B is for Bisounours

Yeah Yeah, Barcelona write up is en route.

So many great photos from sightseeing and cruising around.
So many truly horrifying sangria-soaked photos too.
Censorship is sometimes a good thing my furry friends. But it’s a-coming.


In the meantime. A random collection of thoughts.


Things that have amused or pleased me this week

I received my first ever speeding fine - (yeah, I know this should technically be in the “things that made me an angry gnome” category – but stick with me... ) it’s from the morning I was .. um .. . clearly racing, to get to Marseille airport to pick up Mezzle.

Anyways – it’s annoying but no biggie. What I found deeply amusing – so amusing in fact that I called M at work to share this with him is that, unlike almost all other paperwork in France – you can pay this online. Cool, that’s easier than having to line up at La Poste/the Tabac/ random building that you’ll never find.
The funny bit is that unlike EVERY SINGLE GOVERNMENT WEBSITE FOR ANYTHING REMOTELY USEFULL, this particular website is quickly and painlessly available in grammatically perfect English. Of COURSE! Websites explaining taxation, medical information, visas, legal requirements – no need to translate those or provide a translation service. Shit no. Website for paying fines – available in SIX languages.
Had to chuckle.

M has taken to calling me Bisounour. Which is ‘Care-Bear’ in French. Literally “Kisses-bear”. Heh heh.

We also had a rather bizarre conversation one night in bed when I’d pretty much dozed off and M felt that that was a perfectly good time to start wondering aloud whether Care-Bears have special powers, and whether their personality type affect their powers, or just their “look”, and what exactly a Care-Bear stare did to its victim ..... ah, the joys of being married means we never run out of important things to discuss.

Side note - when looking for a picture of a Care-Bear I stumbled upon this, hilarious website:

  Five Reasons Why the Care Bears are Really Communist. !!!!!

More warm fuzzies:

M and I are having really great, productive French lessons once a week and our teacher told me that she thinks my French is actually really good, that she is going to “pull” it out of me. Smiley face! I actually have a write up of our Barcelona trip in French I could share with ya’ll ... maybe I should just pop it into Google translate from French to English and see what comes out and post that ..... probably be about as coherent as what I usually blurt out hey!

I was asked to be a judge at the Final of the Speech competitions that have been held at all three schools I teach at this week and the whole experience was delightful. The kids were so good, so enthusiastic/shitting themselves and gave such hilarious, crazy speeches. Bonus was that one of my darling 4eme students and one of my 5eme Theatre students came equal first and they will now go on to represent the three schools at the big Grand Final.

On a school note – I have survived the first 7 weeks and am now on holidays! It has been pretty hard going and I’m certainly not quite hitting my strides just yet, but I feel like the students are starting to get a handle on who I am and what I’m about, so that’s good, and there have been some really successful moments and some very stressful too!

On the other hand ... 



Things that have not amused



These two happened today at the supermarket:

Umm, dudes, it’s OCTOBER. I love Christmas

But seriously - Chill the F out. 

This is all kinds of gross and is not what I want to see when I’m reaching for my mince meat for my Tacos. 

Mmm, tacos.

We have had some spectacular autumnal weather lately – cold in the mornings and clear as clear in the afternoons – just gorgeous. Apparently though, there is some unwritten rule that if it’s beautiful, clear and still, then you should go into your backyard or onto your property and burn stuff. What the hell?
 Every single day this week there have been plumes of smoke rising in the air, dotted all the way back from school to home. Yesterday there was such a heavy layer of smoke I thought Cannes MUST be burning to the ground in some anti-Sarkozy riot. Mais non, just people burning away willy-nilly.

All this smoke is ruining the fresh autumnal air.
Autumnal.


And the strikes. Ah the strikes. I don’t want to get too political as .... well frankly because I don’t care enough and this blog is many things (full of crap mostly), but it’s hardly political. But the strikes are on-going and causing a lot of headaches and a lot of heated debate.

I have no desire to offend my Frenchie friends, for whom la grève is a part of the culture and fabric of national identity. It is seen as their right and their mode of communication.

But personally, I don’t get it. It’s NOT part of my culture and I feel myself getting riled up and irritated by the whole thing. I cannot understand how, in a democracy, the only way to convey your message, to bring your agenda to the attention of the government is to go on strike, to rally, to march, to block supplies, to disrupt transport, to hold the population hostage to your cause, to torch cars and schools and to make life generally pretty darn uncomfortable for the people you purport to speak for. I understand that there’s more at stake here than raising the retirement age from 60 to 62, because seriously – get a grip guys – France has an ageing population, take a long hard look at how that will play out in the long run. But there’s a lot of unhappiness in France and this is how many people feel their voices are best heard. I think there is a fundamental problem with this. Strikes seem churlish, childish and it feels like they harm most the people who would be on the side of the unions.

Suffice to say I am over it. And I am over the constant news saturation of it. M loves to watch his news channels. I ....... don’t.

I put my headphones in and watch Glee instead. Much better.



Oooo – and finally - we have booked our flights home for Christmas – yahooooooieee!
AND – we are going to drive to Florence next Thursday and spend 3 nights in Tuscany.
Noice.


That’ll do Donkey, that’ll do.


xx Bisounours