Hypochondria

I appear to have convinced myself that I have developed a wheat intolerance. Is that even possible? All I know is, I ate two biscuits for breakfast this morning (not unusual, chocolate digestives since you're asking) and I have had a stomach ache ever since. It's not a really bad stomach ache, like what I get when I'm on my period, it's like I kinda need to go to the toilet. Except, I just went to the toilet, and sat on it for ten minutes before getting bored and I still have a stomach ache. So I don't think it's that.

The bonus to my hypochondria, which has never been as full blown as this apart from one time when I was really ill and delirious and hadn't slept properly in three days and became convinced that part of my trachea had dislodged due to all my coughing and I was going to die (I spent the best part of the night trying to shove it back into place which only reinforced my convictions that my throat was going to collapse), is that I have been avoiding the biscuit cupboard like the plague today. I want a biscuit so badly because I have a biscuit addiction, particularly a chocolate digestive addiction, but I have managed to resist. So I'm thinking that maybe I should just pretend to myself that I have a wheat intolerance so I can finally stop eating all the biscuits and all the bread and all the carbohydrate based crap that I basically spend the best part of my day hoovering up via my mouth. This stomach ache is slightly annoying though, so I hope it isn't actually a wheat intolerance because that would suck so much. What would I even eat?

I don't want to google it because I have thus far avoided becoming one of those people who google all their symptoms and ends up being convinced they have at least one of four terminal diseases, but I feel it is only a matter of time before I start down that slippery slope. I am just determined to delay it as long as possible. Also, my only symptom is 'stomach ache after eating biscuits for breakfast' which I don't really feel merits a trip to NHS Direct. I would also probably get a lecture from a virtual nurse about how eating biscuits for breakfast is a stupid idea and a sure fire way to develop something, be it a wheat intolerance or obesity. My mum keeps telling me off for eating stuff like biscuits and coco pops for breakfast when I live in France and I could have baguette or pain au chocolat or croissants for breakfast every day. Frankly, I think that would be as bad for me as Coco Pops every day, and also I think the novelty of sweet, sweet chocolatey bread would wear off over time and I never want there to be a point in my life where I get bored of pain au chocolat. Also, I can't be bothered to walk to the bakery every day - it's at least ten minutes away - just for breaded products, when there are chocolate digestives in the cupboard. You see my dilemma, I'm sure.

Living it up in the Louvre

So, I did go to the Louvre again, fully intending to appreciate the works of art there and become more cultured and understand more things about art. However, guidebooks are crazy expensive and not really worth it because the Louvre is so big and I have lived here for sixteen months and only been twice and not even seen most of it. So, I didn't get a guidebook and most of the information by the paintings/statues/whatever is useless, so I am no more educated than I used to be.

It was, however, extremely amusing. I discovered that deciding what the people were thinking while their portrait was being painted was far more entertaining than actually learning facts. I mean, come on! I took far too few photos, but this one blew my mind so much I nearly dropped my camera in my haste to digitally commemorate it.

Amazing. I just want to kiss whoever painted that. It was meant to be of a monarch (a Henri of France, I think) dressed up as Hercules. Can you imagine Hercules striking a pose like this? Hercules was way to hardcore to prance around posing with hydras all day long. Seriously. Also, how many English Henrys would have let a portrait..er get away with painting this hilariously flattering image? I don't think so. Still, that's the French for you.

I went to the museum with my friend Martha who managed to intimidate me by saying things like "Oh yes, I recognise that, it's so obviously Gobi's style" and "Oh, you can just tell by glancing that that's a Turner". How do people know these things? It's like my brother who can listen to a piece of classic music and come out with "Oh, this is Beethoven's ninth symphony, I recognise the clarinets". I don't even know if there are clarinets in Beethoven's ninth symphony, which I feel only strengthens my point. Clearly I missed a crucial part of my education somewhere. It must have been that one day I was ill in six years of schooling. If only I wasn't such a hypochondriac, think how cultured I would be now!

Much more pleasingly, I managed to find the tacky gift shop where you can buy all manner of Mona Lisa themed items. I didn't find it last time and ended up in the classy gift shop where you can largely just buy expensive porcelain and jewellery and books. Psh! This time was much better, though I did have to persuade myself I didn't need a matching Mona Lisa notebook-pen set or a whole lot of stone scarabs, purely for the sake of my bank balance. I was sorely tempted by an Asterix themed triva card set, attractively priced at only 10€, but as I spent 35€ on a skirt two days ago, I dragged my eyes away and went to look at stuff that was far too expensive and which made me want to run out of the shop crying with hate.

So there we go. That was my attempt at culture for the weekend. The rest of the time was spent in bars/restaurants/bookshops/myhouse. We did go and look at the Sacre Coeur... at least, sort of. And we stood outside the Notre Dame and took pictures to prove we'd been there. Oh yes. Maybe I will make more of an effort for the next person who comes and visits. Maybe.

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.