Dimanche.

Dimanche's in France are rather boring. Nothing opens. It's not even like France shuts for maintenance on Sundays, cos no maintenance happens. They just shut. Even Carrefour. Except McDonalds. The 'golden arches' remain open. Come rain or shine.

CRISE!

Breaking News: Crisis in the laundrette!

Well, laundrette is a bit of an overstatement. Tiny room with 2 washers and a dryer is more accurate. Anyway, I went down to do my laundry, or rather to move it from the machine-a-laver to the séchoir. Anyway, there was a girl (who speaks French at my speed, and rolls her R's a little too foreignly to be French) in there puzzling over machine 2. She had put her clothes in, put her money in etc, but nothing. I could see straight away that the machine had eaten her money. So she moved it to mine. After getting the man from reception, who knew nothing about how it all worked. Rookie mistake. Anyway, my washing is now drying. Contentment has occured.

Quid cognitas?

I am getting so bad with my bloggs. So, I shall make this a lengthy one, then blogg sooner. What's important right now, is that it's the holidays. Well, I shall resort to my lovely lists to try to create a chronological list of events...


Thursday: Involved the aforementioned history test. It involved 5 questions, on simple stuff. I won't lie. I made a lot of it up. I hope he marks it based on our French. Cos I'm pretty sure my French is sound. The test was followed by erm... The teacher talking at us for another hour and half, and then a presentation, which was naturally ripped apart. As per.

Friday: I went to my 8h15 today. It was a rarity. I find that I just cannot be bothered to go. It is a bad habit. I did not go to my 14h30 though. I figured that my presence would not be missed. I hope he did not ask "Ou est l'anglais?" Anyway. Outage was had. "Vino Martin" emerged. The night ended abruptly as the alcohol wore off, and Nick, Robert and myself walked home. Via McDonalds. I think. I forget. Oh, we did. Cos we had food in town before we left. Plus McDonalds. Bad times.

Sam'di: Well, for Fiona's birthday, she decided we all had to go ice skating. Oh my. If you have ever seen me ice skating, it is as graceful as watching a pidgeon on ice. If pidgeons could ice skate. Anyway, I lasted 5 laps. Then fell. In front of people who laughed, realised I had seen them laughing, then lookedaway, and laughed some more. Their actions have been noted, and there will be reprisals. Derek claimed to have never ice skated before, but took to it look a duck to water. Damn him. He will be representing America at the Winter Olympics (EEeeeeee) in Montreal next year. Obviously. The soir involved outage, after pre-drinking at Fiona's. Most people were drunk. Very drunk. But, we all (except Derek and those who decided to go home) got into the club. 13€ it cost to go in. THIRTEEN! This included any drink we wanted, but this is not the point. It was too expensive. Drinks alone were 10€. So naturally, I bought two. I am terribly generous when drunk. Things happened in that club. Things that will never be mentioned again. Well, okay. I liked a pole. Not a Polish person. An actual pole. Ashamed. McDonalds ended the night. Again.

Sunday: nothing.

Monday: skipped a lecture. Again. Went to town, to C&A to be precise, and bought a new coat and shoes. So happy. I wore the coat around in the cold, and it kept me nice and toasty.

Tuesday: Missed my 11h30 class, cos I couldn't be bothered getting up. Ashamed. We did a translation in English. Nice and simple, despite the whole sentence that I couldn't translate. I hope it wasn't important. We then ended up in "version", which is English to French translation. Solid. Turns out there was a test. I have a new found hatred of Harry Potter. Really difficult, flouncy English. We had to translate the first two paragraphs of the fifth book. We are waiting for the law suit from JK herself. Epic fail. Some people have emerged outside Carrefour. At little desks and high chairs. One of them got me on Tuesday. Asking me things. I said "j'ai pas entendu", and she then shouted loudly "Pouvez-vous lire en Francais?", I said no, and fucked off to do my shopping. Bitch.

Wednesday: I finally got my free monies forms sorted. They were faxed off a la 1992. Then I emailed a woman to check they had been received. They had. I was happy. I met Giusy, and we worked on our debate. She lives in luxury, in town. Really centre of town. It is exactly the kind of location I want to live in when I grow up and move to France to live. On the way back, as the metro left the tunnel, and came above ground for Pontchaillou, I noticed a weird sign saying "vitesse=bruit". It confused me, and I wonder why speed does equals noise. Answers on a stamped addressed envelope.

Thursday: Test results. Emmi and I somehow got 6/6,5 out of 10. The teacher was most impressed. "C'est bien. Vous savez les mots plus précis comme "légitimité" et "équilibre". Vous voulez faire un éxposé?" He was impressed we knew what legitimity and equilibrium were in French. And wants us to do a presentation. It can even be on something English like "Chartisme". We said we would consider it. This means no. Then followed an afternoon of panicking, followed by the debate we had to lead. Apparently it is a very English thing to airquote. This caused giggles amongst the group. I'm unsure how to take this. I feel self conscious about my airquotes now. All went well, so I cannot complain.

Oh. And rain has returned to Rennes. No me gusta. Pas de tout.

Also, AC mentioned this website. Let's see if I get on it. www.blogsurfer.us
I probably won't. I'm not of the American persuasion.

I also put Facebook into "Lingua Latina". Mihi placet.

Favourite Frenches.

It's very hard to like French people. Not because I'm not willing to like them (believe me, I'm trying my hardest to like them) but because they are just so hostile/rude/all about the staring. Anyway, at present, I have 3 favourite Frenches. That is to say, 3 Frenches that I like.

Candidat #1: The man who does my history lectures. This man is a true historian. I'm talking flailing arms, raising and then lowering his tone of voice, doing funny voices. Seriously, the man is a legend. Plus, he's quite helpful to me, when I bother to turn up to his TDs. And, when I asked where I needed to "inscrire", he was like "I'll show you! He won't be there, but most people have trouble finding it!" And, he knows of Leeds and Lancast-air. All is well.

Candidate #2: The woman who does the English theme class. Theme is basically French-English translation. It's great. And the woman is helpful. And speaks to us in English. She is helpful. Oh, I mentioned that already. Well, she is.

Cadidate #3: The woman who does my Cirefe class. The écrit class. Not oral. I knew from the start that she was a good egg. She was very helpful, and looked a bit like Prof. Trelawney from Harry Potter. Don't let that put you off, 'cos she's still a jolly nice lady. I emailed her asking if we could move our test, cos I wanted to go home. Then sent another one saying that I wasn't going home after all, cos it was too much fuss. She replied lamenting my inability to go home, and wished me a "tres bonne journée". I rarely get a "bonne journée", let alone a "tres bonne journée". So I was most content. Based on that, I think she is my favourite French.

It was this, or revision.

So yes, tomorrow I have a test. It's a bit vague what it's going to be on. "Everything we've done so far". Does this cover TDs? I don't know. I suppose I'll find out tomorrow. I kinda hope that there is a question on "What is a bibliographie?". I know there won't be. Anyway. That's about it.

Ooh. I forgot. My ghetto has become a bit 'horror film' recently. It was a bit 'horror film' before, but now it has developed further. There is an eerie park which is always empty when I return back at night. And an empty car park. And a bit of a grassy area. This is scary enough. But, now, the street lamp on my street (well, Square) is on the blink. Literaly. Sometimes it is just off. Sometimes it just blinks constantly. This is prime horror film stuff. I may not survive the rest of the semester.

Realisation.

Well, I had a realisation yesterday. I was sat outside Carrefour, ignoring shouty angry man, when an old woman sat opposite me in the square. At this point, I found myself thinking "I bet she collaborated". Then it hit me. Most of the elderly population of this region collaborated with the Nazis. In exchange for more Breton freedom. Bastards.

Bienvenue a Paris. Please mind the glass.

Well, the weekend before last, Annie, Barbara, Máire, Nick, Robert and I (look at my impeccable English) boarded le TGV and went to (gay) Paris. We had the intention of not going to sleep (partly because we hadn't booked a hostel, partly because of La Nuit Blanche), as it was La Nuit Blanche. I expected this to be a night where all the big attractions, the Louvre, L'Arc de Triomphe (celebrating France's many victorious defeats. There's been alot), La Tour etc etc would be open. It was not. It was a night where there were various arts things over the city. In Notre Dame (actually awesome, despite the silly exhibition there), random churches, Jardins de Luxembourg, and of course some Irish centre. Now, it was fun, don't get me wrong - seeing a shiny disco ball held up by a giant crane over a park at 2am may well be the trippiest thing I've ever seen, but it was awesome - but I couldn't help but think that all the hype just wasn't worth it. Actually, I take back what I said about the disco ball being the trippiest thing I've ever seen. We spent like 2 hours in the Irish Centre, watching the oddest thing over. It was meant to be wolves, or men in the trenches (ww1) being ordered; moving in sync etc, then some smoke came out, and they didn't move in sync anymore. That was it. I doubted if it was real at one point on the train home.

Here are some highlights of the night. Stolen from Annie...

We did so much, its hard for me to put it in chronological order…Instead of doing the rest in paragraph form, here are a few highlights of the evening:

1. Waiting in a line for over an hour to see an enormous disco ball hanging from a crane.

2. The excursion into the Louvre parking lot. LOL

3. The time warp at the Irish cultural center (really, I have no idea how long we were there) and the nervous breakdown that followed.

4. The creepy gas mask things at the Irish cultural center that appeared to be mice or horses from afar, but it turned out that they were meant to be wolves.

5. Witnessing what appeared to be a fire from near the Pont Notre-Dame.

6. Also witnessing a beat-down taking place and quickly turning the corner.

7. Finally finding programs

8. Overpacking my Longchamp bag to the extreme. [I don't know what she means by this either]

9. Continually losing each other in the crowds- Thank God for cell phones![A cell phone is a mobile in English]

10. Bloody Mary around 4am. [I had a Fanta. I forget actually. Definitely not alcohol though]

11. Almost getting screwed over by a waiter and witnessing one of his teapots being stolen [Barbara Dwyer if you're reading this angry waiter]

12. Walking through Pigalle aka Paris’s Red Light District at 6am. Let’s just say that was an experience!

13. Witnessing the steps of Montmartre being power-washed of their filth.

14. Struggling to keep our eyes open during the 7am Mass in Sacre Coeur.

15. Sunrise in Montmartre.

16. Big omelette breakfast at an awkward restaurant near the gare (train station), that was decorated to make us feel like we were eating on an actual old school style train. [I had McDo. Vile]

17. Swapping out our 2pm train tickets for 10:05am tickets. [And ending up sat far apart]

18. Falling asleep on the train and then waking up in a panic because I thought I’d missed the Rennes stop. [I did not.]

19. Getting back to Rennes, dragging my body through the station, on the metro, off the metro, through three parking lots, into my dorm, up two flights of stairs and into my room. Dropping my bag, shedding my clothing, wearily updating my facebook status to “Ann-Charlotte has not slept in 31 hours” and then literally falling into my bed only to finally wake up 21 hours later. [I was quite awake. But fell asleep at around 18h. Until 8am. Good times]

I also saw Laura from uni and her friend Edinson, which was nice. I actually spoke French. First time in ages. Good old Eiffel Tower times.

So, that was Paris.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Well, it feels like it has. It's only been since Thursday, but that's almost a week. That said, in France, it's only just over half way through a week. They're special here. A week is 8 days. A fortnight is 15 days. Anyway. Here are a few things I've done since Thursday, excluding Paris. Paris deserves it's own blogg.

CIREFE: So, CIREFE, if you don't know (which to be honest, I still don't really know what it is, so I doubt you will) is basically where we get taught French, whilst being in France. It's interesting as we don't get told "chat is French for cat", we just get terms explained to us. In French. Anyway, I'm in "Autonomie", which still means we need a teacher. I imagine people in "Maitrise", which is the top group, to just sit around looking smug. Anyway, that's pretty much it. The teachers seem nice enough, as does the class. I think I'll have to befriend one or two of them, with them mostly being Spanish and such. And me going to Spain in February. My Spanish is so bad.

Bites: Well, I've been really lucky recently. I've not been bitten in days. I have been bitten. I forget where, but I remember finding it, and wanting to weep. Not amused.

Pharmacie: So, I've had a bit of a sore throat. This being France, the only place where you can buy anything to cure maladies is the pharmacie. So, off I trotted, I prepared a whole speech in my head 'J'ai mal a la gorge, mais c'est pas trop mal. Je veux prendre qqch pour éviter que ca devienne pire'. I said this, more or less, and she said 'Donc, vous avez mal a la gorge? Prenez-le, mais pas trop'. So, that was that. It didn't get better. So, I had to return to a different one for some Strepsils. Reliable Strepsils. Also, expensive. 5€50! Not amused.

Noone at reception: In my building, the postal system works such: post arrives, people sort it, and highlight your room on a sheet of paper. Then, you say to the lady (it's normally a lady) on reception that you have post, what room you are, and your name etc etc. This whole plan hinges on the person at reception, being there. As it happens, every time I have post, there is noone there. Or, they are on their lunch, and as such, refuse to open the glass window to hand me my post. Grr.

Laundry: The prospect of doing my laundry scares me here. I was under the impression that my building had two tumble dryers, and one washing machine, the latter being en panne. Anyway, for the past however many weeks, I have been using the laundry room in Maire's building. But, she was busy, so my plan was to go downtown to Kennedy with my case and use the laundrette there. As it happened, my laundry room is two washers and a dryer. Both washers were working, so it was quite a successful trip. Boring, non?

Alan Carr: My lecturer for Europe XIXe siecle looks like Alan Carr. This made me chuckle (silently) mid-lecture.

Irish: I'm sure you know that alot of my friends here are of the Irish persuasion. They will not let me forget 800 years of oppression. Seriously. Now, it seems, lecturers don't want people to forget. When we colonised the Americas, we used our experience in oppressing the Irish (wild Irish) to help oppress the Native Americans. Someone described the Native Americans as being as bad as the 'wild Irish'. Example number two: the Irish helped form their national identity through religion. With the help of Daniel O'Connell, I think. We probably killed him. Oh well.

Staring: They're still staring. Nosey fuckers.

I survived!

Well, that's about it. I also attempted to navigate the library. That was also a successful trip! I "inscrire'd", and found my book! I'm pretty sure it's due back on the 2nd of November. Maybe. Time for Cirefe, followed by Subway, and an internetless evening, before sleep and an 8h15 start :(

Angleterre = great. Napoléon = not.

Well, my excitement of the day has involved a. seeing a nun on a bicycle, and b. blogging on a Mac. An actual Mac. It's quite exciting. In regards to the nun, I saw her yesterday. On her little bicycle. In case you were wondering, nun in French is "Réligieuse" or "Soeur". I was. I even looked it up once I got to my class. I'm just that geeky. So yes, I saw her yesterday. Cycling away, in a holy manner. Yesterday also saw the witnessing of my first French 'manifestation'. I'll be honest, it was quite the let-down. A bunch of women whinging about their shop shutting or something. Actually disappointed.

Not alot else has happened really. Lessons, nothingy.

In other news, the reason that I am blogging on a Mac, is because I forget my username and password. So, being France, the only way that I can contact them about it, is if I write them a letter, or ring them. I fear that ringing them is the only worthwhile option. This petrifies me. I shall prepare a sheet with lots of vocab and potential questions. Failing that, I will resort to "Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un qui parle anglais la?" No me gusta.

In other news, I have a meeting with a scary man about assigning my seminar group, even though it has already been pretty much decided. The seminar in question, which I went to this morning. In which 2 hours were spent in "Essay writing for morons" and the other hour was a presentation on some dead old woman, followed by the tutor's critique of their presentation. Actually awful watching him attack her. Well, not attack. We know how the French aren't ones for the attack... :)