Teething problems

Everything has a dodgy first few days/weeks/months/years. Babies have those horrible few weeks of pain as their first teeth start cutting through. Businesses have a worrying first few months wondering whether they're going to be a success or not. Heathrow's T5 is having the first week from hell.

But why? BAA have been banging on for months and months that T5 was going to be the best air transport facility in the world; that it was going to be the most efficient terminal of them all at Heathrow. Yet they've managed to cancel upwards of 400 flights in this first week, with no real idea when the chaos will end. A backlog of 28,000 bags in transit just makes the situation even more farcical. State of the art baggage system that can process 12,000 bags per hour? I can see a bit of blame shifting in the near future, what with the considerably higher luggage allowance for long-haul flights and all that.

Did anyone look at the logistics of moving the location of all BA's operations in one go? With all that's gone wrong since opening to the public last Thursday, it makes you wonder. But then, Eurostar moved all their operations from Waterloo to St. Pancras over one night, and as far as I recall it went without a hitch. Granted that wasn't on the scale of T5, but honestly, if a load of trains can find their way from one side of London to the other between the hours of daylight, surely a couple of planes can veer their way from one spot of tarmac to another within the same hectare? It's not as though T5 is out of the way of the rest of the airport now, is it?

The question on everyone's lips now? 'Will BA and BAA be fined for the chaos this hideously expensive venture has caused?" Personally, I think they should - Network Rail gets fined for having more than a certain number of late running or cancelled trains, why shouldn't BA/BAA be subject to the same? I know thousands more people are affected by late running or cancelled trains every day than they are delayed or cancelled flights, but it's the principle I'm getting at. In such a short period of time, after such high-profile (and, in hindsight, overhyped) publicity in the build-up to the opening of T5, the parties involved have really shot themselves in the foot. Maybe the government will shoot them in the pocket now... it won't buy back any time lost by all those poor poor passengers, but it'll hopefully make BA think twice about new terminals in the future...

Je suis sérieuse, je ne veux jamais boire comme ça encore! Promis...

It appears I may have learnt my lesson. I know it's the classic line when one suffers a hangover, but I honestly think the years of my mother telling me to drink more responsibly and stop bingeing may have paid off. So, as the clocks spring forward and I have an extra hour of daylight to call my own each evening, I've made a summer time resolution: gone are the days where I'll drink just for the sake of it; arrived are the days where I know my limit, and don't go past them, no matter what the occasion.

It's so simple to write down, and say, but after the torture that was yesterday's hangover, I think this may be one resolution that I'll manage to keep. And I may keep hold of my principles en même temps that way too. For instance, in the bar we were in on Friday, the bar staff had many gimmicks which were not too funny at the start of the night. A few cosmopolitans later, and they were hilarious. Why? Thinking back now, I'm totally ashamed that alcohol changed my view. But as is always the case, it did.

And so now the main goal in life is to enjoy it, savour it, and - most importantly - remember it. Summer will mean no hanging around, the sunshine will motivate me to get things done that have needed doing since forever. Getting that oh-so-desired beach bod won't happen if I have many more wild night like Friday, will it? Once I open up the shutters and let the sunshine in that is. And then I have to get over the shortage of sleep imposed upon me by daylight saving. That gives me an excuse for continued procrastination for the next week or so, at least.

Saying goodbye to winter always makes me feel good though. Living on the Cote d'Azur, I had the good fortune of welcoming spring around three or four weeks ago. Slowly but surely, the woolly jumpers and winter jackets are finding their way to the back of the wardrobe, and the pretty floral spring/summer outfits are coming to the fore. I surprise myself by how much I smile just at being able to wear something pretty to match the nice weather, as opposed to wrapping myself up in as many layers as possible to match the dismal cold weather of the winter months.

Boo winter. Vive l'été! Just let me wake up first, eh?

Tears on my pillow

It takes quite a lot for me to get so upset about something that it makes me cry.

But this morning, my flatmates managed it with ease. Not content with constantly disturbing my sleep pattern with their bedroom antics, it would seem that my contribution to the household isn't quite how they would like it. My rent is paying for their utility bills (at their own admission, might I add), and I myself contribute as much as is physically possible to the chores, despite being awkwardly confined to my bedroom most of the time (from where I'm writing this post).

They went away on Sunday morning, and returned last night. Rather than notice that I'd done a lot to clean up the kitchen, which is filthy as a result of the renovations they started last week - namely knocking down interior walls resulting in an insane amount of dust everywhere, particularly in the unprotected kitchen -, this morning they hang on the fact that the bathroom and toilet floor hasn't been mopped. Yes, that's right, because of all the dust throughout the rest of the flat, the bathroom and toilet floors don't stay clean for long. And so given that I was out all day Monday and working yesterday, the bathroom and toilet floors haven't been mopped since Sunday. Oh dear, that should surely result in a penalty rent rise, don't you think?

Now, normally I would just take this on the chin, and grin and bear being called "evil", "a villain", "lazy". But this morning that's just not possible. Not when I had to use my mobile phone to guide me through my apartment when I got in last night so that I didn't walk into the fridge or get electrocuted by hanging live wires. This is the last straw. There seem to be no niceties passed between me and them any more: our only topic of conversation is whether or not I've done the housework in the last six hours.

J'en ai marre. J'ai ras-le-bol. Je n'en peux plus. Faites-moi quitter cet apart. J'en ai marre de ce putain d'inquiétude. Mais qu'est-ce que je peux faire en fait? I don't have a plan B...

This isn't cold feet... It's more a case of frozen limbs...

You know when you decide to do something, you put the wheels in motion and get all excited about the next step that you've manufactured for yourself in life's path? You start daydreaming about how good it's going to be, how good you're going to be and how it's going to shape you for years and years to come. And then one niggling doubt creeps in and the dream's over.

You start wondering whether it's going to be as good as you first thought; whether you're going to be as good at it as you thought you might be initially; and above all, you question whether you're ready.

Am I ready to go through the paces of the part of life commonly termed as "growing up and settling down"? Am I ready to have to prove myself in ways other than academic? Am I ready to grow up? Am I mature enough to go through training and then hold down a job? Have I reached the stage where I'm ready to "settle down" should the opportunity arise?

Who knows. All I know is that I'm questioning whether I've manufactured the right next step for myself. This isn't nerves or cold feet.

This is downright fear.

Full Throttle Ahead

It appears I'm taking steps in the right direction. The future may not be orange, but it's most certainly bright.

What am I talking about, you say? I speak of the next chapter in my life, once my time as an assistant comes to an end. It took me long enough to decide to apply for teacher training, and it took even longer to arrange an interview. But arranged it I did, and offered a place I was.

Then came the hardest part: accepting the place. I heard last Tuesday that I'd been accepted at my first choice training provider. And it took me until yesterday (a whole 8 days later) to make a firm acceptance. All the forms have been filled in and sent. And now it's down to one key element: organisation; it's key so that I can breeze into my new life in Angleterre du nord come September. This is going to be hard. Not only am I pretty much incapable of organising myself more than a few days in advance, there's the disadvantage that not much help is provided to aid me throughout the process. Nope: it's all down to me.

So as I embark on the first step towards the aforementioned organisation, namely getting all my crap sorted so everything is in order, just do one thing for me:

Make sure I'm doing it!!

New beginnings

After some stern words from my loyal readership, I've decided to come back to the fray and try blogging a bit more often. Part of me stopped for fear that I was a little too negative in my blog, my most popular label is 'moan' taking poll position with 10 out a possible 18 entries. Rather depressing, don't you think?

Trying to be positive is painful. My creative juices flow when I'm in a bad mood. In fact, I do most things best when I'm in a bad mood: psychoanalysis, anyone? I wonder what it says about me, about my personality, about everyone that knows me... Jack shit, most probably, but it would be interesting to see what Jack Shit came up with...

Truth of the matter is, I only blogged when something or someone was getting on my tits. My lack of blog action is not down to me being more tolerant, or my not being pissed off so much - that's no different to what it was two months ago - it's actually a result of me being continually annoyed. Nothing's changed, and I didn't want to inflict my negative vibes on everyone who reads this...

Excuses out of the way, the bottom of the barrel reason is that I've been too damn lazy. Or preoccupied elsewhere. The past two months has panned out roughly as follows:

• continuing my assistantship
• trip home to visit friends and family
• trip to London to see a show and make a bit of a tit of myself in front of one of the stars
• back to France to carry on with the assistantship
• being told mind-numbingly irrelevant things by flatmate (who thinks I don't understand much of what she says, hence the need to demonstrate that broccoli isn't cauliflower)
• just about sorting out where I go once this is all over

And so you see, nothing much has happened since I last posted on my high-brow, controversial, reader attracting blog. And even less has happened that's been worth writing about.

Now that I'm back though, I'll try and hang around to answer any niggling queries anyone may have...