YES!! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!!!!

Firstly, everyone should eat Tyrrells crisps. Not least because they are delicious, for I agree this is an important incentive to purchase foodstuffs, but also because they stopped Tesco marching all over them, just because they're a big supermarket and Tyrrells are an independent producer.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1875532,00.html
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1874707,00.html

I've been at home for a couple of days now. It's still at the stage where it's wonderfully relaxing to be looked after and have all my books around me, but I can feel the 'I'm a grown-up, I can do my own damn laundry' complex simmering away inside somewhere. I suppose the most irritating thing is the excitement of having a decent-sized kitchen, sufficient equipment and someone else to pay for the ingredients, only to remember that my dad has very rigid (carnivorous-British hybrid) ideas of what constitutes a meal, my mum is on the Atkins diet and my brother is twelve, and fussy. So far I have made a vat of ratatouille.

However, as I feel increasingly demographically abnormal (drastically lowering average age of Radio 4 listener, too many operas on iTunes, shopping at markets), it is nice to know that there is some reason for it, whether genetic or due to the mad atmosphere I grew up in.

I've almost finished Qu'est-ce que la litterature? which is a relief as it's taken me the entire summer. I've been rather academically disillusioned since I found out I couldn't do my project, and now don't even know exactly what papers I'm doing this term, and I don't seem to get on with Sartre. My mum asked me earlier, 'Was there a Betty Muriel?' After leaving me baffled for a while, she explained this was his wife in a Monty Python sketch. 'Umm, well, Beauvoir, kind of... never mind...'

Nik interrupted a very interesting debate on The World Tonight (last night) about Richard Branson's pledge to research ways of cutting carbon emissions and corporate social responsibility and whether we should all be taxed for the bad things we do to the environment, when he rang me up to tell me he was researching hydrogen fuels. I've already forgotten what this entails, but I think it's something along the lines of combining water and sand in order to create something other than sludge and thereby to power cars. This requires reading 1920s research papers and buying silicone from catalogues. I didn't even know you could do that, but the project sounds very useful and topical, and I approve. And it means no more people saying, 'Ooh, your boyfriend's working with diamonds, lucky you!' and me having to explain that these aren't the interesting sort that you can, like, wear, and see with the naked eye and stuff.

Dammit, after the end of the Leeds Piano Competition, which I was listening to, I skipped forwards five minutes to see why there was an extra hour and a half of Performance on 3 which hadn't been there when I'd caught the end live, and have now found some interesting choral music, which I'm having to listen to in order to find out what it is. And I foolishly told my mother to wake me up at a sensible time tomorrow morning so I could have a vaguely productive day. I must get back into a routine of working, or I'll never get anything like enough reading done before term starts. This apathy doesn't sit well with the smiley version of me that has to tell all my parents' friends I intend to do this MA. Maybe I should become a teacher instead. They get paid. Students don't. And I'd also be morally obliged to read the Guardian, drink lots of wine and be cynical and irritable - which is fun. Except I don't want to teach French. And you generally need two languages and ich habe fast alle mein Deutsch vergessen.

Hopefully when L'Invitee wings its way to me in the next few days, I should get some enthusiasm back.

"That's not the can-do attitude that created the giraffe!"

Interestingly, if you type 'rejection' into predictive text, it comes up as 'selection'. This made me giggle. And, also, it made me almost send a message saying the opposite of what I meant.

I'm feeling very grown-up tonight, as I've just had an email from Mslexia saying one of my poems got shortlisted - last 60 apparently! Obviously, they didn't want to publish me, but I wasn't really expecting them to, and I'm not feeling disappointed, just, as I said, grown-up.

I'm addicted to Radio 4. It makes me happy.

I've spent all day trying valiantly to read the book about literary theory which I've had on the go since the beginning of second year, but I've finally cracked and looked up 'postmodernism' on Uncyclopedia.

"Recently, postmodernism has fallen out of favour with authors, because they like to eat."

Hehehehehe.

I think I may be unsuited to a future in academia.

Must... take... incomprehensible... theorising... seriously...


PS - In a similar vein, I have also discovered Encyclopedia Dramatica.

"Watch out! A GIANT MONGOOSE!"

Well, given my laziness, I don't get to write a timely, irate post about the Facebook feed thingummiwhatsit (though the following is still included for sheer comedic value) cos they've gone and changed it. I signed in and asked it not to tell everyone I've ever sat next to in lectures or stumbled into in the beer cellar whenever I join another pretentious group in an attempt to prove I'm too cool for the whole malarky, but this didn't really bother me: I don't really do anything of note on facebook and the only thing I'd be ashamed of is people seeing how much time I waste online. So really, they've done me a favour by threatening to reveal the extent of this to the world and making me waste it in the jasperfforde.com forums instead. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping it telling me pointless information about other people. "So-and-so has added someone you don't know as a friend." "X has joined 'We hate the news feed!" "Y is unpacking." "Mr Thingy likes toast." Yes, you can call me a reclusive, self-involved intellectual snob if you like - it's actually something I'm proud of - but I don't really care. I think I shall be spending less time on Facebook in future. In fact, I'm convinced this was all just a publicity stunt and I'm already playing into their hands by even writing about it. Bah.

Big Brother

At the start of September, Big Brother took over Facebook, and as part of the world's backlash against Steve Irwin's death, decided to inform everyone on Facebook of their friends' every move.

Current owner and operator of Facebook

For example, the average user can now know with a simple view of their Facebook homepage that:

• Their best friend opted to join the "I hate Oscar Wilde" group and declined their invitation to their newly created "Gru Lovers" group at 8:15 pm (when they said they wouldn't be home)
• Megan T removed "fuzzy socks" from her interests at 10:37 pm
• James B replied to a post in the "I'm a closeted terrorist" group at 6:28 pm
• Lisa H complained about her history professor in a note posted at 3:35 pm (ironically during her history class)
• At least 5 of their friends are in constant relationship flux (signifying extreme Borderline Personality Disorder) going from "Single" to "It's Complicated" to "Broken up" within 15 minutes
• little Kate P from that high school down the street from them will be attending an event nearby at 11 pm tomorrow night

The aim of this exercise is uncertain, but it seems to be a ploy mainly to make everyone extremely paranoid and piss them off in equal measures.

- from Uncyclopedia

I think I'm in love with Jasper Fforde. Giggle-out-loud-in-public-places in love. Much to the mortification of the boy, who has read the beginning of The Big Over Easy and is somewhat baffled. I keep reading passages aloud for the edification of thoes around me, but, alas, I seem to be a lone crusader.

"But all of this was scant comfort to Mr Wolff, who went to his casket unavenged, and parboiled."

"'First name?'
'Otto,' he replied, then added by way of explanation: ' Palindrome as well. My sister's name is Hannah. Father liked word games. He was fourteen times world Scrabble champion. When he died we buried him at Queenzieburn to make use of the triple word score.'"

I like the Nursery Crime books, because they're much more independent. The Thursday Next series, while fantastically clever and entertaining, reference so many works of great literature that the novels themselves cannot possibly stand out in comparison, whereas these are convincing detective stories in their own right. The man is a genius, writing books which combine my love of satire, wacky humour, word games and references to the English literary canon.

And now, back to the cryptic crossword!

Thoughts on learning Swedish...

I think my degree has made me very bad at learning languages. I can't learn to count to ten, without stopping to initiate an involved discussion about phonology or to introduce myself without heavy morphosyntactic analysis. I find myself asking: is there a case system? how rich a verb inflection system is there? And if that weren't impediment enough, the level to which I now speak French, means I find any lesser degree fluency in a language highly irritating. Memorising simple phrases is so frustrating compared to discussing politics and poetry, especially as I am clearly not a nice enough person to find common courtesy a more compelling reason to learn a language than reading gloomy literature.

Stansted at 3, oh joy...

Stuck in the middle with...

Well, aside from imparting useles information about household pests or quoting obscure French bands, I should probably talk about myself extensively and boringly, seeing as this is what I started this for in the first place.

Work finished, in a haze of sulky, bitchy classes and white wine spritzers, sadly not simultaneously. Overall, I enjoyed the six weeks, but it ended on a rather sour note, leaving lovely colleagues, the local pub and good pay as higher-ranking rewards than, like, the warm, fuzzy glow from helping shape young minds and inspire the generation of tomorrow, etc, etc... Wednesday was fab, in that I was in the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on which way you look at it) position of being offered two fancy meals, with wine, paid for by someone else, at the same time - and it was too rainy and far away to do the Mrs Doubtfire thing of running between them both. The two occasions were Nik's mum's birthday and the celebratory end of summer school dinner, so I sandwiched dinner at the Randolph between an afternoon in the pub and an afterparty which, if the smell of wine emanating from my dress the next morning was anything to go by, saw my hand-eye co-ordination hit a particularly low ebb... Also, the next morning, I was unable to get out of bed or eat anything until about 3 p.m. I blamed certain people, who have refused to acknowledge responsibility.

After a couple of days faffing and feeling purposeless, punctuated by trying to learn something about language policy and/or planning, the boy and I decided on the spur of the moment to go home to Northumberland, where we were well-fed and it rained a lot. We went into town, where I bought some humongously exciting books, I did the obligatory tour of A.N. Other piece of Hadrian's Wall and we met Sarah for drinks, quiz machines and curries in Hexham last night before driving back at some ungodly hour this morning.

"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"

My wikipedia search for 'nasal vestibulitis' turned up no results but a link to 'sexology topics'. Dear God. The good news is the consultant says that I don't need rhinoplasty. Hurrah.

The American Election board game being designed by everyone in the house but me is in the next trial phase. It's not a fantastic spectator sport, but has kept Nik and Jamie quiet for quite some time.

I have another teaching job for next week and the week after. Hurrah. And I get to go to Oxfam tomorrow, which means more batty old ladies, biscuits and books!

"Je t'aime a reculons."

What a lyric.

Propaganda pheromones

Here are some interesting facts about ants:

Ants communicate mainy through pheromones. When a forager finds food, she will leave a pheromone trail along the ground on her way home which other ants will follow, thus reinforcing the trail and attracing more ants.

Crushed ants emit an alarm pheromone which in high concentration sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and in lower concentration merely attracts them. Some species even emit propaganda pheromones to confuse their enemies.

They even exchange pheromones as compounds mixed with food to share information about one another's health and nutrition

Ants can constitute up to 15% of the total animal biomass of a tropical rainforest; in the Amazon the combined weight of the ants is said to be four times larger than that of the tetrapods in the same area.

In some parts of the world, large ants have been used as sutures by pressing the wound together and applying ants along it. The ant in defensive attitude seizes the edges in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the mandibles can remain in place for up to three days closing the wound.


(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Stage one of battle: know your enemy. B******s keep invading our cupboard.

Ramble, ramble

St John's Wood is the only one of 274 London Underground stations to contain none of the letters of the word 'mackerel'.

In the 1950s Jericho was a red light district and the Phoenix was a pornography cinema.

35-40% of all household waste which ends up in a landfill begins life as a purchase from one of the big five supermarkets.

I might have a rant soon. Can't decide.

Sleepy. Have spent all evening reading articles on Wikipedia and anti-supermarket websites in an attempt to keep myself awake until the boy comes back from work and we can watch the next episode of 24. ("Can you call in sick? I want to find out what happens.") It's that bizarre self-delusion thing again, where for some reason, even though you know you can't possibly watch the entire series at once, just seeing the next one would help, whereas in reality the cliffhanger at the end of that will just leave you with another insatiable itch to dive further into the story...

Circle. Vicious.

One more week left at work. It's been fun but I think any longer would probably kill me. There was a moment last week where I was so tired I came home and collapsed on the sofa, rousing only when coaxed by the boy to eat some dinner.

I want an MP3 player but there are so many and they're all so shiny and gadgetty that I get flustered and confused whenever I look at them. Humph.

Funky cartoon - click here

Hehe. I love those chickens. I also feel pleased that I've finally found an internet cartoon of my very own. Cos I'm not competitive. Oh no. Particularly not with the boy. Ahem...

It's about 8.40 and I'm already up. Amusingly, it's Wednesday and I'm reading the Times magazine from Saturday, although the novelty of these staggered weeks is starting to wear off, and instead I'm just annoyed that on the one day in about a fortnight I'm going to get a lie-in, some ingrained habit caused me to wake up for 7 a.m. prompt and a month of having too many demands on my time and energy has made it impossible for me to lie in bed doing nothing. Ergo, I got up and am now listening to Bach, both I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive having finished while I've been 'away'.

Part of my acquiescence in the face of such a life-consuming job is due to a more-or-less enjoyment of it. Yes, it's tiring; yes, some of my kids sit in class scowling and refusing to participate and then give me bad feedback; yes, teenage boys think it's funny to draw naked people while storyboarding a Simple Plan song; yes, I didn't get home till 11 on Friday and Saturday, yes, I got soaked on Saturday night. Still, there aren't many jobs where you get to discuss censorship, play scattegories, draw cartoons and compere karaoke in one day. "Never dull" - such a cliche, and I'm not naive enough to believe that any teaching job would be like this, but it's a far more rewarding way to spend a summer than temping or working in a supermarket would be. With this and volunteering in the Oxfam bookshop on Wednesday afternoons, I've met so many interesting people. There's this sort of belief that because all Oxford students are so clever, it must somehow be the most stimulating society to live in, but in truth I find many people remarkably boring. All my enthusiasm for coming back hangs on my course and the people whose company I genuinely enjoy, but no longer meeting people with a plethora of different experiences and opinions is the definite flip side. I feel about five years older than I am.

In fact, I feel like I'm turning into a thirty-something, Times-reading liberal, without the pretentiously-named children. I'm frustrating the boy with my anti-supermarket campaign and turning my fresh, locally-grown ingredients into increasingly peculiar dishes. I'd like to direct my social conscience and domestic drive towards clearing my stuff out of our housemate's room so she can move in, or doing some laundry. Alas...

I invited Matt over for dinner on Monday and he arrived while Nik, Jamie and Debbie's nascent board game was entering the test phase. Jamie and Debbie initially felt rather embarrassed, but when I explained, "we're designing a board game based on the American election," Matt's eyes lit up. People should not underestimate my ability to choose my friends. We all had a fantastic evening (I think) and afterwards Nik and I sat on the sofa listening to music and talking, which had a slightly alarming feeling of novelty to it, but was lovely nonetheless.

And today I am relishing the prospect of a trip to the market to rectify the 'no fruit and veg' situation and an afternoon fondly caring for old, yellowing, dusty-smelling books. And tomorrow I have to test new students but afterwards I get to go to London for lunch and African story-swapping with Nat. And soon I should get paid and then I won't have an overdraft any more (unless I get seriously carried away with the white wine spritzers and crinkly Cheddars in the pub). And in two weeks I will be free to do more reading for my project. And in September I'm going to Sweden.

Ack, I have purpose, and to a lesser extent money. Life is good.

One green bottle, drop it in the bank,
Ten green bottles, what a lot we drank,
Heaps of bottles, and yesterdays a blank,
But we'll save the planet, tinkle tinkle clank.

I AM VERY TIRED!

The madness begins....

Well. One week down, three (or five) to go.

I have survived, I have done parts of it well, I have enjoyed parts of it, and other parts have been hell. My class are lovely - very quiet, well-behaved and hard-working, though I took until yesterday to get them to loosen up and have fun - by planning a lesson on football (yes, yes, I know) that involved lots of competitive games, and then taking them outside to have a lesson on the grass. Heehee. In the afternoons, though, I was talked into taking a class on international affairs for 16-19 year olds, most of whom didn't care about anything I tried to talk about and spent the entire time sniggering and talking. I offloaded the particularly unpleasant Spanish boy (subsequently put on his final warning for pinning a kid half his height to the ground and pouring pepper in his eye) onto Matt, my colleague, who also found him obstreperous and disruptive, so I don't feel too bad about not being able to control him, but his six remaining friends still managed to ruin the class for the Germans and Russians who were very motivated and serious. Oddly, a workshop on international affairs with students from many different countries has mainly reinforced a lot of national stereotypes.

I have been asked to provide lessons on music next week, and my class's suggestions included: 50 cent, Eminem, Dido, Britney Spears, James Blunt, Green Day. Any ideas as to how this could be incorporated into a coherent lesson plan that will appeal to more than two individual students greatly appreciated. Also, Jaime has requested 'no more paper with things to do', which does limit things somewhat.

Still, there always seem to be plenty of other teachers around for a consolatory pint (or half) afterwards. I seem to have overcome my silly mental block about not being able to drink beer in England and the prospect of having some money means I've got less stingy. Yesterday was lovely and sunny, so we went to the Trout, had random conversations (why Matt is like a duck, why Christ doesn't wear underwear), listened to Chris playing the mandolin and drank Pimm's in the sunshine. Then there was a formal dinner, nominally to encourage us to bond with the Canadian teachers, regular school teachers and New York Film Academy people also on site, but I ended up sitting at a table getting rather drunk and talking rubbish. For a long time. Oops.

And even though it's my day off, I'm still planning lessons, cos I have to help supervise a trip tomorrow and won't have any time to do it before Friday.

Sorry. I have just rambled about my job for longer than you probably want to read about it. I just haven't done anything else and won't for the foreseeable future. I'll try and confine it to comic anecdotes rather than extensive complaining, but can't make any promises....

I am sitting in the computer room in college with a new bike lock and a package from my mother, neither of which I can get into. The woman has used epic quantities of sellotape, even for her. So now all I have to do is persuade the porter (who took a while to be convinced that I was even a member of the college) to lend me some lock-cutters, walk all the way down to Cardo with them enduring, doubtless, suspicious looks, break into my own bike and then take it all the way back to Botley Road, on the way buying fruit and veg, a birthday present for my mother (more sellotape?) and going to explain to the Oxfam bookshop that my job is going to allow me next to no free time, ever. The last isn't really on the way. Sigh.

Last week was fun. I didn't do a whole lot, but it was probably good for me to get out of Oxford. We went to one of Nik's friends from home's birthday party, where I got rather drunk, but don't think I disgraced myself. We also went to his mum's graduation, and then I spent the weekend lazing around by the pool while Nik went off to another party/slept.

On Monday I came back to Oxford and after a brief period of uncertainty where it transpired that nobody was really expecting my arrival, I managed to get in, have dinner and make some progress on Debbie's jigsaw. Yesterday I had my induction day at work, which was... an induction day. I was absolutely terrified to begin with. Everybody seemed to know each other, have taught there before and have been teaching for ages and I felt hideously lost and newly-qualified. Then, I was told I'd have to design all course programmes and lessons myself, provide enough detail in my plans so that someone else can teach my lesson if I'm ill, include lessons to be taught by the changeover teacher in my schedule and generally, like... be good at this. I also have to run activities and it looks like it's going to take up horrid amounts of time. Bah. And I have no idea what level I'll be teaching till tomorrow night (though I know all my students will be aged 12 - 14) so I can't use today to do any planning. Grrr. Still, we were all given pizza and wine and I got talking to some of the other teachers properly, and actually, they don't all know each other, and some of the others haven't been teaching for very long either, and they were lovely and took me to the pub and showed me a short-cut into Oxford along the towpath. Still glad I'm not living on site though - it'll be nice to escape at the end of the day.

Also, when did 'sunny' come to mean 'unpleasant'? I'm sure when I was little, when the weather was nice it was, well, nice. Now, whenever it gets hot, it doesn't stop until it gets far too hot, and you don't actually want to go outside and do anything. Damn global warming.

Hmm, anyway, I have a bike to sort out and errands to run, so I'd best stop procrastinating and go and brave the lodge.

"... all the signs are that the European Union is developing a policy of particular complexity and interest..." (from a book on language policy)

Found it!

The Words Continue Their Journey
Margaret Atwood

Do poets really suffer more
than other people? Isn't it only
that they get their pictures taken
and are seen to do it?
The loony bins are full of those
who never wrote a poem.
Most suicides are not
poets: a good statistic.

Some days though I want, still,
to be like other people;
but then I go and talk with them,
these people who are supposed to be
other, and they are much like us,
except that they lack the sort of thing
we think of as a voice.
We tell ourselves they are fainter
than we are, less defined,
that they are what we are defining,
that we are doing them a favor,
which makes us feel better.
They are less elegant about pain than we are.

But look, I said us. Though I may hate your guts
individually, and want never to see you,
though I prefer to spend my time
with dentists because I learn more,
I spoke of us as we, I gathered us
like the members of some doomed caravan

which is how I see us, traveling together,
the women veiled and singly, with that inturned
sight and the eyes averted,
the men in groups, with their moustaches
and passwords and bravado

in the place we're stuck in, the place we've chosen,
a pilgrimage that took a wrong turn
somewhere far back and ended
here, in the full glare
of the sun, and the hard red-black shadows
cast by each stone, each dead tree lurid
in its particulars, its doubled gravity, but floating
too in the aureole of stone, of tree,

and we're no more doomed really than anyone, as we go
together, through this moon terrain
where everything is dry and perishing and so
vivid, into the dunes, vanishing out of sight,
vanishing out of the sight of each other,
vanishing even out of our own sight,
looking for water.

To continue last week's theme of using this as a vehicle for self-indulgent rambling...

Hmm. I'm plucking my eyebrows while Nik is pollyfilling cracks in a bathroom wall. Is this some form of hideous stereotype I promised myself never to become? If so, when did this happen?

Regardless, it's very peaceful. I've never been so relieved to get out of Oxford before, which feels very weird. It's only through getting out and coming back that you realise how much of a bubble the place is. That used to be part of its charm, but I spent most of the last few weeks railing frenetically against it in a desperate bid to seem happy and fun by drinking more Pimm's than anyone else. No, it didn't work; yes, I felt hugely silly; yes, the second I got outside the ring road I felt much freer than I had previously. Ah well. When I get back next year I'll have my own space, my own keys and my own life and (I hope) won't feel a huge sense of purposelessness in an atmosphere where you thrive on being manic and forever bouncing from tute to worthy activity to social to squeaky college single bed.

9th week was quite a lot of fun. I proved (three times) that it was possible to go out and enjoy myself without drinking, once in Kasbar, once for the football (people I texted for an alternative, I am disappointed in you) and once for the end of Tim's exams, and also proved (once) that curling up in bed with a bottle of red wine, some jam doughnuts and lots of episodes of Scrubs is something that must be done once in a while to restore sanity. I cooked a moderately exciting meal and swore at facebook a lot. On Friday in the Raddy, there was a large group of loud people sitting near us and one girl was insistent that it was possible to use three had's in a row in a sentence, though could not justify this with an example. However,

"The good times she had had had been behind her for ages."

This is my last week of respite before actually beginning to earn some money in July. I feel dimly that I ought to go home-home, but I've been banned until my brother finishes A-Levels and it doesn't seem worth spending a grand total of 16 hours on trains and buses for the two days I might get at home. Particularly when I can't afford a ticket. Particularly seeing as here there is wireless internet and a pool, even if I was cruelly prevented from swimming on the day it was actually warm. Damn biology.

I was feeling old, but last night we watched the first ever episode of Spitting Image. And didn't really get most of it. So now I feel less ancient. Hurrah. And today I bought a lovely birthday card for my mum and found the shampoo I used to love and haven't seen for over a year and now I have a short-haired, new-shoed boyfriend.

"Excuse me, can I interest you in buying this dead horse?"

I had such good intentions. I came to update this virtually the second I'd come into the room, and it refused to work. Grrrrr. I pressed 'Refresh' a lot and then got sidetracked listening to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, and checking my email (oddly enough I didn't have any new ones since checking half an hour previously), and trying to destroy a paying-in receipt with nail clippers.

It has been quite a long time since I actually provided any illuminating information about my life, as opposed to pointless yet amusing quotes or photo-spam. This may be because the last posts went roughly along the lines of: "Ooh! Oxford is sunny! All my friends have finished finals and nobody has anything to do except sit on lawns and drink Pimm's or (once the bank statements come through) Blossom Hill." There have been several inclement breaks in the sunniness, but not frequent enough to prevent my back turning bright pink. Other than that, my life has really changed very little, except that Nik is no longer doing finals and is now able to watch epic quantities of 24 with me.

I could talk about various difficulties (re-)fitting into already established social groups (that I may once have been part of); or feeling like an appendage to the boy (a dull one, that gets sleepy at parties and nags him about finding a job) instead of an actual person; or not having a particular purpose now the mad Italians have gone home and finding a life of unmitigated hedonism rather unfulfilling having not just finished some very stressful exams; or general distress about The Rest Of My Life.

This last is, actually, rather unfair. I have a plan, involving postgrad funded by EFL tutoring and translation/proof-reading and then becoming a critically acclaimed novelist, and if this falls through (i.e. the idea of stringing together enough words to constitute a respectable thesis or novel overpowers me) then a helpful website has thrown up several more career options which had me raving about becoming a lexicographer (can't you so see that happening?), and it doesn't bother me at all that of the handful of jobs I liked the sound of, in 90% of them financial reward plays "no part". It is hugely self-indulgent to worry about all this now when a large proportion of my readership consists of jobless ex-finalists for whom this angst is a good deal closer than a year away (*hugs* to all in this predicament), but the astonishing number of transitions, goodbyes and departures I've endured this year has given me a peculiar twitchiness and an irritating tendency towards self-analysis.

It's just that sometimes I feel like the quote in the introduction to all the Folio editions of Beauvoir, that quote that I can't remember or translate about feeling torn between living life and writing about it; like how I updated this almost every day in Lyon, because I was bored and miserable, but as soon as Sainsbury's has Pimm's, Cava and strawberries on special offer, I can go days without stringing words together; and this choice between dullness/misery and productivity versus (most of the time) contentment, good company and not feeling the need to lock myself away with a computer may replicate itself later in life with something (I hope) of more worth than this. I feel passionate about so many things, but at some point I have to stop them, and describe them, or else I go mad.

My problem is not that I don't know what to do: I've known that since I was 5. My problem is that what I want to do scares me.

I'm scared that I'm not as good at it as I think I am. I'm scared that I won't have the discipline to find out. I'm scared the fear of rejection will turn me into the sort of person who hoards things in drawers and that all my descendents will find fourteen unfinished novels and say I could have been quite good, it's a pity I wasn't. I'm scared the ancestral curse will get me, and I'll give up being creative and notable in order to breed prolifically, like all the women I'm related to did while my Grandpa gets a CBE. (Sorry. Just had to drop that in.) Indeed, in a Shakespeare's sister sort of way, we could extend this beyond my immediate family, but that's a whole different ball game. I'm scared it may be incompatible with a normal life, whatever that may be, and whether I even want it.

There's a Margaret Atwood poem which sums up how I feel pretty accurately, but not even Google can find it. It begins "Do poets really suffer more than other people?" if you want to look it up. (And I recommend you do.)

And now I'm going to curl up in bed, with my diary, and Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs.


oh but now, old friends, they're acting strange
and they shake their heads
and they tell me that I've changed
well, something's lost and something's gained
in living every day.

"Francis Bacon wishes to meet the Earl of Sandwich"

For the second day in a row, I have been abandoned by the boy, and have immediately turned on Radio 4 and started to eat salad (my poor vegetable-starved body...) and today I found myself laughing so hysterically at I'm sorry I haven't a clue that I thought I'd post some gems from the opening round. (The brief was to come up with responses to traditional chat-up lines.)

Where have you been all my life?
Well, for most of it, I wasn't even born.

Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
Yes. I'm the receptionist at the VD clinic.

The name's Bond. James Bond.
The name's Lost. Gert Lost.

Come on. Don't be shy. Ask me out.
All right. Get out.

Those clothes would look great in a crumpled heap on my bedroom floor.
So would you.

Your legs must be tired - you've been running through my mind all night.
Yes, it was lovely... all those wide open spaces.

Is that a ladder in your stockings or is it the stairway to heaven?
Yes, it is the stairway to heaven, but I've already got an arse up there.

And now I really, really have to get on with the washing-up...

Jo

Nik

Ali and Mairi

Mairi

Sarah as nun

Sarah and Livvy

Holly and Sally

Me

Livvy and Sarah

Sarah, covered in cat-food

Livvy and Sarah

Jo and Jen

Sarah

Sarah

Cake... I mean...

Catherine and Aloysius

It's Pimm's o'clock..... Again......

Sorry for not updating much this week. I was competing in the Regional Floor-Hopping Championships and never in one place for very long, not to mention having far too much fun.

Friday was my last day at work and my lessons went really well. I also took them to the Multimedia Centre to do things on computers, which baffled most of them and entertained me hugely, and in the afternoon I chaperoned them to Windsor Castle, which was really fun, though it was rather stressful. And I was so tired that in the evening I effectively went to Botley Road and collapsed on the sofa in front of the TV. I don't think I was much fun, and couldn't face Risk, but I was very well looked after.

Saturday was Catherine's birthday and we had Buck's Fizz and cake in front quad and then I went to meet the first of seven finalists who have finished lately. Turf, fish and chips, wine - excellent. I got talked into singing with Hertford Choir on Sunday, and subsequently recruited for a madrigal group, which was... random. But I got free dinner. And free wine. And free tea. And then Thomas bought me Pimm's in the KA and it had fruit in. Joyfulness.

I have spent the last three days in an extended Pimm's-induced stupor, punctuated by mad dashes to Merton St to cover people in glitter. It has been fun. Lots of people are very happy, and I get to join in the fun, despite having earned it neither with exams of my own nor by providing emotional support. I have drunk in four different colleges and the Parks and it is SUNNY. Joyfulness. I was going to write this post entirely using quotes and pictures, but I can't remember anything anyone said. Ever.

Except this:
"Aah, I'm so happy. I just want to talk to everything. The trees, the flowers..."
"There are no trees."
"True. There's a cloud."
"You could talk to the cloud."
"I could. Hello cloud."

Also:
One comatose, hungover, beglittered boyfriend, free to good home.

"It's three o'clock and I'm confused"

The ethernet cable is evil. It is making me update every day. I am turning into an egocentric geek. Help.

I had a to-do list for this afternoon. It went like this:

• eat lunch
• put Suba's number in my phone
• uninstall Spider Solitaire from my laptop
• plan lesson on daily routines
• plan lesson on something else
• research Windsor Castle
• pump up bike tyres

Needless to say, by four o'clock (argh, have now started writing times out in full, have been planning for so long), only the first two items had been completed.

I have been prevailed upon to go to Windsor Castle with the Italians tomorrow afternoon. From the sound of it I'll have to do very little and get paid £25 for it, and it stops me annoying Phil by hanging around Botley Road all afternoon. I stopped to share the good news with my students on the way out and was rather confused when one of them asked me if I had an Italian boyfriend. I said no, which is true, but in by baffled state, I forgot that this in itself didn't preclude the existence of a boyfriend of any other nationality, and that rather vital piece of information was lost in translation so she then proceeded to try and set me up with her son... Every day this week has been mad. I wonder if the entire rest of the summer will be equally exciting.

After I got home, I then went to Cowley Road, repeating in my head the mantra, 'I am going to Tesco for salad dressing and NOTHING ELSE, I will buy ONLY salad dressing...' I should have also included, 'I am going to Oxfam for Fairtrade tea and NOTHING ELSE, I will NOT buy any shoes, books or birthday cards...'

Oops.

Right, I'm now going to add 'eat dinner' and 'go to pub' to my to-do list, so I'll have a chance of crossing off at least two more things before midnight.

Correction

If I could get on MSN and if I'd remembered to buy some salad dressing, my life would be perfect.

"Aren't you in Africa?"

Aww. The annoying old men got shifted to my colleague's class and I had an absolutely lovely group this morning. Taught two fairly successful lessons and got called an 'angel' by half of my students. Afterwards, went to LMH to be rapturously reunited with my, er... bike and then cycled to Tesco's to stock up on food, which made me feel unclean, but I mostly bought non-Tesco stuff, and got some of those hippie bags you're supposed to remember to take next time you go, which salves my conscience slightly. I am vaguely depressed at impending student eating habits. I just decided I couldn't bear reformed ham, or Value Weetabix, or that cheese that tastes like plastic any more, and have come home with muesli, the most enormous olives I've ever seen, 'cheese with bits' (on special offer... white Stilton with apricots... Wensleydale with cranberries....) and real Tropicana. Decadent, but I'm sure it's good for my soul. And, maybe, my body, if you think about it.

And I love having a job that makes me feel fuzzy when I think I've done it well. I love how pretty Oxford is when it's sunny. I even love my tiny, temporary room. I love the ginormous olives. I love that I felt like smiling at everyone I saw on my way home. I love that my scout put all my stuff in a nice, tidy pile. I love that Crystal Light still tastes foul and dyes your tongue weird colours. I love that I had a great time last night and wasn't intimidated by Large Groups of People like I was in February. (Even if I did stay far too long, get stupidly drunk-tired and end up collapsing into bed, lesson still unplanned, after an impromptu midnight coffee.) I love playing my music without bass riffs reverberating through the house and rather spoiling Bach. I love that my phone is full of mad pictures. I just feel rather fond of everything, and everyone, around me at the moment. Thank you.

Hell, if I could just get on bloody MSN, my life'd be perfect.

Find someone who...

Have now arrived back in Oxford, where I aim to stay for over a year. Wow. Consistency.

I got here last night after a day on Megabus, which was cheap and allowed me to read lots. In fact, the journey from London to Oxford was on a normal Oxford Tube, only cheaper. And I saw a friend from school who I hadn't seen in ages, which was a very odd coincidence, but it was cool to catch up. I had dinner with Nik, sat on the balcony shivering out of some peculiar English determination to enjoy being outside when it's sunny regardless of temperature, spilt tomato sauce down my new, clean skirt that I wanted to wear to work and then went to bed and had a bad attack of insomnia.

Today was my first day teaching, which was... interesting. I had been expecting to walk straight into a lesson plan, but they just handed me a folder and a textbook and I had to very briefly prepare a lesson to teach to a group I knew nothing about, so we had a nice game of 'Find Someone Who...' and then talked about transport, cos that unit in the textbook had lots of pictures. And aside from the fact that there were two old men who kept shouting at each other across the classroom in Italian, another old man who kept trying to flirt with me and an old lady who came up to me at the end and said she hadn't understood a word and could we do primary school things tomorrow, it went pretty well. Or at least I'm still newly qualified and naive enough to feel all warm and fuzzy when they seem to be having fun even if I doubt they learnt anything. They are a lovely group, just.... mad.

I have one lesson planned for tomorrow, but the other one caused me untold panic (they're switching the groups around again) and I had no idea what to do it on, so I gave up and came home with a textbook and meant to plan it now, except I had to faff around moving my stuff from LMH to Cardo (Rami, thank you sooooo much!), and then I started settling in, and then I discovered the ethernet cable... Though I can't get on MSN cos apparently I'm not actually on the network. Grr. (If anyone wants to help me rectify this situation...) And now I have to change into something that doesn't smell and go to Queen's, and then to the pub, but THE LESSON WILL BE PLANNED. Even if I did have no sleep and want to just curl up in bed.....

Viv, the caretaker, has lent me a kettle, some cutlery and a plate. That would never have happened in Florey.

Must also acquire breakfast for tomorrow at some point. Will have to be out of here before they start serving tomorrow. Honestly. Work is near LMH. "Near LMH!" I have never uttered those words unless preceded by an emphatic negative and possibly swearing, but the one time I can say it unironically, the boy has finals.


My old man told me one time
You never get wise, you only get older

Another turning point...

My MSN homepage told me that today's 'top picks' (whatever those are) are:

• Da Vinci code: test your knowledge
• Are you the ultimate BB fan?
• Quiz: Madonna's dizzying career

I got so distressed by the state of modern society and the subsequent possibility that I may secretly be middle-aged that I forgot why I'd opened a second window.

Home is good. I'm vaguely worried my brothers are going to give me their nasty cold germs, which I will then bring down to Oxford and spread among people who really don't want to be ill right now, but it's nice to be around familiar people and have someone to talk to during the day. I've done lots of boring, domesticated things (ironing, making rice salads, sorting out my old clothes) but it surprisingly feels quite calming: like I'm getting some sort of semblance of order back in my life after a rather hectic year. Even if I do think that I'm only getting rid of things to house yet more books. My parents have developed an alarming obsession with Frasier and my brother still plays the bass guitar REALLY LOUDLY for HOURS ON END. My mum is finally getting bored with being at home all the time and is already planning for my dad's retirement. (Buying a camper van, going round Europe, turning the dining room into a spare bedroom, getting a new sink. I think his plans involve compost heaps and vegetable patches.) I'm making good progress with my reading list, which is so organised and dedicated it's frankly terrifying and I found several pages of something I wrote over the summer on a floppy disk which pushes the word count up to 1/5 of the average novel! (It's only taken me 2 years to get that far...)

So, yes, generally feeling good about having people I know and like around me, looking forward to throwing things at happy finalists, to having a job I'm enthusiastic about and get paid more than minimum wage for, getting back to my exciting course (knowing full well my enthusiasm will evaporate in 0th week faster than you can say the word 'deadline' ) and possibly, possibly to regaining something approximating sanity.

We can hope.

I have even been head-hunted! After a fashion. This TEFL malarky is fantastic. Not only have I spent all morning being interviewed 'in case we can give you a better offer' and emailing people to get extensions on when I have to let them know about contracts, but I've also had an offer from a language school in Oxford next week. It's teaching a small group of Italian adults, just for a few hours a day, and only for next week, but it'll be great experience and give me a chance to get used to teaching again before the summer. There might even be a possibility of working for them in August and September. I actually have a skill that people want to pay me for, mostly during the summer vacation, when I'm mostly looking for work, mostly in Oxford, where I live, or wouldn't mind coming back to work in once I'm in London. (I am indebted to Daily Info. Thank you.)

I'll be back in Oxford from Monday, very responsibly living a long way down Iffley Road so as not to distract certain people from Very Important Things, and if anyone wants to meet up one afternoon/evening, well, you can call me on my shiny, new phone!

I even know how to set the alarm clock on it now.

Hmph.

Ah, crap. I think I'm falling in love with Gide all over again. He's GAY and DEAD - when will I learn? It's not going to happen!

"And the weather in Newcastle is very similar to here in Paris..."

Similar my a***. I don't recall a howling gale and torrential rainstorm in Paris. How I've missed the North-East.

I spent all of yesterday in varying types of vehicle. I took the train to Paris, and was once again amazed at how France has such clean, efficient, cheap public transport, when everybody has a car and nobody uses it. Odd.

I was meant to be meeting Rachel, who was on the TEFL course with me and is currently working in Paris teaching people who work in the Pompidou Centre, who was also looking after a lot of my stuff. Unfortunately, she'd had an extra class sprung on her and had to dash off and prepare that, so I went for lunch on my own. I found a little cafe and sat for a long time drinking a glass of white Burgundy (it appeals to my sense of irony) and reading Gide, which is really pushing the boundaries between bohemian and pretentious, and then ate a sandwich on the train to the airport.

I managed to flirt my way onto my flight with 22kg of luggage and three carry-on items, which I was very proud of, and arrived home in time for a civilised takeaway with my parents and brother. I also decided to mark my return to the UK by getting a new contract with a shiny new phone, which has the advantage of being shiny, and new and all, but which has the disadvantage of me not being to use it (possibly not the phone's fault?). But it gives me something to play with, which is fun. If anyone wants to email me their number I'd be very grateful, cos I've lost everyone's!

love, pride, deep-fried chicken

Today I have:

• bought 10 books, all of academic worth;
• got a new phone contract complete with shiny new phone;
• bought a train ticket to Paris;
• read an essay by Duras about writing, love and solitude;
• cooked an exciting meal, again involving goats' cheese;
• challenged the washing machine to a duel... and won!

I also discovered a fantastic website, of geeky interest to (perhaps) a select few.

I wonder if it's a) significant and b) worrying that my iTunes Top 25 Most Played contains Don't think twice, it's all right (Bob Dylan), I heard love is blind (Amy Winehouse) and Come on home (Franz Ferdinand). This is all coincidental, and possibly countered by the presence of Drops of Jupiter (Train), but that song is so melodramatically sentimental that I doubt it. (In a good way.)

Am now resigned to the accommodation situation for next year, and instead of bitching, I've started organising a kitchen full of nice people, which is much more productive. Though it still mings. I think it's just the suddenness of it. And the fact that I was planning to use the boy's kitchen anyway, so having one in St Aldate's is not really much of an advantage. But I will be able to knock on Catherine's door and watch her giving birth to kittens on the walk to choir, which will be just like first year. =) (And, yes, I know it would be much nicer just to be able to run across the quad five minutes before it starts, but I'm trying to be positive here.)

My return is set for next Tuesday (23rd) and I shall be in Oxford from the 5th June, so if you would like me to come and throw things at you at any point after that date, please do alert me to the fact.

"I ain't saying you treated me unkind
You could've done better, but I don't mind..."

FEEL MY WRATH!!!

Bah. I don't *want* to live in a building it's actually acceptable to charge people rent for. I don't *want* kitchens and en suite facilities. If I'd wanted decent-standard accommodation I'd have gone somewhere else, but I believe it is my right as an Oxford student to live in a poky, moth-infested attic for at least one year of my life. Everyone else got to be within staggering distance of the beer cellar, panicking distance of the library and "aargh, choir starts at 5 on Wednesdays" distance of the chapel. So why can't we?

Humph.

And gallantly, she chickened out...

Well. Total about-face regarding plans for immediate future.

I have been offered a job in Oxford over the summer. It's not ideal, but I have two more interviews for other summer school jobs, which may turn up something better, and even if they don't, this sounds fun and gives me the chance to: a) use my TEFL qualification, b) earn money, c) do something towards the vague general objective of getting a degree, and d) have fun. All things I'm not doing here, even though that was the initial plan. Truth be told, I'm not hugely happy, everything positive keeping me here largely involves seeing people from home, and if I'm not doing anything to make feeling like this worthwhile, well, I'm going to come home and meet my friends and my boyfriend out of finals, and take a job I will enjoy and that might be useful to me in the future (you can apply linguistics?), and start my project that I'm hugely excited about. So there.

And I don't care if you think I'm giving up just cos it's difficult, and you can sing the 'Brave Sir Robin' song from The Holy Grail at me all you want, but I have justified this decision as a Good Thing in the overarching scheme of my life and I will stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly if anyone tries to change my mind.

Apologies go to anyone who wanted to come and use me as an excuse to stock up on Beaujolais.

 

"A tinkling piano in the next appartment..."

Unfortunately, I do not have an airline ticket to romantic places, wild strawberries, silk stockings, dance invitations, daffodils, or indeed any of the other things mentioned in the song.

Also, to clarify, the rum was not for me to get drunk on to numb the pain caused by the inexpert, unvaried music wafting gently down from the floor above, it was for my housemate to soak exotic fruits in to create a lovely digestif. (In chorus, "We believe you....")

Since I finished Desperate Housewives on Sunday my life has seemed rather empty. I tried to fill the void with reading, writing, lesson planning, martini, facebook, but none of it worked. However, for some reason I seem to have come over all positive and determined in the last couple of days. Firstly, I deleted Spider Solitaire from my computer. I've done this before, but this time I didn't reinstall it again 2 hours later. I did all the washing up from the dinner party last night (great fun, but they started talking engineering at the end so I retired to my literary theory book) and even went for a run. It has been a long time since I took any exercie, and I probably spent more time recovering afterwards than actually doing the whole cardiovascular thang, but I still feel virtuous. I also finally figured out how to get a photo on my profile on this thing, and spent a long time faffing about with colours and stuff. I demand you all click on the link to BBC news because I ventured into html for the first time in my life to create it, AND it worked.

I am withing finishing distance of two of the worthy books I have here and will soon actually have to do the Paper VIII reading lists in a more thorough way than, 'Ooh, a train, let's read another half a chapter of Le rouge et le noir on it!' Send linguistics books. Fast.

MAN UPSTAIRS: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP PLAYING THE PIANO. OR AT LEAST LEARN A SECOND PIECE. NOW. THANKYOU.

I'm going to buy some rum.

Anyone who talked to me on Friday would have been subjected to extensive bitching about the fact that my teaching has been set back three weeks and I'd been prevented from taking another job because I was theoretically busy on Tuesdays. However, I have, in the last two days, watched so many episodes of Desperate Housewives that real life now seems like a distant memory.

I had an 8-episode binge last night, after a similarly lengthy binge of Freudian analysis of literature, and consequently took it all much too seriously. Still, overintellectualising aside, I do think there are some good moments in it, if a little too much slapstick for my liking, and the voiceovers are annoying and unnecessary - why have a dead woman giving trite summaries of things that can be equally well expressed by the writing and the acting?

This weekend my house has been invaded by rugby players who spent the whole day yesterday sitting in the living room making cockerel noises and laughing extremely loudly. They went out in the evening, came back on the earliest Métro and spent the entire morning (by which I mean early afternoon) wandering around looking hungover and half-naked.

Here is a quote from the literary theory book, which I feel is an example of why translations should be used with caution:

"The Women's Liberation movements are correct in saying: We are not castrated, so you get fucked."

And one from Le Rouge et le Noir :

"Mme de Rênal pensait aux passions comme nous pensons à la loterie: duperie certaine et bonheur cherché par des fous."

I am eating a sandwich. On real square sandwich bread. Brown bread.

I appear to have reacquired my Northumbrian inability to cope with heat, which does not bode well, as it is only the beginning of May. Maybe I should stop walking up and down hills in the early afternoon.

It's been an odd couple of days. Strange is back. Meh. Have been assiduously planning my lessons for next week, which I got rather worried about, because I don't know these people and I've never planned a 2-hour lesson before. Also, I was presented with a map of how to find the company, which was very detailed but gave no clue as to what general area of Lyon it was, aside from my boss's helpful remark that it was 'on the way to IKEA'. I met some of my colleagues, who were all nice, particularly the biker guy who told me everyone in the company was lovely, but they're still a little odd in the way that many expats are...

I am also incapable of using the washing machine. You put stuff in the top of the drum and have to close it, which I didn't realise, and I couldn't open it again, resulting in all my clothes being locked inside until my housemates got home. Then, I took my fabulously clean clothes out to discover that my French Connection black linen trousers that make my legs actually look long (I think cos the trousers themselves are too long) had been brutally discoloured by the rather alarmingly magenta top I bought in New York. Grr.

And I didn't get the car breakdown job, as I can't work Tuesdays, which leaves me back... not quite at square one, but maybe two or three (depending on how many steps there are), and my latest potential tutee stood me up. Bastard. After my perilous walk to the park. Literature lesson was fun, and he even showed me where to get second hand books, and this morning sent me an email with various attachments for next time and some job-finding website.

Went out for dinner last night and was so impressed by the flat. It's right in the centre, in a funky old building and has three floors (so I guess not really 'flat') accessed by winding staircases and trapdoors.

If anyone would like to marry me (thus enabling me to wear the absolutely gorgeous dress in one of the many bridal wear shops around where I work) and then move into a funky multi-level appartment with me, I would be very grateful.

Bah. I'm doing that annoying post-bank-holiday timewarp thing, where you're convinced it's Monday and it actually isn't. I don't know why this would affect me, as my weeks have had no structure for quite some time, but I am still disorientated. So there.

Did spectacularly little this weekend, save buying a ticket to the Strokes in July and spending rather too long doing silly quizzes on http://www.okcupid.com which is, I know, a dating site, but I was only there for the quizzes. And there are many. (Apologies to anyone whose 2:1 chances I've just torpedoed.) I also watched L'auberge espagnole cos everyone I've met says, 'Ooh, you're sharing a flat, it must be just like L'auberge espagnole, which it isn't really. (Not so many drugs.) Anyway, immediately after watching it, I found myself weeping, for it was a beautiful portrayal of what it's like going off to a foreign country on your own, and of why it's more important to be a writer than an economist, (also of the general unfeasability of long distance relationships, but we'll gloss over that) but I've now decided it's just shameless EU propaganda (the British are ruining everyone else's fun by carrying on with Americans).

I also got incredibly excited that there is a song with my name in it on the new Franz Ferdinand album. (I also have a Franz Ferdinand ticket, courtesy of the parents.) I know this seems sad, but I have never found my name being used in any book, poem or song except for the maid in Little Women (hey, it's the kind of thing you notice when you're eight), so Well, That Was Easy is now my new favourite song.

I have an eminently manageable to-do list for today. I shall start by plucking my eyebrows.

Though you may be forgiven for not being aware of the fact, I am a technological genius. There was a computer problem and I fixed it. Me. All by myself. Without the help of any male. Not even Thomas.

I didn't talk about Thursday's magic interview, cos I didn't want to jinx things, but despite the presence of Strange, I somehow managed to get the job! Which pleased me greatly, as you can imagine. The interview was very weird though. Usually, interviews start with them telling you all about the job, which you listen to with your 'that would be challenging yet rewarding' face on, then they ask you what you think, and you're so flummoxed by the new information you just mumble something stupid about challenges and rewards, and then they tend to grill you about why you should dare think yourself worthy to be part of so prestigious an organisation, and then they tell you they want someone older/more experienced/who can start immediately/more qualified/less qualified, and you go away and eat chocolate. However, the crucial grilling stage was missing, which meant we went straight to 'well, can you come back tomorrow to sort out the contract' without me getting a chance to clarify that I was only around for a short time. However, I explained this all (with the help of a small white lie) and am now spending 8 hours every Tuesday teaching people in a pharmaceutical firm how to use the telephone until the end of July.

Further potential telephonic excitement may await, with some roadside assistance firm, but this will have to be cleared with the language school, and will also depend on me getting the job. They demanded a social security number which I don't have yet. Bah. And it would be 35 hrs a week, which on top of teaching and planning may send me mad. And would definitely kibosh the Oxford teaching job, which I was perfectly qualified for. Buses. Wendy Cope. Buses.

So, I came home happy but rather confused (as befits someone trying to board three buses at once) and made a wonderfully studenty meal, of pasta and things in tins and jars, and then retreated to a 24-fest, as my housemates had gone out for dinner. Except it wasn't much of a fest. I think I'm getting old. I once watched about 18 episodes of 24 in one go (with brief toilet and food breaks, unlike the hapless characters) but now my nerves can't take it, and I have to limit myself to 2. That, or in my wisdom I have developed a sense of restraint and self-discipline and can wait a decent amount of time for the next episode. (I don't even fast forward the 'Previously on 24' bits any more!)

But this is unlikely, when you consider that I eat Nutella from the jar.

This week has largely been characterised by Strange. (Not least because I've just realised I posted the thing about medical trials twice. Not that it wasn't distressing, but it didn't deserve to be immortalised more than once, if at all.) "Strange" has, incidentally, become an entity in itself (try saying that out loud!) which has been tormenting me pretty much since my arrival.

My housemates all disappeared over the weekend, leaving me to wallow in self-pity, watch countless episodes of 24 and lose myself in Syntax and Human Experience, which is definitively not better than sex, but in the absence thereof has at least provided many delightful hours spent contemplating weather expressions and idioms. This all resulted in me starting the week in the throes of pessimism, leading to insane moodswings and many stressy emails and MSN conversations about how upsetting it was not knowing what country I would be spending the next few months in, whether I was going to find a job here or come back and look in Oxford, why I was happier reading syntax books than earning money, and various other existential issues such as What To Do With The Rest Of My Life and Whether I Am Ever Going To Pay Off My Overdraft. I apologise to everyone on the receiving end of one of these. (The pessimism also led to me being mean to people who didn't deserve it. I'm sorry for that too.)

I spent two days bemoaning the general rubbishness of life (conclusion of existential meanderings: I want to come and work in Oxford, but I really ought to stay here) then yesterday went to the interview I was pinning all my hopes on, was told after 10 minutes that they needed someone to start in September who had lots of professional experience, went home, cried, called my mother, got pissed off with my mother for not being there when I was so clearly in distress, decided to do something productive, called people and magically got another interview. I think there may be a lesson in here somewhere.

So, true to my mental pattern, I went immediately from the slough of despond to... some happy literary allusion, and bounced around the house in a frenzy of omelette-making. However, just as I was working out how to open the eggbox (yes, it was complicated, the hinge was on the short end, I was very distressed) the phone rang. Thinking it was another magic interview, I picked up immediately, to speak to some guy wanting to ask me questions about young people's [something I didn't hear], so, being bored, I thought I'd indulge the market research guy who was probably also bored out of his skull. Unfortunately, it transpired that the crucial yet unheard Noun Phrase of the sentence was in fact "sexualité", and I found myself mumbling confusedly about contraception, while trying to think of the French for, "I'm not comfortable anwsering these sorts of questions." Doubtless I should have hung up before, "When did you last have sex? Do you miss it? Do you masturbate?" but it took too long to think of an appropriate get-out line.

Which leads me to the observation that you can't really slam down mobiles in an effective way. (Particularly if you can't work the buttons and it's a particularly knackered phone, but that's a different story.)

So, having disposed of the creepy man, I got back to the omelette, and then had a lovely MSN conversation with Livvy, who was having a similar direction crisis, and we had a good old moan, and then started comparing various people's attitudes to relationships to the foreign policy of Middle Eastern states, which cheered us both up no end, but does leave me wondering if we are, in fact, mad, and if this may be related to the unemployability in any way.

I then took 3 metros and a tram (Lyon's metro system is very pleasant, efficient and clean, but unnecessarily complex for actually getting anywhere, particularly from La Croix-Rousse) to meet Literature Man, who does have a name, but I wasn't sure what it was, and as everyone now knows him as Literature Man, it would seem silly to switch now. Literature Man is doing a doctorate in comparative literature, and very kindly offered to teach me French literature in exchange for English conversation. Well, he briefly asked if I could perhaps teach him some Henry James instead, but as I've never read anything of his, the "instinctive understanding" that comes from reading in your mother tongue may not be enough of an asset to overcome the gaping vortex that is my knowledge of "les auteurs un peu modernistes", so we're going to be discussing articles on BBC news. And I have homework, which involves reading Le rouge et le noir, which fills me with fear, as I haven't read anything written before 1900 for quite some time, and Literature Man is clearly quite intelligent; but hopefully some discussion of Stendhal and Mallarmé will give me a heads-up next year for my tutorials which I unwittingly (or 2/3 unwittingly) chose on my (also quite intelligent) tutor's three specialities.

In the evening I got a phone call from my mother, who had just learnt how to use voicemail, and then called the boy, who is now on first name terms with comedians. At least when their surnames aren't on predictive text. I then went out for dinner with my housemates and drank lots of an odd concoction involving wine and cassis, (far more palatable than Sarah's and my experiment with vodka and Ribena in Edinburgh) which I thought was about half and half, but, I discovered four glasses later, clearly wasn't. So, yes, I gave another drunken exposition on French phonetics.

And this is too long and wordy for anyone to still be reading, particularly as you've all noticed I have some odd subconscious connection between syntax and sex and have resolved to treat me with the extreme caution I deserve in the future.

I am still in Lyon, not finding a job or opening a bank accout, because it looks like there's about to be a horrendous storm outside. Also, employment optimism is fading fast, so I might just e mysee what happens at the interview on Wednesday and then maybe try my luck in Oxford instead. Bit wimpy, but prob the most financially sensible option, and can panic about my project as well.

But in the process of looking if there was anything on offer in Oxford, I did realise I had sunk to the depths of unemployability......

I am even ineligible for medical trials.

You know that malaria vaccine who seem to pay quite well and are always advertising for people? Well, they don't want me any more!

Hello,

Am now in Lyon, using my housemate's computer, as mine won't connect to the internet, which, as well as all the usual a/q, z/w confusion, has a particularly sensitive mouse, that I keep accidentally touching, that then sends whatever I'm typing to a completely different place on the screen. Grr.

Still, technical difficulties notwithstanding, Lyon is lovely. I've been here three days, and they've all been gorgeously sunny, and my housemates are lovely (though they know each other very well, which is slightly intimidating, and also the toilet is full of pictures of half naked people - men on one side, for those sitting down, and women on the other, for those standing up). Yesterday, they invited me to a barbecue at their university, which was great fun - everyone there was an engineer, so there was much excitement about building the wee toys in Kinder eggs.

Aside from that, I've just been looking for a job, which, once it became clear none of the language schools were particularly interested, has involved wandering around posting notices in any supermarket that will let me. I also signed up to various tutoring agencies online, so hopefully this will be more fruitful.

And soon I have to open a bank account, which quite frankly terrifies me.

I can also have people to stay whenever I want, so anyone who fancies a jaunt down to Lyon is very welcome.

Ow. My throat hurts. And my mother dragged me off my sickbed yesterday to take me to the emergency Saturday surgery... which has been closed since Autumn 2004... So then I got a lecture on what the modern world is coming to all the way to, erm, Morrison's. Because supermarkets are not one of the scourges of our age.

And, I really need a job (though the boy did cheer me up immensely by reminding me that I would get a student loan this term... I'm not sure why that particular piece of information had escaped me...) and I think my French phone may be trying to tell me I have messages, which may be from some of the 400 language schools in Lyon who I sent my CV to last week, but when I called the voicemail number, it wouldn't let me listen.

And Ryanair have draconian baggage policies, which mings.

That is all. Thankyou and Happy Easter.

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.

Jesus, I'm knackered!

We think I'm allergic to lentils, I've spent the last two days tracing and colouring in small pictures of animals, and last night I overexcitedly interrupted an amusing anecdote with the phrase: "Ha! You're using the present tense to describe something in the past! I was right!" and the boy arrives at 6.30 a.m. the morning after our big last-night celebration party. This requires getting up, navigating and speaking French, dammit.

So, yes, aside from the warped mind and having to overcome my fear of talking in front of large groups of people, everything is actually going all right now, though we have limited internet time and I can't waffle on too much. Still, I want to keep you reading!

Can't believe how quickly the time has gone - only just over a week and I'll no longer be busy 12 hours a day.

"Is boyfriend an object?"

Hello,

I thought I ought to update before leaving Oxford, and I may get quite drunk tonight, so it seemed sensible to write something now and avoid a slurred entry at midnight running vaguely along the lines of:
"I'm in Oxfrod and its' reeeeeeeeeally cold and everywhhere iss far away and my feeeeeet hurt but it's sooooooo nice to see everyone againn but my feet hurt and I love you all thanks forr reading...."

So, yes, I have been to Blackwells to buy books because I found a section on the course website entitled 'Recommended pre-course reading' and I'm now wondering what to wear to formal, which is kind of like I imagine my life will be for the next few years. I feel like I haven't been away.

Make it one for my baby
and one more for the road

I am adapting slowly to the harsh northern climes. I've been back about a week and it seems slightly less weird than it did last time I wrote. I spent a few days in Oxford cowering under a duvet, until my parents arrived with a big woolly jumper, which helped me face the outside world slightly better than I had previously been doing. (I got rather overwhelmed and had to be pacified with pizza.) Then we went to my grandparents' and I was fed lots of sparkling wine, and then we came home and I henna-ed my hair and made a lasagne. My life seemed so interesting last week. Yesterday we went to the Lake District to see the other grandparents, and there was more wine, and today I went to Morpeth and bought some cuticle sticks. My life seemed so interesting last week.

Still, I'm off back to Oxford tomorrow (there may be yet more wine) to see friends and then heading to Paris on Sunday, assuming I can find a means of transport from Oxford to Luton Airport. There are photos of where I'll be living here, and it's nice to have the prospect of a welcome meal and social thing to introduce me to the country, rather than spending my first night alone in a brothel and being woken by chickens at 4a.m. ...

Nothing unusual, nothing strange
Close to nothing at all
The same old scenario, the same old rain
And there's no explosions here

Rock formations

Niger sunrise

Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Dogon country

Camel, Timbuktu

Dogon country

Mali 2006

Mopti port

Three days ago I had heat rash.

I wrote a post last night in which I complained about how the evil computer in Accra ate my last entry, but then I found the other entry, so given as bitching was no longer justified, and I mostly repeated myself (and as dinner was ready) I abandoned it, and now can't remember anything I said, except that I am slightly disorientated and very cold. Yes, I arrived in Oxford yesterday. Yes, I know, I apologise, and I promise to never do anything so nauseating again.

This country is weird. You get off the plane and walk into the coach park, and instead of being mobbed by touts who take your luggage and guide you towards the next bus, you have to manoeuvre your trolley to the board that tells you where your coach goes from, then find the stand yourself... Though you do get an entire seat to yourself. Oxford is full of glamorous-looking people in scarves. I'd forgotten about the scarves. I have a scarf too, a Tuareg scarf, but according to the advert in Milan airport a Tuareg is actually a kind of car, not a nomadic people who live in the Sahara.

I almost asked the taxi driver how much the fare would be, and then remembered that bargaining was not the done thing, for there are wee meter thingies that set the price at £2.50 before you've even gone anywhere.

So I have been mostly sheltering under a duvet.

I don't think I'm a student any more, cos I did the washing up before I checked my email.

"Every time you get off the plane it's like a slap in the face. It's the same when you come back."

Those were the words of the Swiss guy who took me to get take-away food on the back of his motorbike last night. How long is it going to be before I get to write another sentence like that? It turns out the Kokomlemle Guest House is actually about 5 minutes away from a really good restaurant, which makes me laugh, because when the boy was here we spent many evenings wandering around this area trying to find somewhere to eat. Still, the ridiculously spicey kebabs were probably more economical, though thanks to my appetite going AWOL when I got back to my room, I have the rest of my beef and fried rice for lunch.

Yes, I know, I know. That mings.

Well, it's been a while since I last updated. "I'm also ill and not feeling like getting buses" was rather prophetic. Immediately after the internet cafe that day I went back to Julia and Benoit's and started running a temperature of 39C and simultaneously shivering, which turned out to be malaria, so I spent most of last week lying in an extremely green room with a quinine drip in my arm, reading all my books and using up my last walkman batteries. However I have now had another blood test and I am all clean - hurrah!

So, on Friday, I left to find the nuns. They weren't expecting me. I think they were slightly baffled, but they were very nice to me, and gave me toast and marmalade for breakfast, and the parents will be happy. Their church has links with the church in Bolgatanga so I was sent as a sort of ambassador with strict instructions not to make snide comments about 'charity with strings attached' or 'the opium of the poor' and suchlike. I was very well-behaved, and they were all lovely and though I couldn't see much (weekends are not good times to visit schools) I still had a lovely day touring the region getting sunburnt on the back of a moped and saw lots of photos of people doing worthwhile things. Incidentally, one worthwhile thing was distributing lots of old Central High uniforms to local kids when we changed from brown to purple, so I saw all these pictures of people wearing my old gym kit - so surreal. Also, I stayed with some Canadian students, who were from the same town in Ontario where we went on a Pongos tour in 99. The world feels very small. The Canadians were also lovely, and told me that as alcohol was an antiseptic, 50% proof vodka would actually help to get rid of the parasites that were in my liver. I'm not convinced this was a good idea. I felt very sick.

Yesterday I came back to Accra. The driver was the only person in Ghana with a sense of urgency, and I was SCARED! Everyone I met at the hotel said, "You came from Bolga today?" with varying degrees of incredulity. I ended up paying loads more for my room cos the single room I reserved in December had been given to someone else. Turning up as a woman on your own at 9.30 at night is a sure way of getting a room, but does not put you in a good position to argue a cheap deal. And the restaurant was closed, so I had to go off with the Swiss guy. The room is cavernous though. I am currently sorting through my stuff. Even binning all the clothes and shower gel, I have too much.

Will save this and post it tomorrow when I am in Oxford. Weird thought.

I don't want to go home. Please don't make me go home. I want to stay here.

"So I said 'it'll go to penalties' and he said, 'if it goes to penalties I'll give you a guinea fowl', and now he won't give me my guinea fowl cos he says it wasn't a real bet cos I didn't stake anything on it."

Men, honestly.

I got fed up with being harrassed by people wanting to sell me souvenirs and I ran out of money, so I took an infinite number of dodgy buses and came to sponge off my friends for a few days. My father's nuns have not got in touch with me so this may be indefinite. I'm also ill and not feeling like getting buses. And having people to talk to makes the books last longer.

It's fun. They live in a funky little town and have loads of lovely friends, and I have spent rather more time than I'd like watching football (and rugby, but I mind that less) but there is lots of cheap beer and it's all good. Anyway, seeing as I'm supposed to be rejoining the real world in a few weeks (fat chance) I'd better go and ask the BBC what's going on in it.

Hannah