Education, Education, Education.

Many moons ago I sat some rather stressful and painful exams known to all as A-Levels. Now many language students are vexed by the kinds of stuff they have to learn as part of their courses when at school, but I can tell you some of these things can be very important believe it or not! I’m going to outline in this post exactly what I’m glad I learnt in Sixth Form and the vocab I wish I had known when I moved to Paris.

·         The Environment – when I was sitting my exams at the end of my school career no fewer than three out of my four subjects contained modules in the Environment. I was sick to death of saving the planet and renewable energy sources. Never wanted to hear about them ever again. But dear reader I am glad that I learnt all of those lists of words for it has helped me in this my adult life. Like the English love talking about the weather, the Parisians love talking about pollution. “Paris has worse smog that Beijing didn’t you know?!” and “I just need some fresh country air in my lungs” are not phrases that are unfamiliar to me when conversing with the natives. So thank you AQA, you have done me a massive favour for which I will be ever grateful for.

·         Plumbing – French plumbing is an interesting topic. In my old apartment it was certainly a thought-provoking topic due to the toilet that was so loud it could wake up even the most comatosed teenager. I wish I had known more about what the word for a block drain was or “How do I improve the pressure on the shower?” The main parties talk about Education reform a lot and all of them have passed over a change in the languages syllabuses. I urge them to reconsider and to implement more classes in which languages students learn more practical sentences which they can use in their travels around the world.

·         The Imperative – Those who haven’t had as many grammar lessons as me might be unaware as to what this term means, and for that I am quite jealous. It is the form of the verb you use when you are commanding someone to do something. Pretty useful eh?! After many, many lessons on this at GCSE I am so glad I know how to use it. It’s perfect for telling creepy men to “Get lost” and children to “Tidy their bedrooms”. So I would like to thank both of my secondary school French teachers for this particular nugget of grammatical knowledge. I am massively appreciative.

·         Meat and Fish – I love food. This may be evident to anyone who follows me on Twitter. I’m constantly asking for people to bring me different culinary delights, but I quite like cooking myself and not just people waiting on me hand and foot with mini doughnuts. Now most people can tackle a French menu, but can they tackle a French supermarket fish counter? I thought I could. Turns out I can’t really. Last time I tried to buy something from one I just pointed to whatever looked like a white fish because I had no clue as to what it was. Ended up buying a lovely piece of hake which was a pleasant surprise. I think school children should be given practical oral exams in dealing with surly supermarket workers and having to buy a shoulder of lamb as well as extracting the mother’s recipe for oeuf en cocotte from the man behind the counter.

There we have it. My shortlist of the things I had wished I had learnt at school and the ones I’m thankful I did. For all of you out there studying for exams that you feel are pointless, never fear they may feel like that now but I can assure you that snippets will be amazingly useful in the future. 

The Problems Of An Ex-Pat

I’ve been living in France now for just over 19 months and as what you might term an “ex-pat” I have encountered a few problems. Many people have a dream of living in a different country and that doesn’t mean they don’t love their home nation any less just that they wish to go and sample somewhere else’s culture. After recently writing a piece for the lovely people at the Franco British Chamber of Commerce and Industry about why I moved to Paris in the first place I started thinking about the downsides of being a foreigner abroad.

1.       Lack of Bacon – Not much needs to be said about this as all I have to say is the lack of this food of the Gods is in limited stock on the continent which is bad news for hangovers and quick dinners.

2.       Absence of Family/Friends – Even though there isn’t a massive time difference between France and Blighty but it does impact on when you can call up your nearest and dearest for a chinwag or for moral support.

3.       French TV shows – I don’t ask for much from a country but one thing I do require is a decent Masterchef-a-like programme of which France has nothing to offer. Finding sneaky ways to watch John and Greg eating strange taste sensations is just something you have to put up with as a Brit abroad who is in need of some cheeky, light-hearted entertainment.

4.       The Weather – Out in Liverpool today, I was commenting on the phenomenon that is sunshine in the UK. As soon as the rays of dawn grace our tired morning eyes we decide to don a pair of shorts and make the most of it. This eternal optimism just doesn’t happen on the continent. Partly because they get good weather most of the time but also because they can be reet miserable. I’d bet you any money that there is a Parisian still in a winter coat and knee high boats walking down Rue de Rivoli at this very moment.

So there you have it. My list of the problems one faces as an ex-pat in the Hexagon. It is by no means exhaustive however it certainly covers most of the main areas that we roast beef lovers have to deal with when living in the land of frog’s legs. 

End-Of-Term-Itis

It is the last week of term here at ULIP and across the UK universities are breaking up for Easter, which is also known in the academic calendar as the “quick I need to revise everything I’ve ever known” time. As a form of slight procrastination I have decided to explain a medical phenomenon that I have diagnosed in the student body with my wealth of medical knowledge and expertise in late night writing essays while simultaneously packing a suitcase for my return to Great Britain’s wondrous shores. You may only have a few of the symptoms they are as follows –

1.       Flasks filled to the brim with steaming hot black coffee clamped in the hands of tired looking students possibly with scraps of paper in the other hand and a crazed look on their faces muttering under their breath phrases like “no I can’t use the subjunctive there” or “Is this really a true representation of post-colonial history?”

2.       Long conversations between friends on Twitter during lectures asking the really deep and meaningful questions like “What are we even doing here?” and “What is life?” Not necessarily existential crises maybe just confusion about French dialects.

3.       People huddled over their laptops in the library sometimes shouting things at them (definitely never done that one in the quiet area…) surrounded with piles of books, half of which are philosophy based which make onlookers question whether they are there for an actual purpose or just to make the crazed essay writer look/feel really intelligent.

4.       Meaningless arguments about who had the last waffle from the vending machine because no one can be bothered with real food and tensions are so high due to a mixture of having seen these people constantly for nigh on ten weeks and excessive stomach rumblings.

5.       The printer is constantly being used by people printing off Boarding Passes and Eurostar tickets like it will make the day they are going home come quicker.

So some of these might be slightly ULIP orientated but you get the message dear reader, at least I hope you do. If you see a student in the next week or two and you think they look a little under the weather or like they need a decent meal in them, they probably do. Take them to the local KFC/Falafel shop/Michelin star restaurant and treat them in this, their time of need.

I Got All My Sisters and Me

On Friday night I went to go and meet a friend for a quiet drink. We’d agreed to meet in Pigalle which is around a 15 minute walk from my flat so I decided because the weather has been truly glorious in Paris recently that I would like to have a leisurely stroll down the boulevard. Now since moving to Paris I have become very used to comments in the street from men trying to get my attention. It hasn’t happened to me for a few months so I was slightly taken aback when two boys of a similar age to myself tried to get my attention by shouting things at me. In the wake of hundreds of demonstrations on Sunday for International Women’s Day I pondered about this kind of scenario which is so prevalent in some many major cities not just Paris. It truly seems shocking to me that I can’t walk to meet a friend without some kind of salacious remark being thrown at me.

I have grown up thinking that a woman can do anything she wants because I have never been told the opposite. Strong female role models in my life have proved to me that you can be successful in what you do as well as a wife or a mother. Or you can choose to be any of them. A common misconception of feminism is that it hates housewives, but this is contradictory to the concept of equality that is a core principal of women’s rights. To quote Beyonce “Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” In my brief time on this planet I have encountered many people, incidentally including women, who have no idea that this is the fundamental idea behind feminism.

As someone who is deeply excited by politics I find it apocryphal that more women don’t exercise their right to vote. The women who fought and died for our rights deserve us to exercise those rights and to strive for a better world where I don’t get catcalled for walking down the street or where we still have to have a day dedicated to women’s rights. Evoking the French libertarian symbol of Marianne I urge everyone, not just fellow females, to make every effort to improve life for women not just in our own countries and societies but those across the world.

 *jumps off her high horse* 

Film, Cinema and A Comfy Chair

I started off this year by reading Ayoade on Ayoade – A Cinematic Odyssey. I’m not one to usually succumb to a book because it has “celebrity status” but this particular tome interested me. I pretty much happiest when I’ve got my nose in a good book or when I’m curled up watching a good film. Now a book about film certainly has got me interested. But the book of which I speak is not the subject for this particular post. Instead I’ve been pondering about film.

I’ll watch any kind of film. Action. Comedy. Romance. Thriller. I like it all. Well pretty much all of it. Most people have this idea of university students chained to their laptops watching Netflix for entire weekends without seeing daylight. Now this is pretty much the truth. At least I do a fair bit of binge-watching whole series of TV shows for hours on end. This might seem like a waste when I live in such a culturally rich and beautiful city but I’ll tell you why I like it and more importantly why it isn’t such a waste of time.

There is something about film as a medium that can speak to you on a very direct level. Whether you just go and see a film for the sheer enjoyment of a good plot and the ability to just switch off for a few hours. Or you go and see a film to learn more about yourself or the world we live in. Maybe even all three rolled into one epic. You are entitled to that. Last year I went to the cinema on my own a few times. This seems really lonely and needy but I can promise you it was nothing of the sort. Half the time I find it really hard to find someone to watch a film with who isn’t just going because they have nothing else to do and who feels like they ought to keep you company. If you sneak in a cheeky beer or three and a few snacks, curl up on the seats and let yourself be immersed in the action, I can assure you there is no better feeling.

In my coming-of-age/existential/Parisian crisis that I’ve been having for some time now it reassures me to watch certain films that add something to my life. Oscar winner Birdman would be a perfect example of this. Despite seeing it in the UK I felt something in it resonate with my French life. The inner turmoil of authenticity and that nagging feeling at the back of your mind telling you what is right and wrong struck a real cord with me. The next film I watched after that was Chef. Sat amongst my delightful fellow Easyjet passengers I was sucked into the world of cooking and the feeling of making a breakdown something positive. For a recent seminar I had to watch Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (who says Arts degrees are all reading?!) Now despite my hatred of this film I couldn’t help but be seduced by the idea of walking around Paris at night and falling back in love with the true romance of the place (and not that depicted in the film).

So I call you dear reader, if tomorrow night you have no plans. No one to see. Nothing to do. Watch a film. Call a friend and watch it together in wondrous spontaneity. Or curl up with your laptop and have a big belly laugh by yourself. You will find out more about yourselves. I promise you that. 

50 Shades of Bad Dialogue

I’m stood in a queue on the Champs-Elysées waiting for a film. The line is snaking all the way down the road further than we can see without moving and losing our space in the queue. Can you guess the gender of most of the members of this line? Well, if you can’t then I had better tell you. It was mostly groups of women aged 18-30. What were we all going to see? The 50 Shades of Grey film.

As someone who hasn’t read the books I was intrigued to see whether all that I had heard was true. Would it really be sex scenes every five minutes? Was it poorly written? Would I be hooked by the characters and the plot? I can answer that briefly. No, Yes, No. There was not as much sex as anticipated. Obviously there was a bit and I wouldn’t advise small children to go and watch it but it was by no means all the time as I had imagined it might be. The dialogue is shocking. My lasting impression is that I would love to go through it with a red pen and re-write at least 50% of the interactions between the characters. The jittery, forced words said by people who are meant to be in love with each other just didn’t feel natural but in fairness the actors did do the best with what they were given. I’m by no means hooked by the franchise but it does throw up interesting questions for me.

From what I’ve read around the subject it is clear to see that there are scenes of abuse throughout the books, something we don’t see in the film. The representation of women in the film/books also makes my skin crawl slightly. As someone who has been brought up to know that women are not commodities and can do anything they want to it makes me uncomfortable to see the main female character treated like an object when people applaud the series for liberating women’s sexual freedom. It feels like this is some kind of oxymoron to me.

If you like the books and the film then that is absolutely your right. But just take a moment and think about them. Would you like to be in a relationship that is so volatile? I certainly wouldn’t. On this the most “romantic” of days I think a point of reflection about what women expect from society is important. Don’t just brush this off as “only a film” because that is like saying The Communist Manifesto and The Satanic Verses were “just books”. Any form of literature is propaganda whether it is mummy porn or political ideologies and it is our right to criticise either in a fair and balanced matter. 

The Pleasures Of Wandering Alone

Now that I live with people I don’t spend as much time completely by myself. It has been quiet reassuring to know that there is someone in the next room if the worst may happen like a burglar comes and steals my valuables (ginger biscuits and my Sean Connery poster), or if like the other day the electricity goes and you can’t find the fuse box to flick the switch (we found it eventually thank goodness – turns out it was in my room which is a little awkward).

But last week I spent a lovely afternoon just wandering around Paris taking it all in. After having a lovely “working” lunch with friends where we mostly talked about how much we love our lecturer and not about our group presentation, I had a gander around my favourite part of Paris – the Marais.

If you take a bit of time and just go where the crowd takes you occasionally then you can discover lovely little gems. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the Marais but it is one of the areas in Paris that has all sorts of concealed parks and little windy roads that take you to independent cafes and antique bookshops. When you’re in somewhere so beautiful you should go and try and find the hidden gems. With Valentine’s Day coming up it makes me think that this is the romantic side of Paris, not the standard selfie by the Eiffel Tower but finding the place that does the best falafel and making friends with waiters.

My walk on Friday encouraged me to take some time and clear my head. It is easy to get complaisant in this day and age to take things for granted. My advice is to put on some comfy shoes and walk until you can’t stand up anymore and your head is full of marvellous places and people.

Oh and for your information the best place for falafel is L’As Du Falafel on Rue des Roisiers and don’t let anyone tell you any different.