Last weekend was all sorts of wonderful. Only the very best friends travel on a silly overnight ferry to spend the weekend in a stupidly tiny bed with a girl who is slowly getting more and more enrhumé and keeps coughing like a chain-smoker with bronchitis every five minutes, only to have to get up at 4.45am on a Monday and get another ferry for 6 hours. Only the best <3.
This week, like many others, has not been particularly eventful. I have been overcoming the traditional Gemma November Illness (I love my lungs), which, I'm sure you will all be delighted to hear, has now cleared up considerably. Without, I might add, having to go to the doctor.
The bloody French and their doctors. I mean, I know that when I get a cough, I sound horrific, and a little bit like I'm going to choke to death on my next breath, but once you realise that it's just me, and actually I'm OK, and honestly I've sounded so much worse in the past (standard explanation for my coughs, as many of you will be familiar with), you really should let it go. But no, not here. Here, the standard practice is to go to the doctor when you have the slightest of ailments. I believe this is for many reasons. The main one being that the French get money back for their appointments. Another being that they clearly just need to man up (apologies to any of my French friends reading this...) :-P.
But yes, each day I went into school, and coughed in the staffroom, I had a conversation that went something like this with various members of staff:
Teacher: You're ill!
Me: Oh, I'm ok.
Teacher: Have you been to the doctor?
Me: No.
Teacher: But you should go to the doctor!
Me: I don't need a doctor.
Teacher: But you're ill!
Me: I have a cold.
Teacher: Then go to the doctor!
Me: No.
Teacher: (usually accompanied by a very French shrug and headshake) You Brits, you never go to the doctor! Do you not trust French medicine?
Me: (Thinking, 'no, not really') Of course I do. But I don't need a doctor.
And so on.
Other eventful occasions at school this week include having a "stern talk" with a 12-year-old boy, telling a class of 3ème that I didn't care what they thought, because I was the boss (I was having a bad day), witnessing two girls have an argument about where to put the title on a poster (at the top, surely?!), and having a boy in the 6ème crawl under my desk when I was writing something on the board. Collégiens. Always full of surprises.
In other news, the marché de noël started today, which is very exciting. I may not be allowed festive decorations or alcohol in my flat, but I'm certainly allowed to buy mulled wine at the market. I love Christmas. However this does also mean that I only have three weeks left until I go home. Exciting? Of course. Weird? Definitely. I've been here for two months now. Two months! How completely terrifying. Time is going quickly. Really quickly.
Anyway. Bed calls. To sleep, perchance to dream, and all that. Or maybe I'll start trying to finalise some details for the book club I am starting here. Biz.
Oh P.S. It would seem that a fair few people have been reading my earlier posts about Voltaire's Candide (see here and here). I am assuming, therefore, that Exeter's French Philosophy/Literature module is in the first term this year, and that you've all moved on to Candide. Well I hope you're enjoying it. And feel free to stick around a while :-P
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