So this weekend the company that I'm going with organised a weekend away in the snow, which was a ton of fun.
I was meant to go with my entire host family, but their grandfather died so they had to go down south to say goodbye etc. And there I was, being whisked away to the mountains.
I had to stay in my house for a couple of hours all alone so I did what any normal person would do, which was eat and watch a movie. Then, a man I didn't know came around and picked me up in his big white van- I kid you not.
I was a little nervous because I'm not the best around social situations and didn't really know anyone, but everything turned out okay. Generally what seems to happen at these sort of things is that no one really knows anyone anyway so everyone's trying to make friends and be super nice. Plus, everyone has just things they want to talk about France and their exchange. Plus, it was nice to be understood and not have to rifle through a dictionary to get your message across.
When I first arrived, there was a disappointing lack of snow, so the seven layers I was wearing seemed a bit much. But it was really pretty. The house we were staying at was pretty damn crappy. It had a dodgy bathroom which showers had no curtains and the kitchen was... retro-themed.
Friday night was alright. One of the supervisor's sons decided it would be an excellent idea to get super pissed and play really REALLY loud music until 1 AM. Oh, joy. I ended up just kind of falling asleep still wearing the majority of my clothes because, damn, it was freezing.
Saturday morning we had to get up at 9 and have cereal. It was seriously either cereal or Nutella- which I pocketed for later (best thing I've ever done). After everyone was fed (there was about thirty of us) we played these fun but strange games with eggs. I filmed some of it, but apparently there's some sort of error and blogspot won't let me upload it. Tant pis.
After an awesome lunch of sausages and veggies, we all headed out to to town. At the time, there was this film festival going on and the theme was something like horror fairy tales, and so there were a ton of people all dressed up with (hopefully) fake blood and severed heads and it was all quite amusing. I got this blazer on sale and it's quite Doctor-like, if I do say so myself. Also, it makes me feel like a businesswoman and businesswomen never procrastinate so therefore everything I do whilst wearing this is something.
Then we had a super long and boring meeting all in French which was just boring. Gah, I'm bored now. Moving on.
Saturday night the French decided that karaoke was a good idea. But before that, each nationality had to put on a show. The Australians (which included me, for simplicity's sake) had all forgotten the words to every Australian song ever so after a few silent minutes we just sang the song about everyone being Australian. I sat with this girl Sarah and this guy Travis for dinner. We accidentally sat at the kiddie table but ended up laughing so much that we had to explain to the French around us that it was okay, nothing was wrong.
But the karaoke was HILARIOUS just because it was obviously meant for the young ones, but the French adults ended up taking it over and just singing weird old French pop songs. Loudly and with dance moves. Again, another night where everyone didn't go to bed until about 1AM.
Next morning, it was snowing but everyone was too exhausted to care. Instead, we played another game where we were all in teams and we were giving vegetables to make them look like something. We decided to make a house, but it ended up being a tepee, a boat, a potato car and a windmill- because the house was made from courgettes, and was therefore GREEN (GEDDIT?). Yeah, we didn't win.
After another super duper lunch, we had a bit of serious moment because a girl's money got stolen, which freaked everyone out a little bit. No one seemed to be the type to steal someone's money.
And then we spent the next 5 or 6 hours getting ready to go. At one point it was just a group of around ten of us just standing in the woods all by ourselves, waiting for a car to come. We kept on expecting a serial killer to jump out of nowhere.
Got back to my house, no problem.
Now, I'm going to make a carrot cake because I'm hungry and I'm craving it.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Five Weird Things in France
Here is a collection of just odd things that are odd. In France.
1. That One French Thing I Had to Do
Because I'm foreign and don't really know what's going on half the time, I usually don't do any tests or anything. And the one subject in which I can barely do anything is French because it's all in... French. Imagine being foreign and studying Shakespeare. Like that, but French. (My vocabulary is being very hesitant today.) So one day the prof comes up to me and goes, "Okay, because you obviously can't write an essay in french, I want you to instead copy out two extracts from the text we're studying".
Let's review: this in no way shows any of my capabilities, unless handwriting counts. It's not comprehension, it's just copying the text out. I couldn't take it seriously. It's something a dyslexic dolphin could do. Consequently, I got 14/20 for it.
2. The Most Innocent Conversation That I've Possibly Ever Had
This was between me and... HFD, surprisingly.
HFD: Do you like tea?
Me: Yes, I love tea.
HFD: Me too. But the tea here, it's not good.
Me: I know.
HFD: It's all industrial. You know, Earl Grey...
Me: (quietly) I love Earl Grey.
HFD: ... Lipton, it's not good. I prefer organic.
Me: Oh, okay.
And then he just walked away.
3. Spanish Class
The only reason I find this odd is because I don't speak Spanish, at all. And somehow I wound up taking Spanish in French. It just doesn't quite add up. I feel like bursting into laughter every time I walk into the classroom.
4. In English Class the Prof Always Asks Me to Correct Other People's Grammar
Actually, this isn't weird, this is just awesome.
5. My Mother's Christmas Present
For Christmas, my mother gave me this owl key chain that has a little button on the back which, when pressed, lights its eyes up an intense blue colour and makes it do this loud chirping sound. I've attached it to my school bag, because I like having that jangly noise wherever I go.
It was a bad choice.
Now that owl gets more attention then me. R has a lot of fun shining the light in other people's faces. Today, though, when he tried to do it just before Science, I turned abruptly around.
And just stared at him.
He looked quite shocked.
I turned back, satisfied that my message had been made clear. But then, not five minutes later:
"SCREECH CHIRP CHIRP"
(That is, in fact, what it sounds like.)
1. That One French Thing I Had to Do
Because I'm foreign and don't really know what's going on half the time, I usually don't do any tests or anything. And the one subject in which I can barely do anything is French because it's all in... French. Imagine being foreign and studying Shakespeare. Like that, but French. (My vocabulary is being very hesitant today.) So one day the prof comes up to me and goes, "Okay, because you obviously can't write an essay in french, I want you to instead copy out two extracts from the text we're studying".
Let's review: this in no way shows any of my capabilities, unless handwriting counts. It's not comprehension, it's just copying the text out. I couldn't take it seriously. It's something a dyslexic dolphin could do. Consequently, I got 14/20 for it.
2. The Most Innocent Conversation That I've Possibly Ever Had
This was between me and... HFD, surprisingly.
HFD: Do you like tea?
Me: Yes, I love tea.
HFD: Me too. But the tea here, it's not good.
Me: I know.
HFD: It's all industrial. You know, Earl Grey...
Me: (quietly) I love Earl Grey.
HFD: ... Lipton, it's not good. I prefer organic.
Me: Oh, okay.
And then he just walked away.
3. Spanish Class
The only reason I find this odd is because I don't speak Spanish, at all. And somehow I wound up taking Spanish in French. It just doesn't quite add up. I feel like bursting into laughter every time I walk into the classroom.
4. In English Class the Prof Always Asks Me to Correct Other People's Grammar
Actually, this isn't weird, this is just awesome.
5. My Mother's Christmas Present
For Christmas, my mother gave me this owl key chain that has a little button on the back which, when pressed, lights its eyes up an intense blue colour and makes it do this loud chirping sound. I've attached it to my school bag, because I like having that jangly noise wherever I go.
It was a bad choice.
Now that owl gets more attention then me. R has a lot of fun shining the light in other people's faces. Today, though, when he tried to do it just before Science, I turned abruptly around.
And just stared at him.
He looked quite shocked.
I turned back, satisfied that my message had been made clear. But then, not five minutes later:
"SCREECH CHIRP CHIRP"
(That is, in fact, what it sounds like.)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
French Characters
There's a few people that I have met whilst in France that are either just so stereotypical or wonderful or just plain freaking hilarious that I just want to kidnap them and take them home with me.
I have about three in mind that justify this.
I'll start with V. V is like a robot. A French, tall, skinny robot. The only thing he is capable of doing is cooking. And he is really good at cooking. The kind of level which makes people go, "Wow! You're good at cooking!" But I have a theory that his internal hard drives memory is mostly taken up with megabytes on how to be a cook and how to whisk cream and separate eggs and whatnot that there is nearly absolutely no space left for anything else except for basic functions like breathing. I'm not sure he even does that. There's only been two times that I remember him smiling. The first was when for the sport thing I was tapping my foot to Rhianna (unfortunately) and when I turned around him and R were there applauding me. And, like any normal person, I bowed and blew them kisses. The second time was when he was putting away a spoon but I needed the spoon so he gave it to me instead. Actually, I smiled at him as well.
It was just one of those moments.
The second is G. I've forgotten his name, but we'll stick with G. Anyway, G is a stereotypical homosexual. I'm not entirely sure if he is actually one, but I hope he is. To confirm this, let me give you an example of his inherent homosexuality; for that sport thing that always seems to be cropping up- what did he do? He wore a tight black t-shirt and sassily saluted to the Village Peoples "In the Navy". If he's not gay, then I'm not very observant. He speaks English with an American accent.
Thirdly, and most likely finally, we have Gold. I'm calling him Gold not because he's like Gold but because the first two letters of his first name is Au. Gold is a druggie and a cheater. I don't know why, but I just find his entire personality freaking hilarious. He's a horrid cheater. Really suss. We were doing a test in Gestion and his very intelligent mind told him that the best way to cheat was to put your closed book on the floor and when you thought the prof wasn't looking, you bend down and kind of noisily open it. Surprisingly, it worked. Gold is also the person who got me mildly drunk on New Year's Eve. He would've got me stoned as well if A hadn't stepped in.
A was actually funny on New Year's Eve. For some reason, after I had my vodka and fruit juice, she kept on making me drink water and eat pretzels.
Speaking of social interactions, I have to kiss everyone over here. EVERYONE. Why? I don't know, it's France. But the weirdest part for me is that I have kissed people whose names I do not know. Which does nothing for the whole "No, I'm not a slut" thing.
I have about three in mind that justify this.
I'll start with V. V is like a robot. A French, tall, skinny robot. The only thing he is capable of doing is cooking. And he is really good at cooking. The kind of level which makes people go, "Wow! You're good at cooking!" But I have a theory that his internal hard drives memory is mostly taken up with megabytes on how to be a cook and how to whisk cream and separate eggs and whatnot that there is nearly absolutely no space left for anything else except for basic functions like breathing. I'm not sure he even does that. There's only been two times that I remember him smiling. The first was when for the sport thing I was tapping my foot to Rhianna (unfortunately) and when I turned around him and R were there applauding me. And, like any normal person, I bowed and blew them kisses. The second time was when he was putting away a spoon but I needed the spoon so he gave it to me instead. Actually, I smiled at him as well.
It was just one of those moments.
The second is G. I've forgotten his name, but we'll stick with G. Anyway, G is a stereotypical homosexual. I'm not entirely sure if he is actually one, but I hope he is. To confirm this, let me give you an example of his inherent homosexuality; for that sport thing that always seems to be cropping up- what did he do? He wore a tight black t-shirt and sassily saluted to the Village Peoples "In the Navy". If he's not gay, then I'm not very observant. He speaks English with an American accent.
Thirdly, and most likely finally, we have Gold. I'm calling him Gold not because he's like Gold but because the first two letters of his first name is Au. Gold is a druggie and a cheater. I don't know why, but I just find his entire personality freaking hilarious. He's a horrid cheater. Really suss. We were doing a test in Gestion and his very intelligent mind told him that the best way to cheat was to put your closed book on the floor and when you thought the prof wasn't looking, you bend down and kind of noisily open it. Surprisingly, it worked. Gold is also the person who got me mildly drunk on New Year's Eve. He would've got me stoned as well if A hadn't stepped in.
A was actually funny on New Year's Eve. For some reason, after I had my vodka and fruit juice, she kept on making me drink water and eat pretzels.
Speaking of social interactions, I have to kiss everyone over here. EVERYONE. Why? I don't know, it's France. But the weirdest part for me is that I have kissed people whose names I do not know. Which does nothing for the whole "No, I'm not a slut" thing.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
FIRST TIME COFFEE
I just had coffee for like the first time ever and man I feel great. Y'all are all probably wondering, dude, you've never had coffee before or something I don't know what you think that's your business and can't read minds but I think it would be really cool if I could I should shouldn't I? I don't know I think I should read. Steph said to me in her little journal thing "ANNA! YOU LISTEN TO ME GURL! YOU BETTER GET ADDICTED TO COFFEE!" And so I decided to make good on that promise dinner now bye.
Epiphany Inducing Broken Ankles
I'm just going to recount the last couple of days, for pleasure's
sake.
Sunday we went on this walk with all the family plus C's
boyfriend's family and dogs. It was freezing and I forgot to wear a scarf.
Brilliant thinking once again on my part. I got Skype-raped by my family. When
you're just casually on your computer and then BAM. SKYPE. And I'm too polite
or too much or a worrier to just hang up. Oh, no. I must ALWAYS answer.
In fact, even my family seemed slightly startled.
Monday morning the bus (which I have to catch at 7.23- meaning I
have to get up at 6 in the morning) was a normal sized bus, but that size bus
is too small to fit all of us who usually catch the bus so we went to school in
what felt like a tin can. If there's one things that's universal, it's
bus etiquette. Everywhere, it's the same. You know, the whole stand up for
old ladies and don't be a dick and blast your music everywhere.
I always forget exactly what I do during French class. I think
that's mainly because every lesson I have is half me daydreaming and half inner
me yelling at me to concentrate and stop daydreaming. So the actual content
just kind of goes straight over my head. But I generally now have a vague idea
about what's going on. Vaguely.
But Mondays we have sport. Yay. Sport can actually be quite fun
because we're doing gymnastics right now so there's a lot of attempting to do
cartwheels and things like that and hence a lot of giggling. And I was having
fun. We were doing this routine we have to make up. I am, in fact, useless at
gymnastics. I'm not flexible and I'm not all that good at balancing and I can't
do a cartwheel. However, because I am perhaps a little lighter than some others
so I usually end up having to climb on people's backs to do pyramids and things.
That particular time, after kind of rushing through our routine a
couple of times, we had to get up and perform in front of the class. And so we
did. First time- no dramas. All went relatively smoothly. But we had to do it
again for the video. Yeah, they were filming us. So, there's one part of the
routine where I have to get on this girl J's back. Long story short- her back
was too curved and so I kind of fell on her ankle and may or may not have
broken it a little bit.
PLUS ONE POINT TO ME!
So, whilst A was taking J to the locker room to get changed and
wait for an ambulance her
parents, I just waited around with O, another girl in my group, on the gym mat
thing. (We've all seen them. Those strange blue mattress like things that
barely do anything when you fall down? Well, there was a stack of them.) And I
stared off into space thinking "Oh God, I'm a horrid person, I've just
killed J, oh God... etc". I don't often
stare off into space, and sometimes HFD walks past when I stare.
It's weird thing that now that I think about it happens quite
frequently. I'll be staring at nothing thinking about whether or not I should
clean my nails or whatever and then HFD will just slowly saunter past,
looking at me. I know he's looking at me, I just know it. Usually I pretend I
haven't noticed and everything works out fine but this particular time I
though, "Fuck it," and looked up. My timing wasn't the best time
since I looked whilst he was looking away so he had to do a double-take and
then I smiled without showing any teeth. (If you want a mental image, Google
"Gollum.") and looked away.
O saw the whole exchange and so:
O: Do
you like HFD?
Me: No.
O: Do
you like R (another boy in my class)?
Me: No.
Nobody!
O: Oh.
Me: Do
you like HFD?
O: No.
But, I can understand you liking him.
Me: Hmm...
O: But
he's mean to everyone.
Me: Yeah.
And that was the point when I made up my mind.
This whole HFD thing has gone on too far, for far too long. I
don't like him, he's just mildly attractive. And then I decided to never ever
have any more contact anymore, ever. And I would be a dick to him what was then
tomorrow, Tuesday- the day he talks to me.
When Tuesday rolled around, it started out all pretty much the
same. We had a free period so me, A and O hung out in the girl's locker room
where it was nice and toasty. And then we had TP.
What usually happens in TP is because of my foreign ignorance
and/or awkwardness I stand around or I end up doing dishwashing. But, I don't
know, the prof had decided I was going to do something
today- I was going to start doing some waitressing. It was scary, let me tell
you. Why? Because this isn't your usual slap-dash dining with
a paper tablecloth. This is fancy dining, like you must always walk around
the table clockwise dining.
Naturally, I stood there in the middle of the restaurant having a
mild anxiety attack. And naturally, when A asked me if I could help her serve
water I said no, because I was certain if I did that something would catch on
fire. This got the prof mildly annoyed and he came up to me and was all like;
"You must do things" and I just nodded and blushed. So, when A was
serving the main course, I took two plates and served that. And when A was
serving the dessert course, the prof dragged me over and I served a grand total
of one fruit salad to some poor girl.
And obviously by the prof's count one bowl of fruit salad isn't
enough so I had to serve another one, and so he dragged me over to the next
person's table- HFD. I forget exactly what happened because I was dying
of embarrassment for no particular reason- CURSE YOU TEENAGE GIRLDOM-
and so I did it super quickly and then ran back to my little corner and stood
there like a goldfish if goldfish (goldfishes?) could stand like an awkward
teenage girl.
And then I was out where I belong- dish duty.
Today, Wednesday, the only thing that happened that was
"interesting" was I may have gotten full marks on a test- in Gestion,
possibly the stupidest subject ever. I don't like Gestion because I have a
nagging feeling that even if it were in English, I wouldn't understand it. But
I think I only got those marks because it was all just true and false
questions, and when you've done enough of those, you know that if out of five
questions the second and third are both true, then the first and fourth are
false and the fifth has to be true.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Introduction to French Boys
To clarify what exactly is going on with me and the male part of French culture, I need an entire post. Tara now thinks I'm a slut but I blame Steph for that as well as my tendency to freak out over trivial things and hurriedly message my "friends" over the internet.
Basically, the best way to describe French boys is through a case study. Luckily, I happen to know of the perfect male for this in-depth analysis. His name is I, or as I like to call him; Hot French Douchebag, or HFD for short.
I'll start with how we met.
Well, I came to France with pretty freaking high expectations. French boys- aren't they the most romantic in the world? Gradually I realised in the course of my first day that France was just like any other country- it has its fair share of assholes and not-so-attractive guys. But, however, I had noticed one. He seemed to be a bit of a loner, just kind of keeping to himself in class. Oh, and he was super hot. Super hot. I thought to myself, "He's probably a struggling artist or something." Which made him even more attractive. He even seemed quite nice.
Oh, how wrong I was.
The first time I actually met him was during this class called "TP Hebergement". I was kind of excited to do it because our task for that lesson was checking each other into this fake hotel. I hadn't really talked to A a lot and it seemed to be a great bonding exercise. Just when A was starting with "Welcome to the Hotel", we noticed HFD pulling a chair up between us.
My french wasn't very good back then, but I'm pretty sure the conversation went something like this:
A: What are you doing?
HFD: There's no one else to work with. I have to join a pair.
A and I looked around the room at the same time and sure enough, everyone else was paired off with someone else, which left poor HFD all alone. And coincidentally, that allowed him to join pairs with the new Australian girl and her french sister! La chance!
His presence made things remarkably more awkward. He kept on asking my questions in English, like "Do you have MSN?" and things like that. I "tactfully" avoided answering any of them directly by using English that was too advanced for his level. And then he promptly tried to teach me the word "ass" in French. (It's fesse, in case anyone was wondering.)
Just as a side note, A detests HFD. Makes sense, because he's an absolute dick to her. He calls her "Fiona"- like from Shrek.
I forbade myself to look at him after that. Who knows when he would do something like that again? The answer came soon enough- Tuesdays.
Tuesdays, my class has TP. As fore-mentioned, my school is an hotellerie school, so in order to gain the proper skills to go into restaurants and hotels etc, the school has a full-functional restaurant in the school, operated by the students. That Tuesday, it was my class's turn to be the waiters/waitresses. And because I was foreign and not at all skilled in that area, I was put behind the scenes- aka dishwashing and cleaning glasses. A was leaving me in the care of some other girl called M so I was kind of vulnerable in that sense.
That was when HFD pounced.
Imagine this; you're foreign, you barely understand the language, you have no idea what's going and then some cute guy walks up to you and asks if you want to do dish duty with him.
What do you do? You stand there staring at him until your french sister comes up to you and tells you that it's okay to go with him and that he's not going to rape you. So I did just that.
French boys are curious. HFD asked me so many questions, perhaps the most important one being; "are Australian boys funny?"
Me: Yes, very.
HFD: And me? (leans in with a big goofy grin) Am I funny?
Me: No, you're boring.
Looking back, I have no idea what made me say that. I'm pretty sure my train of thought was "NO, FUCK, WHAT DO I DO, WHAT DO I DO? WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF FUNNY? AGH!". My brain neatly supplied me with "boring". And it repeatedly came to haunt me.
His face when I said immediately switched to one of a sad puppy that's been left out in the rain and also his paws hurt because a badger bit them off. I meant it as a joke.
About an hour later, whilst cleaning glasses, he comes up to me.
HFD: You think I'm boring?
Me: Yes, you're so (I can't think of how to describe him...)
HFD: (SAYING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AND STARING AT ME REALLY INTENSELY)
Me: It was a joke.
HFD: What?
Me: It was a joke, you know, ha ha ha. A very bad joke.
HFD: Oh. Because, I thought A has been telling you bad things about me. She doesn't like me.
Note: I thought we had resolved this whole "boring" issue, but sometimes he'll randomly bring it up again.
Me: Uh-huh. (Can't see why.)
HFD: Do you like me?
Me: Wh-what?
HFD: Do you like me?
Me: I- I-
HFD: (intense stare)
Me: Sure. If it helps you sleep at night.
HFD: (too much English) What?
Me: Sure.
HFD: Sure means... yes?
Me: Yes.
HFD: (goes back to washing glasses)
And from that point forward, every Tuesday I have interacted with HFD in some form or another. It's never any other day of the week, it's always just Tuesdays. I do have fun with him, but that's mainly because he's super rude and immature. He reminds me of someone, but I'm not sure who...
Another thing that HFD does that every other french boy does is swear. In English, and badly. It's just all the swear words in rap songs. But they don't know how to use them properly. I have been told so many times about sucking dicks by so many boys in my class I have an urge to take them by the shoulders, give them a good shake, and scream "THAT'S NOT HOW WE SAY THINGS IN ENGLISH".
And consequently, I have been trying to teach them how to swear correctly. Which is hard, trust me.
I told them about the word "ranga", and now I am still trying to convince HFD that "mother-fucking bitch ranga" is not an acceptable swear word.
So, that's French boys in a nutshell; arrogant, bad swearers and thoroughly enjoying having "fun" with me.
I actually have bundles of even more delightful stories involving HFD and me, but let's just leave it at that, shall we?
Basically, the best way to describe French boys is through a case study. Luckily, I happen to know of the perfect male for this in-depth analysis. His name is I, or as I like to call him; Hot French Douchebag, or HFD for short.
I'll start with how we met.
Well, I came to France with pretty freaking high expectations. French boys- aren't they the most romantic in the world? Gradually I realised in the course of my first day that France was just like any other country- it has its fair share of assholes and not-so-attractive guys. But, however, I had noticed one. He seemed to be a bit of a loner, just kind of keeping to himself in class. Oh, and he was super hot. Super hot. I thought to myself, "He's probably a struggling artist or something." Which made him even more attractive. He even seemed quite nice.
Oh, how wrong I was.
The first time I actually met him was during this class called "TP Hebergement". I was kind of excited to do it because our task for that lesson was checking each other into this fake hotel. I hadn't really talked to A a lot and it seemed to be a great bonding exercise. Just when A was starting with "Welcome to the Hotel", we noticed HFD pulling a chair up between us.
My french wasn't very good back then, but I'm pretty sure the conversation went something like this:
A: What are you doing?
HFD: There's no one else to work with. I have to join a pair.
A and I looked around the room at the same time and sure enough, everyone else was paired off with someone else, which left poor HFD all alone. And coincidentally, that allowed him to join pairs with the new Australian girl and her french sister! La chance!
His presence made things remarkably more awkward. He kept on asking my questions in English, like "Do you have MSN?" and things like that. I "tactfully" avoided answering any of them directly by using English that was too advanced for his level. And then he promptly tried to teach me the word "ass" in French. (It's fesse, in case anyone was wondering.)
Just as a side note, A detests HFD. Makes sense, because he's an absolute dick to her. He calls her "Fiona"- like from Shrek.
I forbade myself to look at him after that. Who knows when he would do something like that again? The answer came soon enough- Tuesdays.
Tuesdays, my class has TP. As fore-mentioned, my school is an hotellerie school, so in order to gain the proper skills to go into restaurants and hotels etc, the school has a full-functional restaurant in the school, operated by the students. That Tuesday, it was my class's turn to be the waiters/waitresses. And because I was foreign and not at all skilled in that area, I was put behind the scenes- aka dishwashing and cleaning glasses. A was leaving me in the care of some other girl called M so I was kind of vulnerable in that sense.
That was when HFD pounced.
Imagine this; you're foreign, you barely understand the language, you have no idea what's going and then some cute guy walks up to you and asks if you want to do dish duty with him.
What do you do? You stand there staring at him until your french sister comes up to you and tells you that it's okay to go with him and that he's not going to rape you. So I did just that.
French boys are curious. HFD asked me so many questions, perhaps the most important one being; "are Australian boys funny?"
Me: Yes, very.
HFD: And me? (leans in with a big goofy grin) Am I funny?
Me: No, you're boring.
Looking back, I have no idea what made me say that. I'm pretty sure my train of thought was "NO, FUCK, WHAT DO I DO, WHAT DO I DO? WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF FUNNY? AGH!". My brain neatly supplied me with "boring". And it repeatedly came to haunt me.
His face when I said immediately switched to one of a sad puppy that's been left out in the rain and also his paws hurt because a badger bit them off. I meant it as a joke.
About an hour later, whilst cleaning glasses, he comes up to me.
HFD: You think I'm boring?
Me: Yes, you're so (I can't think of how to describe him...)
HFD: (SAYING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AND STARING AT ME REALLY INTENSELY)
Me: It was a joke.
HFD: What?
Me: It was a joke, you know, ha ha ha. A very bad joke.
HFD: Oh. Because, I thought A has been telling you bad things about me. She doesn't like me.
Note: I thought we had resolved this whole "boring" issue, but sometimes he'll randomly bring it up again.
Me: Uh-huh. (Can't see why.)
HFD: Do you like me?
Me: Wh-what?
HFD: Do you like me?
Me: I- I-
HFD: (intense stare)
Me: Sure. If it helps you sleep at night.
HFD: (too much English) What?
Me: Sure.
HFD: Sure means... yes?
Me: Yes.
HFD: (goes back to washing glasses)
And from that point forward, every Tuesday I have interacted with HFD in some form or another. It's never any other day of the week, it's always just Tuesdays. I do have fun with him, but that's mainly because he's super rude and immature. He reminds me of someone, but I'm not sure who...
Another thing that HFD does that every other french boy does is swear. In English, and badly. It's just all the swear words in rap songs. But they don't know how to use them properly. I have been told so many times about sucking dicks by so many boys in my class I have an urge to take them by the shoulders, give them a good shake, and scream "THAT'S NOT HOW WE SAY THINGS IN ENGLISH".
And consequently, I have been trying to teach them how to swear correctly. Which is hard, trust me.
I told them about the word "ranga", and now I am still trying to convince HFD that "mother-fucking bitch ranga" is not an acceptable swear word.
So, that's French boys in a nutshell; arrogant, bad swearers and thoroughly enjoying having "fun" with me.
I actually have bundles of even more delightful stories involving HFD and me, but let's just leave it at that, shall we?
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Introduction to France
This blog is probably mainly to be dedicated to the fact that I am currently in France at the moment, and I would like to assure various people that I am not in fact dead or being eaten alive by French alligators. I don't think they even have alligators in France.
To start off, let me describe my French family. I'm going to use initials, because GOSSIP GIRL. No, I just don't want to, you know, violate their privacy or whatever.
I have E, my french father, who is a professor/lecturer (in all honesty, I'm not entirely sure) for science or physics or some equivalent. G is my french mother who works as a lawyers' secretary. Cl, who doesn't live at home and has some sort of work on the other side of the country. C, a university student who lives at home, and finally A, who is the same age as me and I go to school with her.
Speaking of school, I go to an "Hotellerie" school. It's a bit like TAFE, I guess. Basically, I'm learning how to do things in restaurants and hotels, like checking people in and things like that. It's all very strange because it kind of feels like I'm going to a themed school. I mean, everything's about restaurants or hotels. In English, they get excerpts from Wikipedia on the history of apple pie or custard. Once, the teacher asked me to summarise a text about crackers. Crackers.
To me, summarise means "take the most important bits of information out and word it simply". THERE IS NO IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT CRACKERS. I'm pretty sure I just sat there for about five minutes trying to figure out how to reword "A cracker is a hand-sized sack made from water, flour and salt blah blah blah."
I live in a small town L outside a big town N. It's all very small and cute. Which is weird for me, because I'm used to big cities. I like big cities. Here, for example, I found out that the buses stop at 8 at night. Because that's not illogical or anything. Nope, the french know how to make things run right. Also, there is no taxi service either. I tried to communicate to A how flawed this system was but she, being french, thought that it made perfect sense. And if you're ever stuck in the middle of nowhere, pissed out of your mind, you'd just call someone to pick you up. But what if you don't know anyone? Well, outdoor camping without a tent is just as fun.
It's winter here, and actually cold, another foreign concept for me. To them though, this is a warm winter. Warm is defined by not being 0 degrees or below. I have to wear so many layers to keep my teeth from chattering. Just the other day, it was so foggy you could barely see your hand in front of your face. I've never seen anything like it.
That's about it for descriptions, I guess. I think it seems a bit like I'm complaining, but I'm actually having great fun here. I don't really want to justify that statement. It's not really a specific thing that's occuring, but just being in France, learning the language and being freaked out by their strange ways is enough.
Now, to figure out how exactly I publish this.
To start off, let me describe my French family. I'm going to use initials, because GOSSIP GIRL. No, I just don't want to, you know, violate their privacy or whatever.
I have E, my french father, who is a professor/lecturer (in all honesty, I'm not entirely sure) for science or physics or some equivalent. G is my french mother who works as a lawyers' secretary. Cl, who doesn't live at home and has some sort of work on the other side of the country. C, a university student who lives at home, and finally A, who is the same age as me and I go to school with her.
Speaking of school, I go to an "Hotellerie" school. It's a bit like TAFE, I guess. Basically, I'm learning how to do things in restaurants and hotels, like checking people in and things like that. It's all very strange because it kind of feels like I'm going to a themed school. I mean, everything's about restaurants or hotels. In English, they get excerpts from Wikipedia on the history of apple pie or custard. Once, the teacher asked me to summarise a text about crackers. Crackers.
To me, summarise means "take the most important bits of information out and word it simply". THERE IS NO IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT CRACKERS. I'm pretty sure I just sat there for about five minutes trying to figure out how to reword "A cracker is a hand-sized sack made from water, flour and salt blah blah blah."
I live in a small town L outside a big town N. It's all very small and cute. Which is weird for me, because I'm used to big cities. I like big cities. Here, for example, I found out that the buses stop at 8 at night. Because that's not illogical or anything. Nope, the french know how to make things run right. Also, there is no taxi service either. I tried to communicate to A how flawed this system was but she, being french, thought that it made perfect sense. And if you're ever stuck in the middle of nowhere, pissed out of your mind, you'd just call someone to pick you up. But what if you don't know anyone? Well, outdoor camping without a tent is just as fun.
It's winter here, and actually cold, another foreign concept for me. To them though, this is a warm winter. Warm is defined by not being 0 degrees or below. I have to wear so many layers to keep my teeth from chattering. Just the other day, it was so foggy you could barely see your hand in front of your face. I've never seen anything like it.
That's about it for descriptions, I guess. I think it seems a bit like I'm complaining, but I'm actually having great fun here. I don't really want to justify that statement. It's not really a specific thing that's occuring, but just being in France, learning the language and being freaked out by their strange ways is enough.
Now, to figure out how exactly I publish this.
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