les frogs et les rosbifs.

Lucky me, now I have another country to judge and make vast overgeneralizations about! Here are some fun things that have changed for me.

1. My ability to calculate distance. I suppose this is a matter of perspective, but England is a small country. Before moving here, I was thinking I might even manage a trip or two to London during my masters (a prospect I can enjoy a hearty laugh at for many reasons now). Realistically, it's only about a two hour train ride. But my cousin recently sent me a message asking me to come visit her for the weekend sometime and after looking at the map, my first reaction was, "OMFG WHY ARE YOU SO FAR AWAY!" I calculated the distance, and it's LESS than the difference from Phoenix to Tucson. Not even 100 miles. WHY!!!!!!!
2. The default weather setting, 100% of the time should be this: bring your umbrella, dummy.
3. I paid 2£ for this. 2£ !!!!!!!!!
   
4. Being called "loov" and "swee-taht" multiple times at the supermarket is strangely reassuring and not weird or intrusive.
5. All old British men remind me of grandpas. ALL OF THEM.
6. I now have to integrate the variant spelling of words like "centre" and "realisation" into my writing. It feels so icky.
7. English girls are way more fun than French girls, in that they're chatty and outgoing and not at all threatened by the equally matched presence of estrogen. But there's a strange eyebrow trend I've never seen before. I don't really get it.
8. The idea of celebrating American traditions is charming and they embrace it (see photo below of Thanksgiving plus they're planning to adopt the American black Friday, the thought of which hurts my soul).
   
9. There's a TV show called "Desperate Scousewives" and after I heard that I lolled to myself alone in the empty house for a good few minutes. 
10. Whoever said that there are no good sunsets in the north of England was sadly mistaken!
    

je suis juste en train de rater ma vie.

Thoughts while writing essays.

4 weeks till deadline: So, I have four weeks to write 3,000 words. Four weeks! Remember that time I wrote 30 pages on John Donne on a Sunday? I got a 95 on that. I'll be totally fine. Just gotta email the professor with some ideas and I'll go from there.

3.5 weeks till deadline: Damn, my ideas are too broad. Ok I guess I'll just go with his suggestion or whatever. The origins of religious language... Sure. I can do that.

3 weeks: 3 weeks to write 3,000 words? Cake!

2 weeks: Ok, well I guess I should do some research. The Book of Job, what was that about again? It's funny how it's the same pronunciation as Gob in Arrested Development. That one episode where he--oh yeah, my time would be better spent rewatching it.

1.5 weeks: Oh shit, oh shit I don't know what I'm doing. What does any of this mean? I don't understand the words I'm writing!

1 week: Do I have time to change topics completely? I hate this. I hate ALL of this.

5 days: Is this graduate level writing? I feel like it could have been written with Crayons.

2 days: Don't panic. They couldn't really fail you, right? I mean nobody fails an essay... Fuuuu....

Deadline: Let's forget I ever turned anything in and don't ever bring up this topic to me again.

quand je rentre chez moi et je repense à mon essai...

Oh man, guys. I'm in week 9 of term one. And... I can't wait for this thing to be over. 270 more days...

je l'aime, je ne l'aime plus, et je me deteste du coup.

If being a graduate student means experiencing a spiral of hating then loving then hating then redoing everything you're working on, followed by haunting dreams of inadequacy and self-doubt, then I guess you could say I'm pretty good at being a graduate student. Yeah.

je viens... d'où?

So, here we are in week six of my master's program, already wondering how soon I'll be able to discern the light at the end of the tunnel. The thing is, while I enjoy one of my modules immensely, the other one can suck it as far as I'm concerned. This makes it decidedly difficult to get motivated for spending several hours in the library reading political pamphlets and various discourses that just don't interest me. Plus, there's the fact of being alone pretty much... All the time.

And with all the hours I've spent either in the library or my bedroom staring wide-eyed at my kindle, I'm not sure how much of my objective I'm actually going to end up accomplishing. That ultimately being, to live in the UK. I think that walking through the same park on my way to one of two buildings that I frequent shouldn't really count as "living" in a place, nor does occasionally going to the co-op to stock up on my favorite gummy treats. When does the socializing part come in? In a program like this with a weep-inducing reading list, it's not really conducive to making friends or living socially and to be honest I'm finding it quite a lonely process. Besides the people I chat with on a weekly basis on the seminars or various lectures, you are forced to work alone the majority of the time.

And as far as "living" here goes (if we can call it that), on the rare occasion that I'm chatting with someone new, I'm finding the question "where are you from" more and more tricky to answer. Where am I from?

When I was in France, I could say that I was from the U.S., but had been living in Toulouse for X number of years. So, it was implicit that I had spent my life in the U.S. but my life was now in France. Telling people here I'm from Arizona doesn't feel like the whole truth; it inevitably leads to questions like "how do you like being so far away from home?" or "do you miss the US?" or "where did you do your undergraduate degree?" -- the answers to those questions don't necessary concern themselves with my life in AZ. Is this something that happens to everyone as they grow up? When does your hometown stop being your hometown?

Let's finish on a high note and look at a nice picture of a rainbow I took the other day. I've never known a place where you had to have both sunglasses and a umbrella... At the same time...

deux semaines après

So, I'm over two weeks into this new adventure and am feeling decidedly less freaked out about it. Though I really don't have many (read: any) real friends yet and I've resigned myself to the fact that 95% of my weekends will look like something like this...

what've we got here...
1. The Origin of Species
2. The Works of Sir Walter Scott
3. The Vindication of the Rights of Men / Women
4. Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads
5. Collection of Coleridge
6. Wordsworth's The Prelude
7 and 8. The complete works of Percy Shelley / William Wordsworth
9. an old book of 17th century poetry from my undergrad that I will have no use for. Goddamit.

... At least I feel good when I'm reading and studying. I mean, it's hard to tell since it's only been a week, but I have to admit that I don't feel too terrible about spending 4-5 hours in the library every day. It's no Copley but it's got that lovely old book smell and it's peaceful and it even overlooks a duck pond! I trudged through Wordsworth's The Prelude and Shelley's Alastor; Or, The Spirit of Solitude today and afterwards I felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't really felt in a long while, something that I think I've been missing (an intellectual challenge? Is that what that was?).

It's all well and good to be exiling myself to the library everyday and staying inside my head about these books but the real challenge will be the lectures and trying to keep up with all these yuppies. Most of the people in my modules just finished their undergraduate degrees two months ago so I feel like an old fart who's out of touch with most of the online resources and research journals. I only have vague recollections of reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in freshman year. No wait, or was it sophomore year? Actually no, I think I'm thinking of Moll Flanders... 

Crap. I'm really REALLY hoping I'm not totally in over my head on this.

étrangère à nouveau

So here we are. At long last, I'm sitting in my new (but actually quite old) house writing a blog from the UK. I wish I could say I was filled with excitement and optimism about this new adventure but it's hard to shake the feeling that.... Oh yes, I've made another huge mistake.

In truth, I've been waiting to do this big relocation for ages, having decided on doing it within my first six months in France. I've been preparing myself mentally since May of 2012, until I was told later in the summer that it wasn't possible and I had no choice but to defer my acceptance. Though devastated at first, I came around to the idea that delaying one year had it's benefits (spending more time with Jon, duh)

This summer though seemed to drag on and on as work was very slow and I always knew at the back of my mind that come September, things would be a-changing. I tried hanging on to every fun moment, the sunny Toulousain days that I knew I'd miss terribly, savoring the pastries and cheeses, sleepy Sundays at home. Excited as I was about changing things in my life, I anticipated the inevitable settling in period and then slowly and very surely, a pit in the seat of my stomach started growing, getting the better of me over time.

After spending two weeks with my mom--one in Toulouse and one here in the UK getting set up--I'm now finally HERE! And alone! And as amazing and life-changing and totally worth I'm sure it will be... Right now.... It's depressing. It smells weird. There was a spider in my bed, which is not, in fact, my bed but I have to sleep in it nonetheless.

Tomorrow I have an induction meeting where I'll meet people and get my bearings and I hope that, little by little, I'll be able to chip away at this heavy pit until I feel a little more normal. Little by little.

ce que j'ai appris à lisbonne

What I learned from spending one week in Lisbon, is that one week is just enough to leave you feeling like the time was abruptly yanked from under your sun-tanned feet and was over just after the realization that you could give up everything now and just live there forever.

Next time, definitely more than one week. I'm going back, and soon. Até logo, Lisboa!

j'ai fait une grosse erreur.

I'm leaving for a new adventure in approximately two months and as I tend to do when I get anxious and stressed in the face of a big change, I put off anything and everything to do with making the change possible. To fill you in, I'm going to be doing a Master's in English literature starting at the end of September in the north of England. Naturally then, I have yet to purchase plane tickets, confirm accommodation, take care of admin stuff, choose modules etc etc. At this point, I'm not really sure whether I'm more nervous because I haven't done anything yet or because doing it makes it more real. The few times I've sat down and searched for places to live or how to sign up for such-and-such, it only takes a couple minutes of looking on google maps street view or browsing course descriptions for anxiety to set in. I hastily close my laptop as the cursor hovers over unfinished emails and I resign myself to reading robot stories on my kindle. 

Thinking back to how long it took to adapt to life here, I remember how stressed and weary and scared I was those first six months. Though moving to an anglophone country seems decidedly easier to take on, I still have this dreadful feeling that I can't really know what I'm getting myself into until I'm really in the thick of it. I envision myself having a biiiig Gob moment. 

"get rid of the seaward!"

Except that the official acceptance letter has been mailed and this is happening, FOR REAL this time (echoes of all the whinging I did last summer about my not being able to go). In the wise words of Dan Savage, just gotta ovary-up and do it! YES! Doing it! Right after this chapter.

gourmande.

If/when I move back to the US, I swear to sweet baby Jeebus, I will miss the jaw-droppingly savory, delicious, candy-like taste of fresh strawberries in the spring. You think you've tasted strawberries before --  you know the ones that are about the size of your fist you can find year round in most supermarkets. But then you stroll through the French market in early-April and the scent of fresh strawberries takes over your better judgement and suddenly you're dropping 3,50E on a tiny plastic basket of the most glorious red berries you've ever seen.

I would put this right up there on my list of reasons I love living here, right below the accessibility of xuxos  (pronounced "chuchos") in the Catalan region of Spain. In a nutshell: pastry of the GODS.

un enfant gâté

I'm a spoiled birthday brat. I had such a good day -- no work, sleeping in, some shopping with mumhead, fresh strawberries, playing with a cute dog, burritos, a sweet kindle for me to blow my savings on, banoffee pie and a hot date at the movies where we watched Ryan Gosling parade around without a shirt and brood tragically.

It was so good that I almost forgot about turning 26. And then I was all like..

Really though, I just wanted an excuse to post this cat. I love it.

je suis têtue. voilà.

I've been adventure-less since my last trip to Stockholm (so much for resolutions, eh) meaning that now I have to find other things to blog about. I guess I don't really have to, but well, since we're both already here...

Three years in a foreign country can change a person. Not me! I'm stubborn past the point of reason! So, two years after the first, I've made another list of things that I'll never find it in me to adapt to. 

1. Anytime someone dictates their phone number to me in French, I come to the pathetic realization that I still have difficulty counting above 70. Four-twenty-ten-eight, what kind of sadistic fool decided that this was the best approach to 98?? Elementary school-aged children will know where I'm coming from on this one (holla!).
2. The subjunctive continues to be the wretched and persistent thorn in my ability to speak properly.
3. Every time someone talks to me about a distance, I have to get out my phone to convert into feet or miles.
4. Same goes for kilos and pounds.
5. Conversely, celsius makes far more sense now than fahrenheit. Just deal with it.
6. I refuse to buy into the French notion of "salad." Apparently you can have a tomato salad here -- just tomatoes, nothing else. Where I'm from, that's a garnish. 
7. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to having to bisou people that I've just met and will probably never see again. 
8. I love cheese, but I've given up on ever coming around to fondue or raclette. It smells like feet!
9. This one should be really easy in principle, but saying bon appetit just before starting to eat with someone is something I can't do. Saying it makes me feel like a douchebag server at a restaurant and those days are behind me!
10. Accepting the French national sport of cutting in line. I can't even with this one.

To finish, here's a picture of the world's cutest dog:

you're welcome.

Hej!

Before going to Stockholm, I honestly didn't have a lot to go on as far as the culture/people/city/food etc (besides having watched this video which I'm telling you, you must watch because it's totally absurd and it turns out that slut is a legitimate word in Swedish). But here are a few thoughts I've collected about this wonderfully frigid city from a very short weekend there.

• The Swedes are a friendly and pleasant people, even in restaurants and shops. Articulating this makes me realize how poor the customer service is in France which makes me resent living here a little.
• In a pub, a decent pint of beer is about 59-69 Swedish kroner. 1 kroner = .12 euro. Thus, one beer is 7-8 euro (9-10 dollars). Ok so maybe France isn't so terrible.
• They have free, public skating rinks in the park!

• To say hello, the Swedish word is "hej," which to us sounds a little bit like an elongated "heyyyyyy." So, when you go into a shop, you're greeted with "heyyyyy" and you feel like the person behind the counter already knows you from somewhere. 
• Swedish people speak like well-mannered Americans.
• Did I mention shit was expensive?
• Something living under the Arizona sun did not teach me: walking outside in 19 degrees feels abrasively cold against your skin. It hurts. 
• Unanswered questions for future trips: what exactly is "Swedish" cuisine? 

More adventures (hopefully) to come!

à bientôt... slut.

on prend des week-ends à l'etranger.

January, in my opinion, is the most depressing month in the northern hemisphere. Christmas is over. The lights are down. It's just cold and grey and spring is at least three months away. So, I'm trying to take some preventative measures to keep my mind off the fact that I'll be wearing leggings under everything till March.

1. Actually reading the books the I buy from amazon. I'm finally finishing the second Game of Thrones book (four months after the fact...) and have just ordered the next in the series as well as The Hobbit because I'm thinking that seeing the movie first was probably a mistake. 
2. Cooking new things. Ok, I know was making dog sandwiches when I first arrived in France due in part to homesickness and in part to being and good-for-nothing lazy cook. But this year, I'm making an honest effort -- I made a decent pork tenderloin recently and despite the fact that the quality of the veg and potatoes suffered as a result of my obsessively checking to make sure I didn't overcook it, I think Jon appreciated it. I'm actually feeling a little more confident in the kitchen (thanks to you Nigella, you garlic-loving saucy broad). 
3. Travelling. You know what depresses me? I tell people back home that I live in France and their first question after "wait, are you kidding?" is generally "wow! you must travel all the time!" Yeah, I sure do. If by travel, you mean to Spain... I'm really good at visiting the Costa Brava in the summer months. And the truth of it is that there is so much goddamn awesomeness that's just a short plane ride away, I'm kind of ashamed of how little I've taken advantage of this. So, I'm doing it. Fuck it! I'm doing it!

Bring on the negative temperatures and too-cool-for-school Swedes! I'm going to spend a weekend like Lisbeth Salander -- by that I mean eating lots of sandwiches and drinking an inordinate amount of coffee.  JA!!!

christmas in pictures

No, I'm not depressed that Christmas is over. Yes, I'm also lying.