we had an all-you-can-eat Chinese, then everyone came over for drinks and went out. Pretty standard but good times.
Oh, big news would also be that I passed all my January exams :) I wasn't expecting too, but verrrry pleased I did. It's given me way more confidence for the exams in May. I also had an interview for a law firm during my week at home in February. Completely unrelated to France, but I didn't get a vac scheme - again, wasn't expecting too and I was pretty pleased with my interview and stuff considering it was my first one ever. I've emailed for feedback but haven't heard anything back yet. I've been rejected from pretty much everywhere else haha, still waiting to hear from one firm and got a couple more to send off, so still hoping!
We've also started doing some volunteering here. We go on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5pm and help French children with their English homework. It's pretty cool, though the kids there are about 13 and there are three girls who are VERY annoying, but all the staff are lovely. We got invited to a party, which was my first experience of RACLETTE. Which is amazing. You basically have slices of cheese that you put under a grill in a little saucepan thing to melt them, and you eat the melted cheese with baked potatoes and charcuterie meat. We did eat a lot of food that night. I'm going to buy a raclette grill for when I come home so I can introduce the wonders of raclette to England.
Apart from that, there's really nothing else to report. This has been a pretty boring blog anyway, but not that much has gone on that's worthy of talking about too much! Lectures are fine, tutorials are fine, work is fine ... I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks, Charlie and Kim are coming over on Sunday for a few days, then we've got a university ball with an epic meal and stuff, then I'm home over Easter for a few days. I'm being allowed to sing on Good Friday evening even though I can't make any rehearsals. My flight gets in at about 2pm on that Friday, i have to wait to get my luggage, then drive back up to Leicester with Mum and Pete, then drive from there to Nottingham, after having got all my stuff sorted, by about 6:30 ... could be interesting, but should be fine as long as the flight isn't delayed. And then I'll probably sing Easter Sunday morning and evening too, and I think Geo and I are going to spend the afternoon with his dad, stepmum and sisters.
That's all for now je pense. I'll update soon. Actually, I probably won't until the next exciting thing happens, which might not be for a while! Ciao for now.
Monday 22 March 2010
Tuesday 26 January 2010
First post of 2010...
So, FINALLY here is my first update of 2010. I would have updated before now but things were very hectic during exams and then I was at home for a few days, and I thought it was inappropriate to update my French blog from England!
Well, exams were basically horrific. I came back to Bdx on the 3rd Jan, I had an exam on the 7th, one on the 11th, two on the 12th and one on the 13th, then an oral exam on the 18th. I have never been so stressed in my life as I was in the first week, to the point where I actually considered giving it all up and going home and forgetting about the rest of the year. Obviously, now, I'm SO glad I didn't do that, but I did come pretty close. It was a mark of how stressed I was that I lost half a stone in a week - I NEVER get so stressed I can't eat! But yeah, at the end of the first week I decided to book flights home after my last exam which was on a Monday, so I had 6 days at home when I could properly relax, like I couldn't do over Christmas because I was either revising or seeing friends but feeling guilty about not revising. It was SO nice to go home, it was exactly what I needed. Geo came down from Manchester for a couple of days as well, which was lovely. And I bought some snazzy new running shoes so I'm very motivated to get back on the running - in fact, I went for my first run in them last night and they do actually make a difference, they knocked about 5 minutes off my time to run 5km.
So after 6 lovely days in England I came back on Sunday and was actually really looking forward to the term - and I still am. When I was talking to my mum and dad during stressful week of hell, I worked out that I think that part of the reason last term tended to drag on a lot was that I had nothing to do at the weekends. It sounds really silly, but in Nottingham I look forward to every weekend because I've got my singing. Here, I have no structure to my weekends at all. So the weekdays go quickly because I have lectures but the weekends drag on. In fact, because I don't have any of my music, all I'm really doing is going to uni, doing uni work and seeing friends, which is strange for me because for the last however many years I've been busy and on the go all the time. So what I've decided I need to do is try and make sure I have something to look forward to most weekends, and do something different if I can. I'm going to see the Magic Flute at the Grand Theatre with Helen and Mel for Mel's birthday in a couple of weeks, hopefully I might be going down to see a friend in Pau with another friend who's in Bdx the weekend after, then the weekend after that I'm coming home for a week. By the time I get back it's pretty much March, then the second weekend of March I should be going to Toulouse with my friend Hannah who's living in Nyons this year, Geo should be coming down for our anniversary, Kim and Charlie are going to come and see me at some point in March, and hopefully I'll be able to organise this St Mary's tour for the second weekend of April. Then I'm home for 10 days or so at the end of April so that I can revise properly in my own space, then 3 weeks of exams and then I'm done! So when I look at it like that it seems really short, and it actually makes me feel a little bit sad that it could be over before I know it - which is why I'm determined to make the most of the time I've got left and make sure I enjoy it as much as I can. So in some ways I think I needed my little week of panic to kick me up the arse, and I definitely needed those 6 days at home to recharge my batteries!
So yeah, now I'm back and into lectures again, doing the same amount of modules as last term but this term I have to do two third year ones rather than just the one like I did last term - so that could be a little bit harder and will mean I have slightly more to learn for the exams, but I'll be so much more prepared for the exams next time round that that shouldn't matter too much - I think part of the problem before was that none of us really had any idea what to expect from the exams, and even now none of us know how they're going to mark it or how well we have to have done to pass. I guess we'll find out on the 16th Feb. Incidentally, that's my mum's birthday so if I fail she's going to get a tearful phonecall on her birthday ... oops. Nothing much else exciting has happened in the couple of days I've been back, watched two films already, had McDonald's with Hel on Sunday night (massively off-track with the diet but there was no food in the house), and then it's just been lectures the last couple of days. So there's not really much to report, except that I'm much more chilled out and really looking forward to this term now, which is good! I will update again when I actually have something exciting to say. Ciao.
Well, exams were basically horrific. I came back to Bdx on the 3rd Jan, I had an exam on the 7th, one on the 11th, two on the 12th and one on the 13th, then an oral exam on the 18th. I have never been so stressed in my life as I was in the first week, to the point where I actually considered giving it all up and going home and forgetting about the rest of the year. Obviously, now, I'm SO glad I didn't do that, but I did come pretty close. It was a mark of how stressed I was that I lost half a stone in a week - I NEVER get so stressed I can't eat! But yeah, at the end of the first week I decided to book flights home after my last exam which was on a Monday, so I had 6 days at home when I could properly relax, like I couldn't do over Christmas because I was either revising or seeing friends but feeling guilty about not revising. It was SO nice to go home, it was exactly what I needed. Geo came down from Manchester for a couple of days as well, which was lovely. And I bought some snazzy new running shoes so I'm very motivated to get back on the running - in fact, I went for my first run in them last night and they do actually make a difference, they knocked about 5 minutes off my time to run 5km.
So after 6 lovely days in England I came back on Sunday and was actually really looking forward to the term - and I still am. When I was talking to my mum and dad during stressful week of hell, I worked out that I think that part of the reason last term tended to drag on a lot was that I had nothing to do at the weekends. It sounds really silly, but in Nottingham I look forward to every weekend because I've got my singing. Here, I have no structure to my weekends at all. So the weekdays go quickly because I have lectures but the weekends drag on. In fact, because I don't have any of my music, all I'm really doing is going to uni, doing uni work and seeing friends, which is strange for me because for the last however many years I've been busy and on the go all the time. So what I've decided I need to do is try and make sure I have something to look forward to most weekends, and do something different if I can. I'm going to see the Magic Flute at the Grand Theatre with Helen and Mel for Mel's birthday in a couple of weeks, hopefully I might be going down to see a friend in Pau with another friend who's in Bdx the weekend after, then the weekend after that I'm coming home for a week. By the time I get back it's pretty much March, then the second weekend of March I should be going to Toulouse with my friend Hannah who's living in Nyons this year, Geo should be coming down for our anniversary, Kim and Charlie are going to come and see me at some point in March, and hopefully I'll be able to organise this St Mary's tour for the second weekend of April. Then I'm home for 10 days or so at the end of April so that I can revise properly in my own space, then 3 weeks of exams and then I'm done! So when I look at it like that it seems really short, and it actually makes me feel a little bit sad that it could be over before I know it - which is why I'm determined to make the most of the time I've got left and make sure I enjoy it as much as I can. So in some ways I think I needed my little week of panic to kick me up the arse, and I definitely needed those 6 days at home to recharge my batteries!
So yeah, now I'm back and into lectures again, doing the same amount of modules as last term but this term I have to do two third year ones rather than just the one like I did last term - so that could be a little bit harder and will mean I have slightly more to learn for the exams, but I'll be so much more prepared for the exams next time round that that shouldn't matter too much - I think part of the problem before was that none of us really had any idea what to expect from the exams, and even now none of us know how they're going to mark it or how well we have to have done to pass. I guess we'll find out on the 16th Feb. Incidentally, that's my mum's birthday so if I fail she's going to get a tearful phonecall on her birthday ... oops. Nothing much else exciting has happened in the couple of days I've been back, watched two films already, had McDonald's with Hel on Sunday night (massively off-track with the diet but there was no food in the house), and then it's just been lectures the last couple of days. So there's not really much to report, except that I'm much more chilled out and really looking forward to this term now, which is good! I will update again when I actually have something exciting to say. Ciao.
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