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.

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.

Home tomorrow ...

Sooo ... I'm going home tomorrow! I'm so excited, but it's really weird to think I've lived in France for going on 4 months already. A lot of this term felt like it was going insanely slowly at the time, but when I look back on it it's gone really really quickly.

I know I'm going to get so many questions when I get back, everyone asking how it's been, and I'm not sure I know how to answer!! So much has gone on that it's so difficult to put it into a few sentences! It's defo been really difficult. This is by far the most difficult thing I've ever done and is almost certainly going to be the hardest year of my university life.

There's no real point doing a recap because if you're that interested, you can just read my previous blogs. We've had an absolute nightmare with accommodation, a fire in our building and lots of wine at 5 euros for 5 litres. Loads of it has been really really good and some of it's been not so good, much like in Nottingham I suppose, though it is made more difficult by the language barrier and the fact that I'm in a different country from most of the people closest to me. The work has been ridiculously hard, though in the last couple of weeks something's clicked and it's become slightly easier. I've only had two pieces of work marked properly, one of them being my mock exam, and I got 8/20 in both of them, which is 2 marks off passing. And to be honest, considering most of the French people get between 6 and 8, I'm not too upset with that. It's annoying that I work so hard and I'm still failing, but hopefully with 4 weeks of revision time I can pull it up two marks. And there's only one exam that's going to be really hard, which is the module we have tutorials in. Everything else is literally just factual questions so it's just a case of learning everything and regurgitating it, which should be ok. I know that I'll be so glad at the end of the year that I've done it (provided I pass everything), I've just got to work through all the really hard stuff and try and still enjoy it at the same time, which I think I have managed to do mostly this term!

Today's been really really nice! I met up with three other girls from Nottingham who are doing Management and French and are studying at the business school - Nicola, Laura and Anna. Coincidentally, Laura lived with two of my really good friends last year (Alex and Lish), and they're all really lovely. We went for lunch - absolute mission to find a jacket potato but we found a pub and had lunch there then went for a bit of a wander. They said they'd found an Irish shop where you could buy mince pies which got me well excited but sadly we got there and they'd run out of mince pies!! Very sad times. Then I went to the Eglise de Notre Dame, which Helen and I came across by accident the other day and which is BEAUTIFUL, to try and talk to someone about organising a St Mary's tour. Unfortunately though, there were absolutely no "staff" there, but I had a look round the noticeboards and found an email address so I'm going to send an email that way to see if someone can help. Then I went to the Cathedral for the same thing, had a very lovely conversation with le Pere, who was very interested and said I have to email him with all the details and he'll post me the forms I need, so hopefully there'll be a little tour in the making there. After that I came back here, finished off my packing and then Sam came over so we could do Secret Santa and have dinner - him and Pat made us some LOVELY fajitas and then we did presents. Everyone was pretty happy, Helen had me and got me an egg that hatches into a dinosaur when you put it in water, a cow mug (yay!) and a PAINT YOUR OWN FISH!! It's amazing, you get two little clay fish and some paint so you can decorate them, I am VERY excited about doing that when I get back to Bdx. Helen, Mel and Pat are going out tonight but I'm going to stay in - I don't want to have to get any more money out and I don't want to be knackered tomorrow when I get back, especially as I have to get up at 7 on Monday morning for a hospital appointment!!

So yeah, it has been a good term in hindsight. I already feel like I can do anything after negotiating the French administration system etc for 4 months and managing to survive! I'm now just really really looking forward to coming home. My first couple of days are going to be incredible, I'm spending the whole day in Leicester on Monday, meeting a load of people for lunch and hopefully a few other people for coffee and stuff, then getting a haircut (finally - first one since the 2nd September!) and going out for dinner with Dad and Katie. Then Tuesday I'm off to Notts for the whole day, looking round a few houses if I can, meeting some more people and then SINGING in the Lord Mayor's carol service with St M's. I've missed singing SO much, and St Mary's even more. It's still so weird not having that kind of routine anymore, and the people at St M's are some of the people I've missed most, I can't wait to see everyone again. And then I've got so much more to look forward to, though I do have to do a lot of revision. But hopefully the fact that I'm having lots of fun will motivate me to work when I've not got stuff on, and then I can come back and hopefully pass all my exams ... and by the time I've finished my January exams, I'll be over halfway through my year abroad, which is a CRAZY thought.

So yeah, there's my first semester summed up as much as possible, and my last blog of 2009. Unless any of you want to find out what I'm up to in Leicester, but it probably won't be half as exciting as Bdx so I'm guessing not :P

Joyeux Noel :D

And one more thing

Something else now ticked off the list of "Things to do whilst in France":

I ate frogs' legs last night.
I am now coming to terms with the French mantra, "If in doubt, cover it in garlic."
They were very nice though. Like chewier, deep-fried chicken. Covered in garlic.

C'est tout.

Only in France

Today, I had my last lecture for one of my modules - international public law. About an hour and a half in, the lecturer was chatting away about international treaties, when suddenly we all heard a man's voice shouting from the back of the lecture theatre. I thought at first it was one of the students like, contesting what she was saying or something like that, but then this man who I'm not sure was homeless OR drunk, but definitely looked both, comes waltzing down the steps holding a guitar and a box. He went up to the big table behind which the lecturer sits and put his stuff down on it, took his coat off etc and then went and spoke to her and shook her hand. She was looking slightly confused at this point but let him carry on with what he wanted to do. And as it turned out, what he wanted to do was to serenade the lecture theatre. He sat down in the lecturer's chair, adjusted the microphone and then started playing his guitar and singing! I have no idea what he was singing but all the French people seemed to like it! Then when he finished, everyone applauded and he took his box, left his guitar on the table and walked all round the lecture theatre asking people for money! A French girl my friend Sophie was talking to said that he does that quite a lot - he'll just wander into lectures and the lecturers don't really know what to do so they just let him get on with it. He took bloody ages to leave as well, once he'd got his money he went back down to the lecturer and started talking to her again and was talking to students on his way back up the stairs - he must have been hanging around at the back because the lecturer suddenly went "Vous sortez, s'il vous plait!" ... and then he was gone.

Just thought I'd share that little snippet. Can't imagine that one ever happening in B62.

Your sex is on fire. Oh no, wait ... that's your flat.

So, if any of you have been stalking me on Facebook in the last couple of days you'll know that something quite scary happened yesterday - definitely blog-worthy!

There we all were, me, Mel and Helen in our room and Pat in his, dutifully doing our TD work. Patrick heard fire engines outside and looked out of the window (his room looks out onto the quays). A woman on the other side of the room started waving at him and shouting "Descendez! Descendez!" (for non-Frenchies, the literal translation of that is get the fuck out). Then he looked down and there were two fire engines outside our house and quite a lot of smoke! The three of us obvs had no idea by this point, until Patrick shouted "Girls, there's a fire in our building, get out!" I'll be honest, for a second I thought he was joking but from the tone of his voice it was pretty obvious he wasn't. So we all grabbed bags, put shoes on etc - I even thought to save my TD work on my laptop! Sadly, Helen struggled to put her shoes on whilst simultaneously performing the all-important task of checking her text messages in the face of death ........... and that was the last we saw of her :(

JOKES! She did however take a VERY long time faffing with her shoes and locking the door despite me shouting "Helen, don't lock the door just get the fuck out!" Anyway, we obviously had to evacuate so we ran downstairs, knocking on doors on the way and stuff. Then followed a VERY LONG TIME waiting outside in the cold behind red and white tape cordoning off the area, watching firemen put the fire out, with no one telling us what was going on. It became clear though that there had been an electrical fire in the basement of the building, underneath the shop that the proprietor owns on the first floor of the building.

Eventually we got fed up of waiting and not knowing anything and went to get some food. When we came back there were still firemen there - in fact, three fire engines, two police vans and two ERDF energy vans! The proprietor was there as well - that was the first time we'd actually met her and she was really lovely, even gave us an English handshake rather than the typical French cheek kisses. She basically told us what had gone on and said we couldn't sleep there tonight. Obviously though we didn't have anything with us so we asked a fireman if we could go up to the flat quickly to get more things for the night. He took us up with him - obviously there was no electricity so it was pitch black but it was SO smokey and the smell was disgusting - that really acrid burning plastic smell but worse! So we ran around grabbing overnight stuff and once we were out we phoned the Sheffield girls and asked if we could go round there.

Patrick went back to his room in halls for the night, and the three of us stayed with the Sheffield girls - it's actually really lovely to know that in case of emergency we have got friends who will always let us stay with them! So yeah ... and now, we're not really sure what's going on. We're waiting to hear from the proprietor about when we can go back properly but not sure if we'll be able to stay there tonight, and even if we can, when we'll have electricity, gas and hot water back.

So yeah! There you go. I thought it was definitely something worth blogging about! In other news ... there isn't really any other news. Less than two weeks till I'm back home now and I really can't wait. It's our last week of lectures, then we have one week pretty much free to go to the Christmas market (which is beautiful), shop, ice skate, admire the Christmas lights... and start some revision!

By the way

New address.

Emma Fox
2eme etage
19 Quai des Salinieres
33000 BORDEAUX
France
The world
The universe
Etc.

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