Friday 11 January 2013

Stress

I guess I have to apologize a bit to everyone who reads this and knows me in real life, I've been one big stress recently and it's snowballed from nothing into literally everything winding me up:

As well as upping and moving on from a new life that I created here in Aix-en-Provence, with great friends that I'll hopefully keep for years afterwards and great memories above all else, I've got to start to think about what I'm going to be doing with my time in Spain, while trying not to blow all of my money on having too much of a good time.

I have around 3 months to kill essentially, and I want to find a job and get fit at the gym most of all, but I want to learn Spanish too while I'm there.

Not only all of that but little things here have been annoying me, like neighbours being arseholes, not leaving my room for a few days and the university here being ridiculously underorganised as ever, ending in me missing two of my exams, as well as worrying me to death over whether I might have to pay back my Erasmus grant for this semester, since it now seems on paper that I've done absolutely fuck all.

But I'm back on track and feeling good after spending time with some good friends of mine getting fucking drunk and being idiots and catching up. It's very nice to have everyone back in Aix, and it's gonna be so so very hard to leave.





Wednesday 9 January 2013

Journey to Catalunya

After finally getting my student loan and having all my mates return to Aix after the Christmas holidays,   we finally got together and booked our trains to Tarragona in Catalunya (Spain).

I'm really excited about getting to Spain and being faced with something different: finding a new life, apartment and potential job in Spain, with the language barrier and the fact that, at the moment, I speak no Spanish at all. It'll be one mad adventure though!

We're travelling there by train, via Montpellier, and staying the night because of a lack of a connecting train. Good excuse to have a look around Montpellier, which is fashioned as a very friendly, good-looking and very gay-friendly Mediterranean city in France. I originally wanted to go to Montpellier for my year abroad, but our university didn't have any specific Erasmus relations with their universities.

So there you go, one week and a bit left until I move to Spain!






Tuesday 1 January 2013

It's 2013.

So I have actually set this blog to post at exactly the time that the clock on the computer changes from 2012 to 2013, because I have no idea yet what I'll be doing. 
I'll most likely be drunk somewhere not knowing what time it is, and missing the countdown like every year.....(it's getting to be a bit of a running joke with my friends after I went to outside a club for a cigarette in 2010 and came back in 2011, totally missing all the countdown and hugging stuff that happens around that time of year).
And now i'm in France.

The coming of the new year, at this moment, signifies two big things to me: I have just under a month left here; and time is going way too quickly on my year abroad. The first semester felt like just a few weeks and not actually 5 months!

With regards to resolution-making, I've got a list of quite realistic goals that i'm likely to do, rather than things like 'i'm going to be a more motivated person' since at the time and place, no-one thinks "oh I must wake up early tomorrow and every day after because it's 2013 and I said I would". No.

I'm going to start going back to the gym in Spain, start learning Spanish properly and try as hard as possible to stick to a monthly budget I've set myself. I'm also going to try and look for a job in the area (although that may be easier said than done given i'm only there for 3 months-ish) and put money away into my savings account by direct debit every month.

None of this, gym every day, be a better person rubbish or that old 'eat less, smoke less' chestnut....it never lasts. I enjoy my vices too much.