Thinking outside the Triangle

Picture: Constance Malleret

Bristol is a wonderful city. Whiteladies road offers a plethora of bars, coffee shops and lunch options, Stoke Bishop is a fantastic rowdy mixture of freshers awkwardly finding their feet and returners promoting their ‘organised fun’, while Cabot Circus is a hot spot for clothes shops and chain restaurants. However, putting irony aside, do Bristol University students know anything other than the straight line from Halls to town? Do we really know our city like the locals do?

As a 4^th year languages student, I have spent the last 12 months exploring the French city of Bordeaux and the Spanish city of Malaga. With only 6 months in each place to lap up the rich culture around me, spare Sunday afternoons were spent in art galleries, days off work involved whistle-stop tours of local landmarks and hangovers provided little barrier to my desire for exploration. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the 2 years I had spent in Bristol previously. I imagine the most exotic voyage I ever made was to watch a French film at Watershed or perhaps the one time I climbed Cabot Tower.

Aware of my generalisation, I feel strongly that a large majority of Bristol students have their blinkers fixed firmly to their faces when it comes to exploring the city. The well-heard complaints that, ‘the Student’s Union is just too far away’ or the stereotypes that 2^nd years live in Redland, while 3^rd years opt for Clifton seem restrictive and unnecessary. With a host of sights to see and things to do, why do we all seem so apathetic about our surroundings? There is more to Bristol than the University and a really nice bridge.

Inspired by my year abroad, I have made a plan. With only one year to go in the pearl of the South West, my 4^th year is to be a second attempt at my 1^st year (with maybe a little bit more studying thrown in). Back to being an inquisitive fresher, back to square one. Day trips to Weston-Super-Mare, Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury are all on the list. Lecture-free afternoons will be spent at M Shed, St Nicholas Market, Ashton Court and SS Great Britain. Fewer Friday nights spent in Lounge, and instead exploring the variety of cocktail bars and the occasional speak-easy for which Bristol is actually quite famous.

In the future, if I am ever asked by a Bristolian where I went to university, I would feel a sense of shame if I was unable to engage in a conversation about our city other than the well-trodden roads around the university. If, as seems likely, I am to move away after graduation, I want to feel that I have made the most out of my time in this beautiful, arty, yet very rainy city that seems hooked on much more than just hot air balloons and valuable graffiti.    

This article was originally written for Bristol University's newspaper, Epigram. The article can be found here. 

   

My View on the Feminism Issue

I have always been too scared to label myself as a Feminist for fear of immediate judgement and ridicule. Feminists are those angry, hairy arm-pitted lesbians with men’s haircuts and lots of piercings, right? Oh, how wrong.

Feminism is changing, Feminism has changed, and the internet is facilitating that movement. You no longer have to be a die-hard, man-hating Feminist to read up on the topic, in fact, you don’t even have to be female. It’s hard to estimate the number of my skim-reading generation that might have flicked through the pages of, ‘The Female Eunuch’ or perhaps even heard of Virginia Woolf and her, ‘Room of One’s Own’, let alone any with the XY chromosome. However, many more, one could imagine, have clicked onto the, ‘Everyday SexismProject’ or been inquisitive enough to reach the end of a Guardian CiF article by the fantastic Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett or Holly Baxter (writers of Vagenda- for the slightly more curious Feminist). Even the questionable layman’s news provider, BuzzFeed is in on the act, with dozens of articles promoting the gender equality cause.

Feminists don’t have to be a Feminist first and foremost and a teacher/student/parent second. Feminism doesn’t have to take over one’s life and force us into a state of stereotypical penis-haters. We don’t need to hold up signs of giant genitalia to get our point across. Feminism is accessible to everyone in the UK and the more people who are thinking about it, the more that are writing about it and that means there is more pressure to do something about it. Even if we’re being told to ‘Look Up’ from our screens, a video I suspect the majority of my generation (myself included) will gush over and then continue to ignore, sometimes it’s progressive to look down.

The topic is enormous. Whether your particular attention focuses on the lack of female MPs in parliament (147 out of 650)[1], the gender pay gap (the GPG in the UK in 2013 stood at 19.7%[2]) or the blatant and totally undeniable sexism in music videos for example; Feminism can no longer be pigeon-holed.

The Feminism issue is evolving, opinion-splitting and practically undefinable. Although we are being told to stop being a world of, ‘smart-phones and dumb people’, this intangible, influential connection between us that we call the internet is offering easier access and therefore encouraging more and more young people to take an interest, form an opinion and ask the right questions.

---

[1] Source: http://www.ukpolitical.info/female-members-of-parliament.htm

[2] Source: http://www.equalpayportal.co.uk/statistics/

What Teaching Has Taught Me

I have now been an English assistant in a primary school for 6 weeks in Malaga on the south coast of Spain. With a fairly heavy schedule that involves teaching a total of about 450 children in a working week, it’s safe to say that I have dived head first into the enigmatic world of Spanish education. 

As can be expected, Spanish schools reflect relaxed Spanish culture. There is a large list of differences between their education and the memories I have from childhood in the UK. This includes the fact that it doesn’t seem to matter if the teacher is 10 minutes late, that lunchtime doesn’t come around until 2pm and there doesn’t seem to be any strict system for homework (or any punishments if half the class decide not to do it). However, the lenient schooling works to my advantage; a laid-back syllabus in the English lessons means that I can teach what I want in the way that I want to teach it.

No time for nervousness or lack of confidence, on my first day I was handed a piece of chalk and told to take a class of 10 year olds for 45 minutes. With 20 seconds to rack my brain for any piece of knowledge that might be interesting to them, I decided to talk about London. Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge (which fascinates 10 year olds because it opens and closes for boats) were all on the menu, and the kids loved it. I even suggested they do some written work on the subject, and 2 days later I was handed 30 projects to mark and a red pen.

Some of the many projects!

Since my first week, my patriotism has only grown stronger. We have now covered English food (“it’s very unhealthy”, commented one 8 year old), English schools, English uniforms and the Royal Family (which amusingly gets translated into Spanish; our Queen is now called Isabel, and her son is Carlos). The kids think I’m incredibly exotic, and I have even persuaded the younger ones that Harry Styles is my best friend.    

In terms of teaching as a career enhancer, I would argue that standing up in front of 30 children is a fantastic experience for creativity, quick thinking, managing relationships and public speaking. The phrase, ‘transferable skills’ is thrown around university campuses regularly, but teaching foreign children for 6 weeks, having to constantly adapt to their level of enthusiasm and ability has taught me a huge amount.

Hand me that piece of chalk and put me in front of 30 men in suits any day- at least they won’t ask why the cars don’t fall off the bridge when it opens for the boats!

Teaching the Royal Family in Spanish!

The Things the Spanish Got Right

Image: Spain-Holiday

I have recently made the big leap across the border from Bordeaux in France to the sunny south coast of Spain. My new home is Malaga, the touristy city that allows for beach days in February and continuous eating all day long. As a primary school teacher by day and an Erasmus partier by night, here are a few of my favourite things…

The Social Life. My experience after 3 weeks in the Spanish sun is that the most important thing to a Spaniard is to sit outside cafes drinking beer with friends all day long. “Una caña” is a small beer which, in Malaga, usually costs around 1 euro. In my short time, I have learned that at least one “caña” must be consumed every day. It’s time to wave goodbye to the vineyards of Bordeaux!

The Siesta. It seems to me that everything in Spain happens a few hours later than in the UK. Lunch is at 3pm, supper is at 10pm and night clubs shut at 7am. This has led to the ingenious invention by the Spanish of two shorter sleeps every day, rather than our preferred 8-hour nights. In Malaga, you would be hard pushed to find a shop or restaurant that is open between the hours of 3pm and 5pm. Take note, the siesta is taken seriously in Spain.

The Spanish Language. This is a comparison to France, in which I spent a lot of time being angered by incorrect English on billboards and the language battle with waiters when they replied to me in English (despite being in bourgeois Bordeaux). Even in the tourist town of Malaga, music is in Spanish, shops have Spanish names and the people always reply to me in their mother tongue. Perhaps the same wouldn’t be said for a small town 50 km away called Marbella…

The Spaniards. They may not see any need to apologise if they barge into you in the street, but I have never felt more welcome than I have this past month by the Malagueños. If you ask for directions, they’re happy to walk you to your destination and if you don’t know a word in Spanish, they wait patiently while you try to explain what you mean.

Malaga's Beach!

Why PR Is Not The Job For Me

I have come to a conclusion: after a 6 month internship in a French PR firm that specialises in fine foods and magazines, 2 weeks in a chic London firm that represents top-end hotels and some post-GCSE work experience with my cousin in beauty PR- I have finally decided that Public Relations is not quite right for me.

The world of PR is heavily stereotyped; lots of champagne, a variety of freebies, plenty of glamourous events in high heels and constantly having the opportunity to showcase your creativity. Although some of this may be glitzy, and PRs certainly all have a story to tell of that time they organised an event with a zed-list celebrity in a swanky venue in Paris, the other 99% of their time is spent being frustrated at ignored emails, annoyed at incorrect journalism and having to be overly friendly to an unresponsive client.

The working world demands routine, repetition and admin, but I can’t help thinking that sending hundreds of blankets emails with text book press releases to interns at crumbling magazines is a little demoralising, especially when the majority of those emails end up unread. The rise of influential bloggers has certainly changed this dynamic, there are now a lot more junk mail folders to send your press releases to, but unless your incessant emailing is paired with a creative marketing scheme or an original, and always expensive, advertising campaign, I found it difficult to feel like any impact had been made.

The feeling of seeing one of your clients featured in the press is certainly a thrill. However, even when you are successful in your promotion pursuit, the problem with PR is that it is virtually impossible to measure. The experts suggest that PR value is 3 times the value of advertising (if a half page advert in the magazine costs £1000, a half page editorial piece would therefore be ‘worth’ £3000). Yet, what I find frustrating is that to know if the writing on those pages transfers into the all-important words on the lips of consumers, well that is almost impossible. 

The intangibility of PR certainly contributes in a large way to my decision, but the fundamental turning point is that PR has deteriorated my appreciation of magazines and made me rather cynical about journalism. Journalists can copy and paste a press release straight into their article within minutes without even a full comprehension of the product. This leads to the products represented by the pushiest PRs who happen to be that old-friend-from-school or the most generous PRs (who can offer free trips to the Bahamas) having the largest word count in the press. Even the most inconsistent cynic would point out that this means that there is very little substance behind the statements. 

Even though I am highly dubious about the Public Relations-Journalist partnership, I can admit that PR has taught me a lot about business, networking and events. Although I have decided that it's not the career path for me, certainly at this stage, I won't deny that my experiences have been more than worthwhile.  

Pay For Your Time, Not Your Coffee

Take your pick!

A recent contribution I made to my company's blog about a concept café that has just opened in London... 

In London’s alternative centre, Shoreditch, a new café has just arrived with a new concept in tow. Your coffee and cakes are free, but you must pay 3p for every 60 seconds you spend there.

Ziferblat is a new café to hit the streets of London and has already been praised by Time Out as one of the best cafes to open in 2014. The popular chain hails from Russia where they have opened more than 10 branches in the last 2 years to an incredibly positive response. The café’s name, ‘Zierblat’ means ‘clock face’ in Russian (Zifferblatt in German) and the idea is simple; pick up an alarm clock on your way in and clock out as you leave.

The owner, Ivan Mitin hopes to make a community from the café, with customers having access to the kitchen to prepare their own food and helping themselves to the professional coffee machine as well as a plethora of snacks. The café even provides its coffee-drinkers with a piano, where visitors are encouraged to show off their musical skills. The communal feeling seems to be a success too, with customers lining up to do their washing up and even that of others despite no obligation to do so.

Ziferblat has sparked criticism from some consumers who don’t favour the idea of being guarded by a watchful timer sat on the table in front of them. Although perhaps making your own coffee is a slight disadvantage of the coffee shop, for £1.80 an hour it is arguably fantastic value.

For those who feel guilty about buying just one coffee and nursing it for two hours while they get on with their work, Ziferblat might be the perfect café to be your new local.

☞Ziferblat Facebook

☞Ziferblat Twitter

☞Ziferblat Website

Find the original article on Com by AVM's website here.

Office Antics - Year Abroad #4

My next article for Inter:Mission about the fun of an inappropriate office... 

Upon embarking on a 6 month placement in a French marketing and PR agency in Bordeaux, I was fairly confident of what to expect; lots of coffee-making, plenty of scanning and many embarrassing language-barrier moments. Officially only an intern in the ‘Community Management’ department (my job description in French … really), my expectations of tedious and trivial tasks were quite wrong.

It goes without saying that the communication issues were incredibly prevalent at the beginning of my placement, often leading to hesitant nodding in the affirmative to tasks even if I didn’t have a clue of the instructions. However, the scanning and barista tasks were few and far between. Instead, I was treated like a fully capable employee, reflected in every part of my life at the agency, except rather unfortunately, by my salary (a big thank you to the European tax payers, the Erasmus grant is a wonderful thing when your salary just about covers your rent). This means that although I only earn about 2 euros an hour, doing ‘real’ work means that I am getting to know my colleagues quite well. Perhaps too well.

An eclectic group of personalities, made up of more interns than full-time staff (no, I’m actually not joking), by the end of the first week I realised that formality was not necessary in this office. The telling moments included being added on SnapChat by more than one colleague in week 1, over-hearing someone in the creative department ask someone on the PR team if she was pregnant in front of the boss and a client (she wasn’t) and being offered something quite strong at our first work soirée. Needless to say I am always on my best behaviour, much to their disappointment and often pretend to find understanding French a little harder than it is.

Although my first few weeks were made up of memorable and fantastically inappropriate moments, my most amusing occasion in the office so far has to be the day when I stumbled across the profile of one of my colleagues on an online dating website (I know you’re wondering what I was doing on there myself, well you can read all about my online dating experiencein France in my previous article). Thinking of this as the perfect way to contribute to lunchtime conversation and get a foot on the banter ladder, I prepared to bring it up over a baguette-induced silence the following day. I perfected my speech, ensuring I had the right vocabulary to hand…their response? “Oh, of course we know all about it, our previous intern found him on there too!”

I could not have asked for a better year abroad job, and I’m not just saying that through fear that my boss will read this article. My colleagues are patient with my language gaps and encouraging of initiative and responsibility. Usefully for me they don’t speak any English (except the mandatory Friends quotes) and they are rather keen to teach me both formal and informal French. Although I do make plenty of cups of tea every day, they are mostly for me and, as of yet I have never been asked to photocopy anything. 

A Tea-A-Day Keeps the Doctor Away

During my year abroad, I'm working for Com' by AVM and regularly contribute to their blog. Here's a short article I wrote about Tea-A-Day (find the original article here). 

Tea-A-Day

Ever needed a reminder of the date while enjoying a brew in the morning? Now you can with Tea-A-Day!

The family-run German firm, Hälssen & Lyon with creative agency, Kolle Rebbe have come up with an ingenious way of combining your morning tea with your daily calendar. Beautiful to look at, the idea is wonderfully simple; tear off the page for that day and place in your mug of steaming water. Watch with awe as the tea infuses into the water.

With a different infusion each day that is finely pressed into strips, the innovative idea looks stylish and elegant whilst being fantastically practical. The German company who started in 1879 certainly stick to their slogan, ‘The World of Tea under One Roof’. The 365 different strips are delicately flavoured to ensure that your morning infusion gets you ready for the day ahead.

Unfortunately for us, however, the charming calendar is unavailable for the mass market for the time being. Only created as a prototype for a limited special addiction, extensive development of the product will be undertaken before we can get our hands on it.

Watch the video here:

Internet Interaction - Year Abroad #3

Next up on Inter:Mission: a bit of an experiment...

After almost 2 months on my year abroad, I decided that I would stop leaving my love life up to the Gods, and I would take matters into my own hands. No more waiting for Jean-Pierre to step around the corner in his stripy shirt and beret and take my breath away, it was time to get proactive. After thinking through my options briefly, and overhearing a conversation between colleagues, my mind was made up; online dating.

I think attempting online dating is the perfect example of something that has captured my year abroad spirit. I can’t imagine that I would create any such profile in the UK, predominantly through fear of cyber-running into someone that I know, but when in France my self-judgement seems to go a bit hazy. I can always say that I did it for an article anyway… Justification out of the way, a bit of research led me to the most popular French online dating website, ‘adopteunmec.com’ or as we could translate, ‘adopt a guy’.

As the title suggests, the website is heavily focused on girls having all the power. While men pay 30euros for the privilege of a picture of themselves and a couple of descriptive sentences, girls get the service free of charge. Not only do men have to pay, but in order to send a girl an email, the girl has to ‘accept their charm’ before one word can be exchanged. I like the sound of this already, no creepy 50 year olds asking you if, ‘you have ever been with an older man’ (apparently that happens). The site continues to amuse with  sections such as ‘sales’ where you can find the ‘best’ guys easily under categories such as ‘geek chic’ and ‘sporty’. My favourite aspect has to be the option to, ‘add to cart’ when you find a man you’d like to chat to, so it is basically just like being on Asos.com (more justification you see). The attention to detail on the site really makes the whole experience quite agreeable, although perhaps more so if you’re a girl…

Without a care in the world, I set up a profile indicating my Erasmus status and a photo chosen by Slovak (read my previous article to find out more about him). It was worryingly easy, within 5 minutes my photo had been approved and I was starting to feel a sense of that phrase Miley has us all arguing over, ‘female empowerment’. Flicking through images of 21-26 year old men within 50 kilometres of Bordeaux, I couldn’t quite escape the feeling that I was being horrendously shallow, but perhaps that’s the point of girl power.

After a necessary cull of many of the ‘charms’ and an addition of a second photo, the seemingly more normal guys began to surface. A few ‘bonjour, ca va?’ messages later and I already have a date night set up with a guy whose profile picture has him holding a puppy. Assuming that it will be a disaster, I really have very little faith, I’ve asked Slovak to ring me an hour into the date to ensure I’m safe. No doubt I will be back at my laptop keyboard shortly writing about how disastrous the whole thing was… I do hope he brings the puppy though. 

Dangerous Domestics - Year Abroad #2

My second column for Inter:Mission, this time I decided to talk about moving in with strangers...

When you make the decision that you want to live with other people (rather than in a studio flat) on your year abroad, you put your hand into a lucky-dip of unknown personalities. You may create future friendships that are to last, or you could find yourself slap bang in the middle of disaster. When you decide, as I did, to live in an Erasmus flat where the people change every few months, you are multiplying that risk by 10 and adding a pinch of communication trouble into the melting pot too.

When I first moved into my 4 bedroom, ‘this’ll do’ apartment in Bordeaux, the first person I met was a lovely Austrian girl studying French in the city. We immediately hit it off, chatting about lots of things we had in common and about how beautiful Bordeaux was. Perfect, at least I’ll have one friend. Not so, she soon informed me that she was in her last week, and she didn’t fail to add that the other guy, a Slovakian, was an interesting personality.

She was right, the Slovakian guy was an interesting personality. Although rather charming, especially if you’re into the Russian/eastern European accent, I soon discovered that he was affording his travels through blogging. ‘How interesting, I like to blog too. What do you blog about?’ He has 100 webpages apparently, and one of the most prominent money-makers focuses on a lovely group of 5 English boys called One Direction. Ah. The second eyebrow was raised when I asked his age and he responded that it is a, ‘secret that even my ex-girlfriend doesn’t know’. Of course I headed straight to Facebook, (I’m slowly discovering that an obsession with Facebook stalking is a decidedly English attribute) and after much searching of birthday posts and graduation years, the most I could deduce is that he’s older than 33. He still won’t tell me.

The next to enter my flat of eclectic eccentricities was a French girl who couldn’t understand a word of French that either Mr Slovak or I said. Although I am well aware that my French is not perfect, it is at least comprehensible. Whether I was confused, insulted or mildly irritated, her bedtime of 8pm on the second evening told me everything I needed to know about the longevity of our friendship (or lack thereof). Even Slovak said he didn’t fancy her, and that’s saying something.

Despite the mystery of an Erasmus flat, I truly believe that my year abroad is designed for experiences like this and I love it. When else will I get the opportunity to learn about different cultures so intensely and be able to shout Britain’s praises to others? ‘The Olympics was just such a huge success, you see’. Also, my room has a lock. That helps.

You can find the original article on Inter:Mission Bristol here.

Is Free Content Ruining Journalism?

The internet is a haven for anyone and his dog to write down their inner most thoughts. Blogs have become a dime a dozen, with every teenage girl writing about her One Direction obsession and most middle-aged house-wives filling their afternoon hours blogging about cake making. Suddenly everyone has become a journalist and thus journalism has taken the same path as the word, ‘literally’, it has become meaningless.

However, the teenage ‘Directioner’ isn’t planning on making a living from her ramblings, her blog is the 21^st century equivalent of the diary that we hid under our pillow, if you don’t Google One Direction, which I personally don’t plan to do, then you’ll be blissfully unaware of her waffling. The difference is that people like Arianna Huffington do make their living from free content. Unfortunately, her rising bank balance is fairly unequal to those who write for her. The Huffington Post, essentially a glorified blog in itself, is the torch-bearer at our much-loved journalism’s funeral. The 3000 contributors to the site are unpaid, unreliable and unmonitored. Fact-checking seems to have become irrelevant and proof-reading has become a thing of the past. I’m not a stranger to Huff Post myself, but the US site reaches 85million unique users per month and it is quickly becoming one of the most visited websites on the internet. 

To step away from nattering on about the depreciation of journalistic integrity, (I can spend a while criticising The Daily Mail for their typos and false information), free content is a disaster for the published press as well. It is over-written that newspapers are on the decline with The Guardian estimating that they’re in their last decade and cut backs across magazines. Newspapers can no longer afford to support their writers, why is it that we no longer feel journalists (or writers at least) deserve to make a living from their skill? And what does it mean for print journalism?  

The fundamental destruction of journalism is not the fact that we now read from a lit-up electronic device rather than paper, but that the young generation who write for the lit-up devices use it as an excuse to boycott established and important journalistic practice. It is all too easy to publish a made-up statistic or a false statement therefore filling the minds of others with gibberish and grot. By all means create your corner of the internet to write about that banana and apple muffin you made last week, but do it for you. For the public, bring back the editors and slow the process down, or our children won’t know the difference between their, ‘there’ and their, ‘they’re’.   

A Disastrous Date - Year Abroad #1

I have started a fortnightly column on the fantastic website Inter:MIssion Bristol where I'm going to bare my soul and talk about some of the embarrassing things that happen on year abroads. My first piece is all about a date that went disastrously wrong...

Image: bizeminervois

After 1 month in the wilderness, I decided that it was just about time to dive head-first into finding my Jean-Pierre. By that, I mean the stereotypical year abroad boyfriend; floppy hair, sickeningly romantic but not quite interesting enough for it to last the long distance after you leave. I should point out here, for interest, that we were advised to invest in such boyfriends by Bristol; apparently it will be ‘wonderful for our language skills’. Perhaps invest is not the right word.

Upon making my decision, there were many things to be considered. Should I fancy someone at the office? Should I take to one of my roommates? Should I join an online dating website? Alas, I apparently decided the best option was to meet a man at 3am in a promising location…in the street. I should definitely mention at this point that I wasn’t actually drunk, nor he, but I accept that it’s not the most romantic of scenarios. Well, anyway, it gets worse.

After agreeing to go on a date with this boy, we exchanged numbers and each headed our own way. After multiple triple texts, a Facebook add and a doubling up of those excessive texts as Facebook chats, it began to dawn on me that the street might not have been the best place to meet someone. ‘Don’t be so judgemental’ I told myself, ‘he might not be that bad’. He was that bad.

Our date night was set, we were to meet on the steps of the beautiful Bordeaux Grand Theatre. As I left my flat, allowing myself the perfect time to be between 5 and 10 minutes late, I heard my phone ring. Apparently he was 15 minutes early; he just wanted to let me know. Not too strange, but not normal date night etiquette I would suggest.

After meeting and having the mandatory awkward not-sure-which-side-to-kiss-first hello that so often happens in France, we headed off in a direction that I assumed was to find a bar. Not so. He thought it was appropriate to take me to his hotel room, he’d bought a bottle of wine apparently. After seeing the sheer panic on my face, we agreed to change his plans and head for an Irish pub, in a public location, where there are other people.

If I hadn’t had enough blinkingly obvious deal-breakers already, now came the explosive bomb that finally blasted away my naivety. ‘So what do you do for a living?’ I asked politely, ‘Oh, I sell sex toys’ he responded casually. I was momentarily amused to find out that apparently the word for ‘sex toys’ is the same in French, but then realisation dawned on me; this embarrassingly keen, wildly inappropriate vibrator vendor was not going to be my Jean-Pierre. Time to make my excuses and leave.

You can find the original article on Inter:Mission Bristol here.

If only...

Tea-Total in Wine Country - Life In A French Office

I was recently very flattered to be asked to write a piece for the Travel section of the University of Bristol’s newspaper, Epigram. Two months into my time in Bordeaux, I decided the best theme for the article would be my attempts to integrate into a French working environment…

Image: Flickr: Aurdesco

One of the greatest benefits of having a year abroad is that, for one year, we briefly leave behind the 'Bristol bubble' and get to dip our toes into the paddling pool of real life. Of course, there are many that choose to study. However, the majority of British students who go to France opt for life at a desk with a cup of strong coffee in one hand and an AZERTY keyboard to tackle with the other.

Like most Bristol students, I had done various bits of work experience where I sat at a desk pretending not to be on Facebook, so I felt I had a fairly good grasp of the way things work in the corportate world. However, on my first day in my marketing office in Bordeaux, I learnt very quickly that things are somewhat different here. The first earth-shattering, fear-inducing panic attack came when I discovered that my office, shockingly, didn't have a kettle. Apparently on the odd occassion that they make tea, also sacrilegiously plumping for fruit tea over black tea, the microwave is their method of choice.

The tea debate was made even worse by that fact that the French word for kettle, brouilloire, is possibly the hardest word for an English person to pronounce. Therefore, as I resigned myself to the fact that the french prefer coffee to tea, I decided to embrace my surroundings, or as the cliché goes, 'broaden my horizons' and made the transition. You may think that I am over-dramatising a mere swap from tea to coffee, but my next shock came in a more physical manner; their coffee was strong enough to give me the shakes.

Leaving the ktichen behind, I was there to work rather than to drink hot drinks after all, I was soon showed to my desk and introduced to my colleagues. Cue awkward cheek kissing. The interesting thing about working in your second language is that the simplest task becomes a nightmare. Sending a quick email to your boss sends shivers down your spine: what if it is littered with mistakes? Using Microsoft Word leads you to believe that your computer is trying to trick you as 'ctrl + B' no longer turns your words bold. Why is it trying to search your document instead? However, all this pales into insignificance the first time you hear the dulcet tones of a ringing phone. You look around to discover that you are the only one in the room. You brace yourself as you pick up the phone: 'Bonjour ... pardon?' 

Despite the many difficulties I've faced during my first two months in a French office — being asked to translate 'Sidebar Widget' is fairly high on the list — I have also learnt a huge amount. My favourite aspect of the office has to be lunchtime where we sit down together to share bread and cheese in the middle of the table. Even though I may still occasionally hide my Facebook in the bottom corner of my screen, or pretend to work when I'm actually writing an article for Epigram, I have certainly gained a fresh outlook on office life. I'm looking forward to diving in permanently sometime in the future.

You can find the original article on Epigram's website here and the complete E2 Living Section on Issuu here.

'20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don't Get' - A Response

I recently read the most fantastic article by Jason Nazar on Forbes about young people and their attitude to business. The no-nonsense style of the article was a change from the molly-coddled, spoon-fed and watered-down approach of treating young people in the 21^st century, especially by career professionals (Huffington Post recently argued, rather mockingly, that always being told we are special is ultimately making us unhappy). While I wouldn’t personally like to work under Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, Nazar’s example of the most valuable boss, being told off for my future mistakes before I make them could be useful. Business is not about Miss Honey telling us what to do and giving us a big cuddle if we don’t succeed, it’s about pro-activity and initiative. I imagine it’s also about having a thick skin too.

Nazar talks about the emergence of social media in the business world and its longevity, or lack thereof. Although many would be offended at his suggestion that ‘social media is not a career’, his point is clear. Social Media is unreliable and may disappear as quickly as it arrived. Reports suggest that Twitter has already reached the top of its graph and is now on the decline and even Instagram feels the need to introduce advertising to prevent social media mortality being a reality. As Nazar states, Social Media is a tool for marketing that should be adapted to other business, rather than be the business itself. Social Media is simple, it is isolated and above all, it is unreliable. Business may not be reliable either, but it involves interaction with people and the formation of business relationships that can’t be acquired from posting on a Facebook page a few times a day.

Would we ask to go home if this happened?
Image: WeBlogCartoons

His comment, ‘Stop hiding behind your computer. Business gets done on the phone and in person.  It should be your first instinct’ is of particular relevance to my generation. We don’t pick up the phone anymore and many don’t even bother with email. In order to contact the Graduate Recruiters for the Big 4, it seems as though my comrades simply head to the Facebook page and add a comment to the long list of obvious and unnecessary questions before them. The way I see it, hiding behind our computers is making us anonymous, uninteresting and ridding us of all initiative. Asking questions has its time and place, but working something out for yourself is invaluable.

While I don’t agree with everything Nazar says, such as his rejection of tweet reading, the overall essence of his article appears to be a comment on laziness. Lack of networking, hiding behind social media and sending blanket emails; it is all easy. Picking up the phone, meeting business professionals and taking responsibility for our own mistakes may be tough, but it is rewarding. The Co-Founder of Docstoc has certainly persuaded me of one thing, there’s a lot more to business than sitting in front of a computer.

I urge you to read the original article, ’20 Things20-Year-Olds Don’t Get’ on Forbes.

The French Can’t Drive

After four years of driving in the UK, I decided that it was time my little car got to take a holiday and come with me to the wine region of Bordeaux in the south of France for 6 months. I had been warned about French drivers by my Father (coincidentally an advanced driving instructor) who taught me how to drive. Under his strict ruling, I had to complete at least 50 hours of lessons before sitting my test and failing was not even an option. However, despite all the warnings, I could never have been prepared for driving in France. Quite simply, the French don’t know how to drive.

Right-hand Drive. My brother, who drives through Europe on a weekly basis these days, had kindly informed me of toll roads requiring payment (on the left hand side) so I invested in an automatic Télépéage before I even reached the border, but I hadn’t quite realised the same would go for car parks. I have since discovered two methods of reaching a machine on the wrong side of the car; “the jump-out-and-run-around” as well as the “extreme-lean”. Neither is particularly comfortable. I believe it is Napoleon I have to blame for this, you should have stayed on the left!

French Kissing. It would appear that the French adopt their attitude to kissing to their cars as well. When a Frenchman is driving, he indubitably feels the need to roll along bumper to bumper without a care in the world. ‘Bumper kissing’, as I now refer to it, is an obligatory stage of parallel parking too. Don’t forget to kiss both the car in front and the car behind when you squeeze into the space! Personally, I actually care if my number plate is bent in half when I return to my car. The French don’t seem to.

Parking: French Style

Speed Limits. This is more of a gripe aimed at the people who decide the speed limits on French roads. Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody except me, sticks to them. Perhaps it is a suggestion that the speed limits are too slow, or perhaps it is too easy to get away with it, but it is infuriating when I am driving along at a legal pace and the person behind me wants to go faster, and he shows it by extreme bumper kissing me. 

Traffic Lights. Before now, my experience of driving has been limited to country roads in the UK. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I arrived in Bordeaux and I discovered that the amber light was in fact an indication to speed up, not to slow down as I am used to. As a result, I witness cars running red lights on a daily basis, and I gasp each and every time. The worst occasion was a crash that I witnessed between two cars because one ignored the red light. Frenchies- amber means stop. 

Not speed up...

Beeping. I live on a busy street, a street that lots of impatient commuters use to get to work in the morning. If someone wants to parallel park in the road and needs to hold you up for 1 minute while they do so; let them. Some of us are trying to sleep and your constant beeping is only stressing everybody out. They will take longer to park, and I will wake up from my magical dream about how the French have all suddenly become wonderful drivers… 

So I suppose for now, I shall just have to embrace French culture and learn to drive like them. One thing, please don’t tell my Father…

The Things the French Got Wrong

Image: Waldo

My self-prescribed mission was to embrace French culture as far as is possible while in Bordeaux. My assignment thus far has been fairly successful; I buy bread most days from the Boulangerie, I spend 5 minutes kissing all my colleagues every morning and I’ve completely forgotten how to drive smoothly. However, as much as I am enjoying temporarily denying my true nationality, there are some things that I miss about Blighty…

QWERTY Keyboards. I fully accept that other countries should use other keyboards to fit with their languages. Accents are common in French, so therefore putting an é on the keyboard makes sense. However, banishing a full stop from its place causing it to be impossible to find is frustrating and being rid of a £ sign when constantly needing to write prices in English is infuriating. Needless to say, within a week, Amazon.fr was my new friend and the AZERTY keyboard was exiled to the shelving unit.  

Strikes. I know that we’re not entirely innocent of this at home, but the French take it to the extreme. The news must be checked daily to ensure that public transport is all running smoothly and an extra 20 minutes must always be left just in case. I found it particularly amusing when I was in Paris 2 years ago and there were large strikes over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. In England, it’s currently 65. I kept my mouth shut…

Sundays. It may be unfair to say that the French get Sundays wrong, perhaps it is fairer to suggest that they simply haven’t updated their Sunday system along with the rest of us yet. If you wake up on a Sunday morning without anything in the fridge, you have two choices; no food or restaurant food. Shops still believe in a full day off in the south west, however, it may be interesting to note that the wineries are all open…

The Internet. The only one of my list that has actually been less of a nuisance and more of an annoyance. Our internet provider was genuinely proud of the fact that they take less than two weeks (10 days specifically) to deliver the box after we purchased the internet. When I, and the Austrian girl I was with, explained that our internet at home is installed immediately, I think they got a little bit offended…

As much as I have now become a regular user of the phrase, ‘this would never happen in England’, I imagine that the moment I step off the plane and step into a long queue back home, I shall utter the words, ‘this would never happen in France…’ 

Happy 1st Blog Birthday

I cannot really believe that my dear little Notebook has made it to one year. From controversial posts about the first year of University being a waste of time, to more amusing thoughts on drunkenness, and even arguments that I feel strongly about such as commenters attacking writers, somehow the posts are still coming.

I have certainly learnt one thing: I am inspired by everything around me. This means that I haven’t really got a focus. However, it doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore  Even though a lot of my posts are about my life in France on Erasmus and the various things that have gone wrong (such as cake-making), I have recently been writing about other things too. I was interested by an original marketing campaign on YouTube by Heineken and even a social networking cartoon a few weeks ago took my fancy- and it was great to see that they took yours too as they were popular posts. Perhaps a variation isn’t such a bad thing, it is how BuzzFeed works after all.

The one thing I am sure about, is that I still love it. Writing is a lot of fun, choosing what to write about is an interesting challenge and working out how personal to make my posts is an exciting dilemma (maybe I went too far here…and here…).

I never knew that I would make it to birthday number 1, but I’m glad I did. I’m 60 posts down and I’ve still got lots to say. If you keep reading, I will definitely keep writing. Actually, I’ll probably keep writing anyway.