Examens, mon dieu!

Once again, it's that time of year. Exams are upon us :(

The past few weeks have seen me permanently stationed at the dining room table in our apartment, surrounded by paper, pens, empty water bottles, packets of crisps and textbooks of varying thickness. Sound familiar?

And as of this afternoon, I am two exams (the two worst ones, as well) down; three to go. They went okay I suppose, or as well as they could have gone. I'm just counting down the hours until the revision and the exams end for another year (it is very hard to revise for exams when you know that all the facts are working against you. Queen Mary is requiring a higher pass standard of us than Assas requires of its students who are actually french, despite several unhappy emails I have sent in their direction to see if this is something that could be changed. They've not been the most supportive this year, and it is very disenheartening to know you're being set up to lose.)

Of course, there's been the odd hours of procrastination, and the like, which to be perfectly honest, is the only reason that this particular blog post exists. I'm sure none of you care about my exams, but writing this post gets me another ten minutes out of trawling through the delights of french communications law. Joy. 

On top of which, I'm exhausted, and my lips hurt due to my unfortunate habit of chewing on them when stressed. Honestly, you'd think I'd be used to it all by now - exams have been part of my life since I moved into the upper school and started my GCSE's when I was 14 (and I'm 21 now!), but I have to admit that the usual exam stress has hit me harder than usual this year, both now and back in January. I think it is probably because with the language difference, everything is taking twice as long to sink in, and I've been worrying that I'll run out of revision time and fail everything. Call me overdramatic, but there we go. I've always been a touch that way about exams.

And in any case, a year abroad can't be all fun and games, I suppose.

Having said that, I must immediately contradict myself (yay!). Today is exactly one month until my Parisian adventure comes to an end, and I've absolutely crammed my last few weeks here with things to do. I'm going to be all over the place. After all, it's my very last chance to get everything done that I want to do, and so I'm going to be busy, busy, busy. It all starts this Sunday - I'm taking a day out of my revision schedule so that Parisa and I can go to Roland Garros, which is exciting! :)

Expect lots and lots of blogging!

Vicky xx

Deux mois d'Erasmus - La réalité

I've now been in Paris for just over two months, which I honestly cannot believe. My time here is going so fast, it's unreal, and I'm pleased to say that I've managed to fit a fair amount in in that time.

Before you go on a year abroad, it's usual to talk to the people who've done it before, and they gush about how wonderful a year they had and how they wish they could do it again. Or, as in my case, they tell you that it's unbelievably hard work and that they didn't have a lot of time for fun, which was not very reassuring, I can tell you. 

So at the two month mark, what's the truth?

Life wise, I'm quite happy. Paris is a great, if very expensive, city to live in. It's almost impossible to get bored - the Louvre itself merits at least three visits to be considered 'done' properly, and that's not even scratching the surface, not even a little bit. [I'll admit, though, that I still prefer London and I can't wait to get back to the Big Smoke next September]

I've met loads of new people, even if they are practically all English and none of them French, I get to scoff freshly baked croissants and baguettes as often as I please and being in a major transport hub, I've practically got the whole of Europe on my doorstep.

So far, so gushy.

Unfortunately, the people in the year above me at Queen Mary weren't exaggerating. 

I would never go so far as to say that in England, we're spoon fed, because that wouldn't be fair. We still have to do all our own reading and research etc. But I feel a whole lot more supported there than I do here. 

To some degree, that's an element of feeling thrown in the deep end. The tutorials are supposed to provide some of that support, but I'm having trouble getting much out of them because the speed at which people speak is sill a huge issue for me, and they also count towards my final grade, unlike in London, which adds quite a lot of pressure to a session in which i'm supposed to become less stressed and confused rather than the other way around! For instance, in my obligations tutorial this week we are going to be subjected to an 'interrogation' which I can only pray won't be as ominous as it sounds!

In any case, the tutorials are only available in 2 of my 5 subjects. The other 3 are lectures only, which means there is next to no additional support if you don't understand something. Lecturers here come in, speak, put down their microphone and leave. The door is banging behind them before you've got time to register that the lecture is over, let alone anything else. Questions just don't get asked.

And my nice, English education just hasn't prepared me for the strict formula that essays have to follow here, or any of the strange nuances of the French system. For example, at home, we structure our essays, obviously, but we basically do that however we want. 'Creativity' is in the mark scheme. Not so here. Here, everyone follows the same, strict structure, no deviations, no creativity. Your opinion is irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the law, and that's something I just can't seem to wrap my head around. The other issue, of course, is that I'm used to a common law system, not a civil law system. 

So whilst life is quite fun and wonderful, study is, quite frankly, the bane of my life at the moment, although I suppose the upside to that should hopefully be that my final year will look like a piece of cake in comparison.

That's not to put anyone off of doing a year abroad, not all all. Instead, it's something to be aware of so you don't get caught out and feel as stressed as I do right now. For instance, I can't stress enough how important it is for your listening skills to be up to scratch. The lectures are the one place at the moment I feel somewhat productive. 

Tonight, I've been venting over FaceTime to my Mum, Dad and Brother, who have all been appropriately sympathetic and helpful, and this post is much more positive now than it would have been if I had written it three hours ago! I know I'll get there. Everyone always says that the first three months are the hardest, and the first three months have been hard, it's true, but I wouldn't change my decision to come to Paris. I do wish I'd been a bit more prepared, but that's water under the bridge now. I can only go up from here!

I've been staying in a fair amount lately trying to stay on top of my rapidly snowballing workload, and I haven't managed to cross much more off of my things to do list [which I've updated and will be re-posting about very soon] but I'm going to make sure I get out and about this weekend. I'm sure I'll focus better if I manage to switch off for a few hours!

So until next time, when I'll hopefully be feeling significantly more positive than I do tonight [hey, a depressing post or two was sure to pop up eventually] - 

Vicky xx

Bonjour, Paris!

Today is my third day here in Paris so far, and my first (full) day in our lovely apartment in Paris' 13 arrondissement. 

My year abroad has officially begun!

Saturday and Sunday morning were, once me and my mum had dragged two exceedingly heavy suitcases + equally heavy hand luggage the 3km or so to our hotel, pretty good. We explored the area a little bit, visiting the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Élysées, and I found something dead cool really close to our flat...

Still, beautiful sights and interesting discoveries aside, it was really until this morning that it kind of sunk in that this isn't just a city break of whatever, this is my life now! 

And so far, I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed. Today, for instance, a man came to our flat to do the inventory, and the landlord came over to organise a few things, like the wifi - and my French proved to be rather lacking. To my shame, my flatmate had to do most (if not all) of the talking.

It worries me, seeing as I am going to be very reliant on said language over the next ten months or so. But... having said that, I still have three weeks before the induction programme at my Uni starts, which is three weeks to immerse myself and practice, practice, practice! 

And actually, when I think about it, I'm not so sure my problem is my French, but more my confidence in my French. In either case, both my language ability and my confidence in it are things I am planning to build upon considerably before my official return to the UK next summer. 

Tomorrow, I will be attempting to set up a French bank account, and I also need to go and get a pay as you go SIM card. I'm also hoping to stop by Notre Dame, which I have never seen before and can not wait to lay my eyes on. 

Now that I'm here, I'm obviously going to be getting up to a lot of stuff and that means more blogging! I'm hoping to update at least fortnightly from now on, and if will be more if I have enough to witter about, now that I'm a bona fide year abroader!

Last, I'd like to mention that my blog has been featured on Top of the Blogs 2013-14 on www.thirdyearabroad.com which is fab! If anyone is reading this and hasn't yet been on that website, I strongly recommend hopping over there right about now. It's got a ton of useful information as other bits and pieces on it.

On which note, I'll sign off for now. 

À bientôt!

Vicky xx