Ha!

This has been my day: Get up, shower, buy a brioche and have a coffee. Get to school and all the people are nice (Robin, English, 55ish, lived here for 20 years; Lucy, English but lives in Austria, 22ish; Rachel, American, 22ish and not annoying (sorry to be racist!) Michelle, American, 22ish (ditto), brought her dog with her from Chicago (to Europe, not to school) for two months; Ken, N. Irish, 55ish; Eleanor, Italian, 25ish; and Rupert, English, 42, lived here for six years). They seem like a nice bunch. No complete losers and people I think I'll get on with. I don't feel stressed and have a good day. I find out that I've got a host family but, and this bit isn't quite as good, they've got three cats (I'm a bit allergic). On the positive side they live a two minute walk from the school but again on the negative side, that's quite near the station and those areas are notoriously not very nice. Later I'm told that something has happened in the family and they can no longer host me. There are no other host families available so the tutor tells me she has a newly-refurbed apartment in Cagnes-sur-Mer that I can have for 150E less than I was going to pay. It's got a pool and she's going to furnish it (basically I guess) tonight. The downside is that it's about a half hour bus ride from Nice. I think I can live with that though! Actually, I've just done a quick search and it's 6 mins on the train from Nice. Perfect! I came out of school and had a split second of thinking, oh, what am I going to do now all on my lonesome before it hit me that I can go and have a nice swim in the Med - how bloody awesome is that?! Admittedly I do have some homework to do, but I can do that this evening. Better to enjoy the sunshine for now. So all in all a pretty good day I'd say, and I'm feeling very fortunate that things have worked out so well. I think that good karma thing might just be right.

I'm meeting my Italian friend for lunch tomorrow and there's a big fireworks display in Nice on Thursday for Bastille Day (which we have to work, shock horror!), so will probably go to that. We also get every Friday afternoon off, which is even better! The course is going to be hard work, especially the grammar. Can't say I knew this, for example:

We [subject] are [complement verb] late [complement].

Or this:
He [subject] underwent [object verb - never heard of one of them before] treatment [direct object].

Or even that there are no-object verbs like slip and talk (you can say 'I slipped' but not 'I slipped my foot'). God knows how I'm going to speak about this kind of thing to my colleagues for 10 minutes in the morning, nevermind explain the logistics of it to an inquisitive French student!

Interestingly, the grammar section is being taught by a French lady. I thought this odd until I realised that we probably know more about the grammar of the foreign languages we learn than the grammar of our own language, which we know innately. Ho hum. I guess it might make you slighly less jealous to know that my life isn't all about soaking up the sunshine and cooling off in the Med ;o)