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.

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[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!

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.

Ordering Tea in France

As much as I love learning about new cultures and languages, and I really do, I’ve started to notice that there are some Englishisms that I can’t quite drop. I’ll happily adopt the daily visits to the Boulangerie for a baguette, I’ll even speed up when the traffic lights go orange rather than slow down, but when it comes to tea, I remain a patriot. However, sticking to my tea-drinking habits is not as easy in France as you might expect. Here are a few reasons why…

They hate milk. French people hate milk. It might be a teeny generalisation, but UHT milk is pretty much all you can get in their supermarkets. Something doesn’t seem right for me when the milk is kept in the larder and not in the fridge and it doesn’t go off for months… it’s unnerving.

They give me funny looks when I ask for milk. Many a waitress or colleague have raised their eyebrows upon my request for milk with my tea. ‘I’ve never heard of that before’ responded one waitress earlier this week, ‘I’ll ask the chef’. Even if they do finally understand the concept of milky tea, it is often brought to the table hot and foamy. That’s for coffee, duh.

They like funny flavours. The most common appears to be Darjeeling, but Earl Grey is a popular choice as well. If I’m going to forgo French culture, I’m going to do it right. English Breakfast only please.

They prefer coffee anyway. I think my strive for a tea taste of home is fairly fruitless, with various occasions of being brought a tea bag with a cup of milk (no water), hot milk on its own (with no tea)and often a cup so full there is no space for milk in it, perhaps it is time to age a few years and start drinking Espresso. I’m all for embracing the culture, but I might just keep a stash of Tetley’s in the back of the cupboard for the next time something exciting happens in the royal family and I feel nostalgic for home.

A Moment from a Movie

This weekend I had a plan. I was to travel back to England for a total of 23 hours in order to celebrate the 21^st birthday of one of my closest friends. Planned far in advance, rather keenly so, I had booked my trains to take me from Bordeaux to Paris and then the Eurostar from Paris to London, acquired so far in advance that the sizeable cost was almost forgotten. She had asked me to do her speech after all.

Of course there was a thunder storm the night before. Of course all the trains to Paris were cancelled due to floods. Of course I didn’t let this stop me.

After deciding that the airport was the way to go (both metaphorically and literally), I jumped in a taxi and exaggeratedly shouted, ‘take me to the airport!’ Dramatic, I hear you say. Well, the fun didn’t stop there. Upon arriving at the airport, I had my movie moment. The moment that allows you to have a story that you know you will always remember and over-tell for a long time to come. That story that your friends will get pretty fed up of hearing but you’ll keep telling them anyway.

Me: ‘Your first flight to London!’

Easyjet Lady: ‘It’s in 40 minutes’

Me: ‘I’ll take it!’

…

Me: ‘Wait, how much?’

An experience and a half, I was whisked through the airport, ushered through security and was sat with my seatbelt on within half an hour. Now that is efficient airporting.

Perhaps it is not the best advice to say arriving at an airport to buy your ticket 40 minutes before a flight is incredibly successful, but stress-related feelings aside, it was rather effective- I didn’t have to wait around for even a minute. Needless to say my friend’s party was incredible and I can only thank her for both the amazing evening, but also for providing me with my very own scene that could have been taken straight from a script.  

French V British: What Makes Us Different?

Image: Crossed-flag-pins.com

I have only been in sunny Bordeaux for a week, but I have already noticed a lot of culture differences between us awkward Brits and our froggy neighbours. They may be stereotyped, but they’re very true.

Their Driving. I decided to make a little road trip out of my year abroad and so brought my car to Bordeaux with me. I expected dilemmas to arise when entering car parks and not being able to reach the ticket machine on the other side, but I hasn’t quite realised that the French aren’t particularly bothered by the welfare of their vehicle. I have yet to see a car without a dent or scratch and am counting the days until I find mine with a wing mirror knocked off.

Their Size. They may eat lots of bread, but I have yet to come across anyone larger than the likes of Dr Jenson recommend. I’ve seen lots of fast food restaurants, but fast food junkies seem to be few and far between.

Their hate of supermarkets. I haven’t quite worked out why, but the French seem to hate the idea of buying everything in one place. They have separate shops for food products (Boulangerie for bread, boucherie for meat, epicerie for all the condiments) and I really cannot understand the lack of the all-encompassing Boots. Make-up, shampoo and plug adapters all in one place? Yes please.

And the one thing we do have in common? We secretly love each other! We can’t get enough of French restaurants in England and I seem to be seeing the British flag everywhere in Bordeaux. Not only that, but within a 10 minute walk of my apartment can be found, ‘Sherlock Holmes’, ‘Charles Dickins’ and even a ‘Cock and Bull’ (Yes, real pubs! Apparently one of them even serves Pimms…). 

Image: Hammeroftruth.com