baaaah ouuuuuais...

mmm... what a week

Soroco winds, ridiculously warm sunshine for November, bucketting rain, snow on mountains, then all melted again...

3 "Scottish" visitors, 10 visits to Grenoble train station (3 to retrieve a lost bag, 1 to miss a bus), several meals out, several meals in, 2 trips up the Bastille, 2 sunsets watched, much tea drunk, 1 chocolate tasting attended, 1 night of silly dancing to silly hours had, 1 trip to the cinema made, much franglais spoken, several new friends made, one random lunch with one lovely random muslim lady, random tram trips taken...

I am now losing my voice and am finding it difficult to speak english let alone french. Try saying "Royaume uni" (united kingdom) in the post office when you have a sore throat! The woman behind the desk might think you're saying Italie!

Some photo highlights

Crisp November leaves crunchcrunchcrunchbeeeeautiful mountains all covered in snow



and yes this was all made of chocolate!!!


we didn't eat it all!! honest! :P

se mettre en grève

Yes folks... today I experienced my first full-on infamous french strike!
Today... all just before 10am this morning all trams and buses stopped...
of course today was also the day that I had to travel to Meylan, a small town (also mini-utopia), 2 buses away from where I lived to teach at a school for 4 hours...
and of course I had already taken one bus and so was in the centre of town and even further away from Meylan when they decided to go on strike... and so I waited and chatted to grumbling little old ladies in french for a bit... and then walked... and was an hour and a half late for classes! Tant pis... All part o the cultural experience eh?!

apprécier

It's funny... I was just thinking... if I were elsewhere... if I was back in Glasgow I'd be getting stressed right now or at least feeling veryveryworked like everyone back home, living it up in the library with essays galore no doubt... and yet here I am in this beautiful city where life is quiet, people go to bed at reasonable hours most of the time, where it hardly ever rains and I have this ridiculous amount of spare time on my hands. Well not that ridiculous anymore, but au moins more than I'm used to.
I wonder whether I'd rather be back in Glasgow sometimes, and be stressed and manically busy, or here with lots and lots of time and relaxation which sometimes I wonder if I need...
All I know is, whether or not I am always contented with the situation I'm in, I should always be grateful for it, for what I have and what's now and the situation that God has put me in... because he knows best and I know he's teaching me a lot by taking me out of my usual environment and placing me somewhere tout à fait different for a while.
Therefore... Rachetez le temps car les jours sont mauvais

Un mot - Enjoy :)

je suis l'assistante d'anglais

I can't believe I've been at this teaching melarky for over a month now and still hadn't blogged about it!

Ah... the joys... today I had to tell a class off for the first time
I said to them with a quiet disapproving teacher voice- "Il y avait trop de bruit aujourd-hui. Cette classe est pour vous de pratiquer parler et ecouter en anglais, mais si vous n'ecoutez pas, il n'y pas de point d'etre ici!" - translation -
"There was far too much noise today. This class is for you to practise speaking and listening in english but if you don't listen there's no point in you being here!"
They apologised so I think it will be ok. Bear in mind this was the first time I've ever had to properly tell anyone off.

See so far teaching has been generally very good! Very different from how I expected it... not at all nerve-wracking despite the fact that I frequently have to adlib... somehow french organisation means that despite all the preparation I may have done, every week I get at least a couple of groups of classes of age groups I haven't been expecting, so often have to make up lessons on the spot... but somehow managed to do ok so far though preparation is most definitely the way forward!

I teach kids ranging from the ages of about 12 to older than me. Have to use french with the 12-15 year olds cos the only english they understand is "I have blue eyes, I have brown hair etc." but some of my older classes speak very good english which is pretty cool, I just have to speak slowly and clearly with them!

And for some reason the fact that I am young has so far been a big advantage! There is always a collective exclaim of disbelief or surprise ("aaaah mais c'est jeune!!!") if anyone asks me how old I am, it's quite amusing! And after one class one guy who must have been about my age came up to me and said "Are you really only 20, I thought you must be like 22 or something!!" Hahahaha I think that was meant as a compliment... I think...

And aaaah the accents! My friends in France will tell you that I have developed quite a passion and a liking for imitating the french accent when speaking english... I will demonstrate with some phonetic spelling - demonstration of todays lesson with the 13 year olds

"Wot aaaav yooou got aateuuh treee o clockeuh?"
"I aaav got euuuh... doctors appooointeuhmnt"

sniff... isn't it just beautiful!

I'm tired... I think all this teaching has gone to my head...

à la prochaine

Freiburg, ja!

Yes I know I'm supposed to be in France for the year... but what with the border being so close I decided to spend a few days in Germanland to visit these two wondericous people!





Of course I got to see the wonders of Germany too... bright neon signs, ridiculously tall trees and graffiti everywhere! Icecream, erasmus students and bicycles are plentiful!

I feel like I've just spent the last few days living the life of an erasmus student in Freiburg, which I basically did! Highlights included:
- Wonderfully large communal meals
- the Stusie bar (the student union) - is so scarily similar to the qm it's unreal! I felt very very at home!
- Being able to chat to a German girl in what was our only common language - french!
- Cable car trips into the mountains never go amiss
- Good food
- A judith-cooked German breakfast fry-up... mmmmm...
- Church in German AND English! (complete novelty!)

It was just sooo nice to be somewhere so completely different from France for a few days and break up the term, since I won't be going home till Christmas. And to live the student life again, Grenoble life is so quiet in comparison! Plus Freiburg is beautiful! If you wanna check out photos check out Jamie's blog, he's got a mixture of mine, his and other folks photos from the weekend.
It was however very satisfying to return last night and understand and be able to chat to folk at the station and in shops again! I discovered I really dislike being able to hold my own in a country communication wise. I hope to visit again... so the what has become quite a long list of languages to learn, Deutsch now has a prominent spot!

Les mots ou les paroles?

I've made a few gross misunderstandings since coming to Grenoble in french conversation. I always feel thoroughly embarrassed when it happens, despite the fact that I do it so often in english. Perhaps because when I do it in english, it's a reflection of my concentration span rather than my comprehension skills.

It's funny how misunderstanding or simply not knowing the meaning of one word can cause such major communication problems! This weekend for example, I went away with the youth group at church and after dinner on Saturday there was announcement made about how we were going to "faire les châtaignes". Now this caused some excitement but left me completely bewildered since I hadn't the faintest idea what les châtaignes were! In the end I had to ask someone and I eventually managed to work out what it was - see photo below and let me know if you still don't know what it is! :P



It just hit home how important words can be!

Words... so potent, so loaded... I crave them! A couple of weeks ago I discovered many joyous libraries in Grenoble, most notably la biblotheque internatinale. But before I made this discovery I first found la biblotheque centre-ville; just your average french library with lots and lots of books in french. By this point I'd been deprived of books in english for almost 3 weeks (apart from my bible - not necessarily a bad thing!) and so felt drawn to scour the library until I found the one and only thing I could read in english - a copy of Newsweek dating back to April of this year. I devoured it, page by page... it tasted surprisingly good but rather than satisfying merely whetted my appetite. I then munched on a novel in french, the first couple of chapters anyway and was left feeling half-stoked, half-utterly unsatisfied.

It occured to me that words which mean so much can at the same time be so empty, insufficient. I feel this a lot right now, caught between 2 extremes... whilst trying to relate to people in french when my vocab is so limited I often end up resorting to lots of gesturing and sounds and facial expression to get my real meaning across, whereas so much of my communication with folks at home is right now is mostly reliant just on words. Both, though exciting, aren't quite enough.

Thinking about all this hit home the aptness of this description of Jesus. And yet this concept far surpasses my understanding of "word" : He fully expresses God and is satisfying and complete in all that He is and offers us! Mind-blowing!
I am also very very glad that God doesn't simply rely on our words to understand and listen to us and that he reads beneath, right into our souls! :)

I'm hungry.

Colis et Cellos

It has been a very exciting couple of days here in Dishland

1. I received 2 positively wonderful parcels from 2 positively wonderful people!

2. Turns out that hiring cellos isn't really that expensive after all in Grenoble and so...

(dish does dance round the table) I HAVE A CELLO!!!!! IhaveacelloIhaveacelloIhaveacelloIhaveacello!!!!

I have a CELLO

As you can gather I am just a little bit delighted by this

Grenouilles!

I have to say I have felt so incredibly welcomed by the church here in Grenoble! Every single Sunday since I have arrived here (yesterday was my fourth) I've had lunch with a family... though I must say yesterdays lunch was a little different from most...
You see, yesterday, I discovered not all French people have their hearts set on eating les grenouilles...

I met a young girl yesterday simply besotted with the creatures... The very first thing she said to me of her own accord was - "tu aimes les grenouilles?" Of course using my knowledge of French culture whilst employing Grice's maxims I replied with, I don't know, I've never tasted them, the response was not one which I expected.
After a fabby lunch, a raclette to be exact and some origami... of sorts


we went to a very beautiful conservation area pour chercher les grenouilles... apparently not always the easiest of tasks, in amongst feeding ducks, and skimming stones. I learnt so much new vocab such as....

une libellule - a dragonfly
un cygnet - a swan
faire un ricochet - to skim stones
faire du ski nautique - water skiing
ni oui ni non - the yes/no game (i finally managed to out trick the aforementioned young lady in the end though it took a while!)
un tetard - a tadpole

Meet Raphaelle... a well-developed tetard with budding legs


It was soooo nice to get out of the city even just for one afternoon! Beeeeeyoooootiful


There now leaps somewhere in a lake in Grenoble, a frog by the name of Dish

s'installer petit à petit

This week I learnt several things

- That it is possible to be paid for doing nothing
- I will have a loooot of free time this year!
- There is such a thing as a keen teenager... I was practically interrogated by 2 college classes yesterday when I had to introduce myself to them, a class of 13 year olds and a class of 14/15 year olds!
- Le Ska does exist and is actually quite popular in France! Went to a free student-filled gig on Thursday night and twas an eye opener.


- "Le slam" (crowd-surfing) is a popular activity at french gigs... especially when there seems to be no security to be seen. Every 30 seconds (no exaggeration) we saw the silhouette of someone climb up on stage wave their arms for a bit and then leap off again after which the silhouette of flailing legs could often be seen.
- International libraries rock!
- Seems I can drink ridiculous amounts of tea and stay up till silly hours no matter what country I'l in! :)


Bring on week 4...

Stage

Our assistantship "stage" (training course) for the Grenoble region was held in a massive youth centre place in a ickle town Autrans which I think must subsist on trips like ours and on tourist ski-trips in winter.

Anyhoo... on this stage which had all assistants in the region in one place and I mean all assistants... of languages English, German, Spanish and Italian... I assumed that this would mean there would be assistants from Britain, Germany, maybe somewhere like Austria or Switzerland and of course Spain and Italy are a given.

I was wrong.

I spoke to assistants from... deep breath... Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, just about every state in the USA (loads of them from there!), Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Argentina, Germany, Austria, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Spain, Italy...

I learnt so many random facts about different cultures: from the ridiculousness of the American voting system to Argentinian prices in comparison to France, to Jamaican food to English/Scottish/US slang and there was even a guy from Glasgow uni who I hadn't properly met before with Glasgow-sickness to reminisce with!

Any excuse to wax lyrical about the aforementioned concept

Et enfin some much-missed pubbage was had


not quite uisge but equally banterous
though I must say, not liking this lack of smoking ban here, I didn't realise how much I'd become accustomed to getting home and night and not smelling like a chimney... tant pis

Aaaah and how could I forget!!!!
The food... was spendiferously spiffingly scrumdiddilyumptious! I exclaimed so much excitement and delight with every course that people started to comment... Bran, you would have been proud

How are you?

And so for this blog post I attempt to answer the frequently recurring question - "How are you?"
Such a silly question really... why do we use it all the time?!

The oxford dictionary definition of the word "how" shows that it is
an• adverb with 4 meanings
1 in what way or by what means.
2 in what condition or health.
3 to what extent or degree.
4 the way in which.

This doesn't make any more sense of the question in my opinion...
I think I must just have a problem with short unspecific questions...
I will demonstrate

"What are you?" - I'm a human (I think)
"Who are you?" - Does my name define who I am?
" Why are you?" - Why are you not?
"When are you?" - When I am not.
So you see, short and unspecific questions are really quite difficult for me to answer...

So to the question that so many people have asked me... how am I...

It really depends on when you ask...
If you had asked me
- on my first weekend here I would have said... I'm feeling sooo excited about the frenchness, suddenly remembered why I study the language and why I chose to come here in the first place
- during my first week I would have said... I'm feeling kinda lonely. Exploring on your own 5 days in a row even in the beating hot sunshine and in a beautiful beautiful city and getting lost every day wasn't quite as fun as I thought it would be.
- If you had asked me at weekends I would have said... refreshed and welcomed. The church here has been such a breath of fresh air, even if it has been a bit hard to follow at times.
- If you had asked me anytime in the last couple of days I would have said I'm enjoying doing one of the things I enjoy most, meeting new people (at the training course for assistants up in the mountains). And getting incredibly excited about
that old clichéd concept once again! Also feeling less lonely having met so many other people in exactly the same boat as myself.
- If you ask me anytime I would usually tell you that I'm feeling somewhat Glasgow sick
- And if you asked me right now I would say... I'm feeling fairly at peace, having just remade the realisation that my God is more stable, unchanging and bigger than one of these
So you see... it hasn't exactly been the easiest question to answer and the main reason for this is, although I have now been here for 2 weeks I haven't had much of an opportunity to settle down. Work hasn't started yet, haven't even got a timetable yet, I still feel as though I'm in limbo between countries, still riding on the tail end of this endless void of a summer holiday... but I start teaching on Monday so watch this space.

I hope this answers all such questions adequately for now but what I want to know is... How are you?

First Impressions...

Mountains and fountains and mountains and fountains and mountains and fountains...
Ils sont partout!!!




In theory the fountains should help for navigation on the windy streets au centre ville... at least I can recognise one from another now! For example the one to the left of this is à la place Victor Hugo... I still don't know how to get from one to another though... surely Glasgow was never this difficult!!!







Mountains and fountains... ils sont partout

Even on the street where I live...

commencer

Waaaaaay!!!!!! My first blog à la cybercaféfrancais!!!

So far...

- I have been awed by the beauty of the area! It is gorgeous!
- I have been charged 16.50 twice for being 3kg over weight limit by ryanair!
- I have become an expert at kipping... anywhere, anytime, anyhow
- I have a real french window in my room conplete with shutters and balcony!! (there would be a lovely photo just here but i forgot the cable for my camera)
- I visited Le géant (tesco but 10x larger) and it is exciting! I discovered that garlic really does come in bunches here, need 2 masseeeeve aisles of yoghurts and they sell baked beans in the international food section... what more could I need! (Lack of chillies was rather disappointing tho)
- I have met lots of lovely welcoming people, almost all French
- Ive had to give my testimony in French! (not easy)
- I have been to french-speaking church which was draining... tis hard work having to concentrate for more than 2 hours in french, but it also exciting to be part of!
- I have got lost (no surprises there!)

Note to self: French keyboards are confusing

I need to get hold of a thesaurus... there are so many things I want to say and can say but only with limited vocab... it gets boring using the same 3 adjectives all the time... any ideas anyone?

À tout oiseau son nid est beau

I’ve visited exotic lands
Of wide variety
Each exciting, different, rare
Delights all sense with colour, flare
Yet somehow I’m found unaware
A piece of heart is caught, ensnared
And then that gap… a question bares
Where is my heart at home?

I’ve lived in places that I love
Of familiarity
Steep myself in those I know
Friends and loved ones I adore!
Places along which I grow
Places, which I label home…
Knowing though, they are not so
Where then, is my home?

For somehow, still I’m wandering
I cannot settle down
You see, I’m subject to propulsion
Lumbered with a yearning yawn
Always wanting something more
Always searching for a place
Always never quite at home
Is that the end that waits me?

To be always searching for my home?
Aching for that “always more”?
A wanderer, until I find
Where sparrows nest and nurse their young
Where bouncers bounce in joy
Where one day betters all the best
Where my heart sighs… enough, to rest
where You are

t minus 10 days and counting

Thinking back to previous posts, I feel an apology is in order... I talk about the weather far too much! And I commence this post with patter about the weather once again. For although the sun may shine through the glass windows of the garage on today, my last working day there, the last few days have been a plain and simple, truetoGlasgow downpour! And I've loved it!

After weeks of sunshine it's nice to have a change, but to be honest I think the real reason I enjoyed the Glasgow weather so much because I know I only have a week and a half left.

Yes that's right blogosphere... a week on Saturday I leave for Grenoble, France... currently averaging in the late 20s/early 30s (celsius)... (not that I wish to gloat or anything... but I can almost feel an inevitable mwahahahaha rise to the throat! :P )
(Bear in mind however that Grenoble also has ridiculous amounts of snowfall during the winter and gets to ridiculously low minus temperatures too)

A week and a half left of rain perhaps... but also of:

- packing (my White Street stuff has to be moved out within the next couple of days and I haven't even started packing yet! waaah!)
- filling in silly forms
- visiting silly banks
- phoning silly ryanair (and pleading that they let me take Mr Cello on board!)
- seeing many silly and not so silly people in Edinburgh and Glasgow (I thought of putting a nice little hypertext link under silly and not so silly there, but couldn't think of anyone on the blogroll who I could class as being not so silly! :P )

Just one small question... how did it come on so fast?!?!

Thankfully I have a God who holds the world in his hands! And I know the following verse to be true... (I wish I could enact this out with all the actions that made it so memorable which I learnt at music camp this summer - you'll just have to make do with the words, pretty colours and insinuated vocal emphasis)

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you whereeeever you go." (joshua 1:9)

yipyipyipyipyip

So... in the last few days I have

a. Aqcuired a job - receptionist temping in Milngavie in a garage where everyone is delightfully Glaswegian, and switchboards are huge!

b. Acquired a pseudo-flatmate. I say pseudo in that both of us are going through the transition period, i.e she's moving into my room when I leave for France, but right now we're just living together and loving it. Nothing like an afternoon on the comfiest sofa ever of tea and deep chat when it's pouring it down with rain!

c. Acquired a mild addiction/healthy love of retro sesame street videos on youtube... I enclose a favourite below...
Enjoy!

Je ne vais pas tempêter

So on Sunday I get a txt from a friend with a spare ticket to see Radiohead in Meadowbank stadium in Edinburgh, apparently desperate to get rid of it... and so on Tuesday I do just that.
A veeeery long afternoon/evening of 3 fabdabbydosy bands



Memorable moments include:
- Getting confused between meadowbank and the football stadium in Leith
- Beck puppets moving in perfect synchronisation with their real-life counterparts
- Some glass/plate/table tapping accompaniment to acoustic guitar
- Winning the "how many people can I recognise/know at this gig" game (I'm sooo sad!)
- Much over-excitement from big bald guys with huge beer bellies over songs such as "creep"
- Walls of unusual tall people in all corners of the crowd
- Good asian style train journey back to the west, cramming us in everywhichway
- Listening to a crazy woman on the train describing the difference between a "munter" and a "muntor" to a complete stranger - "a muntor" apparently is someone who is part o your gang...
hmmm...


I refuse to wax-lyrical about radiohead, there are plenty folk more than willing to do that

Other things worth a mention

- Dish has another temp job (waaaaaaaaaaayyyyy!!!) Working as a receptionist with a bunch of boys (sounds familiar) in a secondhand car garage
- Do not busk on Buchanan Street during the day, people are stingy, even if you stand on a bench with a cello and a guitar and sing "Hit me baby one more time" at the top of your voices in harmony

park diaries

A large portion of my summer has been spent in the park.



When I say "the park" however I am not just referring to one single patch of grass which I frequented. No I have tried my hardest to maintain a sense of diversity in my life. And have thus visited a handful of parks in the west of Scotland... and so I thought for those of you who desire some parkage whilst the sun still shines bright in Glasgow, I would include some craic on a few of my favourites.

- Dowanhill
Especially wonderful due to it's close proxmity to la rue blanche. Good for a quiet read as the chances of bumping into someone you know are minutely smaller than in other parks. It has swings and the taps are particuarly useful for waterfights!

- Kelvingrove
An old favourite, plenty of space and trees for slack-lining/tree-climbing/poi/silliness/frisbee action/football action/forbidden bbqs/surprise picnics




- The Botanics
The pigeons and children are extradorinarily friendly. There is a high chance that you will make a new friend if you take some bread of a ball of any size with you.

- Victoria Park
Worth a trek in order to experience it's wealth of "secret gardens", stunningly brightly coloured flowers and fossilised tree trunks. Also sports a very large pond in which it's seemingly legal to fish for tadpoles in.

- Hamilton Park
Hamilton believe it or not is a wonderful place...
brimming with motorways, streets with interesting poetry segements paved into them, and very bright purple flowers...


Take a trek for a while, you don't have to search for long before you find a lovely large expanse of green to sit on.




- Behind Glasgow University
Stunning views and relative peace and quiet make this a perfect for a spot of reading and philosophical chat.
If you run fast enough towards the flagpole you can just about make a mini-kite lift in the air for about 20 seconds.
And there's always the GUU just down the road if you wish to visit the loo/get some tap water from the beer bar.




Only a month left of Summer 2006: A summer of learning in green pastures.

Ever feel like you've been walking around with your eyes closed?

I have for the last few days... and then 3 things happened

I saw this from the window of a train...



and I read this...

and this - "Praise is response. Praise happens when there is revelation, and there is revelation waiting for us around every bend, in places we would not suspect. Our task is to live with eyes wide open to God's greatness because when we see the imprint of the Creator, our insides will swell with devotion, our hearts will erupt with thankfulness. You will live, breathe, and radiate praise. The habit isn't in learning how to praise; it is in reminding yourself who to praise. It is a remembering of who you are. It is a remembering of your identity."

And so I remembered... looked around... and my heart sang in delight...

Rising Generation

I present to you here some random thoughts in bullet point form

- Sleep deprivation is a nasty... especially if it has been caused by 8 days of non-stop go, running after kids, teaching them music and about God... and then when you get home your body clock has set itself to wake up before 7am every morning!

- Music camps are weird... especially Christian music camps... the kids learn a song you teach them in about 30 seconds flat, they all can sing in tune and some even in harmony round the camp fire...

- I ended up with the the 5 nutter-est girls you could possibly imagine around my sister's age, in my dorm. So as you can imagine, we got on all well, (like with like and all that) By the end of the week they had pronounced me as their "adopted sister" :)

So... what have I learnt this week? Much! But more than anything - this - that God's grace is enough. Enough for any teenager no matter how great or small their issues are, enough when things are easy, enough when things are tough, enough for me even when I feel messed up, in all my weakness... enough