Well I know I’m missing a week but I’m going to start with this week then go back because this week was so much more eventful! It started off fairly normally, work and literature review- of which I finished the first French draft so am now doing it in English and realising it needs a lot of work but it is now do-able! I cannot speak French but I am now thinking about doing the DELF/DALF exams, French competency exams recognised throughout Europe. I want to do the DALF, C1 which is one level below fluency but I’m not sure I’m good enough to do that… So this is another thing to think about.
Also this week Steve Henderson from Edinburgh came to visit, Wednesday evening and Thursday morning which was so tiring and busy and a little stressful though he would sigh and shake his head at me for saying that! I was a tiring because I spoke a lot of French to Lydie which I haven’t really done before, or at least we usually only talk about Chemistry- a nice safe topic- Gabin and Christophe both came to dinner too and we went to Aux Moules, yummy moules… It was pretty good muddling through in French and English, however when I am happy I speak very fast, at least Gabin thought I was hilarious! I told him I wanted to talk more in labs so I think he has now taken it upon himself to involve me which cannot be a bad thing!
Steve came into labs on Thursday and we had a long chat about work and everything which I needed because I am always so worried, I now know I have enough info to write my report and I want to start thinking about it over Easter. It was still rather hectic, a whirlwind tour of the labs and a meeting about everything that has been happening; it was odd to see everything from another perspective. How my life here must appear to an outsider. I guess it appears like I’m completely settled and completely happy but I wonder to what extent that is true because reading my blog it seems as if I always have something I’m worrying about, or that I’m not sure about.
But that’s labs; my social life is another story completely! Last night, Saturday the 4th, we finally had our fancy dress. We took all day preparing, it took ages to curl all my hair, whilst Andrew had to straighten his and gel it down. I think we made a good Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers, Rachel’s crown looked awesome and she made a very good Aphrodite but we all feel a wee bit fragile today…
All in all the party was so much fun; everyone who came made a real effort to dress up, Shusaku wore a Yukata which is a taditional Japanese summer kimono with geta and a fan, he looked amazing and Mayu too, she wore a sweet dress with princess bear ears, Clara and her sister came dressed in an 80’s theme, so did Julia, Helen was someone from Greece, Rob was a… native American, possibly, Sarah was princess leia, Phil was a pirate… It was all very funny and resulted in much dancing and antics which went on until 3AM by which time I was dead! But now it is Sunday and I just can’t wait to spend Easter weekend at home with my family and boyfriend, I’ve been so stressed recently it will be nice to just relax for a time!
Anyway, sorry I missed last week, I don’t think I’ll bother putting it in it was fairly normal really although the strikes are continuing and the weather was awful. Rachel’s mum was over for the weekend so we went to the Flammekeuche place but other than that it was rather quiet, so until next week….
