I have a computer now.
It is new (never happened before) and shiny and brown (although Paul claims it's actually black, the box said 'dark brown' and I choose to believe them).
I have my own computer now, it is sitting on the kitchen table and using it does not involve climbing up into the freezing loft and waiting for three hours for it to start and then three more for it to open Internet Explorer.
It is sitting on the kitchen table 24/7 and so is available to me also when Paul is not home eg. when I'm not too busy talking to him/serving dinner/watching Neighbours or QI.
I have a computer, it is mine, it is available with no restrictions in space and time, and I have no more excuses especially while I justified the purchase of the said computer to myself (4 years on less than a student budget in France conditionned me into believing that any purchase requires a valid justification and 'I want it' is valid only for items worth less than 10 pounds and once a month) by:
1. getting better about staying properly in touch with all my friends scattered about the globe
2. updating my blog regularly (cause otherwise what's the point?)
No excuses.
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Thursday, 26 August 2010
On my problem with London
I don't like going to London much.
I don't like going to London, because I don't feel comfortable in big cities with all their crowds in haste.
But mostly I don't like going to London because I like it too much. Like Paris. Like Berlin.
I spend the day doing the touristy stuff, pushing my way through crowds, being pushed myself, clinging on to my handbag and to Paul's hand so that this whole unspeakable energy and movement would not suck me in and make me disappear.
But then we sit somewhere for a drink and I start watching people walking past and my mind starts imagining the lifes they have, what it would be like to be their friend or colleague or neighbour, and I spot a street with particularly nice (interesting, unusual, ugly) houses (trees, shades, lamp posts, you name it) and I start wondering what it would be like if that street was mine, if I lived there/walked past it every day, if the pub/cafe I'm sitting in was my pub/cafe, what friends I would have if I was hanging out here, what kind of job I'd be doing, and a whole new unknown life starts unravelling itself in my mind.
The itch.
Later on I get back home, I wash off all the metallic dust of the underground, and I feel relieved that all that buzzing and chaos are far away from me and I am safe in my little house. The itch subsides a little.
But then I go to bed and I fall asleep listening to the cars driving past my window and I wonder where they are going to, are they going to one of those unknown lives I lurked into earlier on that day? Or to yet a different one, in yet a different place?
What is it like? What would it be like to live there?
And it saddens me that I will never find out...
I don't like going to London, because I don't feel comfortable in big cities with all their crowds in haste.
But mostly I don't like going to London because I like it too much. Like Paris. Like Berlin.
I spend the day doing the touristy stuff, pushing my way through crowds, being pushed myself, clinging on to my handbag and to Paul's hand so that this whole unspeakable energy and movement would not suck me in and make me disappear.
But then we sit somewhere for a drink and I start watching people walking past and my mind starts imagining the lifes they have, what it would be like to be their friend or colleague or neighbour, and I spot a street with particularly nice (interesting, unusual, ugly) houses (trees, shades, lamp posts, you name it) and I start wondering what it would be like if that street was mine, if I lived there/walked past it every day, if the pub/cafe I'm sitting in was my pub/cafe, what friends I would have if I was hanging out here, what kind of job I'd be doing, and a whole new unknown life starts unravelling itself in my mind.
The itch.
Later on I get back home, I wash off all the metallic dust of the underground, and I feel relieved that all that buzzing and chaos are far away from me and I am safe in my little house. The itch subsides a little.
But then I go to bed and I fall asleep listening to the cars driving past my window and I wonder where they are going to, are they going to one of those unknown lives I lurked into earlier on that day? Or to yet a different one, in yet a different place?
What is it like? What would it be like to live there?
And it saddens me that I will never find out...
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Aix
The difference between France and Poland, just as between England and France, is that I have never missed my life in Poland and I miss my life in France dearly - all aware that I am that I'm much better off in England, I can't help but miss my little appartment at the foot of a pinaide, the terrasse with a rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and so many good times, and so many other big and little things that I left behind.
So every time the plane starts to descend above the Marseille Provence airport, a big ball of nostalgia climbs into my throat and it feels like coming home (ah, difficult notion that of home, when you're me... but on that another time).
Then I spot Mount Sainte Victoire as the plane turns, then the first shock of the heat, the first gush of the Mistral, the ball in my throat keeps growing.
Then we get on the coach to Aix and I see all those place names, Pinchinades, Vitrolles, la Duranne, les Milles, names that were once new and full of promises now greet me like old friends making the ball in my throat grow even more. I does not matter that I have never been in many of them, I have read them, seen them, heard them, savoured the way their sounds rolled out of my mouth so many times...
Aix is still Aix.
The colours, the little streets, the blue shutters spotting the ochre facades of the bastides, the baguettes, the cheese, the wine, Pastis, the marketplace, Mamie's ratatouille, everything stopping for lunch, the cycadas driving you mad with their monotonous screeching, the oppressing heat, people stopping in the middle of a roundabout to get a newspaper, the bourgeoises riding their shopping trollies across your feet and failing to apologise... and Mount Sainte Victoire reigning overlooking all this madness and beauty, impassible and majestic.
Some friends are gone, some are still there. Some have drifted away a force de distances, the important ones greet me as if I had never left.
I still have my seat at the bar in Cafe le Verdun (although you can't smoke in there anymore) and Pat still accepts a glass of wine I pay him and then knocks a round off my bill.
Mamie and Papy are still Mamie and Papy, growing older without changing at all but each time I see them, I feel the painfully aware that they are not eternal.
And the house at the Roc Fleuri is still there too, with the pinaide behind it and the terrasse in front, the rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and good times...
Indeed, places where you were once happy should not be allowed to go on without you.
So every time the plane starts to descend above the Marseille Provence airport, a big ball of nostalgia climbs into my throat and it feels like coming home (ah, difficult notion that of home, when you're me... but on that another time).
Then I spot Mount Sainte Victoire as the plane turns, then the first shock of the heat, the first gush of the Mistral, the ball in my throat keeps growing.
Then we get on the coach to Aix and I see all those place names, Pinchinades, Vitrolles, la Duranne, les Milles, names that were once new and full of promises now greet me like old friends making the ball in my throat grow even more. I does not matter that I have never been in many of them, I have read them, seen them, heard them, savoured the way their sounds rolled out of my mouth so many times...
Aix is still Aix.
The colours, the little streets, the blue shutters spotting the ochre facades of the bastides, the baguettes, the cheese, the wine, Pastis, the marketplace, Mamie's ratatouille, everything stopping for lunch, the cycadas driving you mad with their monotonous screeching, the oppressing heat, people stopping in the middle of a roundabout to get a newspaper, the bourgeoises riding their shopping trollies across your feet and failing to apologise... and Mount Sainte Victoire reigning overlooking all this madness and beauty, impassible and majestic.
Some friends are gone, some are still there. Some have drifted away a force de distances, the important ones greet me as if I had never left.
I still have my seat at the bar in Cafe le Verdun (although you can't smoke in there anymore) and Pat still accepts a glass of wine I pay him and then knocks a round off my bill.
Mamie and Papy are still Mamie and Papy, growing older without changing at all but each time I see them, I feel the painfully aware that they are not eternal.
And the house at the Roc Fleuri is still there too, with the pinaide behind it and the terrasse in front, the rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and good times...
Indeed, places where you were once happy should not be allowed to go on without you.
Monday, 19 July 2010
On being told to shut up
The kind of child to tell you to 'shut up' (or 'f-off' as a matter of fact) is usually a distraught individual struggling to become human and thinking that being rude and fearless of consequences is what being an adult is all about. As far as they're concerned life is seriously shit and they will fight anything they can by all means possible, just in case.
And most of the time, you can see how distraught they get once they realise what they'd just said. Or, at the very least, how upset and worked up they got before saying it.
You still get angry, you shout at them, you give them detentions, but you don't hold grudges and deep inside you just wish you could use a magic wand make them less miserable and less angry at the entire world.
And then there is Kenisha (not a real name). Kenisha thinks you're dirt. Kenisha thinks that all is due to her and if she wants to talk, she will talk, whether you are trying to teach or not has no importance what so ever. And when you say 'Kenisha, could you please stop talking?', Kenisha looks at you as if you were a fly on her sandwich and says 'Shut up'.
Somehow I think Kenisha will follow into her sister's footsteps and get excluded before finishing year 10.
And I know that next time Kenisha sends a door into my face, I am not going to be willing to talk about it and make it go away in hope of establishing a positive relationship with her.
Screw that.
And most of the time, you can see how distraught they get once they realise what they'd just said. Or, at the very least, how upset and worked up they got before saying it.
You still get angry, you shout at them, you give them detentions, but you don't hold grudges and deep inside you just wish you could use a magic wand make them less miserable and less angry at the entire world.
And then there is Kenisha (not a real name). Kenisha thinks you're dirt. Kenisha thinks that all is due to her and if she wants to talk, she will talk, whether you are trying to teach or not has no importance what so ever. And when you say 'Kenisha, could you please stop talking?', Kenisha looks at you as if you were a fly on her sandwich and says 'Shut up'.
Somehow I think Kenisha will follow into her sister's footsteps and get excluded before finishing year 10.
And I know that next time Kenisha sends a door into my face, I am not going to be willing to talk about it and make it go away in hope of establishing a positive relationship with her.
Screw that.
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
On Sports Days
We're having a Sports Day at my school soon. Each form had to come up with a team and students to volunteer for different events. There's this one girl, who is an angry young woman, constantly in trouble, but I've put her down for shot put as others claimed she was really good at it.
This morning she came to school after a few days of absence, and I broke the news to her.
"Ain't doing that!" she said "You can't flipping make me!"
An expected reaction, granted, but I wasn't going to give up easily.
"Oh come on, it's just one small event and I hear you're really good at it. Come on, please?"
I have to say, I did expect this to be met with another rude outburst of anger. Instead I heard: "All right then miss. I'll do it."
I still think I must have been dreaming!
This does not, of course, mean that she'll actually show up on the day though...
PS. Later update: She didn't.
This morning she came to school after a few days of absence, and I broke the news to her.
"Ain't doing that!" she said "You can't flipping make me!"
An expected reaction, granted, but I wasn't going to give up easily.
"Oh come on, it's just one small event and I hear you're really good at it. Come on, please?"
I have to say, I did expect this to be met with another rude outburst of anger. Instead I heard: "All right then miss. I'll do it."
I still think I must have been dreaming!
This does not, of course, mean that she'll actually show up on the day though...
PS. Later update: She didn't.
Monday, 28 June 2010
On tea
Last night, as I was struggling to fall asleep, I have come to realise an astonishing truth: ever since I moved to the UK, I've been drinking a lot less tea than before.
Ok, fine, I have one cup of proper tea with milk a day (or something like that), which is me adopting local habits, but I used to have 2-3 cups of green tea a day before and what happened to that?
Well, school happened to that.
Need to buy a kettle and put it in my cupboard.
Green tea is good for you.
Ok, fine, I have one cup of proper tea with milk a day (or something like that), which is me adopting local habits, but I used to have 2-3 cups of green tea a day before and what happened to that?
Well, school happened to that.
Need to buy a kettle and put it in my cupboard.
Green tea is good for you.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
On wonders
We went to see Stevie Wonder in the Hyde Park yesterday and my God was it great!
The man is absolutely beautiful - the joy in his face as he plays the music would be enough for ten people or more.
Made me seriously happy.
What a brilliant day.
The man is absolutely beautiful - the joy in his face as he plays the music would be enough for ten people or more.
Made me seriously happy.
What a brilliant day.
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