No singing though! Nevertheless Friday evening was a pretty memorable and exhilarating experience of dancing in the rain. Last Friday, after work, I rushed off to join a good friend of mine for an outdoor Zumba class on Paris Plage. It had been a fairly typical summers day – neither too hot nor cold, certainly not humid and heavy. As I entered the metro the sky was bright; not an ominous cloud in sight. Less than 10 minutes later, upon…
After a grey two weeks the weather has finally broken into a rather satisfying storm. The heavens have opened with a crash above Paris, washing away the dust from a three month heat-wave. Given the intensity of the rain this seems like the perfect opportunity to do some studying. I naturally go through the motions of loading up the various relevant articles and wikipedia searches, while taking regular breaks to fuel my brain with chocolatey-snacks and Diet Coke but as…
Well the essay was at last completed, thankfully not running into overtime with the final score resting at: Essay 1 : Emma 0 Number of hours of sleep accumulated in the last 48 hours: Appoximately 5 Number of meals that were not almost entirely pasta based: 1 All in all an uneventful start to the proceedings with little or no on-screen results, leaving all the action for the second half. A rushed effort around midnight just…
According to Tuenti it’s been 110 days since I last updated my status: “En Paris – nuevo trabajo, nuevo piso :)” Almost a third of a year has flown by and both the job and the flat no longer seem all that new. The problem was that around 100 days ago all that happiness of finding a new job and flat was shattered in an instant: An evening which started out better than average, ended in tears. I didn’t feel…
One of the life skills I acquired during my 4 years at the University of Bristol was ‘The Art of Procrastination.’ Before uni I was always very good at getting things done on time… early even and with added extras! I used to be a bit of a perfectionist; now I am just a procrastinator. I used to think of procrastination as an extremely negative habit but that was because I was going about it all wrong! In Bristol I…
There are many times over the course of just a year that we have the chance to re-define ourselves and start a new page in the story of our lives. This year I have had several occasions to do just that: New Year, new job, new flat, new experiences and new friends… but perhaps it is fitting that I choose Easter weekend to re-start the blog. Traditionally a celebration of re-birth. Although this entry marks the debut of my account…
I know it’s a cheesy song lyric but it’s actually very fitting for what I want to write about: My final few days in Manitoba before the long flight back to the world of antiquity on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I believe that no matter where you are in the world you should always find something beautiful to appreciate, regardless of whether you are right where you want to be at that time, or not. In Manitoba,…
There’s nothing like a rush of exercise-induced endorphins to lift the spirits. Actually in reality the day seemed to drag on much longer than usual and I was worn-out before I even started the fitness ‘class’ this evening but it seemed only fair that I should do some form of exercise today after watching the kids do 10+ laps of the field for Terry Fox and practically (in some cases literally) fall over each other just for a sip of…
At the moment the fact that it’s raining and the fact that it’s Monday cannot “get me down”. If it’s raining it means that it is not freezing cold and if it’s Monday… well what difference does it make to someone who isn’t working? In theory my online course starts today but with no access to the internet it just means I’ll have more to do when I finally get started. Considering the amount of time I have to spare…
Thanks to a tip from our local informant we left Ashern, armed with a map enabling us to locate a shopping mall, cinema complex, food superstore, football stadium and other signs of life. As in the previous week, we arrived at around 2pm and headed straight for the food-court. The mall is quite large but it didn’t take us too long to find it and settle on Greek for lunch. The Greek take-away place didn’t have much of a queue…