Menu:

 
“I don’t mind it once they’re dead – it’s just the dying that’s a drag”. 


I slosh a glug of vinegar into a bucket crammed with steak knifes and soup spoons, top it up with hot water from the coffee machine and haul it into the cutlery cupboard. The steam puckers my fingers. I tease out a handful of spoons and begin to polish them as a couple of diners enter the restaurant and sit down at a table just within audible range of my station. 


HE: “I know love. The prolonged pain, and all that. It can’t be a pleasant way to go.”

SHE: “No, no, it’s not that. It just takes so long. Pain aside, you have to play the waiting game. Even if you were sure that they had eaten the poison, you wouldn’t know if they were truly dead. Then you’d have to find them after they’d died. And they’re never easy to find, you know. You have to wait for the smell. It isn’t practical” 


She takes a slice of bread from the basket and draws the butter dish towards herself. A dull clunk resounds as knife meets butter, testimony to the fact that it had only been removed from the deep freezer half an hour ago.  Upon attempting to spread butter chunks, the bread tears and crumbles. Instead, she slices the butter as one would a block of cheese and makes a sandwich. 


SHE: “Besides, it’s messy.  Remember when Sid used warfarin on the beast that ate his neighbour’s kittens? The fat brute slunk away to the warmest place he could find to die. They found the decomposing carcass fused to the hot water pipes in the attic a fortnight later. Can you even BEGIN to IMAGINE the STENCH?”  


The man shifts in his chair, picks up his fork and studies the prongs.  


SHE: “It smelt like sewage apparently. Putrid, fermenting carrion. Half-cooked, you know? They had to scrape it off the pipes with a…”

HE: “Yes, yes, dear. Very nice. But it just doesn’t seem – ethical. Having your insides corroded away like that. It’s not nice. I wouldn’t fancy being poisoned.”

SHE: “Nobody is going to poison YOU, silly! It’s rats we’re talking about.”

HE: “Yes, but still.”

SHE: “You know, Diane went into the pantry on Christmas morning to find her marinated ham mauled to shreds. The blighter had munched right through the cling film. Looked like a prehistoric carnivore had been at it. That’s not right. Are you telling me that’s right?”

HE: “No, no, of course not dear, but the difference is that ours aren’t domesticated. They seem quite happy in the compost heap. Plenty of food, adequate shelter – what more could they possibly need? Our house must hold very little appeal for them.”

SHE: Absently. “And then there are traps, I suppose. A bit of gorgonzola, and CRUNCH! Bob’s your uncle. Saying that, you can never be too sure. They might get sneaky, and figure out a way to swipe the cheese with their spines intact and their skulls in one piece. Always best to be thorough, don’t you think?”

HE: Puts down fork. “Jenny. I refuse to poison the rats.”

SHE: Blinks.“Oh, there will be no need for poison, dear”.

HE: Exhales, relieved. “Brilliant. You know, we can always move them elsewhere if it would make you feel better? Besides, the female looks heavy – I think there might be a litter on the way.”

SHE: “She had them already.”

HE: “Really? That’s wonderful! How many?” 


She softens a piece of butter on the side of her plate and spreads it onto a crust. 


SHE: “Five.”

HE: “Ah, see! Now we shall have a proper mischief of rats – for that is the appropriate collective term, dear, a ‘mischief’. Five adorable babies! Lovely! And to think you were considering POISON only a second ago…”

SHE: “I told you – poison won’t be necessary”. 


He fidgets with a corner of his napkin. 


HE: “Really?”

SHE: “Yes.”

HE: “Not necessary?”

SHE: “Nope. I used your spade.” 
 
 


“The kidneys, ma’am?”

“Ah, yes – for my husband. Mine was the basil and aubergine terrine.

Thank you so much.” 
 
 
2 a.m. and I’m suddenly awake, clammy and feverish.  My head floats around the room in exploration as my fingers creep along the flock yellow wallpaper, one foot steps onto cold tiles and the other tentatively follows.  Leaning slightly to the right I step towards the window; something silvery seems to be swinging, making whooshing noises.  As get closer, I can see that the swinging thing is part of a much bigger shape, flat and opaque, that seems to radiate a kind of heaviness, yet at the same time a sweet softness.  My face goes into the night, towards this mysterious being.  And I realise, is it?...no it can’t be... 


So there I was face to face with a mountain cow, about to perform what can only be defined as an act of desecration.  Staring into the cow’s deep eyes, I had a horrible vision of myself in 20 years time, bovine and ignorant as any last traces of life were removed by my bowels. The first day of my year abroad and I’m already hallucinating.  


A few hours later, the cow had gone but not without leaving me a fragrant little present.  I couldn’t remember if animal merde was a good omen or not but I went to meet my mentor, who I secretly hoped to be Mr Myagi, and take a tour round the Lycée where I would soon be teaching.  LPO Victor Duruy turned out to be a palatial 17th century building with its own courtyard preserved, like the rest of the town, in a pre-Revolutionary jar labelled Golden Age.  I felt as if I were walking towards a guillotine except that my executioner was a non-Japanese woman of extreme generosity and understanding.  Immediately I appreciated the pat outside my window, the teachers seemed interested in whom I was and the students didn’t carry knives.  The muscles in my chest loosened slightly as I realised I wasn’t about to be in a French remake of kidulthood and so far, so true.  


That night, to prevent more near-misses of hallucinations my mentor took me to a rock-electro concert in a nearby village which had its own Salle de Fête, despite having a population of less than 300 people. These party halls are compulsory in every village in France along with a Boulangerie so that people can get pissed and do what they will with a baguette.  My mentor knew the organisers so I became a helper, supposedly manning the projector but actually drinking free beer and inadvertently smoking with the other volunteers.  Back in my room I couldn’t find the cow but the unsurprising loss of inhibitions saw me introduce myself to the other boarders of the Lycee (all-male and all-hormonal-adolescent) as sugar mama/English assistant. Another night of dodgy behaviour and I just couldn’t help myself.  


A day of recovery and teaching began in 30 degree heat trapped in the valley by the strangely luminous mountains.  The kids could tell I was nervous, and my perspiration was off-putting.  A big part of me wanted to run away but I remembered the cow and started to laugh which at least got the attention of the class.  Articulate and ‘Pob’ Quiz were the most successful activities and saying that I go to Uni with Prince William made me appear sort of interesting.  An American assistant later told me that Uni means either hermaphrodite or something that resulted in a gesture towards his genitals, which may explain the looks of curiosity from the students. 


A week later and I seem to have settled into my role as perhaps not-so-cool student teacher.  Socially however, I’m lost.  I’m smoking an inordinate amount and the days continue in a haze of petit café, staring, harassing and introducing, Le Monde, Asterix and margaret de canard, drunken old men, chestnut yoghurt, other assistants and many teenagers.  Friendships formed are in that weird beginning phase between reserve and assertion, the evenings are lonely and I’ve yet to believe that I’m really here, in this town that is so incredibly French.  Each time I venture into town I pass the Pharmacy which has flashing lights like a brothel, and inside the man who sells cheese in his giant beret buying Minceur to keep his weight in check.  On the corner, the accordion player with one arm.  The whole town taking a break.  I’m a cultural pariah. I find everything around me ridiculous, I find myself teaching 20 adolescents ridiculous.  And I’m scared because this year has to be the best of my short life.  And I’m even more scared because I know that it probably will be.  


Spending so much time on my own I’ve had lots of time to talk to myself about the pressure that 21st students put themselves under; achieving the best marks, making the most friends, being the best looking, being the most liberal and witty, reading the most obscure materials.  There is a palpable sense that we are all running out of time.  Before I’ve even really begun this year I’m trying to squeeze it into the category of ‘positive experience’.  My first French lesson for you is this: chill out.  The pace of life here shuffles along stopping to air kiss the world of work; yet everything functions.  Cynicism and paranoia are scarce, rather than rife, and age is really neither here nor there.   Buddha knew it, Frankie goes to Hollywood knew it and now we all know it too.    
 
 
A dancing bear may be entertaining, but that doesn’t make it ethically sound.    

      Once upon a time there lived a girl who wasn’t particularly bright or beautiful, her hair was an uninteresting shade of brown and she had well-used love handles where a chastity belt should have been.  She lived in a kingdom a sleeve’s length away with only a pair of wizards named Daft Punk for company and longed for an above-average looking Knight-type to take her away, or at least to a bar.  At some point in this story (as and when the narrative required a change of pace and a reinforcement of the patriarchal subtext), she did meet her prince(s) when, being a woman and therefore generally incapable, she got lost in the enchanted forest of bizarre social excursions. 

      Quite obviously I am the slightly plump, desperate heroine of this tale supposedly rooted in reality.  Things are strolling along as uncannily as usual. The past two weeks I have been out every night; a true rarity in the life of a pariah and, in an even rarer rarity, obliged myself to capture it all in a journal sticky with gin.  


Saturday – Gascon Ball

      A peculiar event, which reached its peak when a man who looked the spitting image of Obelix asked me to dance.  As we hopped and jigged about I wondered if I’d fallen into a cartoon (like in the Page Turner?) and hoped I didn’t have to go through that terrifying Jekyll and Hyde scene.  The ball took place in a tiny village wedged on the side of a mountain but attended by all the villages around. It began with Ricard and a sit down meal of broth and duck legs, and finished with traditional Occitan dancing which was a bit like Ceilidh dancing but even more strenuous.  When the band came on playing instruments I’d never seen before, and the Occitan choir began singing in a language I couldn’t understand, I had a French epiphany; a moment which became unique as I realised I would never see anything like this anywhere else in the world.  This was the South of France corked and bottled and I was drinking it.  


Sunday – Moving Night

      A day of nursing my rather severe guele de bois was followed by numerous back and forth journeys to move from my room in the school in Bagneres to a new apartment in the city-esque Tarbes.  The process to make it look as bohemian as possible began well with all my affairs being thrown on the floor.  At midnight my flatmate and I sat in our new kitchen listening to nostalgie slowly getting drunk (again) and smoking (still).  


Monday – Le rock

      Not wishing to encourage the implication that I don’t do any work, a quick digression; the reason why I’m actually here, is going surprisingly well.  A cross between Mr Schneebly and Cilla Black, the students were very nearly almost enthralled by a lesson on English chat-up lines and any text pinched from the ridiculous Pick Me Up or its imperative equivalent Take A Break seem to generate laughter.  Anyhow, I wouldn’t allow an 8 o’ clock start to put me off a rock concert.  The headliners were an English band, who I’d never heard of (The Bishops?) but whom the French audience seemed to adore.  They had perfected the Beatles’ influenced hoppy, poppy melody and sported the inevitable tattooed-on jeans and checked shirts; a trend which is currently in its beginning stages, much like the spreading of Swine flu from England to France.   


Tuesday- Salsa Night

      Hilarious.  That is all.  


Wednesday – Boîte

      My detestable English cynicism has made me question what I hope to be the general friendliness of the French.  The landlady’s son, who was supposed to come for private tuition, invited me out instead.  He and a friend picked me up, there was alcohol, handing out my number willy-nilly and me telling a very nice man that he can’t come over: ‘I’m not that kind of girl’ to which he replied ‘What are you talking about?’.   


Thursday- More Boîte

      After a severe case of over-the-phone incomprehension, pre-drinking with my newly made friends took place chez moi and a nice man, strangely undeterred by my filthy mind, came too.  I tried to be as entertaining as I possibly could but it mattered not as everyone was fairly inebriated on arrival.  Eventually I found myself in what was possibly a shed, with a very good sound-system.  Nice man no longer speaks to me.  


Friday- Rotary Club commits mass murder of foreigners

      The local rotary club had organised an Assistants get together at a military base and whilst somewhat suspicious of being court-marshalled by surprise, my flatmate and I decided to attend in the vain hope of making international friends and thereby generating several excuses to visit places.   It was, as per, a bizarre collection of people attempting to out-fluent each other in French however it was limited by social propriety, otherwise my knowledge of swear words would have rendered me victorious.   Halfway through the evening I had a munificent helping of tart which left me bloated and panting in the corner like Mohamed Ali and meant leaving early to go and lie down.  Any potential acquaintances were most likely repelled, though I don’t like to tempt fate...

And so our heroine’s quest to live happily ever, if not after, continues.  The adage ‘Beggars cannot be choosers’ springs to mind and leads us, limping along like Tiny Tim, to the second French lesson: always say yes (unless the danger is palpable).  Relinquishing discerning power is incredibly liberating; don’t question what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, just do it.  A week of this attitude and I have managed to meet a cartoon character, Spanish homo-hetero hybrids, shed-people and wannabe members of the NRA.  Whatever happens, it will make for a good story. 
 
 
  Just now, I missed the bus. Panting after it like a bitch in heat, I was not only rejected sexually but also kinetically. Re-incarcerated at my room in the school, having moved all of my clothes, toiletries and tools of entertainment to my lovely, warm and fully furnished apartment forty minutes away, I am thinking of hacking off my head and enduring the punishment.  Quelle horreur.       The sting of decapitation does nothing to soothe being away from a home away from another home.  Obviously my powers of perception are somewhat limited, but gazing at my reflection in the cultural looking glass, I realise that the shape is only half formed, something is missing and I am inadequate.  During the turbulent years of adolescence, when hormones fly about like a flock of birds dodging a propeller, the deficiency could generally be attributed to youth and young womanhood, yet now I’m supposed to have achieved my final form (no more growing taller, break outs or lopsided breasts) it feels a little anticlimactic.  While I’ll admit that living a life of minimal work and maximal play is satisfying, it’s true that my life hasn’t quite fallen into the Coca Cola tick box of job, hobbies and a love life.  For the first two I’m half-arsedly sorted, with regards to love, my arse is way over the other side of la manche, hiding in a cupboard no doubt. 

      France is a nation obsessed with sex.  Like a slippery slope, getting up in the morning will inevitably lead to copulation at some point and some location in the day.  A foot-note on the Mayan calendar points out that every French person has sex daily. The language breathes sex; bonjourrrrrr, oooh, baguettteee and so on...and most love paraphernalia seems to have French origins: kissing and of course, the fry (if your dating experience has been anything like mine).   It is customary for a man to have a wife and a mistress, otherwise he is perceived as lacking in virility, and it is perfectly legal for a TV schedule to be adorned with pouting women missing their tops.   Why is it, then, that nobody is tripping over my bedpost for un peu de temps privé?  More importantly, why does that bother me?  As an anti-male, Gilbert and Gubar reading, fire-throwing feminist I should be rejoicing in the stubborn fact of my loneliness.  Part of me, generally the part attached to my neck, believes love should be an additional luxury, like a second home in Tuscany, and that contentment only comes from oneself, not from someone with a hairy back.  Nonetheless, my heart, cold and shrivelled as it is, seems to be reaching out to stroke said hairy back. Perhaps I should buy some Rennie.  

      The obvious problem of love is its un-definability.  The adjective smug is never more apt than when applied to somebody who claims to have already ‘been in love’ and can be expected to wax lyrical on not knowing, suddenly realising and the subsequent loss of appetite, blooming joy and pain bent-double.  Innumerable times I’ve been told I’ll fall in love with a Frenchman on my year abroad, thus proving that there is a country-wide conspiracy formed against me.  Anytime I open a window there’s a couple embracing in front of it, if I turn on the radio it’s a power ballad lamenting a lost love, watching television: José has just been found in bed with Pepito, to the open-mouthed shock of his wife Raquel.  Is there something wrong with me?  Aside from the halitosis, I can’t think what has prevented me from falling head over heels, arms over legs, face over bum in love. 

      Perhaps because I’m living my life moment to moment, and months don’t pass in 90 minutes of foppery, Hugh Grant and Ronan Keating, the waiting feels more torturous (on a bad day).  At least I’m not stuck inside the house of a distant relation staring out the window whilst screaming inside for a man to come and ravage me, isn’t that right Jane? Cultural conditioning has burrowed a little den in the back of my intellect and imposed the niggling feeling that I do need a man, and I’m therefore indebted and in turn inferior.  This would however imply that love itself is a cultural/social concept rather than an abstract one.  The smug faced knowing ones are plagiarising every entertainment broadcast since the beginning of amusement; love is what we are told it is by the ever eponymous ‘man’.   The ideal partner is universally replicated in the media; a plastic, perfectly formed sheen on a walking corpse, and attraction is driven by these ideal principles.  

      But this is all rather depressing and skeptical. Love is merely a madness.  Conditioned or not it’s certainly very unique.  Different cultural perceptions of love prove that it has no pure state, the French slippery slope and the British reinforced barbed wall (stereotypes of course, but true ones) make me think of the story of the owl and the pussycat, possibly a bizarre condoning of bestiality or a metaphor for the seemingly incongruous quality of love that sees people completely disregard social convention and etiquette.  And so onto lesson number three ( and I hope you’re taking notes): stop looking, stop waiting, stop sighing over an entire chocolate caterpillar cake, and let love come to you.  Even if you repel it, like I do, there are always stray cats and Diagnosis Murder to keep you company.  Alternatively, come to France with a sledge and a pet owl, at least that way somebody will get some action. 
 
 
 
 
Case Study; the bicycle of revelations... 
    
The opportunity to impulse buy in St Andrews is generally (and thankfully) limited; unfortunately it’s not impossible.  My latest impulse buy? A bicycle.  I told myself I needed one, and I did, but there are problems with the bike, my bank balance and the implications.  However, there are several upsides.  Unexpected purchases have led to unexpected revelations about the Bubble, the precariousness of my bank balance and life in general.  The question is, was it worth it?

      Things are never as they seem; initial cost, plus helmet (yet to buy ... dilemma of helmet hair versus concussion) plus lights, locks and general shiny things so motorists can avoid (or target) me.  I feel, though, that this is a somewhat symbolic embodiment of pretty much all of my decisions so far this semester; a series of unfortunate decisions based on lack of thought / knowledge about what I was getting myself into.

      St. Andrews one way system makes absolutely no sense; buying a bicycle not only goes against my cash flow, it also brings me into conflict with traffic flow around town.  This is an unexpected and very unwelcome discovery.  I get the impression that the police force in St. Andrews really doesn’t have anything better to do (unless it’s Raisin Weekend) than a) tag bikes that are left in one place for too long and b) catch cyclists breaking the law.  All routes/shortcuts/timings are therefore currently being reconsidered. 

      Being the proud owner of a not-so-shiny-and-new bicycle has added several new layers of complication to getting around, including, but not limited to: how do I get to X making the least number of left turns possible?

      There is also the additional and unforeseen problem of parking.  And then remembering where exactly I put it.  Unlike a car I can’t walk around clicking my key fob till I see the headlights flashing ... and I can’t for the life of me remember what the thing actually looks like in detail (am considering taking a photo of it just in case ...)

      On the plus side this particular impulse purchase has solved the problem of moving faster than walking pace whilst still sitting down (absolute genius!) and going downhill has never been so fun...

      So, several revelations about me, the bubble and life in general later, I have to say that the bicycle is in the end only a means to an end.  Conclusion ... living impulsively is the only way to live, and at the end of the day if your semester is going rapidly downhill, you might as well have fun... 
 
 
Relationships in St Andrews can be very peculiar. One of the stats about the University is that 50% of grads marry other grads. I remember my first introduction to the University as they sat us all in Younger Hall, the speaker told us to look to the left and the right. One of these two people was going to marry another student from St. Andrews. Now that can’t be entirely normal. I understand it’s a small University and you spend four years with these people, but half its students marrying each other? It all sounds a bit incestuous. 


      All of my friends are coupled off, four of which happened in first year and three of those were within the first two months and two were in fresher’s week. We’re pretty much all still together with very little indication of it ending in the next year. Two of the couples have already lived together and another planning to move in together. Relationships in St. Andrews move at an odd rate. They tend to speed through all the normal getting to know one another phases, the quick break ups, the short relationships and move straight into long-term monogamy. That’s my experience anyway. None of my friends have dated anyone for less than six months since they’ve arrived. In fact, we’ve all seemed to pick one person fairly sharpish and settled down with them immediately. We go on holidays together, some of us spend our summers together (despite being from different countries), live together during the school year. Parents have even met!


      But odd as the relationships are, the singletons are just as bizarre. Despite this being a very small town with plenty of opportunities to bump into failed relationships and one- night stands, it really doesn’t stop people from living it up, big style. A few of my acquaintance-friends are single and I get to see and hear first-hand just what their relationships (and I use the term loosely) are like. Two or three just refuse to have any type of relationship other than friendship and will actively go out of their way to avoid being put in a position of romance with the opposite sex. On the other hand, there are those that reject relationships that are in any shape or form monogamous or long-lasting. 


      I have yet to meet anyone who has had a normal dating life. One with short and long relationships, who have dated a few people without diving in head-first with the first person they’re attracted to or without sleeping around. I’m not sure if this is all normal University behaviour or just peculiar to St. Andrews but I have a feeling it’s the latter, having not heard similar tales from friends in different Universities. But you have to wonder at the reason...is it proximity, size or just bubble-induced insanity?
 
 
Who believes in The One? The One person they’re meant to live the rest of their life with, the perfect complement. Not many people as it turns out. Even within couples, guys and girls don’t believe that The One exists. Is this just because they don’t feel that way about their significant other, or because the idea that for we each have only one person that we’re meant for is a bit silly? Are we lacking confidence in love and happiness or is reality just that different from the ideal?


      I have a friend who doesn’t believe in fate and thinks that’s a vital component of The One. While I do believe in fate, I don’t really think there’s one person I’m meant to be with. There are a variety of people with whom I get along and could have meaningful relationships with, all of whom would complement me in different ways and to different degrees. A person’s love life is made up of decisions, not a series of inevitable events. As the divorce rate increases, currently at 50%, it’s obvious that people can and do make the wrong decisions on their life partners. 


      One friend of mine heartily believes in The One and she believes she’s found him. They’ve almost been dating a year [just a few months short] and have been living together for about just as long. Knowing them, there is one thing you can’t deny, just how sure of each other they are. Looking at the two of them you do have to wonder if The One and ‘you’ll just know’ do exist. Maybe they’re one of the lucky ones, to have found just what they were looking for.


      Another friend also believes in the concept. In fact she believes in it so much she’s found him four different times in the last two years. Unfortunately, he’s turned out wrong each time, for a variety of reasons. The first one was too short, the next wasn’t posh enough, one didn’t want to commit and another had a girlfriend. She still soldiers on despite these setbacks and methinks there’s another on the horizon. For her, she has a mental list of necessary attributes for her special someone and every time a boy ticks the boxes, he’s declared The One, even before they’re in a relationship!


      Belief number four in the compilation of thoughts about The One is that whoever proposes first is The One. My friend is dying to get engaged, not really caring about who she ends up with. Her last boyfriend lasted four years in the hopes that he would pop the question despite her not really liking him. This has to be, by far, the silliest thing I’ve ever heard in the hunt for a partner. Settling is just not the answer.


      So while I’m not entirely sure I believe in The One or the concept of ‘you’ll just know’ [having only met one person to actually say this in relation to their significant other], it is a nice dream, but, it seems, only a dream, or that’s what I’ve found anyway! 
 
 
And if you can’t teach..., well, just become a language assistant because nobody seems to care what you do.  I think it was Cicero who said ‘What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the (wo)man who instructs the rising generation’, and whilst it’s true that I am being paid rather a hefty amount, I’m nowhere near to achieving the kind of Robin Williams veneration to which all teachers seem to aspire.  Teaching, much like parenting, fire-fighting and bare-knuckle boxing is a painful responsibility, requiring much effort and bearing little obvious reward, except perhaps a good pension.  


The moment I stepped into the heady hormonal world of French secondary school, I was sucked through a plane window, unwillingly plummeting back through time to my very own schooldays: the sweaty awkward gaits of stooping teenagers hiding a tight knot of sexual tension in their stomach; the endless fear of mockery; the general apathy and depression, the intense longing to be older. There I was, picking at the old scab of adolescent ignorance, beginning to realise that I hadn’t travelled so far from what was the best of times, and the worst  of times.  The distance between teacher and student is rendered nil by the fact that I, too, smoke, drink and often act like an idiot with the inevitable goal of horribly embarrassing myself.  I, too, wish furiously that I had a boyfriend, that I were cooler, thinner, and more talented.  I, too, want to bunk off work and loiter around a bench carved with craggy hearts and misspelt epithets (note to Craig: you was here, not woz).  The two year age gap between me and a very handsome student makes discussing the third conditional somewhat taxing, and the cavernous hole where teaching experience should be does nothing to facilitate lesson planning.  The roles have suddenly been reversed, and I find myself wildly gesturing where I’d gazed confusedly at other wild gesturers before, saying ‘sssh’, ‘silence’, and ‘taisiez-vous’ on a bad day.  


At school, I used to believe that teachers lived in the building, setting up camp under the desk and going to the toilet in the bin. If they did leave, it was to go and get some paper for the photocopier.  Teachers definitely didn’t have friends. All of my classmates meanwhile; I knew who they were and what kind of person, whether or not they’d be ready to mock me, or whether they were possible mockery recipients.  Now, I stand, in my dreams, naked in front of three rows of inquisition hoping to pass on the smallest morsel of knowledge, with my sleeping bad hidden in the cupboard.  I walk across the courtyard like a trespassing poacher, yet I’m wearing the uniform of a park ranger; I know I belong there with the students as I’m still learning, but I feel more at ease bitching about the government with the physics professor. I even partook in the national teacher’s strike, for personal rather than union reasons, against a whispered hint of reform from Paris. It’s as if I have to choose a side to belong to in what can only be described as guerrilla educational warfare, if that makes sense.  


When leaving school, many people, as the French say, ‘se cassent’ – which translates roughly as pissing off without looking back- but can you ever leave school?  As well-worn as it sounds, the world is a kind of school in itself and a person never really stops learning, and in this process continually looks to the future with hopes and wishes that change and grow with every experience.  As it is, and especially in the current social climate, we are all spotty, neurotic and generally uninformed adolescents; a depressing thought if ever I’ve had one, and I have had many.  


Perhaps, with a less emo spin, the never-ending educational path of life is what makes living so interesting. With each hour that I attempt to pass off as a lesson, my confidence builds, so that exaggerated acting to explain the impact of deforestation on the Amazonian environment comes as naturally as a hangover at St Andrews, and for the first time during my short journey on earth, I really, truly don’t care what people think.  The daily inquisition is less Spanish and more Tibetan and I have no problem writing the sort of ego-centric tat you are now reading.  


Culturally the French possess none of the self-deprecating modesty of the British and it’s possible that my new found obnoxiousness may be in part attributable to the innate self-possession of our suave, slightly swarthy looking neighbours. Being so prone to looking ahead, I wonder how much I will have changed on my return from this sabbatical of self-discovery.  Well actually, who really gives a merde. 


Imagine now some ridiculous gesticulating to accompany French lesson number four: be confident, to the point of arrogance if necessary.  Life becomes tremendously easy when you stop worrying about what other people think of you. Where you belong now, on which team, with which group of friends, with which gender, is utterly subject to change, especially with modern surgical advancements. It’s a clichéd philosophy because it works, and thus I declare outright that hedonism and egocentricity are two possible keys within a whole set, to modern happiness.  This being, there is no need to take in anything of what I have just spewed forth.  Where that leaves us I don’t know, and I guess I don’t really mind either.  

 
 
 
There is an idea that writing music reviews is easy, you simply sit in front of your laptop listening to great music and writing about how influential they have the potential to be. I wish it were that easy. Firstly you also have to wade, knee deep, through a slurry of terrible music before anyone gives you a chance to review something substantial. I think I was reasonably lucky in this respect, it only took me 5 reviews before I was given something that wasn’t terrible.  Secondly, if you’re writing for a magazine, there are deadlines and huge standards of writing that need to be met, it’s not writing for yourself, you’re aiming for popular appeal, what the majority of people will enjoy and writing what they want to read. It takes a long time and power before you can give an honest opinion and tell everyone the truth, that is in large what I’ve been trying to do with my Tribe reviews. Bands will be mentioned primarily on ability, occasionally on a quirk or unusual aspect of the band, and from time to time there will be a band so utterly horrific that it will be posted as a warning for all those contemplating buying it. This summer started with me writing for a small time website in the dead of night, after working all day in a Cambridge Laboratory buried deep underground. The research amounted to nothing publishable, but my music articles got me noticed by a magazine that asked me to review the Cambridge Folk Festival. Having missed my slot to interview The Zutons by 10 minutes and not discovering anything particularly great from the rest of the artist’s campsites, I ended up writing couple of mediocre reviews for some mediocre bands. Following the Folk Festival, I branched into Jazz and Blues, writing for a small jazz based website, then back to indie rock from almost 5 decades ago. By the end of the summer, I was writing for Shindig Magazine. All reviews come down to taste, and its true that you can’t please everyone, and you end up unintentionally making a lot of people annoyed. My taste is different from yours. There’s a good chance some of you wont like the music I recommend you. And there’s not much I can do about that... 
 
 
The term 'Arts' is somewhat a broad one, and can, in St. Andrews' academic world at least, mean anything that's not science...This strict distinction is something that has intrigued me since my very first semester at St. Andrews, back in Autumn 2006. As someone who is equally interested in both science and 'the arts', and decided at the last moment not to apply for Neuroscience, but for English, I can often not believe that people consider these subjects so incredibly separately. It also seems that all arts students, at some point in their lives, find themselves in the position whereby science-student friends are revered by non-student friends for being clever enough to pursue a science degree, where their exclamations of studying Philosophy, or English or Classics are met with 'oh...' or 'what are you going to do with that then?'. I can tell you, even if you don't feel envious of the reverence  with which your fellow students' professions of science are met, this can get tiring, especially when explaining for the 10,000th time that no, doing an English degree does not automatically mean you are going to be an English teacher. 

Similarly, arts students can often be accused of becoming 'snobby' about their subject matter, dismissing all other subjects as lacking in substance, or 'feeling', and are want to imagine themselves in tweed suits, drinking black, unsweetened coffee and smoking a pipe, all the while professing such amusing lines as 'oh... I only read the classics you know'. So, from an English student that in her spare time likes to read science fiction and – shock horror- can often be found reading a copy of 'The New Scientist', there needn't be such a void placed between the science and arts departments, and I think each can be considered as important to the world as the other- we can view science as a quest for knowledge of the world we live in, how it was created and how it continues, and we can see the arts as productions of the human mind in relation to this world that science allows us. Where science allows us to be alive, the arts allow us to live.  So then, readers, welcome to the arts section. We hope to keep you thinking, to keep you interested, and of course entertained. So sit back, relax and see what our contributors have to say.