Episode Sixty Four – A Wee Update

Hi everyone! It’s hump day!

Well, not for me because Wednesday is the only day I work, but it’s still a fun thing to announce at the start of a blog post.

I’m taking a break from my stories to bring you all up to date with various new things going on in my current life. Exams may be over, but I’m still busy – kinda – doing some things I’d like to briefly share with you.

Before…

I had my hair cut! Apparently I’m not the only one to go for a post-exam style change – I guess it’s some sort of spring tradition I’ve been missing out on all these years. My hair had not been happy since I subjected it to climate shock, going from tropical Costa Rica to winter in Scotland in the space of about twelve hours; plus, long hair is high maintenance and I’m hopeless at styling it, so I went for the chop. What a perfect way to welcome the transition into carefree summertime!

…After!

Unless the hairdresser gives you a bob, that is. I tried to explain in French what I wanted – I even looked up such vocabulary as ‘layered’ and ‘side fringe’ in preparation – but I still ended up somewhere in between what I actually wanted, and a bob. But you know what? This is France, where bobs are hyper-chic, so I’m just going to roll with it. This can be my answer when some future employer asks me in an interview about a time when I showed adaptability.

‘Well Mr. CEO, there was this one time when I got a haircut I didn’t like but I saved it with my 11€ curling irons…’

*SMOOTH TRANSITION* Speaking of job interviews… I’ve begun the dreaded, grueling, soul-destroying hunt for a summer job. Just the memory of 2010’s search was enough to make me put it off until now, but I finally got my act together and started searching tour companies’ websites in the hopes of landing something more fulfilling than selling lentils to strangers. I found nothing for a long time and was reduced to the Job Centre website until Grant suggested I contact Sandeman’s about guiding tours freelance, and it looks like I might be onto something there: I received a call from a lady who said that since I speak Spanish (THANK YOU language brain), I would be a good candidate for the post of ‘meeting point manager’. It’s a real, contracted job with hourly rates and everything, so I said I’d be really interested – in fact if they decided to hire me I’d fly home and start straight away. I hope the trip I scheduled to visit Grant for three weeks doesn’t cost me another job: I’m waiting to hear about an interview, and I would be so psyched if I got one because I know I’d be good at the job, the job would be good for me, and I’d be grateful every day to be doing something that uses my skills and interests.

*SMOOTH TRANSITION* Speaking of skills and interests… I’ve been working on finally starting up that Etsy shop I’ve been talking about. I’m bouncing around a few ideas about names, logos, target markets etc. but I’m pretty sure my main products are going to be hand-bound books, Alsatian-style embroidered designs and small gifts like the hand-sewn teabags I’ve been working on. It’s quite a variety of things, which I’ve been warned against, but the aesthetic will be the main link between everything: the warm, cosy, quaint sort of style that evokes country homes and happy families. I’m really excited to share more with you about this as I make progress on the logo and things, and to get everyone’s opinions, but for now I’m just trying to get the basics sorted.

Vowels in Korean all look VERY similar…

*LACK OF SMOOTH TRANSITION* I’m studying Korean. For real this time. The language library has restricted opening hours now that classes have finished, but I spent a good three hours today with my head down, moving slowly towards the ability to form whole sentences! It’s challenging to start 100% from scratch, with a new alphabet and everything, but Korean fascinates me (so much I blogged about it for Raxa Collective a while back) and I’d really love to add it to my repertoire. Maybe I can work for the White House one day, and sit in on debates with Kim Jong-Un.

Probably not.

I’m also preparing to return to my home university for Senior Honours year (WHEN did that sneak up on me?!). I have to submit my dissertation plans by the end of Week One of classes, which means that for all my claims of scholastic freedom, I do actually have to start reading around the courses I’ll take and decide what sort of angle I want to come at my dissertations from. I don’t want to have to wait until Semester Two to get started: which means, although I’d have a lot more options if I were to write about Jean-Paul Sartre or the novel of the Spanish transition, my dissertations will almost certainly go along with my first-semester courses (The Spanish Newspaper Column, and The Modern City: Paris). Sigh… I guess I just need to do as much core reading for all four courses while I have the time, i.e. now. It’s off to Wikipedia for me…

Wish me luck!

Lots of love!