Job search progress:
Several bookmarks of Lyon language school websites, 2 open MSN windows, reading of 1 extremely long email, singing along to the CD of Wednesday's concert (yes, I'm that sad), hunger.

To be fair (have spent so much time with Oxford students lately I've started opening sentences with all the old cliches), I am waiting for a reply telling me whether my French CV and application letter are correct enough to be unleashed on the world, and to send them off before that would, obviously, be foolhardy, nay foolish.

Anyway, due to the course actually being rather hard work, and internet access being limited, I haven't had the chance to update much, so you will now be subjected to a long account of everything I have done in the last six weeks.

I shall place this under sub-headings to show off about the fact that I have been in two different continents.

Paris.

Hurrah. I now have an actual skill that will hopefully make me employable.

And I had fun in France. The course itself was rather intense, lessons every morning, where I learnt all sorts of exciting things, like how to use the phonetic alphabet in an actual, practical situation, and why 'have to' is considered a defective modal, and that is possible to die twice in one morning (at least within the framework of a drama workshop). We had teaching practice in the evenings, which was slightly more stressful, but I discovered the trick with children is just to spend three days colouring things for them beforehand - this has the double benefit of preparing exciting visuals to keep them pacified and also stopping you panicking about them devouring you (children can smell fear).

I also went to Zara and bought two V-neck jumpers, but neither of them were black, and it was money my dad had given me, so that was free money, so it doesn't count. (See below for another example from Warped Economy for Hamsters.) And goats' cheese and wine were very cheap, which helped counteract the stress. And I took my friend to hospital in the middle of the night, which gave my French an unexpected work-out.

We had a lovely dinner at the end of the course (we all passed).... and then the boy appeared at such an ungodly hour of the following morning that the Metro station wasn't open yet and I sailed right past it and walked for 15 mins in the wrong direction and pouring rain. But he brought me a Creme Egg, so I forgave him. The next day was sunny, so we did lots of sightseeing and actually got to sit and drink in a pavement cafe (which I couldn't do last time I was in Paris as I had no friends), and the next day was a general strike, so I had to catch a stupidly early train and then sit at the airport for many hours. The airport has no seats. This complicated the whole sitting thing somewhat.

USA

Didn't that blend smoothly into the next sub-heading? (For I was in the airport in order to go to Boston to find the choir.)

I arrived extremely late after a long day's travelling and managed to pick the only taxi driver in the world who needed directions to, like, a whole area of a city. However, instructions were acquired, and I was greeted by Chinese food and lots of people I didn't recognise. The first year intake has significantly boosted the average attractiveness of the choir.

We spent 3 nights in Boston (they all had an extra one), which was very pretty and fun. We did a bit of wandering, the odd concert and the mad Irish one even managed to wangle us a free tour of the Harvard men's boathouse - it was boatie heaven. Everyone in Harvard is also startlingly attractive, including the guy who works in the second hand bookshop where I bought 3 books, which I probably didn't actually need and then had to fit in my case. Ah well.

We left Boston before it snowed, which was cunning, and went to New York, which was fantastic. I think I'd like to live there for a year, but no more. We sang at two private functions, one of which Stephen Fry was apparently at, though no-one told me till afterwards, so I couldn't look out for him, and one of which involved chumming with Queen's Old Members so the Provost could eventually extract money for them, and I unconsciously put on my posh voice which took several days to disappear and used lots of sentences like 'well, of course, if I wanted to go into business or law, languages would be a great asset', somewhat shying away from admitting that my plans for my life, embryonic as they are, do not in any way involve earning money or having the sort of job with a name your parents can easily tell their friends you're doing. After one of these events, Liv and I snuck off and had dinner for two and shared a bottle of wine, and then decided vodka mixers were a good idea, though the citrus fruits were present in name only, and hence we returned to our room rather giggly....

We also did all the touristy stuff, and the Statue of Liberty has the scariest security ever, including scanny airport machine things with air puffers (reason undisclosed), to the dismay of those wearing floaty skirts. And we went shopping. But I only bought a skirt and three tops. And a scarf. Which didn't match anything I own, so I had to buy another top later on. (But even though the second top was an unnecessary expense, it prevented me from having wasted money on the scarf, so is therefore justified.) And then we went up the Empire State Building in a torrential rainstorm and force 10 gale, which limited visibility slightly, though it was a memorable experience. We also went to a classy jazz club, which had live music and expensive drinks, and there was a comic incident involving a shoe and a nose-bleed, but it would be unfair to embarrass the individual involved by mentioning that here.

Luckily, the Virginia part of the tour resembled a hard-core singathon (nicely punctuated by sipping wine in the hot tub) so I was prevented from spending any more money, except for a traveller's cheque left over from Togo, which was already money out of my account, so didn't really count either. We did lots of concerts in lots of churches and they recorded them all for us. It was a bit small-town and creepy, but very pretty, and our host was so generous she baked muffins every morning, gave us all pedicures and hair masks and presented us with huge bags full of chocolate to take home.

And now I really am going to get back to the job search. Or change my flight. Or do something that won't involve the laptop burning my legs.