'Tis the season!

And thus I will be spreading the happiness this time around! Do not expect the same soon, I have some serious real world issues floating around my head that I wish to discuss.

It's all fun and laughter until your heating and hot water vanish. Again.

With my missing iPod, regular lack of heat and hot water, and nigh-on two-week flu-type illness my mother is convinced I find everything simply awful here. Whilst I admit sleeping in hoodies and dressing gowns is not joyful, my mother's beliefs are not true. I just call her when I'm grumpy. So without further ado or further complaint, I move on to the marvellous aspects of my time here France...

What has happened to me?

This is a good question in multiple ways.

The first is because it has been so long since I updated this. Upon opening my blog control settings, or Blogger Dashboard, I saw that the last date was the 22nd of November and audibly said (yes, sitting in the flat alone) "Wow, has it been that long already?". I knew it had been a while...

Now I'm feeling a little calmer...

In my previous post I mentioned I would talk politics soon, but as that topic is still festering away in my mind I plan on saving that for a different time.

Instead, let me present to you some of the major challenges I have found myself encountering thus far. On the whole, the year abroad is great, absolutely. But, "C'est une expérience," I hear myself repeating to people here as I recount my woes. Are you sitting comfortably..? You won't be shortly.

Appreciation and anticipation

Either because you enjoy these posts, or because you haven't seen my constant plugging on various social media sites, you may have noted my absence of late. Two and a half weeks, in fact. I do apologise.

Picking up almost directly where I left off.

I did walk those three kilometres to school. I wish I'd taken the bus, or at least stuck to the route I'd got used to taking.

I'm still alive.

It's felt touch and go at times. No, I jest.

L'Anglaise. The English Girl. ("Imogen" is hard.)

When I get round to posting this, it will no longer be, but it is currently Tuesday 9^th October, and I am in the dressing gown that I scoffed at my mother for bringing to me, eating Lays Barbecue flavoured crisps. I am the epitome of sophisticated, I am sure you will agree.

Where to begin...

Well it's been a busy few days, that I cannot deny. Yesterday was the first day I haven't gone outside, and instead I filled it with paperwork that is so typical of France, I just can't explain it. If any other assistants here are reading this, I'm sure you feel my pain.

La vie en Haute-Normandie

Yesterday could so easily have gone terribly from the moment I got up.

"Ça va, mademoiselle...?"

I know I only updated yesterday afternoon, but even a few small tasks can provide enough entertainment for a blog post (or probably more).

Arriving in France

Journeying to France was not as easy as I thought it would be. There was me telling my mom I'd rather get trains than fly because it would be a simple trip...

On the eve of my departure...

I sit here listening to the most British music I own. It's not on purpose.

I promised this post a little while back.

Ed Balls talks a lot of...

Aha, I know what you were expecting.

Plagiarism.

I'm all for sharing somebody's work with all due recognition - up to a point when it's their livelihood - if you appreciate it and want others to see it, as long as you do not make a profit from it in any way. Please let me know if I have somewhere not done this, as I would deeply apologise and put it right.

However, as any student knows, plagiarism is bad.

I have only been on the receiving end of it once, and only in a slight way.

On one occasion, I happened upon a year abroad-related post which had been shared on Facebook by my own university's Modern Languages department. I had a spare minute and went to read it. Only, I thought, this introductory sentence is familiar... I think I've written this.

So I had a quick glance through my own work, published on this very site, and found two separate posts in which parts of two sentences had been spliced together to create one new long one on this other blog.

Firstly, see here: Saturday 31st December 2011: New Year's Resolutions "It’s been a long while since I found the time, energy or inspiration to write on this website,"

Next see here: Friday 11th May 2012: People and feelings and (a lack of) knowledge "I don't have many good excuses, it's just mainly been work, and reading, and family, and friends."

Finally, see here: 9th July 2012: Reflections on a year abroad... "First off, It’s been a long while since I’ve found the time, energy or inspiration to write on this blog. I don’t have many good excuses, it’s just mainly been work, and reading, and family, and friends."
Granted, the addition of "First off," is new. However, the next bits look like a direct copy-and-paste job with the author not even bothering to change the capitalisation of "It's". My "website" now reads "blog". I am not sure that it did the first time I saw this. The commas are all in the same place. Of course, this is only a small piece of plagiarism, and I know that once you put anything on the internet that is your own work, you run the risk of this happening, but I still don't have to like it.

I left a comment when I first saw this with something to the effect of "I noticed you liked my words enough to copy them, please don't do it again", and subsequently subscribed to the comments page to see if the author would reply. She never did. I forgot about it until tonight, when I searched for that successful subscription email in my inbox, followed the link and found my comment had mysteriously vanished.

As I say, this is very minor for me and I'll live, but it may not be for other, ripped-off authors, and it doesn't stop it from being a niggle. I write because I like to explore ideas with the power of my own words. You should write because you, as I, like your own words. Otherwise, why are you bothering?

Alright, what am I doing?

This is a massive question. And I'm not even talking in a philosophical, what-am-I-doing-with-my-life sense.

I am down to a single digit number of sleeps (eight) until I leave for France and although I have sent forms to a few places for other people to sort out for me I have yet to do almost anything productive towards properly preparing to move to a foreign country.

Wait, I lie. Today I bought a few necessary toiletries and cosmetics in the supermarket.

In which I go a bit peculiar, perhaps.

Everybody needs somebody, I believe I am sure of this.

I don't necessarily mean in a romantic sense, although perhaps it might be for some, but oftentimes for talking, unloading burdens, debating and discussing ideas, company, friendship... I could go on.

The greats rarely go it, or end up, alone. Holmes and Watson, Bonnie and Clyde, Shiver and Shake, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane, Rose, Romana, Amy, Donna... What is it that makes us such social creatures - even when we need some alone time, the majority of us will turn back to somebody in the end. For some of us it takes rather a while, I admit.

As with anything on this blog, I come from my own perspective. It's been a peculiar time as you may know. Earlier posts have pointed out some nostalgia which ebbs and flows; I have just realised more than ever that there is so much going on in a brain at any one time that no one can appreciate unless you take the time to look. That lack of understanding can be crucial. And that's what our social connections so often do. It's hard work but there's nothing better than finding a reliable and trustworthy outlet for things in your head, and there's no greater honour than being the one trusted, for thoughts, feelings and emotions are the most valuable, powerful things you can possess. It's even something more in my opinion to be one who offers to listen to someone else, to take that interest.

I should have studied Psychology.

In which I am rather patriotic about the Olympics.

We're a somewhat self-deprecating nation and London 2012 is over.

Now there's a statement.

In which I create a new theme.

In trying to establish how best to document my year abroad, I've clearly taken up this blog again, and a bit more regularly. But also I decided to make some videos from time to time. I'll be referring to the theme as "Confessions of a Year Abroader". I'm no professional, I don't aim to be (although please change the quality from lowest to highest - for some reason my camera decided to ignore HD-quality this time round) but sometimes it's easier to talk than to type. Today I have the first, although it isn't really year-abroad related, more just confession-y and a bit rambly. I think a lot, in case you hadn't already guessed.

In which I make a request.

I hope some of the friends I had in Sixth Form read this. This one is to you.

Apologies if this comes across at all sentimental. It's nearly three o'clock in the morning and my plan is to hit "publish" without re-reading it or I'll refuse to put it on the Internet at all.

So I came across my yearbook tonight. I say yearbook, I mean the notebook a certain person bought for me as I was too stubborn to buy the actual yearbook. Regardless, it's been a while since I actually read it and curiosity got the better of me.

It's been a confusing and downright mental couple of years over here, and the last couple of months have been particularly hard. I say that, but I don't really know if they've been worse than others - memory is a funny thing. But tonight when I read the words so many of you had thoughtfully and honestly put down on paper in your own handwriting about school, things we'd done together and your thoughts about me, I had a number of realisations, particularly about myself, that I couldn't really put into words if I tried. You seem to have seen things in me that I never fully appreciated. I wonder if any of you have that, where you suddenly know something but you cannot really explain quite what it is?

To those of you to whom I've barely spoken in the last two years, I don't think many of you would have recognised me if you'd seen me at university. I've not been the same person I once was at school and in Sixth Form. Although I half knew this myself, the words you wrote down in this book have really just kicked it into me, and I'm determined to be at least some of that person - hopefully the good bits! - that I once was. I'm not going to quote it or refer to specific things, I just want you to know that your eighteen- (or seventeen-) year-old selves have just helped out twenty-year-old me. So thank you.

And if any of you who wrote in that book are actually reading this, please contact me (if you feel you want to, of course). I mean this especially to those whose contact with me has been sporadic or nil. I want to know what's happening in your lives, I want to know how you are, what you've done and who's affected you in the last two years since I may have seen you. I've come to a point where I no longer care quite so much who thinks what about whom (and hasn't that been a long time coming) and I just want to know about you. I want to re-establish contact, and links. I know you can't go back to the way things used to be as so much is different now, although I'd love to just be a fly on the wall of the common room during our Sixth Form for a little while. But just because we left school, it doesn't mean we have to leave lives.

So here we go, I'm about to click that "publish" button... Five, four, three, two, on-

In which I have a positive frame of mind.

Sometimes, you get stuck in a rut.

Now I know that not everybody sees the world the way I do; but for all my faults I’m trying hard to see it as an opportunity. The world that is, not the rut.

In which all travel is finalised, and I chat about Cardiff.

Above lie two of the tickets which will seal my fate.

I jest. I'm looking forward to it now. Towards the end of the next five weeks, I'll post about why.

"Above lie the two tickets which will transport me across France," would be a better description. So that's it! This evening I bought my final train ticket from Paris Saint Lazare to Bréauté-Beuzeville for the sum total of €15 (you have no idea how long it took me to find that euro sign - just one of the ways in which I'll change during the next twelve months!).

However, now I've shared that, I am going to discuss something else.

A shout-out (If I were a poet, it would be "an ode")

To the best person in my life.

The one who I've been able to speak to about almost anything (because there are always some things I'll keep to myself), and the one who just hugs me when I feel low.

The most consistent, the most open, the most supportive and the most encouraging, even though she's busier than I can ever fully grasp.

I don't think - I know that if she had not been around these last two decades I would not be the person I am, and I would not still be standing. There, that's the answer to the question I've been asking myself today.

Thanks, Mom. For all my words, for all my writing, that's all I think I can say.

L'herbe est toujours plus verte...

Travel between countries on the mainland continent seems to be so much cheaper than from the United Kingdom. It's almost as if the rest of Europe has gone, "The UK? They don't really want to be in Europe so screw them, they can pay twice as much to get around here." I mean 180 euros from Paris to Moscow via Geneva? Really? I'd be mad not to take it.

Year Abroad: What scares me most.

I promised you fears, and as I'm feeling the fear right now, fears you'll get.

In the last couple of days I have filled in some of the many essential forms from both my university and British Council, bought travel insurance, a train to London and a Eurostar ticket from London to Paris. Everything is beginning to seem far too real and, with that, far too scary.

And today is the day this blog goes French.

Well, at least a little bit.

And I'll probably blog in English on the whole, so please don't fear. I'd frighten an awful lot of people away if I declared that this will be a French-only zone from now on.


But hopefully soon I can adjust my header, the flag will reattach itself to the White House and somehow I'll recognise France up there as well. At least the French flag isn't too hard to draw.


Why? Well if you weren't already aware then I suppose I'd better enlighten you...

The Potter Tour

Although I haven't shown a lot of the tour (footage was banned...), I made a short vlog about our trip out. If you're into Harry Potter at all, then you really should go and visit. The £28 entrance fee might seem steep but for what you're getting and seeing I don't think it's overpriced at all!

People and feelings and (a lack of) knowledge.

It has been a very long time since I've posted here and as was the case last time, the flag still doesn't want to sit on the White House. I don't have many good excuses, it's just mainly been work, and reading, and family, and friends.


Except over the last few days I was compelled to write. Since I've just taken my first exam of four, I think it's acceptable to have a bit of a, what I hope is well-written, rant.