c’est la folie

Last night I was convinced that the summer heat is turning people crazy. Otherwise my theory would probably be perfect except that the Parisian summer has been nothing but rain, wind and cold.

The night took off slowly so I spent the first moments drying glasses behind the bar. I commented something about the barman to which one of the “barflies” responded – “that was the nicest iamb I have heard for a long while”. Right, so now I am talking in poetic feet. Excellent.

Later one of the waitress stared at the flies we now have swarming around the place and pointed out that it is like we were living the ten Plagues of Egypt (Numbers 33: 4) – thought rather than frogs we first got mice. What next? All red wine turns into water?

Earlier I had a big group of 16 MBA students from New York. They professor recognised me – “you were here last year as well, weren’t you?” Well, in fact I was. “And you were waiting to hear from the school, whether you got into their Masters programme. And now?” Well, I have just finished my first year. “Good for you.”

Later, when all the customers had left we sat around the round table and drank some more red wine. One of my good friends was there, for the last time as her flight back home takes off today. It was the third farewell I had this week. And I am not good at good byes.

When I was biking home I was thinking about the one way ticket I had in my back – one way ticket to far far away.

I feel like something is coming to an end. But I have a feeling that the new chapter will be full of new adventures.

jury de terrain

Last night I could not sleep because I was stressing the jury de terrain I had today. This was a meeting with our professors where I had to present my masters thesis. I was supposed to explain what I am going to study, why and how. Still this morning I was panicking so much that I was actually shaking. My sister told me to relax and have some self confidence. I had none so she sent me some.

Now I am annoyed. I spent hours and hours being nervous for no reason. Firstly the professor was sure I am going to Guinea. Ok, fair enough, maybe for him all the countries in West Africa are the same, small little dots somewhere far far away but still. “And you will be staying in, in…in…in the capital?” In fact no, I will not be in FREETOWN, but in the country. I had already told him that I will be working in a project for refugee reintegration – “so this organisation provides tents and foods and stuff?” Reintegration, man. REINTEGRATION. I gave up. “So will you have internet there?”

He thinks, after seeing some of my essays and other work I have done, that I am perfectly capable of writing a good thesis on my own but that I should still keep them informed and send regular updates about my progress – so that they can help. Yeah, right.

After the meeting I fell into despair. But I was the only one. Somebody else fell even further: “So, in Ecuador you will stay in Lima the whole time?” That’s it. Right.

Then again, they do say that ignorance is bliss.

chicken

I don’t cook. Well in theory I know how to cook and I used to be reasonably good at it but for the past two years I haven’t really set my foot in the kitchen. I either tend to eat at work or at uni. And besides, a fried egg on a piece of rye bread or a can of tuna and a spoon is a perfect dinner for one.

Last autumn, after almost a decade of veggie food I started eating chicken again. So, when I saw 4big pieces of chicken (like with bones and skin and everything) for 2€ at the shop the other day I bought them as I knew I would be left on my own for a long weekend.

This afternoon, after having breakfast at 13h30 I attacked those birds. Surely it cannot be that difficult to cook chicken. I have seen it done and I have, since last year, cooked two breasts on the pan. I had a leftover Mexican dip in my fridge so I thought that it’ll serve as a good base for a spicy sauce. I also took the left over veggies from our staff dinner last night (I was being cunning there – should make it habit really) so that would make things easier. I cut all the yucky pieces of the chicken and started cooking.

After some frying, boiling and stewing I had three portions (sat, sun, mon) nicely done and ready. I put the first onto my plate and started eating. The sauce was not too bad but the chicken felt like rubber in my teeth. And it did not taste like much. I quickly ate all the white pieces off my plate and concentrated on enjoying the veggies.

And I have another two portions left and no other food until Tuesday.

WANTED: a house husband. ASAP.

feet...and a massage

I have a friend who has studies herbal/natural medicine and massage therapy and everything that goes with them. He has for long been telling me I should take better care of myself. He has also been, as long as I have known him, giving me mixtures for stress, for tired feet, for a gold – what ever has been in need of a little improvement. On Thursday he had had enough of my stiff and cracking back and gave me a massage. And another one yesterday.

The session of relaxation began with a 45min foot massage. It feels like heaven. After the first massage he asked me if I had lost someone close to me or gone through a painful break-up. Apparently there was a mark on my left foot indicating a loss of some sort.

He told me that feet tell a lot about a person. The high arch in mine says that I am a traveller; my feet are not fully on the ground. There is also something in my feet that indicates intelligence, especially artistic talent. This was interesting. I have a friend who is the opposite of me. Her feet are firmly on the ground and she is the last person to leave her home. And her feet don’t have an arch at all. Hmmm.

When you lie on your back and your feet stay firmly together you are not one who knows how to listen. But if the open fully, you are so open that you don’t really have much personality. I am somewhere in the middle.

The left foot is the present – the mother foot or female side of you. When you have problems, unsolved issues in your current life you have problems with your left foot. Bizarre. At the age of 14 I had to have an operation – left foot. A year ago, when I was training for yet another marathon I had fractures and what ever else – left foot.

When the pain is in the past they move to your right foot, but then they don’t necessarily cause big problems, just a small mark. Hmmm.

I strongly believe that the human body knows and understands. Often it is more intelligent than the mind. You can fool your head but you cannot fool your body. It knows. I also believe in the power of plants. Everybody knows that camomile calms you down and what about lemon ,garlic, verbena? It is not all a coincidence. And in your body everything is linked together.

Oh and before even touching my back my friend could tell me which muscles were at the worse state and that my stomach was upset. Funny as I had not mentioned the stabbing pain I had had for several days.

card

I am not the most pedantic person. I like to do things as well as possible but I don’t really have the patience for the final touch. I think it is quite typical that after I have been to my parents place and gone through a cooking spree my mum is still cleaning the mess six months after. Anyways, my friend is getting married today so I had to make a nice card. I had an idea so I went to the shop to get material. I stood in front of the colourful papers and wondered. Nothing pink. Definitely not. He is too rock for that. Blue? No. Red. Yes, definitely. But which one?

After carefully considering my options I phoned my sister. She didn’t pick up at first. So I phoned my mum. She agreed that red was good. Then my sister phoned me back – had thought about red as well. Excellent. I was still hesitating between two different shades but chose the one that was more special or at least less ordinary.

I had spent 35minutes in the shop.

But now the card is on its way to the wedding.

time to stop

I have been told I am a bit foolhardy. Apparently I am looking for trouble by going to Sierra Leone and by biking around Paris with my little yellow friend. Apparently there is no point in getting a bike license, nor in skydiving or running marathons with my knees. Nor should I be going home alone after dark in a big city. Whatever.

Today, I was biking to school, the usual way. Right after Notre Dame I saw a truck being surrounded by police, ambulance and more police. I couldn’t help my curiosity and as I passed the site I turned to look over my shoulder. Under the front wheels of the truck there was a motorbike. Under the motorbike there was the biker.

I gasped. Even with no medical training I could tell that the boy had very little chance of surviving. There was not much left of him.

I turned my head away and continued pedalling. I passed the big crossing at Saint Michel and went on. In the next street lights the light turned red as I got there. I stopped. I stopped for the first time ever. This time I was not in a rush.

But surely that could not happen to me.

holidays...finally

I am now officially on holiday. Or I am not really officially on holiday but I had my last exam this morning so in my books that means I am on holiday. I spent the whole of yesterday cramming like mad. I worked in the evening and when I came home a bit after midnight I had almost 50 emails in my inbox from people from my class. They had all reached the level of hysterics and panic and everything between and beyond. Excellent. I decided not to join the nocturnal revisers but instead set my alarm early so that could go through the last few things in the morning.

In the exam I got bored. I was so tired and the questions were just stupid. I leaned my head against my hand and continued scribbling. 12 pages later I decided that I had said all I wanted to say and besides the time was up.

We went out for lunch to a nice Lebanese restaurant but zombies keeping company to other zombies did not give the occasion a festive touch. It was time to come home and climb back into bed. We would try again later in the evening, with the help of few nice bottles of wine. Or then not. Will see.

It is sunny outside. I wonder if I could take my nap on my balcony. I have no school. I am on holiday. I don’t have to study. This is so cool. Amazing.

My phone rang. It was my brother. He was booking my classes for my bike license – my summer project. I will give myself 2days before opening those books. I think I am a professional student.

I think I will go to bed.

exams

The last two days, well yesterday and today have been the evilness of evil. Last night, after my exam I came to revise for the one I had this morning. Still at midnight my friend was online trying to explain to me the most important theories. Eventually he gave up and told me to go to bed. I got up early early early to continue – and he was online again.

At the beginning of high school I decided that no school work will be done after ten o’clock. This worked fine until this year – what went wrong.

I got the question paper and wanted to cry. I started my first answer by saying that I do not have the vocabulary to answer to write this in French so I will do it English. And I did, hoping that the professor will not be annoyed by it. As soon as I got out of the exam I started cramming for the next. 3hours later I was back in the examination room. The first question went fine but then the second – a total black out. I could not remember a single thing. Absolutely nothing. Excellent. I sat there and tried to scribble down something, with very little success. Just perfect.

When I finally left the room the only thing I wanted to do was to come home and go to bed. I got home and had 20emails waiting to be replied to. Excellent. No sleep.

I think I better leave before I am late for work.

I am tired.

how clever...

I am going through the last bit of exams and my stress levels are skyrocketing. In general these kind of high panic levels lead to the state where I am incapable of doing anything that could possibly be considered productive. (and no, updating my blog is NOT considered productive nor useful)

I obviously have not yet finished my revision. In fact this morning a friend of mine came over to mine to teach me a course for which we have an exam on Friday. I have no clue about what was going on in this course. And as it is highly philosophical at parts I doubt that my understanding will experience any improvements before the date of the exam.

My logical solution was to go for a run. I have another friend who is going to do all the same exams this week and who is training for a triathlon so I asked him to join me. What a cunning plan this was. For the first half of our run he explained to me what kind of effect Napoleonic wars had on international trade and why this was important for me to understand. During the second half I tried to summarise what was going on in law and economics (this is the highly philosophical course) but noticed very soon that my friend, who has not yet started his revision for that particular subject, knew much more about the topic. So I gave the parole to him.

This is what I call efficiency!

tinkle

I got bitten by a travel bug again. Or I should rather say that my temporary need for calmness, homeliness and stability has gone to wherever it came from.

On Saturday I was told I have to go to Australia (my friend is soon leaving to go back home and taking her French boyfriend with her). Earlier I was asked to visit some friends in the States and other one in Singapore and then apparently I must must must go here and there and everywhere. Yesterday I figured that I have only been to 13% of all countries in the world (a bit more after this summer – 17%) which is not THAT much for someone who has lived for almost one quarter of a century.

I know that doing a world tour is a bit of a cliché but I have, seriously, given it some thought. After having finished my masters I could just go away for a year. Travel, work, visit friends, see the world. It is not like I have anything else planned out yet. I don’t know where I want to work or what I want to do really. Sure, my internship this summer/next autumn will give me some direction but it will not tell me where is “home”.

During my 2h run (I didn’t remember how LONG two hours can be) I gave this tinkle some serious thought. One of the first things that came to my mind was the question – “what will I do with all my stuff?” Oh, this annoyed me so much. Seriously, when have I become one of those people who let their possessions dictate their life? And also, when did I manage to collect so much stuff that it could actually serve as a barrier? I decided that I hadn’t. I am sure I can sell most of it and the rest will fit into someone’s basement or some random rented cupboard somewhere.

I am not really making the most of it. I spend my time shuttling between work, school and home – not really an eye opening experience is it? I really have nothing holding me back –no obligations, nobody staying behind, so why not? Really, why not?

drinks and balconies

So last night I had a random group of people coming over to mine for some drinks. The idea was to start here and then head out but we never really made it out. It might have something to do with the fact that I live on the 6^th floor and after the climb nobody wanted to move again, who knows.

Apparently I am the luckiest person in Paris with my two little balconies – they make my place perfect for chilling and enjoying life. Ok, cool. I think it was more that bottle of pommeau I had left from my trip to Normandy. Anyways, I ended up having a long conversation with a friend of a friend of a friend on one of them (balconies that is). Right before they had to leave he asked for my phone number so that we can go and see Harry Potter or Spiderman 3.

He seemed really nice, a bit shy and a bit of a lifestyle Indian but cool. But he has the most random hair ever and I can’t decide if that is as serious as having bad shoes. Which, then is an absolute no no.

facebook

On Wednesday I finally gave in and joined face book. Until now I have managed to avoid this overly addictive network, but now, right before major exams I joined. And it is great and addictive and time consuming.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with the world of facebook it is a social networking site. It was originally only for students but now anybody can join. You can join one or more networks, such as high school, college, grad school, work, region. You have your own home page, where you can post any information you like as well as photos, films, music, anything. You can search people and add them as friends (for eg only my friends can access my info). They can poke you (you know the thing you did in primary school), write on your wall, sell things on the market place, invite people to events, everything.

To be cool on facebook, you have to be less than 25, single and have over 200 friends. And for the rest of us it is just a great way to get in contact with people from the past or keep in contact with friends and other people considered as worth knowing. Suddenly I have found myself talking to my class mates from South Africa – people I haven’t got any news from for 7 years now. It is amazing.

On Thursday I had a chance to see photos of my friend’s first child – she was then 2days old. And so beautiful. And this is what I don’t like about facebook – I am realising that not only do I not qualify as “cool” but also a large part of my friends have wedding photos on their homepage or pictures of their little ones. Argh.

Just to add to my “I am going to be an old made stuck in her little routines” a friend of mine told me at fencing on Thursday night that “yeah but 25 is the age when you are supposed to find a husband and start a family, everybody knows that”. Great. Nice.

I think I need to go for a run.

But first I will post a note on my friends wall –drinks at mine from 21-22 onwards and then out…before…

shock and horror and habits

Helsingin Sanomat, the main Finnish newspaper, has changed its main page on the web. In fact the layout is now much nicer but still this change caused a near disaster.

Every morning, I get up, turn on my computer, put the coffee on, make porridge and then when my breakfast is ready I check my mails and read the paper while I eat. Before signing up into web-hesari I read Viivi and Wagner (a funny cartoon about a woman whose boyfriend is a pig). But now, I didn’t find it. Automatically I took the mouse down the left side of the screen to click on the picture and it wasn’t there. I was puzzled – what was going on?

This all happened yesterday. This morning - armed with a mug of coffee and a bowl of porridge – I had mentally prepared myself for a search. Eventually I found the cartoon from the RIGHT side of the screen. Scandalous. How could they have done this to me?

This whole little episode made me realise how automatically I operate – I am more then completely and totally stuck to my routines. Keys on the table next to the door, and if not they are not with me and I am locked out. In my fridge, when I open the door, milk is on the right and then there is coffee – I can find them even if I am half asleep. And I check my emails in the same order – hotmail, gmail, school mail. How boring is that.

I need to change. I need a change.

will you, can you, must you?

My sister wanted to know if I will see lions in Sierra Leone. After all leon is a lion in Spanish. And Sierra comes from the verb serrar, so…

It is funny what people worry about in this whole me going to Sierra Leone thing…”can you run there?”, “where will you stay?”, “what will you eat?”, “will you be safe?”, “will you../can you../must you…?”

I am starting to feel like I am about to fall of the face of the earth…

Hmmm…

tarot

I went back for a proper tarot reading. It was a scary experience. With at least three cards I got goose bumps and cold shivers going through my body. But no, I still do not believe in all that.

I only got major cards. Apparently I need to use my masculine energy to make a decision – this means that I have to take a true decision, not one along the lines of “should I go for a run to Buttes Chaumont or the Canal?” or is it better to have a sandwich or CROUS for lunch, but one that marks a turning point in my life. I also am not alone. This card surprised my friend. At first she assumed that this other was my boyfriend. Well I don’t have one. Confusion. Yet, the cards said that even if I feel lonely, and I do, I am definitely not alone but there is someone who is inline with me. Interesting.

In terms of material world I am still an infant. This was a funny remark as only the day before my sister had told me that I should pay more attention to what I do with my money – I should either invest on an apartment or maybe shares or something. I shouldn’t just live like there was no tomorrow and no bad days ahead. (I don’t really but it is true that my look on that area of my life is not the most mature)

In one area of my life I have to do a complete u-turn. I have to make the leap no matter how frightening it is. I got goose bumps. Yet I am not a creator anymore – I don’t have to start from the beginning, because I know already what I need, what I want and how to get it but I just haven’t made the lead needed to get there.

The cards were confusing. I was not alone, I got the highest card and the second highest card so there, I was told, I definitely something going for me. At the same time I am an infant in on thing but one with the universe in something else. I have to start from the beginning, but not to create and I am to make a decision, use my masculine energy to do that. And the rest I forgot.

My friend found all this extremely interesting. She thinks I am fascinating. She now wants to pick cards for each area of my life separately. I need to concentrate on one thing and we have a look at what the cards say and then the next one and the next one.

But I must say that in one thing the cards were right – I am such a mess :p

fatigue

I took a three hour nap yesterday afternoon. I went to school in the morning but came home after lunch and went back to bed. My brother phoned me but gave up soon as I couldn’t mumble anything sensible. I put the phone down and drowsed of again.

I got up to go back to class, came home and climbed into bed again. Thus I should now be well rested but instead have serious trouble keeping my eyes open. In fact if I didn’t have an exam in few hours I would probably return to my dream world.

I thought that now, when most of the stress has gone, even if I still have a lot to do, it would become easier, but no. Instead of being happy and energetic I feel exhausted. I just want to sleep.

Maybe stress and panic are indeed a friend.

i wonder...

It is almost two in the morning and I just got home from work but cannot go to sleep.

I know someone who is very into her astrology and tarot reading and wine. I don’t usually believe in any of that but think it is rather foolish. Yet, when she read my stars last year she almost made me scared.

Today, during a busy night, she made me lift just one card. I showed that at the moment I have a variety of options thrown at me and I will have to make a choice – interesting. The next one told me to rely on my masculine energy to make a decision. The third showed that this was a beginning. Even if I believe that I am in the middle of something I am not. Even if I believe that something is coming to an end, it is not. This is just a beginning.

I can’t stop thinking. I can’t go to sleep. I wonder…

I think I will go and see her tomorrow morning on my way to work. I think I need to see the rest…

boxing and roses

My pool in Paris (as I am not the biggest fan of swimming I am also pretty picky with pools) had an aqua gym-day today. This means that from 9am onwards they had different aqua classes free of charge – well obviously not for free but with no additional cost. So, I decided to go for boxing.

I jumped into the pool with several older ladies, few overly active looking sporty people and few giggling teenagers. This was looking very promising – I think. The instructor turned the music on and we started jumping in the water like boxers in the ring. This proved surprisingly difficult, to the point that few people gave up. Hit. Kick. Kick back.

45min later I had turned blue and decided to skip stretching. I had no interested in staying in the water any longer. I ran into the hot shower and stood there until I slowly started to melt. My legs felt heavy. In fact I felt like I had just done a very long run. Then again, this was to be expected.

When I finally climbed out of the dressing room one of the instructors handed me a rose. A yellow rose. I must have looked slightly puzzled so he explained that it was for mothers’ day. I was even more confused – mothers’ day was ages ago. “I know but I forgot about it then. And mothers are always worth remembering.” Fine, I thought, but I am not a mother. “But you might be one day and then you might not come here and then you won’t get a rose”. Right, true enough. I thanked for the flower and opened the door – behind me I heard one of the older ladies giggling when she got her rose – “to all beautiful young mothers’”. Right, true enough, after all age is only about attitude, or something.

I jumped on my yellow bike with my yellow rose – summer makes people go mad. And I will stick to my aqua jogging.