La Haine

Just bought the film La Haine (after seeing a tattoo of a quote from it). I am excited to watch it, because the last time I watched it, I was 18 and my French wasn't all that great. I guess I understood maybe...45% then, and I want to know how much I'm going to understand this time. Given that it's about three guys from the banlieues who speak crazy slang French, I'm not overly hopeful that I'll understand it all, but it'll be good to see how much I actually do.

The tattoo, incidentally, was of the quote 'jusqu'ici, tout va bien' which is something that Vince quotes the whole way through the film. I like the quote, even though it means nothing to me (it means 'so far, so good'), just because of the way he says it.

Organising

My New Year's Resolution this year was to stop procrastinating so much at work, and so far it's not been going very well as I have been spending most mornings asleep and sometimes the afternoons too. It was becoming pretty obvious (to me, at least) that I wasn't doing enough work because the house was almost permanently messy and I didn't have the energy to deal with it because I was sleeping so much (oh, the irony!).

So this weekend, as the family was away, I decided to have a day of cleaning. Addi was working (again!), Dani was working (finally!) and Katherine was in London with her family, so as I basically had no friends left it seemed the perfect time to get the house back in order. The kids had all been sleeping in the same room as the heating was broken and I swear to god, everytime I went in there, even if I'd tidied it hours before, it was messy, so I decided this meant they had too many toys and went a bit mad. I chucked two whole binbags of crap out and put another binbag in the basement full of Ernest's old baby toys. I feel so much better now and the house is still tidy three days later. Bliss. Definitely worth working on a weekend. Also means that I will still get paid for the whole week despite missing Monday to gallivant around in Geordie-land.

I also decided that this week I would stop sleeping all the bloody time and would get up when I was paid to get up (8.15am), and so far I have managed it! It's 9.30 now on the second day of trying it and I feel more awake than I have for ages, and the house is already tidied.

I think my back up career should definitely be as an organiser. People do that you know, get paid for organising people's crap. That is my idea of heaven.

Hm, just got distracted by looking at pictures of tattoos. I saw a site once where most of the tattoos were truly horrendous - like that lady with the huge twilight tattoo on her back. That kind of calibre of awful. This site, if you're interested, is slightly better. I don't think I'll ever get a tattoo because I'm too much of a wimp - not pain wise, although I am pretty wimpy, but just in terms of thinking "oh god what if I hate it later!". Hard to commit. My friend Addi is getting one for every country she's lived in; she's lived in Romania and the USA so far, though she hasn't got one from the USA yet, I guess 'cause she's not done living there (or possibly because she only came up with this idea since moving to France!). I like that idea, but I think possibly I'll only do it if I end up living in a third country.

Ahahahaha check this one out. Good lord. The caption was 'Not only have I stuck with Harry until the very end, he's stuck with me'. What does that even mean?

This weekend my friend Martha is coming to visit me. She currently lives in Valencia, in Spain, which is pretty cool, but it is way hard to get to Paris from there. She's flying with Vueling and she went to print off her boarding pass last night and discovered they had changed the time of the flight from 7am to like, 6.30pm! They hadn't let her know or anything. How stupid is that? So she gets a day less here which is lame, although I'm working anyway so it doesn't matter too much. While she is here, we plan to go to the Louvre and also to an exhibition at the Bibliotheque Nationale. I enjoy it when people come to visit me because it makes me do more stuff than I would normally; last weekend's expedition to Belleville was unusual. Usually my weekends consist of going out till really late, then sleeping really late the next day, then not really doing anything else. That is, of course, the problem with living somewhere - so much cool stuff to do, but you always have the option of doing it another day, so it just gets put off. My other problem is that I am disastrously uncultured. The last time I went to the Louvre, I basically spent the entire time sniggering at all the silly statues and paintings in there. This time I am buying a guide book.

Heating

OH GOD YES WE HAVE HEATING.

The heating broke about a week and a half ago, and so we haven't had hot water or heating for that entire time. Yes. In January. No, I haven't been showering enough. They've come back twice to try and fix it, but the guy today finally managed it! Excellent! I am so hot I might take my hoody off. YES PEOPLE IT HAS COME TO THIS.

I am so happy.

Commitment

This weekend I flew to Newcastle for a Masters interview. I think it went okay, but it was all in groups so there is literally no way of telling - I am not getting my hopes up.

Unfortunately, I do not have any amusing anecdotes to tell. I did leave my passport on the plane (coming back) when getting off it, which luckily somebody picked up and gave to a security woman who ran after me and caught up with me at Border Control (I had realised by then). So that was nice, if thoroughly retarded on my part, and thanks mysterious person for not stealing my identity! I saw a guy with a pink Betty Boop suitcase, which delighted me inordinately. I assume he had a girlfriend or a female relation, but I didn't see them anywhere!

Newcastle was very cold and my best friend texted me to tell me she was in Bondi while I was trudging through the grey streets - jealousy does not even come close to describing my emotions! It's cold back in Paris now, which I am gutted about (though not entirely surprised by), as I spent all of Saturday walking round the 20th arrondissiment in just my hoody. I had entertained the hope that maybe - just maybe - winter had gone! But no, as Dani says, he 'ad just taken a leetle weekend break, but ee is back now, fully revitalised. (He's French, obviously)

Katherine and I went to various parks in the 20th - Parc de Belleville and Parc des Buttes Chaumont, and they were excellent! It was a wonderful, sunny day, and we walked round for ages. We were going to go to Pere LaChaise cemetery (of Oscar Wilde burial fame) but it shuts really early, so we walked down Canal St Martin instead, which was very pretty but had fewer dead famous people than Pere LaChaise. Here are some photos of Saturday:

Canal St. Martin

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

Sacre Coeur!

View from Parc de Belleville

Am I invisible?

I have literally never repeated myself so many times in one day.

Today I spent:

20 minutes saying: Please help me tidy up the playdough (limited success)

45 minutes saying: Please concentrate on your homework (complete success but at a price)

7 minutes saying: Please tidy away your homework (complete success)

15 minutes saying: Please go upstairs and tidy your room (limited success)

10 minutes saying: Please put your pyjamas on (two children, no success at all)

*twitch*

However, we did come to a happy compromise whereby they behaved themselves at the dinner table and I didn't tell their mum they'd been annoying.

Musica

This is officially my new favourite song. If you like Mariachi music/Bedouin Soundclash/Coeur de Pirate and/or good songs, you will love this song.

http://www.missionbells.viinyl.com/?locale=en

My internet is being crazy slow at the moment. It is driving me mad. I am going to pester my boss to sort out the proper internet. I can't even watch youtube (though I suspect that has something to do with this computer as I could on my old one).

Actual advice

Don't spend all day sitting in front of your new computer, only paying attention to the kids when they do something wrong. Definitely not in the rulebook.

Having said that, I'm happy, they're happy..win-win! Apart from middle child, who wants me to help her put her trousers on, and I am refusing, because she is 6. She is probably just sitting on the floor in her room getting cross with me, but she knows how to put them on, she's just being lame. Meanwhile, eldest child is wandering round in just tights. I feel like I should make her put some trousers on, but truly, I can't be bothered. If she isn't cold (which I assume she isn't) then it's up to her.

Youngest child is fully trousered.