That time of the year.

While exam time back at uni in England is generally best kept at the back of my mind until after gorging myself over Christmas and spending the 2/3 week holiday not actually doing revision, the university system here spreads the exams and assessments before and after the holidays, and whereas I would love normally to just get everything out of the way in one big block rather than bitty assessments here there and everywhere, I can imagine if this year was to count towards my final degree mark I would be shitting bricks doing it that way.

We've got it pretty sweet here as Erasmus students to be honest though, averaging on 1 exam per week over the next two months, maybe with a presentation here or there. And as stated before, they're all spread out to make things even easier.

Easier. That's all depending on actually turning up to classes, which Gareth has not been doing.
I'm normally good at exams, but that's because I normally spend moments of my life actually doing some revision and not drowning myself in mulled wine à la Katy a few nights before an exam I haven't even taken class notes for.

In fact, so many cares have been given so far this year that I actually forgot until today that one of my exams is tomorrow, as well as having a tense, revealing group presentation which certainly wasn't the highlight of my university career (...despite how well it actually went the planning stage was the most horrific thing i've possibly ever done).
I'm not such a good student, especially here in Europe....there's just too many distractions. I definitely blame the distractions: If it's not the lure of café culture and lounging around with a café crème all day long, or the lure of going somewhere exciting and seeing something brand new each day, it's the lure of my comfy bed and/or the people in it.

However, I'm not too worried about these next few weeks, the exam content is basically exactly what we studied last year in MFL (sigh), and the rest is common sense stuff. I would suggest to anyone studying abroad to make sure that your language skills are top before worrying too hard about the content. In our case, as long as we can explain something concisely and clearly we're off to a good start....


As well as December being a time for exams, i'm also off on my travels again. Myself and Lauren are all booked up for my birthday jailbreak from the 14th-20th this month. We're visiting Nice, Berlin, Amsterdam and Brussels and I am so excited it's unreal. Once again the king of corner cutting has managed to get a week long holiday for pennies, while staying in some amazing looking accommodation and cities around the world. I can't contain my excitement so i'm just gonna leave it there.

Trainspotting and doing stuff...

In a flurry of language hurled at you daily, you begin to wonder if it's only you who can't understand it all. All these people can wear gorgeous dresses and dapper suits, and laugh at things and hold interesting high-brow conversations and understand it all and that's just fine. And as much as I like to be my own person I don't like to be an outsider. I want to know it all. I want to know it all, and be able to hold interesting high-brow conversation but then also have the ability to tell them to screw off because talking about all of their shite is by no means more interesting than talking about the pornstar you saw on French TV at dinnertime or the plans you have tonight or the gossip you just heard about so-and-so and so forth and so on.

Luckily, in most conversations I have (as one sided as they are) I can work out what people are saying with a manner of things like gestures and situational things that I can't properly explain and tone of voice. But in others i'm totally lost.

And it's for this reason that i've decided to put an end to just casually learning the language: It's not going to happen through osmosis. I'm gonna go full-throttle on this badboy and conjugate verbs and form grammatically-sound sentences that would have even Balzac giving me the thumbs up.

So i'm translating literature again. (I tried this method years ago, and only failed because I lost interest in   the shit books we were given to read by the uni: Stupeur et Tremblements by Amelie Nothomb, and La clé sur la porte by Marie Cardinal, both pretty lacking in interesting storyline to be honest, sorry ladies)

I bought Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, and Bilbo Le Hobbit by JRR Tolkien: Both in French, and both different levels of language all together.
I've started going through Trainspotting page by page and reading and noting down the words/phrases I don't understand then reading through again once I do know them. This was a great start.

But I need to tidy my desk.

I can't read with a messy desk, and I don't read well in bed.

I need to eat, because I can't translate if i'm dead.

And I need to write this blog for some reason to tell people how much i'm reading and translating literature because it will inspire me to actually start again


Fuck, I did it again.


Gareth 0 : 1 Procrastination

La rentrée

So I finally made it to the Université d'Aix-Marseille in France, and after one month of no work, no studies and no major responsibilities i'm back to the grind. Sort of. You should see my timetable....most of my lectures / seminars are in the afternoon and i've specifically dropped modules which start at 9am AND don't sound toooo interesting either .It's all for the greater good. If I wake up too early i'm moody and unhappy, and therefore I'd be unhappy for the rest of the day: If I wake up later and go to the modules I have in the afternoon already, i'm more likely to do better in them, and enjoy them more if I drop the shit ones early on in the morning!

Method in the madness.....

I really didn't realise how different university here is to the UK until this week: the workload is already a lot bigger, the lectures are true lectures with minds full of historical dates and names of kings and writers and penseurs to soak up somehow, lecturers sometimes turn up late with no apologies, students turn up late and apologise profusely, the building is covered with political graffiti and 'down-with-capitalism' posters (French students seem enormously more politically active than back at home which is great), and French students seem very work-orientated rather than pissing around in class chucking paper balls at each other like in kindergarten. Serious studies happen here, and for someone who has come from universities where students regularly take the piss and waste the lecturers time, that's quite a refreshing thing actually...

Also, i've realised that admin is absolutely capital in these parts. For my Traduction class, I need written confirmation from my tutor at my home university to verify that it is course-related and I have the sufficient language level to participate, despite having already discussed and planned which modules to take with my home lecturers. I can't enrol for the class until I have that and the class starts soon so it's a big mess of paperwork and trying to wrestle my lecturers into action, which is tougher than it might sound. Fucking academics.

I have une fiche pédagogigue which has to be taken to every exam , un certificate de scolarité which has to be guarded 24/7 and never lost on pain of certain death, une fiche d'évaluation which to be honest I still don't know what to do with, as well as all my other Erasmus shite to wade through; arrival forms, exit forms, grant forms, learning agreement, changes to the learning agreement forms, changes to the changes form etc etc.....

It's going well though, and it's only my first week/few days back so I have plenty of time to make a tit out of myself as usual by getting lost or walking in the wrong class (which seems to be my speciality).
But I like it here. I'm looking forward to my courses, although i'm sure this blog will be the only thing keeping me sane with the immense workload we have ahead of us!