An unexpected change of language

I went to a training session today, supposed to make my A-level teaching match the board specifications better, hence allowing for better exam results. As I arrived, the woman delivering the session was walking around registering participants and chatting a bit here and there. From where I sat, I could hear her having an animated conversation in French with one of the participants, which was natural given that she was French, as I deduced from her name written on the board next to the session's timings. After a while she approached me, we went through greetings and a bit of small talk in French, and then suddenly she switched to English - no reason, no warning - and stuck to English even though I stuck to French. And then it dawned on me - the change was not that inexplicable. It coincided with me indicating my name on her register. My name is rather obviously not French...

Stuff from home and stuff

I've been musing today about how some expatriates will always prefer products from their home country to the local ones, even if the local ones are essentially the same except for the label and the lower price. I've known people who had their relatives back home send them everything, even things like salt and pepper. I can understand missing what you can't get - I was myself a victim of cruel cravings for Polish sausage, bigos, pierogi etc., but beer was beer and yes, I missed my favourite Zywiec, but would have never bought it (had it been available) if the local similar product was cheaper. And now that it is available, I don't - also because I have discovered that there are many local ales that I actually like much better. But then again I gave myself the opportunity of discovering that by trying things - and so many people just won't. Wonder why.

French vs. British part 1

While Mother was here visitng, we took her to Blenheim Palace. Her English had improved a lot thanks to several language courses combined and crammed into a period of couple of months preceding her visit, but still was not up to understanding the guide there. I was therefore translating for her, as quietly as I possibly could, she was actually bending over to keep her ear as close to my mouth as possible. At one point, I noticed a posh looking lady giving me evil looks. Didn't think much of it, but the next thing I knew, the lady spoke: "Can you stop talking, I can't hear her (meaning the guide) if you are speaking in the same time." No please, no nothing, no being apologetic, and the accent leaving no doubt the lady was French. I didn't bother responding, just pulled Mother away from the lady, so that we would not disturb her anymore - the 'a bit English' part of me in control clearly, although the 'a bit French' part of me gave her an evil look and started listing snappy responses to her 'polite' request. After the tour, I told Paul all about it, and being both English and really nice, he opposed me vehemently, saying that I could not generalise. But of course I can. This is not to say that each and every French person would have behaved the same. Just an average one, as the French society teaches its members to function in a certain specific way towards others, and the English one in a different specific way - had the lady been English, my bet is she would have moved away from us, if I was really disturbing her. That is not to say, of course, that each and every English person would. Just the average one.

like riding a bike

'I bought a piano' I told my parents.
Mother immediately provided me with such an amount of good advice that I fervently wished I had not bought the piano at all or at least that I had had the presence of mind not to tell my parents about it.
Father said not to worry, that it was like riding a bike - one did not forget and it came back quickly.
Well, not really.
Not after twenty years (NB. saying this makes me slightly alarmed. I actually had not played the piano for twenty years. I am old enough to not have done something for twenty years. Not sure what to do with this).

Still, the piano has been bought and now is standing in my living room, like a wild animal that I have to tame knowing very well that it is not going to help me (might have something to do with lots of white 'teeth' staring at me as soon as I enter the room).

I am going to try though, as being able to play the Moonlight Sonata has been on my bucket list long enough and it's time I learnt it. Especially now that I have paid stupid money for a piano... (it reassures me that I am not likely to actually kick the bucket any time soon as it will take a lot of time to learn the stupid thing. That and a surgery enlarging the span of my fingers!)

On Elvis

Whenever I watched footages from concerts, or other events involving the presence of stars, I would sigh with lack of understanding and a feeling of certain perplexity at the teenagers and no-longer-teenagers waving frantically at their idol(s) and screaming their hearts out in an almost religious trance. Do not get, do not approve, get a life.

And then I watched Elvis with Jannick. And there we were, two mature women in their 30ies, otherwise mostly reasonable and calm, crying and screaming at the telly, pressing our hands to our lips with emotion as if trying to contain the squeeky noises that were forcing themselves out of our throats (but failing miserably).

(Other people present retreated to the conservatory for the duration of the concert.
Paul, me thinks, had a hard time getting to grips with what was happening to his normally rather much less noisy girlfriend.)

But still, it was Jannick and me and lots of wine and Elvis. Not Westlife or the likes.
Yet, I now know from which part of one's insides those screams emerge and that it is not possible to contain them.
So I no longer judge.


NB. I was told later on that it was rude of us to watch Elvis instead of all of us doing something together. Maybe so. But then I remember another social gathering during which people put on football that some of us had no desire to watch and that was ok. I sometimes get a paranoid feeling that if someone else does it, it's ok, but when I do it, it's rude...

On New Year's Resolutions

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.

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...