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.

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.

La vie en Haute-Normandie

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

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 am rather patriotic about the Olympics.

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

Now there's a statement.

Facebook vs. Twitter

With a new design comes a new article, and one which will divide people, as I ask, "Which is really better: Facebook or Twitter?"

Driving

Finally settled back in Wolverhampton after a few days in my student house down in Exeter (where internet was only possible with my mother's dongle - don't laugh - so was therefore limited) and now I can update properly.


I considered bringing up this driving thing before I went down to the South West because of a few incidents when I was driving to my dance classes. But it was my motorway experience to and from Exeter that really concreted this topic in my mind. So here goes with a train of thought (except about cars) that may ring bells with some of you.

The north/south divide. A take from the middle.

Every Northerner knows that the Southerners have all the money, and Southerner knows that The North and its inhabitants are covered in coal and dirt for twenty-four hours of every day. Right?

And if you're from the South, you're obviously from London and the surrounding area, and if you're from the North, then there's only one accent you can possibly have, and that's "northern". Correct? 

Not only are you rich and a Londoner, but if you're southern, you're a snob, and the North... Well, what can I say? It's just grey and rainy up there.

When it comes to stereotypes, Every one of you northerners and southerners has it easy. And here's why...

"If you're not going at maximum speed, then you're not going at all."

As a result of the travelling I have undertaken around the United Kingdom and Spain in the past year or eighteen months, I have come to some conclusions about the manner in which people, in general, commute, particularly in London and other efficiently-run cities and countries.

I tend to travel with one, small, cabin-sized suitcase, and have developed a particular style in which to walk with it, especially when concerning tubes, Underground stations, escalators, travelators and, perhaps most frustratingly, other people. You see, there is a way in which one should conduct oneself when you have luggage, and it is a way that only a few people appear to have mastered.