All alone

It was the most bizarre experience on Sunday. I got myself up for church as normal, wandered down to the church as normal, went up the path as normal, went to open the door as normal, found it was locked- not normal!!! I checked my watch- 10:30 so there should be people here. In fact the bible study should be finishing about now! I have a church key for the choir so I let myself in and checked last weeks bulletin to check that there was a service on, yep 10:30- main service. I didn't know what to think- had the rapture happened and they had all left me behind? Well in that case phoning someone else would do no good- they wouldn't be here to answer. Maybe it at another church today and I missed the announcement? But it doesn't mention that on the bulletin which it normally would, and anyway I don't know that there are any other churches near by which which we would do such a thing. Maybe they all got ill at the meal last week for something that I somehow managed to avoid. No. Oh course the reason was that I had forgotten that this Sunday was the day the clocks change! I normally rely on my parents on on my diary to tell me. However I haven't got a diary at the moment- it's all on my work computer. And obviously my parents aren't here to remind me. It's a huge shame because I really could have done with the extra hour as well! Instead though I was nice and early for the bible study.

Friday evening saw the choir adding a third language to 'Great is he' Maria has finished translating it into German for us, so we now have it all in English, German and French- it sounds fab :)
We also had a new American girl come to 'group de Jeunes'. She is called Maggie and is a student here for this semester.

Saturday I went to Claire's for the lunch. After a lunch of pasta and smoked salmon cooked by her brother (I was rather impressed!) we went for a wander to the village near her (she lives just a bit outside Caen itself). I love chatting to Claire, mainly because she is really understanding of the limitaions of my French. I never feel like she thinks any less of me coz I haven't understood- it's just one of those things. She is very good at checking I have understood, speaking slowly and explaining things when I don't understand. She also has some English which is nice. So we wandered and chatted about this and that, and got the life frightened out of us by a little beagle which caught us totally off guard when it started barking at the fence we were walking past. We both jumped a mile, it was hilarious.
After the walk we sat down to play monopoly. As a general rule I don't play monopoly, I haven't done so for several years. The reason- I can be a terrible looser!!! Most games I'm fine, I can admit defeat easily. But monolpoly.... well it can get me rather wound up. But when you are with a friend (rather than family) it is easier to take it all slightly less seriously. So we had a big laugh each time one of us either payed out vast sums or received it. So although Claire ended up beating me hollow I didn't actually mind.

Sunday after my early start, was lunch at the church (after a quick trip to McDs for all of us who forgot that we were going to be eating at the church and having a slightly earlier choir practice), choir practice and then a very very long walk. Jamel had once more invited the youth round to his for the evening. However we finished the choir practice with so much time over that it was silly to get the tram there straight away. So we decided to start walking there. Normally I'm well up for a good long walk, but after walking a fair bit the day before, not drinking enough at lunch and it being quite warm, I found myself in desperate need of a rest. So Maria, Nina and I hopped on a tram for a few stops, met up with Benjamin, and readied ourselves for the half hour walk from the tram stop to Jamel's house.
Actually after the rest on the tram I was fine and even better after having a drink once we arrived, so I played a bit of corridor football with Maria and Sammy (2).
As always the evening became a lovely loud mush of conversations which can be very hard to follow. However I'm glad I made the effort with Benjamin and Maria- just because it was so random.
We started off thinking of as many ways as we could for measuring a length of time, that we could do ourselves. [unfortunately I haven't got the piece of paper with them all written on so I can't post them up for you at the moment. I will try to put it on the random stuff page soon]. Then for some reason- I'm really not sure why, the new question became "How can you measure the height of a building using a barometer" I told you it was random. Bizarrely we came up with quite a few:

• measure the difference I pressure at the top and bottom
  
• drop the barometer from the top and time the decent
  
• measure how many barometers height the building is
  
• Use similar triangles- see how for you have to go back for the building to seems the same size as the barometer and calculate the angles etc.
  
• Suspend the barometer on a string and swing it like a pendulum. From this you can use the frequency of oscillation and the mass of the barometer to calculate the length of string and thus the height of the building.
  

Well what did you expect when you put two engineers and a mathematician together!

The smallest thing

Have you ever stopped and thought about the result of your actions might be?

I have always believed that the smallest thing can change the world. You never know the effect your actions or words will have on others.

You might be wondering what has made me say from my usual 'life update' to philosophical thinking. Well let me explain.
I was just reading an article on Rosa Parks who died on Monday (24th). She was the black lady who so famously refused to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. I doubt when she did it she realised the effect that it would have on the world. Although you possibly wouldn't have been able to tell me her name I bet her story stirred memories of past history lessons. I certainly remember being told her story many years ago. She has gone down in history as the spark that set off the black civil rights movement in America- just by staying seated on a bus.

Now the chances are that our actions will never make such a huge impact on the world. However your actions will always chance the world around you.
There are memories I have of off-hand little compliments that people have made that just meant so much that I can still remember them so clearly years on. The comment wouldn't have meant much to them but it meant so much to me. I remember one guy on a bus who's eye I caught while I was standing waiting for my bus. He smile and pulled a funny face. Such a stupid action, and so small, but it brightened up my day so much that I can still remember the event three years on. These people have no idea how much their simple actions have impacted my life, and chances are they never will. But they did.

Your actions can have a profound influence- use them wisely

Book worm

Since my parents left on Tuesday I have been absolutely nackered. Tuesday evening at the choir meeting I just couldn't stop yawning. So the obvious solution- go to bed early for a couple fo nights. Well that's all very well to have as your plan but there was one thing that my family did that made this a very hard thing for me to actually acheive. They brought me some books over from England. So far I have finish two of the five mum picked out. So far I've read Digital fortress by Dan brown I think it's much beter than both Da Vinci code and Angels and demons as this one has no mention of God or the church so was compleltly inoffensive. I've also read a brave new world by Aldous Huxley. This one is part of my effort to read all of the BBC's big read top 100. Not a bad book really. I couldn't put them down so kinda kept reading into the night. Oh well nearly the weekend and I can recooperate a bit then.

Well yesterday I decided to check out Tim Burton's latest film- the corpse bride. And I'm really glad I did. Firstly I was always going to see it at some point coz I know one of the guys who worked on it and it's always great fun to see the name of someone you know in the credits. And secondly it's a really good film! With a couple of good songs (not clasics like some of the old disney ones, but still good songs). Some funny moments, though I was the only one laughing at a few of the 'play on words' jokes. And a nice little story. I don't remember the last time I went to go see a film at 7 for which I was home before 9, but then that's animation for you, it's just not practical to make a two hour film. I'd recomend it if anyone is thinking of going to see it.
Next on the list to see- walace and gromit (no I actually haven't managed to see it yet)

Other news this week is that work has got a ton better! I have final got some help with fixing my problems. And they guys found out that one of the drivers (a part of code) is really badly written and wasn't working. I could never have found this out by myself- I would have just been going round in circles for ever. So my new task is to re-write this code before going back to my testing. It's nice to have a change :)

Family time

So I have had the family over for the weekend :)

They arrived about mid-day on Sat, and after having a quick peek round my room we popped into Monoprix for some bread and spread for lunch which we ate in the little park near the foyer. After lunch we went for a bit of a wander in Caen. Unfortunately dad twisted his ankle so it was was a short wander. But as it was starting to rain this wasn't a bad thing.
After a cup of tea and chat with the couple that own the B&B where they are all staying we headed back into the town for some food, then to bed

Sunday the family came and visited my church.
I was really excited about this weeks choir performance. We had really nailed the two songs and I thought we were going to do really well. We were doing two songs- Before the throne of God above and King of kings (in French). We were however all mortified to find however that the guy leading the service had picked King of kings as one of the songs to sing. It's Ok we thought, ours will still stand out because we are doing it as a canon (round) so it will still be impressive. Then of course he stopped us in singing it as a round. So despite the frantic gesturing of the choir he got half the congregation singing the first part and half singing the second in a fairly successful round! Needless to say we were all a bit shaken up by this so even though we decided to sing both songs anyway I don't think we were quite as good as we could have been as our concentration had been rattled. Even so both songs went without a hitch and sounded very pretty. The girls later told me that they can add my family to the list of 'people who smile while we sing' and they all looked towards mum and dad for the friendly smile.

After the service there was a meal for- well for pretty much the entire church. Everyone kept asking us to stay so we did.
With four long tables layed out in the hall and the pigpong table laddened with food.



Us 'kids' sat with the youth and mum and dad decided to sit elsewhere so that they could socialise and chat with some French people. However somehow they managed to set with all the English people of the church!! But I think they still managed to talk with some French people as well, so they were happy.

After Dinner the family headed off to Bayeux for the afternoon. We went and saw the tapestry- man is that thing long! It was actually really interesting.
Then we headed to Arromanches. This was one of the D day landing beaches. And you can actually still see the remains of the temporary harbour the built during the war.


They took these huge blocks of steel re-inforced concrete and sunk them in a circle round the beach. Several of these are on the beach (presumably part of a jety into the middle of the harbor). They boys of course had fun clambering over them.


Then back into Caen for another yummy dinner. The food this weekend has just been fantastic, though I think I've eaten enough now to keep me going for the rest of the week.

So that was my weekend in a nutshell. The family aren't going back to England until tomorrow afternoon so I'm going to skive of work early and go shopping with mum- dunno what the boys are going to do but hey!

What comes before part b?

Ok so it was less of a party and more of a gathering, but last night a load of us headed of to Emily's for drinks and munchies.
Emily is one of the group of english assistance that I've made friends with. She was originally living in the Oasis with us but managed to find an apartment with he boyfriend and moved out last week. I managed to get photos of some of the girls, so let me introduce you to them:


So here is Nicky, Jenn and Emily. These three are all american

This is Suzanne- Enlgish

Elaine- English

Eneze (sp) and her boyfreind are both German

Lauren- English

And here is Jen- an american, looking very.... excited

I can't say that much happened, but it was fun. We chatted- both in english and french. Both Eneze and her boyfriend can speak german, french and english. His english however was not quite as good so most of our conversation with him was in french. Also there were quite a few french people there as well.

But in more exciting new... Only two sleeps to go till my family are here!!!!! I remember when we were little all major events were counted down to by the number of sleeps to go. I guess it was the easyest thing for a child to count. But ne who. I'm sooo excited. hee hee hee. Down side is that I need to give my room a thorough clean!! oh well never mind- small price to pay.

Flâner

Flâner- to stroll.
This was my 'word of the day' on saturday. I went round to Armelle's house in the afternoon, watched Remi and his mate fix the wifi for Armelle's new laptop and giggled to myself everytime they mentioned wifi as in french if is pronounced wiffy (with a french accent). Once the boys had managed it we got ready to go out, then found that the net had stopped working agin. I was dead chuffed that I managed to fix it again- even though it was all in french! (wasn't very hard just set the IP address manually rather than automatically)

So eventually we set out for out flâner. We wandered around a few shop and then decided to go have some dinner. We went to a new little place tht has open near the Cafe des Images, and after asking for a bit of help decifering the menu we had our food.
I went for pasta bolognaise. It was OK but if truth be told was a little bit cold :S but even so I had a fab time. Armelle and I had a great chat about what all girls talk about- boys! We had great fun pairing up everyone at church and chatting about the guys that are 'out there' for us. It was great fun as we switched between french and english depending on how the mood took us. All in all- a very fun day.

Sunday was an okish day went I set out to church, however come going home time it was a very different story. The rain was chucking it down like nobodies buisness. So we hitched a lift into town and then Armelle, Shannon (an american girl) and I all went to McDs for lunch. Again is was a really nice time just sitting and chatting. I also enjoyed watching the guy that was sitting next to us. He was obviously intruiged by the french-english mix. Trying hard not to look like he was listening too hard when we were speaking english and barely containing his reactions to jokes and stuff in french. Great fun.

Sunday afternoons choir practice actually went really well. We were a couple of members short but all those who were there remembered everything and got it all right. Very nice :) I just hope that it all holds together next week (family gonna be there).

Sunday evening Maria, Shannon and I headed off to Jamel's house. went we arrived we were amused to notice that there were a destinct lack of french people. Dominic was the only one there when we arrived- he is german, as is Maria. Shannon is American and so is Jamel's wife Susan. And me the brit! So when Xavier turned up he got a big cheer for being the first french person to come. So we all passed a very enjoyable if stightly quieter than usual evening. Many people who would normally have come were absant due to the need to work or being away visiting people and stuff. I was nackered by the end of the evening but was glad I was gone.

Boring week

It's quite sad having absolutely nothing in my life interesting enough to write about. Never stopped you before I hear you say- well yes but this week has been particularly dull.

I can however give you an update on these french lessons I have been trying to find. I asked Anne (the office secretary) if she knew of anything and she came up with one. It's a 60 hour course- 4 hours a week for 15 weeks, and cost... get this... 3000 euros. That is over three months wages for me. And although the leonard scheme (some very nice people who give me money for doing a placement abroad) will re-imburse me some money they will only pay out a maximum of £250 so only about 10% of the total cost. So I'm going to try the university option again.

In other news, I have had to buy myself a french phone. When I came I bought a french SIM to use in my english phone. I had to get an un blocking code first but after that it worked fine. Untill last week that is. For some bizarre reason it just stopped working. I went into the phone house (french carphone warehouse) and asked what I should do. "You need the english unlocking codes" so I tried another code (can only ever do it three more times now), but it didn't help. So I went back yesterday, the woman was no more helpful this time. Though she did agree to try my SIM in another phone. Of course it worked fine in that phone! So it was obviously my phone and not the SIM. So rather than phaff anymore I just got myself a new phone. It's very funny coz they have an offer on at the mo on one phone so all the english and americans at the foyer have all taken advantage of it and now all have the same phone. and now so do I!

Earthquake

I was four when I was in an earthquake but I still remember how scary it is. Everything is shaking and there is nowhere that you can go to avoid it. So when I got in this morning and read the news about the earthquake in Pakistan I really felt for those effected.
Now one of those people is a good friend of mine- Robinson Gill. I worked with Robbie for two years at Manna, which was my Saturday job while I was in college. He is a native Pakistani who came over to England to study a bible college over here. Thankfully waiting for me this morning where a couple of e-mails from him telling us that he and his family were safe. However there are many people that he knows that as yet they haven't managed to contact. If you could remember him and his friends and family in your prayers I know they would appreciate it.

So on to more happy topics- my weekend.

Friday evening we had even more new people at youth group! It's v cool.
Saturday I was bushed so slept the morning through (as usual) and then headed off to the church. The youth were all invited round to Jackie's (I guy from church) for the afternoon/evening and we were all meeting at church before allocating cars and heading off. When I got there I found Josine and Jérôme busy giving the church a bit of a spring clean. They had all the chairs pushed to one end and were washing the floor down. So I grabbed a mop and joined in. Finally we had finished and all our drivers had turned up so we headed out. Now Jackie lives quite a way out into the countryside so it took up about half an hour to get there but got to drive trough some very pretty bits first.
When we got there we all set of for a walk. It started of great with a wander through fields. Then we came the lovely steep slope that we had to go down. I let out a loud “Oh no not again” (remembering the walk we took with Hugues before). Everyone of course thought this was very funny and admittedly so did I and praying that it was just one slope I declined Jérôme’s help I set off. I have never liked steep down hills. I guess I don’t trust my balance and foot enough to think that I can stay on my feet. Not entirely sure where I get this idea from because each time I’m faced with such a situation I manage it fine. Oh well. By the time the slower of us had made it to the bottom (having been filmed for most of the decent by Jackie and his video camera!) we turned to look back up and saw three of four guys on dirt bikes sitting at the top. And this oh so scary slope (well for me) that I had just take five minutes to clamber down, well they rode straight down! Eeek.
The rest of the walk was fine though- if a little muddy. The French thought the word squelch was hilarious as I described the condition of the track as squelchy. I had great fun being a ballerina (as Remi described me) hopping from dry spot to dry spot on my tiptoes.
On returning to the house we settled down with a cup of tea and some cake before the guys started the BBQ for dinner. I say BBQ but really it was a metal grill supported on two bricks over some coals. But it cooked the food so it was all good. Those of us inside spent our time playing with Jackie’s oh so gorgeous son Guillaume. He is… umm about 2ish and just completely adorable. We spent ages going through his DVD collection and pointing out the names of the various characters while he sat on the laps of each person in turn.
After dinner a group of us played Uno (the card game) which I already knew how to play so could easily join in :)

Sunday afternoon we had our hardest working choir practice to date. As I have mentioned we have been doing ‘Great is he’ and for some reason the guys have been struggling a bit with their part. They keep speeding up and coming in too early. I was incredibly grateful to Philippe who not only picked out exactly where they were going wrong but also worked really hard to try to help them to get it right. So the two of us had them singing their parts over and over and over again while we counted for all we were worth trying to cue them in at the right point. But the end they had got it, but going back to it they slipped again. So we have got to find a way of making sure they get it right first time for a performance. Unfortunately Philippe won’t be around next time we sing so I can’t get him to help- smellies. Oh well I’m sure it will all work out in time.

England- here I come

Wooohooo I'm off home!!!
Ok so my ferry isn't leaving for a month, but it is still very exciting.
Yesterday I finally got around to booking my tickets and I got the confirmation throught today. So I can now reveal my grand plans.
Arrive: Friday 11th November (morning)
Leave: Monday 14th November (evening)
So far the only plans that are set in stone are that I will be at the union friday evening, either doing first aid duty, or puntering, or a bit of both. This means you all have a month in which to get your requests in for the rest of the time! hee hee.

See the bright side

I had forgotten just how moany English people can be!
Yesterday after dinner the english speaking girls of the foyer all sat round chatting, or to be more presice sat and moaned about france and the foyer. When I arrived I took all the little changes in culture as just 'part of the big adverture' of living in a new counrty. If mistakes were made, well I smiled and made the best of it. Obviously there is room for improvement but there are very few things that I think warant a real moan (sorry to Jon who has managed to bag the receiving end of these rants!!). However one of the english girls had nothing but complaint. The staff had made a mistake and entered her into the system twice meaning that her card for dinner was playing up. She got sooo upset about this and was calling the employees all sorts of names.
The others had complaints about the quality of food, lack of square sandwich bread, lack of computerisation in france, bizarre habits of the l'oasis staff who never seem to do anything all day!!
It was a bit hard not to join in, especially as many of the points they made are true. But after a bit I was just bored. I wanted to stop them and just say "relax guys, seriously it doesn't matter". Since going to uni I have got used to people who always look for faults and who critisise everything. I may be used to it but I still don't understand it. It is so dull!!!
How can you possible hope to enjoy life when you spend so much time looking for the bad? I know there are things wrong and I have my fair share of things that annoy me, but I don't dwell on it. I find something else that makes me smile or just laugh at them.
It would apear that I am one of the only ones who found Brigette (one of the ladies who runs the place) absolutely lovely. Maybe that's because my french was so bad that the effort she takes in using simple french and slow french to non native speaker looks friendly rather than patronising, maybe it's because I smile most of the time (something she has commented on before) I dunno.
But being happy works for me.


Oh and btw I completely forgot to post anything about my trip to the bar so here is a very breif summary:
pub= irish, dingy, smoky and very expensive
people= english, american, a canadian, a german and a french man- all lovely
conversation= bits about what we were doing in france, how we were settling in, the film we saw on monday, films in general, sports and silly games.
verdict= a very enjoyable evening

Strike

Last week I saw a sign on the tram about a strike today and yesterday I was talking with my new friends (see below) about the fact that today is a national strike. We were all under the impression that this meant that there wouldn't be any trams or buses running today. So I (rather foolishly) decided to cycle to work this morning. Now as it turns out there are both trams and buses running today, so I'm guessing that the signs were announcing a reduced service today or saying that the trams would be running regardless. I dunno. But I was already on my bike so decided to keep going, of course forgoting just what a big hill I have to climb to get to work. Hill have a habit of completely killing me so ofter nearly dyong of exaustion and over heating I decided to leave my bike locked up two stops early (I was following the tram lines) and walking that last little bit to work in the hope that I would cool off and return to normal colour before arriving.
But I had a nice treat when I got to work. My fab friend Terri sent me a little parcel which I picked up this morning so when I got to work I had a rummage and found a little bag of strawberry laces and some marshmallows :) needless to say there are now no strawberry laces hee hee.

But now let me tell you about these new friends of mine. I was standing in the dinner line when I heard an american voice calling out from behind me to some other girls who were already sitting eating. Now not normally one to go up to strangers and start chatting I simply went and sat next to these girls and started eating. I couldn't pass up the opportunity though so after about five minutes I just turned to them and blurted out "I'm sorry but I just have to say hi. I have been the only english speaking person here for months!" I must have sounded like a right muppet but as it turned out that didn't really matter. They are all teaching assistances in french schools round here and arrived within the last week. There are both english and americans and they are all really friendly. They were all planning to go to the cinema and asked if I wanted to go to- so I did. We went to go see Broken Flowers at the Lux and it was quite nice being able to show them where to go and which tram to get etc. It was also great just to be able to chat. I have spent almost 4 months now desperately trying to think of things to say and ways of carrying on conversations, but I normally fail and have to rely on my french friends to think up conversation topics. This time however I was just chatting, about nothing in particular. I also found out that one of the american girls was at church on sunday. So the poor thing got to hear the choir!! What am I saying- lucky her. We rock!!! lol. She is busy this friday but I said I'd take her to youth group next week if she wants to go. so all in all it was a great evening. the film was also pretty good. quite artsy with some of the choice of camera shots, and the music was far to repetitive for my liking but it is a film that will make you laugh out loud and smile.
Those of you who have been reading my blog since the beginning of my french aventures might remember me mentioning a bar- o'donnels which is frequented by the english speaking community of caen. well these guys know it too and are planning to go out for a drink tonight. So after almost four months I am finally going to make it to the bar!! I will give you all an update on how barish (thank Jonathan for the
phrase) the bar is tomorrow.

Half light

There is a rather eerie light outside at the moment. As I'm writing france (just a little while after england) is experiencing an annular eclipse. The moon is partially covering the sun significantly reducing the light reaching earth and making 11 look like dusk. It is a bit strange- but cool as well

Once again my weekend has been remarkably boring. I didn't even leave the foyer on saturday! I slept in till about 1 or 2 and then got up (as in out of bed- I didn't get dressed all day) and played around on my computer. I have managed to get the
DVD drive working (though the player I was using was rubbish and it was quite allot of effort to watch a film). Unfortunately I haven't managed to fix the speed to the sound card. So films and music and even the windows start up music sounds slightly chipmonkified. I've managed to improve it by reducing the hardware acceleration speed (and no I had no idea how to do that before I did a google search on the problem), but I need to now try to use a different driver and see if I can clear it completely.

Sunday morning was a baptismal service at church. As a result the service started half an hour early and in the early morning scramble to get out the door I completely forgot my camera! I know Armelle took some photos so if I ever manage to get a copy from her I'll post some up. The baptistery itself is worth admiring. It was soooo tiny I was amazed that a person actually could be submerged in it. The occasion also held a performance from the choir as well. It was easily the best we have done so far. We managed to memorise both songs and everyone remembered to wear the black bottoms and white top. Both of these made us look much more professional. There were many fewer wrong notes from us and many more smiles from the congregation.
I have been singing at church for goodness only knows how many years. And it doesn't take long for someone on stage to find the best people to look at. I don't know what it is about church but people so often seem to end up sitting there stony faced. But there are certain people who will always have a smile on their face and will show that they are enjoying and appreciating what you are doing. I have managed to extend this list for church here with some more smiling faces.

I have realised that when my parents come over in a couple of weeks (how exciting is that!!!) that they are going to have to bring some zertek (sp) with them. Sunday evening visits to Jamel's (the pastor) are becoming a weekly occurrence and I only
brought enough allergy tablets for 'the occasional cat' rather than a weekly cat. We had fun though. I got Claire to teach me a bit of the music from Amilie. She can play practically the entire soundtrack, and it's very pretty. So I can now play about a minute of it :)