L'homme est arrivé!

Bonjour,

Apologies for the delay since my last blog. There hasn't really been much going on or interesing to write about, and I was actually away this weekend so my habitual 'Sunday Night Blog Update ' wasn't possible!

Following my rant a few weeks ago, I am feeling much better. I have to keep reminding myself that it is all part of the expereince and its all relative really. Its not necessarily Paris which frustrates me, its HEC!! But, Glee club is going well and I have also taken advantage of the evening language classes by starting Spanish. Its one European language which I have never studied. I though that with knowing French and beginners Italian, I would pick it up quite easily. Turns out not! Its challenging learning a forgeign language, in another foreign language! But also, the teacher doesn't really teach. He just kinda comes out with random sentences and words completley unrelated and writes them ( in illegible handwriting) on the board and expects us to know what he's onabout. We don't learn basics, the other night we learned last names of SPanish people. Did you know that most Spanish people have two last names?  I understand that I need to put in more work for it though!

Not only that, I have been reminded at how my grammar knowledge is deteriorating! A student approached me the other day with a question from a TOIEC book(Test Of English for International Communication).

The question was something like this:

Which is the correct form of the verb?

The clerk inadvertently let the folder ........., and all the photos were revealed to the court.

1. Drop
2. to Drop
3. Dropped
4. Dropping

Pretty easy question, I replied 'Drop'.  The hard bit came when he asked me 'but why?'... He whipped out his 'English grammar book' ( which was in French) and according to that, the correct form of the verb should be 'dropped'- something to do with the subject/object order and the direct object and the tense of the main verb... he lost me completely, I had a total mind blank! After about 10 minutes of explanation/discussion between the two of us, I concluded that he should trust me as I am 100% certain that 'drop' was the answer, and it has somethign to do with the verb 'let', since it kinda carries two verbs in itself 'to let something drop', and the fact the the clerk inadvertently let the folder drop suggests that it wasn't intentional, therefore the folders were not 'dropped' by the clerk, they were left 'to drop'... Or something. We both confused each other! But ir was a wakeup call that although my spoken French may be improving, my grammar is not! And I used to love grammar! Saying that, I made my first embarrasing spoken mistake when calling a colleague to inform them that the man they were expecting has arrived. I though that saying 'L'homme est arrivé' would be sufficient, but after putting the phone down and discovering that the people arround me in the library were laughing at me, I was kindly informed that I shoudl have said ' Le Monsieur est arrivé'... He looked like un homme to me! Fortunately, he wasn't offended, everyone simply found it 'mignon'.  In addition, I am pretty sure I said something like ' can you me send the email again' yesterday...So I guess grammar in all areas needs some work!

The first floor in our building had a flat party on tuesday night, to which all of us were invited. It was great to actualyl meet others who live in the building, it's crazy to think that it's almost three months in and we still don't know who lives above or below us! They put blue t-shirts over the lights to make it more intimate, had music playing and a general chilled out atmosphere. But it wasn't untill DJ Doofs changed the source of music to her iPod that the real party began! It was quite surreal daning in two parallel lines in a corridoor party, but very fun and it was ncie to get to know other people. Most of them were Msters/Entrepreneurs, but very friendly. I even learnt a French rap!

I had the privilege of attending an Italian Wine Tasting night organised for the MBA Students last night. Sara and I went and it was actually very good! Not that I am a fan of Red wines, but the actual owner of a well known Italian wine producers was there to tell us about each wine and how it is made. We even learnt how to hold a glass 'correctly' and how to actually smell/asses wine without just swizzing it around and sniffing it pretending we know what we are doing! I hope to impress my brother and my dad one day. It was quite cool having the evening in a melange of French, English and Italian!

Next Tuesday is a public holiday, 'Tousssaint' , and so I am making the most of a 4 day weekend by doing what the French call 'faire le pont' ( taking an extra day off work in addition to a public holiday that falls on a Thursday or Tuesday, thereby making a four-day weekend) and flying back to good old Notts for some well needed time back home! My own double bed, a proper cup of tea, a home cooked meal (well, several I hope!), seeing friends and family, watching X Factor (!), cuddling my cats... Home Sweet Home :)

Work in the library is dull,  I can't believe I have another 9 months left of writing case studies and theses into the database, but colleagues are great and I am beginning to get mroe confident with my responsbilities. I even went for a morning coffee with a couple of colleages yesterday, it was nice. (the fact that they invited me, not the coffee itself!) 

There is a big POW tonight which I need to prepare myself for since I have an 8.30am start tomorrow, and I am still tired from Tuesday's party! Straight after work tomorrow I am home bound, yay! 

My expression of the week : Tu me saoules! ... You drive me nuts! 

Lily :) 

ps, I am now in need of a kettle number 4... 
pps, the constant change between French and English keyboard is messing with my head! andy my typing, as you can read!