Martinisms

I hope the title's right.

I'm not writing much today, but I'd like to share some music.

The first song's called In the waiting line by Zero 7. I've been listening to it quite a lot recently, mainly because I like the chorus: 'Everyone's saying different things to me, different things to me', or 'wasting my time in the waiting line'. That's how I feel when I try and do some admin stuff. It's on the 'Garden State' soundtrack or on the Zero 7 album 'Simple Things' if you're interested.

The next song is actually freely available on the internet, from the Stereo Total web site. It's called Carte Postale, the third song on that site. It's not exactly a description of what I'm doing, but it's pretty close: 'Je fais tout pour m'amuser'. Just change 'St Tropez' to 'Marseille', it still sort of rhymes.

There's one good thing about admin staff that's never available: You don't get a guilty conscience if you go the Calanques instead of running around offices. That's what I did yesterday, I think it was even exactly the same spot as on the picture in the wikipedia entry (follow the link).

Who knows, I might even get a tan. But now this entry is getting less realistic and I suppose it's better to stop.

The title says 'ERASMUS - a horrible chaos' in german with a french accent and is a quote from L'auberge espagnole, which I mentioned earlier. The paperwork I wanted to do (see topic before) will have to wait, because the chap I was going to meet isn't here, or maybe he's still in his lunchbreak. I don't know.

So I thought I'd write about what it feels like being a foreign student. A couple of you have made their own experiences, and I'd be quite interested to see if you felt the same way.

When I was in Germany, I was alwas slightly annoyed by the way foreign students kept to themselves, but I also like the way how groups of foreign students would often invite others around and let them participate in whatever foreign stuff they were doing (except the bunches of Spanish speaking students). Frankly, I always thought they were a bit lazy. I have to apologise.

When I moved in, I met a couple of english guys. I have done most of the stuff so far together with them, but we've never missed an opportunity to do something with some french people. I don't think that was a coincidence. I could have moved in anywhere, I would always have met other ERASMUS students and I would have teamed up with them. Why?

To start with, we're on the same side of the culture barrier (I claim the copyright for that word if it doesn't exist yet). My french is still only at slow small talk level, and if you do an ERASMUS year there's one thing you won't be having too much of: information. So what happens is, automatically, foreigners team up and tell each other everything, no matter how trivial - it might be useful to someone. And it's not only administrative stuff, it's also what I mean when I say culture barrier - stuff like how many degrees is the setting with the button on the right of the washing machine? Do yo give a tip? Where can you buy cheap food? Will UHT milk go off if you leave it in your room (I knew that one)?

The other thing is: you have no-one else to complain to. Complaining is good. It relieves. However, complaining is quite sophisticated language usage. The ERASMUS students you team up with will not only understand you, but also know what it's like and be sympathetic.

To be fair: most french students have been extremely nice, have taken us all over the place, we've been invited to dinner twice so far and so on. So don't worry, I still do a lot of French speaking and have been complimented on my grip on the language and my accent more than once (that last sentence was for my mum, really ).
Quite often, being a foreign student is a bonus, too: People might not remember my name, but they remember the german guy and many people just like to chat to someone from somewhere else to exchange opinions and stuff like that. Question #1, by the way, is: 'German beer is a lot better, isn't it?'

In case you're interested: it is. But what I really miss is german bread.