First Contact.

I decided to be brave and telephone my school today.

I was pushed rather than jumping enthusiastically into this linguistic challenge; my Mum wants to book a holiday to New Zealand to celebrate my 21st and her and my Dad’s Silver Wedding anniversary and threatened to leave me behind with the cats for three weeks if I didn’t find out when my holidays were.

So, I found three different numbers for this school, two of which rang for about an age without any sign of being answered and one which was answered with a chirpy, ” ‘Allo!”

Now, this threw me somewhat. I can’t imagine phoning a school over here and being greeted with a simple “Hello!” instead of ” L’école Ernest Renan, Pam speaking, how may I help you?” Or something equally formal. So I became semi-convinced I’d managed to misdial and was currently speaking to a housewife waiting for a call from her mate or something. Evidently, the sensible thing to have done in this instance would have been to cast my mind back to the past decade of my life that I’ve spent learning French and come up with a rudimentary question along the lines of “allo, est-ce que je parle avec la secrétaire de l’école Ernest Renan?” and  after having established this elemental fact I could have either continued my conversation or apologised and left the housewife in peace.

But, that didn’t happen. I tried to think of how to ask who was speaking, but in the end I just sort of ummed and erred down the phone and then blurted out “C’est l’Ecole Ernest Renan?” Inelegant, but not the end of the world. Until you realise that in my mad panic I seemed to have forgotten than French doesn’t sound like English spoken by a navvy from Dagenham. These words came out as “Ces lecol ErNEST ReNAN? Bra-fucking-vo. Two years into a French degree, you little star.

As it happens it was my school and the secretary was very sweet and helpful and the rest of the conversation passed without any serious linguistic incidents (a few missed gender agreements with adjectives, but they always seem so natural in writing and so unnatural in speech, when it all happens in an instant). Despite her loveliness she couldn’t help me and I have to phone the Directrice soon to introduce myself and find out exactly what I have let myself in for teaching wise. I am currently SHITTING BRICKS about the prospect of talking to the head mistress in French over the phone, but I am going to man up and COPE. More than cope, I am going to put these years of learning French to proper use; no more twatting around talking about the death penalty and the environment in abstract terms, it’s time to get serious and discuss start dates, and teaching materials and other things for which the past decade of my life has so poorly prepared me.

Update on my score on the twat-o-meter later.

Year Abroad Update.

So, I finally got my Arreté de Nomination (excuse the lack of circumflex on the first “e”;  I have not yet quite got the hang of typing any accents apart from acutes, probably something to work on) through and it turns out I am going to be teaching in a wee little commuter town called “La Garenne Colombes” which is about 2km outside Paris-proper in the Hauts-de-Seine area.  Which is near enough to live in the city and commute out; all of benefits of city living with none of the knife-i-ness that tend to characterise inner city schools; I’d call that win-win.

In fact, so unknife-y is the school that I’m teaching in, they teach the kids fencing as P.E, Je ne te merde pas. That’s quite the level of trust they have in those kids; I’m not sure I’d let my sister and her school friends loose with objects designed to skewer people. But this is France and I imagine that the children would just try and fence with broken bottles if they weren’t given a proper outlet for it; such is the pull of their culture.

Have a photo I took of my school on a recent flat-hunting MISSION.

Doesn’t it look quaint? And it is; I sort of fell in love with La Garenne Colombes when I visited it. By rights, it ought to be an utterly soulless place, like every other commuter town in the world; basically somewhere quiet and non descript to sleep before and after contending with the far more important matters which happen in The Town.

But LGC had a such a village feeling about it; lots of pavement cafés on pretty little cobbled streets (albeit cafés serving sushi… we’/re not that far from Paris, remember).  We met this adorable couple at one of the pavement cafés whilst we were trying to find our way to the school who insisted of trying to speak to us in a French-English-German hybrid language despite the fact we continually told them “Vous pouvez le dire en francais”, they continued to um and ah; “comment-on dit “gare” en anglais?!” It was all incredibly cute. I think the fact we were English was such a novelty to them that it was probably their anecdote for the day. When we went to say our goodbyes and thanked them the man of the couple said “De rien et au revoir, les charmantes desmoiselles!” I simple don’t get called charming or a damsel anywhere near enough in this country.

More year abroad news soon.

P.S. Sarah and I have a FLAT!

Spread my what, Rod?

Mixtapes. They’re a minefield. I mean, you only ever really make them as an expression of love, or devotion or something like that. Either that or as the soundtrack for some serious lovin’ and so it’s a bit difficult to make them for someone without it being interpreted as “here is a free pass to my knickers, do with it as you wish.” All this means it is a bit impossible to make one for someone with purely platonic intentions.  Which is shame; I always really liked making mixtapes when I was in a relationship and it seems a bit sad that I couldn’t present a friend with a collection of songs that remind me of them, or which I think they might like without it being massively weird.

But even when it is someone with whom you are romantically linked, the first mixtape is still a gauntlit to run. You’ve got to get the tone right not too serious; not too flippant and then you’ve got to strike the right balance between songs which remind you of  your significant other and songs which you think they might enjoy. I think my ex (*waves* I know you read my blog sometimes, so I shall say a friendly hello in case you are reading this one) learnt the hard way that one really hadn’t ought to open with a song with the lyrics:

“I could have treated you better/ but you couldn’t have treated me worse”

no matter how much your girlfriend likes Ben Harper. The same goes for Bill Withers’ Use Me Up or else you are likely to get a confused call on Valentine’s day asking if this mixtape was in fact just some elaborate way of dumping her.

Then there’s the entirely different matter of making a mixtape or playlist to set the mood for a night of passion. I’m not really sure what the rules for this are, to be honest; I only ever really make playlists for driving, which are full of jingly-jangly upbeat music to try and combat the feeling of dread and panic which floods me whenever I take the wheel. And I’m not too sure there are many parallels to be drawn between the two experiences.

Spotify have jumped right this trend with their “play safe!” campaign. I get continually bombarded with these adverts for not going bareback  (I must have checked the box that said “I enjoy casual, unprotected sex with strangers” box which they hid between age and gender) and to tie in with the campaign they’ve put up these playlists that various artists have created for just such an occasion.

They are, on the whole, enough to cause a severe case of vaginismus; there are few things which turn me on less than the sound of Rod Stewart crooning “spread your wings/let me come in side”. Yeah, I’m going to guess that both the inclusion of “wings” and the spelling of “come” were typos. Added to this, there’s AC/DC’s Let me put my love in you. Few things could make me gather up my under garments and make a swift exit quicker than these playlists. Even if they’re tongue in cheek, they’re still horrendous. If you’re going for the lols then surely Sheena Easton’s Sugar Walls is a much more subtle way of achieving them? And it can’t be that knowing; there’s I Just Called to Say I Love You and Against All Odds. It’s enough to make me want to vom over my keyboard. Either go all out and have NIN’s Closer, The Amateur Transplants‘ Titanic, Easton’s Sugar Walls, Donna Summer’s I Feel Love etc if giggly sex is your thing, or put together something nice and unobtrusive, with lots of Dylan and later Bright Eyes. But really, Cock rock and power ballads? No one in their right minds will be wooed by that. Sort your shit out, Spotify.

More lols from the Toppers website.

Exams are over and it’s fully three months before I have to move to Versailles to wipe French children’s bums for a living, and so the Topshop website has been calling to me more than usual.

The knickers section is especially fun; they can’t seem to make up their mind whether they’re designing for M&S kids department or Anne Summers and so there is a somewhat schizoid collection that ranges from the virtually crotchless panties to very sensible briefs with various 80s and 90s kids TV programmes. For example, compare and contrast these two extremes:

But slightly worrying questions about exactly who they’re trying to appeal to aside, I found an amazing pair of knickers in store the other day that actually made me laugh out loud in the knicker department and doubtless gavethe impression I was somewhat of a perve but I challenge you not to laugh when you see them…

Ahahahahaha

Get even a tiny bit of a wedgie in this knickers are you have superhero and her lasso of truth flying out of your anus.

Surely someone else must have noticed this rather unfortunate design detail before the material was ordered and the pattern sent off to the sweat shop in *checks own knickers for accuracy* China.

Also, this photo is rather unfortunate:

Nasty.

I’d say however pressed for time you were on this particular photo shoot, however tight the deadline, you should probably have  reconsidered and re-shot this image; who wants Uncle Bulgaria between their labia? A tiny minority, I should hope.

Too much time on my hands, I know. The sooner I ship myself off to France to be a “pelleur de merde” (the new official title for language assistants, I’ve heard) the better.

Thank you for entertaining me, Comparative American Studies students.

I love CAS students, I really do. Not only do they make me feel a bit better about my own degree (there’s very much a pecking order in terms of degree worth; sciences at the top, social sciences in the middle and arts at the bottom and various sub divisions within these catergories. I think it would be fair to say that CAS students only really have film and television students to pick on) but they also annotate their library books in a way that makes background reading so much more enjoyable.

I first noticed this when I borrowed a book about Juan Perón for my Latin American history module. The author had said something slightly flippant about Perón being such a handsome man that women fell at his feet. As a comment this had clearly angered a millitant and utterly misguided feminist CAS student who had written beside this comment in lurid pink gel pen “THIS IS VERY NAUGHTY AND SEXIST!!” I don’t think naughty is used enough in historical analysis, I’m starting a trend for it, now. Oh CAS student, why did you think this was such an original and worthwhile thought that you had to share it with us all? I know not, but needless to say your contribution did not end up in my essay.

Other gems from the Latin America section of the library include “horrific racism!” nect to a description of a black cuban man as black. Yeah… I don’t think you have to scratch much deeper in that country’s history to find genuine racism. Probably do a bit more reading next time, I reckon.

But the best one I’ve found so far is simply a sad face next to the sentence “the women were still subjected to discrimination from their male counterparts.” I quite genuinely laughed out loud when I saw that little gem. Who needs cogent analysis and historiography when you can sum up social history with an emoticon?

Pay-per-view terminations.

Whilst writing about Cuban Women ( I wasn’t lying when I said I was trying hardest to turn my degree into Gender Studies) I came across a phrase that I found a bit troubling.

“On demand abortion”.

I’m very much pro-choice (NB: not pro abortion; I do not look at every new mother and see a wasted opportunity) but I can’t help but think that as a phrase, that has should probably be saved for the broadcasting of sporting events and not a highly controversial medical procedure.

Just my thoughts.

Austerity dressing.

I’m not saying that medieval women  and French colonialism aren’t interesting but when all is said and done, I am but a weak and feeble woman and so my attention is inevitably drawn towards bits of fabric stitched together in new and exciting ways. However far I get academically or professionally I will always hide a secret longing for the days when the only thing I had to worry my little head about was how to express myself through my hats. Such is the folly of my gender.

So when the essaying gets tough, I gather my petticoats and run for the safety of on-line window shopping. I can’t really explain why; the chances of me actually ordering anything unless there’s a sale on are slim to non-existent, and yet I end up spending an equal amount of time on Topshop.com as I do on Jstor. Fail, I know.

With the whole, economic-ageddon we’ve been promised for the past year, I thought some if it might have trickled down into the fashion world with lots of timeless basics and elegant tailoring filling the racks; y’know, stuff that’s going to last and last so you don’t feel you’re being frivolous when you buy it. How wrong I was. Perhaps there was time during the boom years when we would have all rushed out to buy trousers that made us look like leopards with skin diseases, but can’t you see Toppers? Those days are gone.

Don’t you know there’s a recession on? We’re all meant to be darning our knickers and drawing lines on the backs of our legs with gravy granules,  not handing over a crisp twenty pound note for those abominations. Topshop, you are modern day spivs.

But twenty quid starts to look like a reasonable price; once you start delving a bit deeper you see that actually, that’s really quite cheap for what is needed to deck yourself out like a blind hermit, who has never seen or felt clothes, but only heard of them as an abstract concept.

Take this, for example.

At first glance it may well look like something that was used for a school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat but that has seen now seen better days and has been given to good will so that a thankful Zimbabwean can swan around in it like a mother-fucking P-I-M-P.

But we’d be wrong. It is being sold for SEVENTY POUNDS. And what is more, it is sold out in sizes 6, 14 and 16. There must be a veritable troop of emaciated and curvier ladies out there with this as their uniform. I am at a loss as to who could have bought it.

So, it would appear that we have learnt nothing from our decade of rampant consumerism. Despite the fact there’s a recession on we are gleefully cutting up our nylons and then paying 6 times as much for them as an un-laddered pair.

I’ m not going to write anything beside that; I’m just going to let it hang in air so that we can all have think about how unbelievably mental it is that a) They even exist for purchase ( give me a pair of a nail scissors and some Primark tights and I can make you look like you were the victim of some horrific attack for a fraction of the price).

b) That they cost so much more than something that is roughly 100% more functional.

However, there are some trends that one always sees when there’s a slump, that’s right; rampant nationalism. But this is the noughties; we’re all too apathetic to go out and vote for the BNP so we just like to represent out smouldering racism through our clothes.

Like this natty little two-piece. I’ve already put in my order, it’s perfect office wear; I just know that I’m going to the talk of whatever little backwater town I end up in in France.

I suppose the secret with dressing well is knowing what occasions to wear things. Well, in that case, you would be the indisputable Belle of the Rally in this little combo. Outside of that scenario, I see little practical use for it, unless you are Ginger spice trying to revisit her early career but in a cut more appropriate for a woman of her advancing years.

However, it was a relief to find that this troubling trend has been offset by a certain amount of interest in other cultures, especially their languages. “WHAT?! “I hear you cry, ” but we are British, when we go abroad we just speak louder and say ‘Do. You. Do Chips. Pierre/Pedro/Giuseppe/ Chang?’” Everyone understands that, even foreigners. But again, times, they are a changin’ and we’re making more of an effort, even it is only through having a stock phrases from a year seven French text book emblazoned on our vests. Baby steps, remember how long it took us to accept that olive oil isn’t only for putting in waxed up-ears? We’re trying, OK, we’re going to be a truly global workforce, just give us a bit of time.

I see girls in the French dept. wearing these Tshirts and I can’t help but think, ‘You know you’re wearing a top that says the equivalent of Hiya! in another language, STOP IT. And never wear that beret in the department ever again, even if it is ironic it makes you look ridiculous.’

So, I’ll end in my usual half-arsed way, with a plea to all shops to get something pretty in soon; if I’m going to distract myself whatever you have in, I’d rather waste my time windowshopping with attractive things, not the monstrosities shown above.  If not for me, do it for my friend Emma who I know is tired of having our MSN conversations interupted by me posting links to the most recent fugly jumper I’ve found.

My Trip to Madrid or Spain’s Capital City Reduced to an Anecdote about a Bar Crawl.

I feel I ought to make some sort of an attempt at blogging about Madrid, but in all honesty I wasn’t there long enough to get any kind of meaningful impression of the place. It was nice; we flew from Luton, I could not find one solitary hair bobble in the whole of the departures lounge, but I found several Durex play vibrating rings (either me or my fellow travellers had their priorities wrong, and I’m not sure which). I managed to remember the Spanish for straw (My Alevel Spanish teacher was right; it did come in handy and before I’d had kids too. If only I’d needed to use the verb “to blow” then I’d have been able to use all the vocab I learnt off him in two years), we went to The Prado but I was bit too uncultured to appreciate it, so me and my fellow philistines sat around and compared student house stories; highlights include the boys who keep a fork in their shower to unclog all the hair in the plughole, and the constant lack of loo roll that has led the very same boys to use copies of Private Eye as a substitute, which put my bathroom bin stories into perspective. FIN

But that’s too dull even for me. So I’ll do what I do best and reduce a whole experience to one mildly amusing anecdote.

The hostel we were stopping at organised bar crawls every night, where for ten of your Spanish Euros, they’d take you to the finest watering holes in all of Madrid. So, on the Sunday night, we all signed up for this bar crawl and were greeted by “John From West Yorkshire”. Not only was he dressed like Bart Simpson Circa 1992 (baseball cap on sideways and a skateboard, I shit you not) but he was so very precise as to where he was from that we couldn’t help but suspect a very specific kind of racism or perhaps belonging to a West Yorkshire Independence movement.

Anyway, off we trotted with JFWY (as he will be known from now on) to a succession of various different hostels to try and pick up any others who could be persuaded to part with ten euros. We found none. But we did get to see JFWY shunting himself along on a skateboard, it is hard to believe that anyone who chooses a skateboard as a mode of transport is old enough to drink let alone organise a bar crawl. Clearly he had his doubts too and on this twenty minute frog march round Madrid we went in search of a man called Adam who Becky described as “a bit date rape-y”. At the time I couldn’t help but think “Noooo! You can’t trivialise things like that!” but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that she had made a remarkably astute observation, there was something of the GBH about him. I’ve never watched my drink so religiously as that night.

Goodwin in an Adam Sandwich. Adam on the left being the sex pest. But you could have probably guessed that.

So we went to this bar. Although that is quite a grand name for what was essentially an extended corridor, I suppose that it was designed to make it look heaving no matter how few people were there. Cue the more euro-dancing than the eyes and soul can cope with. For those not familiar with euro-dancing I’ll try and explain, it essentially involves lots of arm pumping with a dash of gyrating hips. I am usually self conscious dancing, but in comparison to this lot, I was like a young Ginger Rogers.

Sensing we were perhaps slightly too sober to enjoy all this euro-dancing, Adam bought us all a free beer and then insisted on clinking glasses with all of us. When it came to my turn I was made the fatal mistake of not making eye contact with him. He was not best pleased. So displeased was he that he informed me that I had to make eye contact with him when we saying cheers or I’d have seven years of bad sex and then made me clink glasses with him again whilst holding my gaze. I’m sorry for not making eye contact with those I suspect of sex crimes. I’ll know better in the future.

The hours dragged and eventually we ended up in this slightly dodgy looking bar, with about four people who I suspect had been paid to euro-dance furiously; they certainly didn’t look as if they were doing it for the sheer pleasure of expressing themselves and their Continent through the medium of dance. So I had a little bit of dance and was enjoying myself until Matt pulled a face and pointed over my shoulder. Words will only do the sight that greeted me a disservice.

There was Adam, pointing his arse at me like some sort of redneck sumo wrestler and saying “are you ready for a BUTTJIGGLING?” How does one respond to that? I’ve thought about it since and I still have literally no idea. So I just sort of stared at him dumbfounded and moved to the side, to which he replied “ahaha, you weren’t ready, I’ll get you next time!” It must be some sort mating ritual in Madrid/Texas and one which I am happy to have avoided.

So yes. To conclude. An amazing trip, with lovely people and this surreal bar crawl was an essential component of it all.

The Madrid lot.

Medieval Misogyny

Despite the fact I’m actually doing a French and History degree, it can seem as if I am trying my very hardest to turn it into Gender Studies. It’s Medieval women this time, and frankly, they’re no where near as interesting as the ones involved in second wave feminism. So I’ve had to find ways of keeping myself entertained whilst writing 4,500 words about them. I’ve found myself getting far too excited when the numbers in my word count are sequential or palindromic, but perhaps more interestingly, I’ve been reading about contemporary beliefs about women’s bodies and it’s rare HOOT:

- “Contact with menstrual blood turned new wine sour…”

SOUR, is that it?! How on earth has the uterine matter got in the wine? I’m sure the middle ages really weren’t the best time to be a woman and all that, but fair enough if they didn’t want menstrual fluid in their wine; I think I’d probably pass too, no matter what Germaine Greer’s recommendation was in The Female Eunuch.

- “Intercourse during menstruation was to be avoided at all costs; any child so conceived was likely to have red hair and contract leprosy.”

You’ve got to feel sorry for those with red hair, really. Theirs is a story is one of millennia of discrimination. They need a movement to free them from such slander. And yet I know what I’ll be thinking every time I see a ginge from now on…

-”Women’s lack of heat accounted both for their physical weakness and for their slippery and untrustworthy nature: It also helped to explain why women were sexually much greedier than men: cold uteruses were ever in need of being warmed up by hot semen.”

Remind me never to complain of being cold again; I’ve been putting out the wrong signals without even realising.

-”Discussions were a foot as to whether the Virgin Mary had menstruated or not…”

You just don’t get the same rigour in ecclesiastical debate anymore… That’s where the C of E is going wrong.

Possibly more when/if I find them.

The Fear.

Do you know what I mean by The Fear? Do you never get that feeling of being entirely irrationally scared in a social situation? Your fight or flight instinct kicks in and you feel like a thirteen year old again, despite the fact that all that is happening is a mildly awkward conversation.

I hope I’m not the only one who gets this, but I have a feeling I’m almost certainly in the minority. I hope I’m usually a fairly socially flowing kind of person, who can deal with most situations, but some things still send me into a hand-wringing neurotic mess.

But, y’know, it’s got better over time. There was a point when:

Talking to any authority figures,

Being in social situations where I didn’t know someone,

Phoning companies,

Paying for things in shops

would all bring on The Fear. But I think that was more a case of being a massively self aware teenager rather than the symptoms of a mental illness. But who knows?

However, there’s one social situation that still makes me feel entirely ill at ease; The hairdressers.

I don’t know why. I’m meant to look forward to it,  aren’t I? But I’ve never feel so uncomfortable as when I walk through that salon door into that Temple of Woman. The idea of 40 minutes of having to look at my reflection and conversation I cannot contribute to fills me dread. Which is why I go about sixth months and is probably one of the reasons the hairdresser treats with slight contempt; I roll into her salon twice a year with a style that has entirely grown out and more split ends that have ever been seen before and expect her to sort it out and all for a quid tip.

It was particularly bad this time. I never look forward to quality time with the mirror and being confronted by the fact I seem to have both spots and the beginnings of wrinkles (problem skin doesn’t even begin to cover it) and that the slow but inevitable progress of the family “slack chin” on my jawline.  However I’d managed to forget to bring my make-up back home with me, so I looked grey. To clarify, I go out without make-up on frequently, I often roll in my nine o’clock seminars sans make-up and occasionally without having even bothered to comb my hair (I know, I paint the most appealing picture of myself in this blog, don’t I? Form an orderly queue, Internet-perves) but being confronted with my un-altered appearance for the best part of an hour and whilst surrounded by women who would very clearly chose make-up rather than breakfast in that morning rush, I felt magnificently inadequate.

Furthermore, I just couldn’t seem to keep a conversation going. I tried really hard this time, telling her how well the cut has stayed in, and how pleased my mum had been with her haircut the week before, but eventually there was silence. Followed by a discussion between the hairdressers and their “ladies” (I think they only call their regulars this, I very pointedly called “a customer”) about whether the boyish Leonard Di Caprio (Circa Titanic) or the more manly LDC (circa Blood Diamond) was more appealing. There was fierce debate, but alas, when asked for my opinion had nothing to offer.

I also made the massive mistake of trying to make a joke. She told me how much better my fringe looked for having a cut and replied “yeah, I was starting to look a bit like Cousin It!” You have never before seen such bafflement on a human face. It was like the look a cat gets when it’s just sneezed. I think for a moment she wondered if I had a Cousin called It who I expected her to be familar with the appearance of. She didn’t even ask me to the clarify, oh the shame.

An epic fail of a social situation if ever there was one. I might just for the Sinead O’Connor look to save myself the hassle next time.