Chocolate to buy, clothes to degrime, biscuits to bake, apartment to clean, and case to pack. I left suburbia for another bit of suburbia it seems. South Manchester goodbye, hello Suisse-Romande. That’s just today. The last day before I leave. Fingers crossed Geneva airport won’t fuck up again (snow? Let’s not work. Snow in other Swiss airports? Do we need to ask?)

Books about crazy people punctuate suburban routine: Plath’s The Bell Jar (finally, swallowed in two days whole, after rejecting it when I gave it a go in the college library), Doris Lessing, Sartre, plus grammaire grammaire und grammatik.

Let’s see how it’s going…

Swiss German: hopeless, utterly hopeless, I can just about stammer ‘Gruessi’

German: ignore my French accent (why I speak German with a French accent I’m not sure) and it’s fine. Ignore the lack of grammar subjunctive and all that. But I can understand, read and write, which ought to get some cheer.

French: fluent for listening, responding and reading. Written work needs some help for expression and tricky grammar, otherwise fine. (And I thought French grammar was easy. Deluded I was. It’s easy to-start-with.)
English: reasonable, minus the accent which seems to appear when I speak to foreign-speakers in English. With English people, it’s cent pourcent there, am happy to say.

I did the university applications last year, had the places, and rejected them. Surely there’s got to be more than this ‘education’ of UK university which would have my arse sunk in £30,000 debt by the time three years are over? (So I asked myself zillion times over, and still applied. Still did drawn-out entrance exams and pretended to my parents I was studying more than perhaps I was in reality…)

But then there’s the leaguetables harping on about the value of our university and the ease that the majority of my friends, whilst not still in Manchester, are at least still in the UK. Of course, there’s also the comfort that university delays work - full-time, ‘proper’ work, at least, even if scrounging around for badly-paid evening shifts isn’t far out of the question.

Now I get time out. Proper, not just a week at Easter shoved in (whilst away on an exchange doing double the work or doing revision anyway.) I get proper time out. To digest, relax, read and learn for myself, write essays and gander around for opportunities of what I might want to do.

I’m also in Switzerland, the French-speaking bit. Mountains, blue skies and clean it may be, Manchester it certainly isn’t. One thing in particular gets a gold star though - you can fall asleep without feeling like you’re going to be burgled in the night, heck, you could even go all out and not lock the doors if you really wanted to push Swiss trust and see where it takes you.

Tomorrow is wall-painting and French lessons (private, one to one, Katy to Katy plus exercise book), or writing: poems, novel, essay for comp or some good new pitches. Go get me for saying good.

Here’s some pieces I’ve done…

• Haworth wins again
• The Big Pink - gracing stages and shops
• Abba The Show - M.E.N’s big Christmas party
• Angel Of The North model at Chatsworth
• A beast at Shift Time in Shrewsbury

So far on my list: cheese scones (very English), English cheeses and biscuits, chocolate brownies (not quite so English, but delicious nevertheless), wine, chocolates, fruit salad, and a few other things which I can’t quite remember.

Naturally, the red and stripy picnic blanket is in tow as well. Couldn’t possibly do without the gorgeous patterns…

Had final AEA exam today. If you don’t know what that means, it’s essentially a jazzy extension English exam which is rather delightful and not at all too box-ticking in nature. More rigorous thought, the kind where you end up eating your pencil at the wrong end because you’re concentrating so much on your line of thought. So that’s it. Over. A Levels well and truly done. I’m utterly glad, admittedly, utterly glad because for the large part A levels have seemed like a stepping stone to something else, rather than an actual academic challenge in themself. Of course there have been challenges, but perhaps most exciting has been the weekends at friends’ houses, the little travelling, French exchanges where you sample the town’s best chocolaterie and so on.

Being the skivvy and not even getting paid for it

Skivvy. I don’t like the word. I do, however, sometimes promise food when I try to garner some work experience. Thus far it seems to be working. Have a couple of days lined up here this week. If you’re in the office, give me a wave.

I don’t mean to sound moody by the way. I’m not at all. I’m actually rather impressed by the two-screen PCs and comfy chairs with arm rests. Plus the view is quite decent. Could imagine working in a newsroom, very much so. Hate to imagine what their keyboards hold though - all those sandwiches munched on whilst working - eep!

Sleek, black, very sexy

That’s my new laptop. Shiny HP number. A bit like this. Will post some pics soon hopefully. It’s going to be helpful, means I can do more Skype and whatnot when away from home, aka off to Europe for the summer. I’m getting a cute carrycase for it too, see here. Still waiting for it to arrive. My feet are tapping and I’m remembering how I was never patient.

The pretty and the bad

My new swatch watch has gone walkabouts. In fact, I have put it somewhere where I don’t know where. Just about somewhere as confusing as that last sentence. Sincerely hoping it comes home. Love you. Will wear you with pride… Promise promise. I do miss thee.

PS

I’m aware it’s been a while. Damn exams, like I say. Will be updating more frequently now. Novel in the jowels too. Just needs a little more chewing over.

 
Do I like literature? Heck, do I love it? If I were to marry a subject, which would it be? Literature, literature, all the way. Thing is, I feel like I’m already married to it. I don’t have a ring, or a white dress, but I do end up with tired eyes, little grooves from my glasses on my nose, and a room dominated largely by literature and books about literature. (See, I don’t need a boyfriend! Literature, literature is what I need!)

 
Out came the literary criticism last night. Or literary theory, you might say. Or a smathering of both. However you want to put it, I got out writing and thoughts about literature. And my doubt disappeared as fast as a glass of my favourite wine. Picked up an essay by a woman called Nathalie Piégay-Gros, the essay is titled ‘La Théorie de la lecture et l’expérience du lecteur.’ Marvellous, beautiful, nice French, but wadda ya call it in English? It translates (in a rough, probably not as shiny as possible way) into: ‘The Theory of Reading and The Experience of The Reader.’ (Any French-speaking readers among you? Do you agree?)

 
Some bits of the essay which I particularly liked:
‘Le lecteur incorpore les enseignements de ses lectures à sa vision du monde’ = ‘The reader incorporates what he learns from reading into his view of the world’
Quote from Proust: ‘Par l’art seulement nous pouvons sortir de nous.’ = ‘Only through art can we move outside of ourselves.’ (Not sure if that’s a rubbishy translation - maybe someone can help me out on here?)
There’s also a bit where reading is summed up as ‘mon refuge’, but I can’t find the footnote for it as I didn’t print all the footnotes off (something to learn from, indeed) so I won’t quote that fully.

 
My to-read list now includes:
Proust, ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’
More of Nathalie Sarraute - have read ‘Enfance’, which was much enjoyed, though struggled to get as much critical material on it as I wanted.
Sartre ‘Les Mots’ - have the English version though I’m hankering after the French.

That’s not to say you won’t then end up distracted in other things, though at least it’s a break from thinking about themes in The Tempest, or whatever texts/ topic/ book you’re studying.

Poetry society and education department position? I can vouch they’re a very good bunch. (At least they were when I helped out last summer!)

Got some free time to volunteer in London? Why not head over to Greenwich and Docklands International Festival?