Every time I see anything to do with Paris, I become even more convinced that it is somewhere I would like to live. Change that, Love to Live. I would love to learn how to speak french fluently. Love to learn the ins and outs of the city, the backstreets. The secrets that only locals know. Even in a movie that is set in Paris, but all we see is inside buildings and streets that could be in any city in the world, I still get this urge to move there. Just up sticks and go, break away completely and be myself, by myself, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Random

I haven't got an awful lot to talk about. Essays are weighing me down, I'm getting ill again I think and I am constantly tired. I know I've been doing too much since I got back from Ireland, but I can't help it. I get to Hull and immediately start making plans. Then I have work to do on top of everything. I know it should come first, and I am slowly changing the order of my priorities, but getting there is difficult. I'm like my mother, I find it hard to say no to people.

Last night I went to my friend Ali's house for a get together. It was his birthday a couple of weeks ago so he invited a bunch of us round for food and drinks and fun. And what fun! I haven't had such a good night in in a very long time. And I haven't danced quite so much or so vigourously in a long time either. I have photos but the battery has died in my camera, and I'm too lazy to try revive it. As soon as I do I'll post a couple of pics. UPDATE: Some shots from the party at Ali's. First one is Vicky, Heiko and Adonis, and the second one is an action shot of Heiko and Idris dancing!

I've found a couple of wonderful blogs that I wanted to share. The first is PDP - Paris Daily Photo. I love this city and this guy makes me miss it and fall in love with it even more every time I look at the site. The second is PostSecret - weekly updated with new secrets, if you haven't seen it before, check it out. And lastly, cause both my sister and sister in law read this and go through the same things, I believe, its Bottles, Barbies & Boys. Its the day to day life of a mother of 3. Enjoy.

Paris & Others

Election Update
Voting started at midnight, Tuesday 26th and runs until 7:30pm Thursday 28th. So we're over a third of the way through. I've already cast my vote and am just hoping that hundreds of students do the same. I'd adore it if thousands voted, but who am I kidding? It won't happen. Not with student apathy the way it is. As for campaigning, I'm talking to people, telling them who I am, what I stand for and what the election is all about. It's amazing how many people - even second and third years - don't know what it is, or what the positions do or are for. I hope to educate people on these things. But enough election crap....

....Paris was beautiful. Isn't it always? It was sunny and warm - in the sunshine! It was full of tourists. It was full of english people because of the rugby but we ignored them as best we could. Unfortunately we were not lucky enough to get our hands on some match tickets, but we enjoyed the rugby none the less. We found a pokey little scottish bar, called The Highlander down some little alley way off the banks of the Seine, and sat there for most of saturday watching the rugby. We even made some friends with a bunch of lads from Coventry. I say lads, two of them were about 18, the other two were their fathers. But they made the day entertaining.

I'm proud of myself. I didn't do much of the traditional tourist thing. I figured I've done that before, I can go a weekend without it. Went to the Rodin museum and the Picasso museum, but aside from that we didn't do too many tourist things. We walked a lot. A LOT!! We wandered around St Germaine quite a lot, just looking. Not looking for anything in particular but just looking. We spent some time wandering around St Paul also, and found the most gorgeous little chocolate shop. The chocolate is made in sheets, and they weigh out how much you want in little slabs of it. And some of the flavours just looked gorgeous!! My only problem though is the french prefer plain chocolate to milk, and plain chocolate just doesn't do it for me. But they had one which was Caramel Chocolate, and that was mostly milk chocolate, with little chunks of hard caramel throughout it....had to go back and buy more on Sunday morning before leaving. It's all gone now unfortunately! And we ate a lot of ice-cream. My theory being you should eat a lot of it while you're on the continent cause Ireland and England just don't have good ice cream. You don't get real ice-cream here, you get that useless whipped stuff out of a machine. I had lots of sorbet, lemon and rasperry and rose - that last one was really good - and then cookies and cream ice cream. Mmmm.

Highlight of the trip for me would have to be the Friday evening. We wandered around the city a little, ending up in front of Sacre Coeur. I love that area, you can see almost the entire city, and at night it just looks amazing. It's so wide, so vast and so full!! But when we arrived there was two guys stood on the steps playing some music and singing, so we sat and listened for a while, looking out over the glittering city. I'd have happily sat there all weekend. We saw some brilliant street performers actually, besides these two guys. We saw some jugglers - well, it was contact ball technically - we saw rollerbladers doing tricks, we heard some brilliant music around Notre Dame. The rollerbladers were possibly my favourites though, they were fantastic. It was really hard to draw ourselves away from the crowd surrounding them. I'd say we stood and watched them for over half an hour.

Busy Busy Busy

Election Update!
This week has been kind of crazy. Monday at about 12:30, Harri - the current VPAR - reminded me of a meeting I was supposed to attend in Scarborough with him that night along with the other VPAR candidates, to get a feel for the job, get a chance to meet some Scarborough student reps and have a mini q&a. So We left Hull at about 4:30 and got back at about 10! It was a long evening. Well worth it, but a long day. I was out of the house from 10:30am til about 11pm!!

Tuesday - was that only yesterday? Oh man, it's been a long week - saw the beginning of the madness that is election fever. 10am - by the union clock settings - saw dozens of students in the union foyer putting posters up on any available space. It was madness! There was hands, paper, blutack and elbows everywhere. I have to say, I'm being a bit too relaxed about it all. I just wasn't all that motivated about the posters. Yes I know they can make a difference in people voting for you, but it's such a waste. The union looks ridiculous covered in sheets of green, yellow, pink and white with slogans and photos splashed across them. And then today half of them were underfoot, instead of infront of face! And that doesn't include the ones pulled down by angry students. There is some controversy regarding one of the candidates, but since it's all ongoing at the moment, I can't actually say anything specific about it.

Tuesday night - We had what is called Hustings. It's an opportunity for all candidates for all positions to get up, give a speech and answer some questions. The idea was that each candidate would get two minutes to give a speech, then once all had given their two cents, there would be two rounds of three questions put to the candidates, who would then take it turn to answer, with only a minute on the clock. When you think the number of candidates running for Pres is 6, for AU is 5, and the average for the rest is about 3, you can see how it stretched into a long night. We got out of there at about 10:45. But it was good, did me a lot of good to get up in front of a - small - crowd and tell them my opinions and positions for the job.

Today, thankfully, was not quite as busy. Had a radio interview about the election, which was a lot easier than I expected it to be, and that was it election wise!

Wow, when I put it into words I realise just how much I've been doing. I'm still wondering why, I mean do I honestly really want to do this? I think I do....I just want something to convince me.

Life Update
So outside of Election Fever I've not been up to much to be honest. Sleeping, remembering to eat, and not just junk food. Those are kinda my main two priorities outside of elections. But, tomorrow, at 6pm, I will be clambering onto a bus, driving down to Dover, across the sea to Calais and then on to Paris. Three day, the most beautiful city in the world and me!! I cannot wait. But at the same time, part of me doesn't want to go anymore. I'm getting a cold, my back is in agony most of the time - another story - and its bloody cold out! I've been wearing a hat, scarf and gloves every day the last week! We had snow all day yesterday! It's just mental! But it should be fun. Not so sure I wanna do the touristy thing again though. There's a couple of places I want to go back to, but I'm more interested in maybe finding a quirky pub and brushing up on my french with some randomers. That could be fun.

Lacking title topics

I don't really have anything to talk about today.

My writer's block disappeared shortly after I stopped putting things off, funnily enough, and I am now officially finished the first semester of my final year at university. That's a lot scarier than it sounds, believe me. So I now have a week entirely to myself. Well, almost. As always I have plans and meetings and volunteering and this, that and the other. But wouldn't be a week for me without all the above.

This last week I've been very stressed, what with three essays due in three days in succession. They're all done. They may not be up to the best standard but they're done. And what with the registering for sabbatical elections coming up soon. I have until, early feb to officially decide. I think the final date for application submission is Feb 12th - though I'm not entirely positive. But it doesn't end there!! Once the application is in I have to go through election campaign stuff. Like going to hustings, answering questions thrown at me but students. Having my face and name plastered across the uni!! It's gonna be an interesting few weeks. And in the midst of it all I'm heading off to Paris for a weekend on the 21st. The ISA are organising it, and am going as a trip leader, so it'll be work of sorts, but only if I'm needed that way. I can't wait to go. I've not been in years, and just love the place.

Speaking of, had an interesting discussion with Nick the other night. He doesn't like Paris. Doesn't see the appeal or the charm and doesn't want to go. I'll admit I was in a state of something akin to shock for a while after he said this. I mean I can understand not wanting to go somewhere famous, but its PARIS!!! Or is it just me that thinks this city is a must on the list of things to do before you die?