Only The Beginning

It certainly feels quite strange to be writing this post. Nearly a week after my gradutaion from the University of London Institute in Paris I am sat in my beautiful apartment trying to deal with a heatwave and the fact my family have returned back to the UK. Graduating was a more emotional experience than I think I had prepared myself for. Everyone must go through a number of different emotions when you don that black robe but for me it was a moment I hadn't seen myself arriving at considering what has happened in my life in the last year.
I received a 2:2 in French with History which was definitely not what I saw myself doing when we take into account the fact I applied for French Studies as a nearly straight A student almost 4 years ago now. I was diagnosed with anxiety with depression and PTSD earlier on this year which made me think that there was a possibilty I'd have to resit my final year. Luckily the help was there from family, friends and my university as well as the magnificent NHS to get me back on my feet again. From panic attacks to depressive episodes the attacks in November affected me deeply both pyschologically and physically. The attacks in Nice certainly resonanted with me as I waited to receive my degree and I was awash with emotions as I sat waiting. I grieve for those who lost loved ones as well as those who have been affected by them whether directly or indirectly. The day after my graduation I managed to return to the area that I was in the night of the attacks which has been a dark place for me ever since that night but armed with the coping strategies I have gained since then I coped.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can do it. It gets better. I am living proof of that. I now speak to you as a graduate of a unique instiution who has a job, a roof over their head and people who love them. I couldn't be more content which isn't to say I don't struggle. There are still days where I am a crying wreck on the bathroom floor but I just pick myself back up again and try to carry on the best I can. Panic attacks and social anxiety are not to be trivialised. If you feel like you can't cope and that you're expressing your stress in the wrong way then don't suffer in silence. I urge you to talk to someone, goodness knows I wish I had realised this sooner about myself.
The closing words I'm going to use about my university life are ones that I hope I adhere to throughout my adult life.
Don't let the bastards grind you down kids.

Mastering The Art Of Being Parisian

Recently the real world has kind of taken over for me. Finishing university was a milestone that I don't think I was quite prepared for but I have been trying to fill the void with work, work and more work! I've also been reading a lot more. Something that I surprisingly didn't have much time for during term time. My concentration levels have dwindled over the past year or so but now that I am getting myself back on track I am finding that I can read more. 

I've been trying to remind myself why I love living here so much and why I chose to live here in the first place! So the first book on my summer reading list was My Life in France by the one and only Julia Child. For those of you who aren't familar with the culinary giant - she essentially introduced proper French cooking to America with her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It turns out that when she moved to Paris with her husband in the 1950s she lived around the corner from where my university is and she used to shop on the road I used to go and get my lunchtime panini from the Italian deli. There were little coincidences like this that made the book truly magical for me. It has reinspired me to not only love France more but to cook more. Cooking and baking are two of my biggest passions but my desire to work on either of them while finishing my degree dwindled. 

A couple of weeks ago I plunged fully into becoming a proper Parisian and I invested in a shopping trolley. The quintessential French accessory. It came from Monoprix and that's where I take it back to pretty much once a week. Now I get excited to fill it full of whatever is in season - I've even started fondling vegetables to make sure they are just right. Don't get me wrong I still love a good old cup of tea and a dunkable biscuit but after what has been going on in the UK recently I'm ready to become fully French, or at least Parisian until Great Britain sorts itself out.  

How To Be Parisian

I think by now it has become evident that my aim has been to become a native here in Paris which hopefully has started happening. I mean I do sneer at people who eat on the metro and I do think that anytime is appropriate to sit outside a café with a glass of rose and some nibbles watching the world go by.

Today I was walking to work watching all of the French sat outside eating lunch and it occurred to me why I like living here so much. People take their time doing stuff. You see the grocers chatting away to each other, probably gossiping about all of the locals. I saw this guy obviously on his lunch break from work chomping down on a strawberry tart in a local brasserie while reading the paper. Doesn’t that sound like absolute bliss? Earlier today I wandered through the Bois de Boulogne on my way to see the Fondation Louis Vuitton and what did I see? Groups of old men playing pétanque with bottles of wine in the mid-afternoon sunshine.

I think that this summer I am going to make a promise to myself. I need to be more Parisian. I need to take things more slowly and savour the little things. Whether that is sitting on a bench and eating a really fresh peach in the sunshine or take time to prendre une verre with a couple of good friends. 

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

I couldn’t help but use a line from my favourite sci-fi series in order to describe the crazy journey that will come to an end tomorrow.  It truly has been a rollercoaster of emotions like all university experiences are. I would not have changed my time here at university for the world. I believe that it has made me the person I am today and without the experiences I’ve had here there is no way on this earth that I would be as strong as I am now.

That doesn’t mean that it has been easy. Anything but. I don’t think I really anticipated how hard it would be to move to a different country when I was barely 18 from sorting out my utilities to cooking for myself everyday it made me grow up so much quicker than I had ever expected. I’ve found out how resilient I can be in the face of adversity throughout my time at university but I would say this has particularly been proved during this last year. Following the horrendous events of November last year I was in a slump that has been difficult to get myself out of until very recently. At that moment and during some of the darkest times I wanted university to just be over with already. However I’m glad that I have got through what has been a really testing term for me. Mental health is a topic the media is always telling us we need to pay more attention to and it wasn’t until it affected me directly that I understood why. By opening up with what I was going through (and still am to a certain extent) I was able to help myself as well as them. In brief I would say that one of the biggest things my time at university has taught me is to be honest with people about what is going on in your head. I am all too ready to bury my head in the sand and but a brave face on but realistically this doesn’t help anyone.

I’m apprehensive about going out into the big wide world just as I was when I finished secondary school but this time it feels a lot more uncertain. The 9-5 is such an exciting prospect to me but im pretty sure that there isn’t a student graduating right now who isn’t slightly afraid of not having the safety net of formal education to help them when things go wrong. No longer will we have student loans to pay the bills or the lovely people in Student Services to dictate our timetables to us. My degree has taught me so many more things than how to write a good essay about Bonapartism and I am looking forward to doing it all on my own so I can prove to myself that I can. It’s just that I have a heavy heart about leaving an institution that has given me so much support and so many life skills that I could never have learnt anywhere else.

This blog won’t stop by any stretch of the imagination. It started as a vanity project and so I could keep in contact with friends and family by letting them know about all of the funny things that were happening in my life. Now it has turned more into a bit of therapy. In fact this post might read like I am pouring my heart out to a counsellor and for that I apologise. I feel it is important though at this point in my Parisian journey to look back and reflect on all of the ups and downs and where I am today. Despite not quite being the fully fledged adult I thought I would be at this stage I do believe that I have grown enormously since that first day of Freshers week where I skipped my way into uni excited to meet my new friends.

I would finally like to say thank you to all of you who have been reading my blog. It really does mean a lot to me when I get the feedback from you all. As someone who suffers from social anxiety I feel like this is a platform that I can use to fully express myself when I struggle to do so in social situations. Seeing the page view counter increasing following a new post I get a sudden rush of excitement that people actually want to read what I have written – something I never imagined would happen.

Before I get too emotional myself I will wrap it up quickly and just reiterate my thanks to all of you who have participated in my university career, whether friends, family or blog readers.  I shall continue to grow in myself and more importantly continue writing! And like the dolphins in The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy I shall no proceed to flick-flack away across the sea to the next part of the adventure we call life.

Caffeine Cravings

It isn’t surprising that in my final exam period my mind is wandering to thoughts of delicious drinks that can keep my awake that little bit in order to cram just a little bit more information into my brain. One of my ideas of what my life would be like when I first moved to Paris definitely involved lounging in a gorgeous pavement café sipping espressos and basking in sunshine. Luckily this has proved to be one of my favourite activities during this Parisian adventure. Grabbing coffee with a friend is synonymous with putting the world to rights and is an activity I am more than well versed in. Here is my shortlist of the top places to pick up your latest pick me up.

·         Strada Café on Rue du Temple and Rue Monge is everything a hipster cafe should be. From the ever changing art on the walls to the deliciously freshly pressed juices you can’t go wrong with anything from here. I stumbled across the Marais branch during a long day schlepping around the city for work and managed to have a delightful pitstop out of the hot summer sun and had an invigorating latte.

·         Café Kitsune on Galerie de Montpensier has some of the best homemade iced tea that I have ever tasted. What better way to finish off wandering around the Louvre that a cup of citrusy goodness? The interior décor is truly sublime and makes the experience you have there.  The little fox shaped biscuits are the best thing to round off a visit to this fashionista hotspot.

·         Coutume on Rue Babylone and Coutume Instituutti on Rue des Ecoles in the Finnish Cultural Institute have to be my two favourite places to work, natter and feast on Scandinavian goodness. The Finnish pastries that they have are truly magnificent and deserve an entire blogpost for themselves. I suggest ordering a chai latte and financier if you happen to be in the Coutume Babylone for the perfect revision aid.

There are obviously many more places to go and grab a good old cup of Joe as our American cousins call it but these are just a few favourites. I’m sure this might become a regular feature on my blog as I really can’t get enough of anything brewed by a beardy barista.    

Positive Thinking

Recently life had been getting me down a little bit from the emotional realisation that in a few short weeks I shall be out of formal education and in the big wide world to the stress of the final exams I will hopefully ever have to take it has been a tumultuous few weeks. However today on a little wander I had to go and treat myself to a cheeky coffee I decided something. There’s only so much that we can change. I am a great believer in fate and I happen to believe that everything happens for a reason but something today changed ever so slightly for me. After struggling with my mood and various other issues over the past few months I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to be more positive. CBT or cognitive behaviour therapy is all about changing the way you think about certain situations which could and several books that use the teachings of the founders of this philosophy have been helping me recently. My personal motto now thanks to a book I read to try and help me to sleep better is that “Thoughts aren’t facts.” This really struck me as such an obvious but helpful phrase to remember in times of stress and anxiety. Before a recent exam that I was particularly worried about I kept repeated it over and over to myself to quash the feeling that I was going to fail. Surprisingly it worked! I walked out of the exam feeling like I had given it my best shot.

Positive thinking may sound like a naff idea to many; in fact all of this self-help stuff has always riled my more cynical side but using these kinds of ideas in your everyday life can help you for the better. As a modern languages student I think that you need quite a lot of positive thinking particularly when you live abroad because every day you can find yourself in situations where your confidence is knocked from the man on the till in the supermarket replying to you in English as soon as you open your mouth to the daily culture shock one encounters when you realise folks on the continent can’t queue. I’ve decided not to let these little knocks to my confidence stop me from feeling happy about myself and to make the most of the short time I have left being a student. 

Asian Food In Paris

Revising for exams at home the same time that Masterchef and The Great British Bake Off Crème de la Crème are back on our televisions is not exactly conducive for keen concentration on my work. However I have decided to channel this energy into something useful! A cheeky guide to my favourite Asian restaurants in Paris. This may seem like a crazy suggestion; surely everyone wants to eat French food when they come to Paris? However when my Mum and I visited Paris together to view my first ever flat we decided that you don’t always have to eat French food in France after finding an incredible authentic tapas bar. In fact you can find some of the best multicultural cuisine in the world in Paris.

My first recommendation I basically a recommendation for an entire street. Rue Saint Anne is the heart of the Japanese quarter in Paris and you can get some of the best ramen I have ever tasted there. My personal favourites are Sapporo for Katsu curry at the counter while you watch the chefs perfect their broth and Aki bakery for a yuzu éclair which is the perfect mix of French and Japanese culinary skills. It never hurts to pop further down the road to the supermarket where you can get tens of different varieties of instant noodles and exotic vegetables.

Next we head to Korea for a chilled out restaurant that is soon becoming my go to place for relaxed dining. I recently went for my anniversary meal and I can say that we were definitely not disappointed with the quality of the food. They specialise in Korean Fried Chicken which we had with sides of rice topped with kimchi and nori as well as well-crafted cocktails. I was torn between the Nice Legs and the Thug Life, who can resist names like them? At the top of Rue Saint Denis this establishment is unassuming but pumps out some of the most amazing food I have ever had in such a wonderful atmosphere I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Finally I’d like to recommend a place that I can’t actually remember the name of! Situated on Rue Bayen in the 17^th arrondissement this restaurant does some of the best Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwiches of crusty French baguettes filled with pickled carrot, ginger and gorgeous beef or chicken). The dangerous thing about this place is that is it so damn reasonable and happens to be next door to my boyfriend’s apartment which makes it so tempting to just order in for dinner instead of cooking!

Now my taste buds are tingling after conjuring up the memories of these delicacies I’m going to have to go and have a few dozen cups of tea to quench my cravings!