sometimes it takes a lot of organisation to be me, Eloise

It makes me laugh how I've had this blog for a mere 4 days and I've already gone against my word of writing a post every day. What I've discovered is that regardless of writing them during class, it actually takes a fair chunk of time (about 3 hours) to type each one out and have it up to scratch for the internet. It's not even that it's a particularly strenuous task, and in reality it shouldn't take as long as it does, but in fact, I'm an extremely pedantic person when it comes to putting down my thoughts on paper and being my own worst critic is a very time consuming job, trust me!

So, after spending far too long creating Monday's post and heading into slumber a fair bit past midnight, I had a bit of a mixed up morning-mind bright and early yesterday... As my alarm sounded at the crisp and arduous time of 7:45am, me, Eloise, snuggly and cosy in my bed, had no choice but to force myself up and my eyes open, and remove myself from what I remember to be especially  sweet dreams. You may be thinking "Oh, very well.. that's not insanely early, quit your complaining!" but the truth is, my friends, if you had been paying any attention in my last blog post (assuming you even made it past the shocking truth of French algebra) you may just realise that I start school at 10am on Tuesday, and that waking up 2 hours and 15 minutes in advance was a completely unnecessary notion, even for me, the girl who is required to set aside at least half an hour for deciding on what to wear for that day (having a wardrobe full of clothes is not the same as having something to wear, darlings. Je te jure...) Anyway, if you did happen to notice this little fact, I can tell you know, you're one step ahead of me, because thinking it was actually 8:45am, a sleepy Eloise prepared to prepare herself for the day (yes, preparation preparation.. what can I say? Sometimes it takes a lot of organisation to be me) It was only when the lovely Sam all the way in New Zealand, bless his spritely brain, asked me why I had to get ready so early when the start of school was virtually in the distant future that I realised what was up (apart from me of course)...

It was 7:45am!

School was starting at 10am!

For any normal person whose brain doesn't resemble Eloise's bedroom at the Plaza (aka a great, big, confusing, pink mess) this realisation would have been the simple and welcome end to such pointless uncertainty, but for someone like me who was dealing with a severe case of what I like to call the plaza-bedroom-brain (P.B brain for short), well then there's nothing to it but zippity zap clink clank, hang up that phone, the madness continued!

it's so accurate it could almost be an x-ray...

You see, I began to heavily doubt myself... distressing thoughts of "Do I usually require this much time to get myself ready in the morning?" or "Do I actually start school at 8 today?" and my personal favourite "Am I even awake right now?!" started whizzing around my muddled mind until I realised that it was probably time to calm myself and trust that nothing exceptional was about to go down.

The ironic thing is that despite waking up far too early, I was actually late for school (only by a few minutes, but for irony's sake we'll let it pass... seriously though, how do I manage it?) My first class just so happened to be French with my favourite person ever, and the fact that I was so fatiguée and confuse made putting up with her poodle head, sweat patches (how did I forget to mention her lack of deodorant in my last post?!) and another, surprise surprise, lumpy jersey and baggy jeans duo, for a whole hour that much more unbearable.

I didn't have much of a blog prepared for yesterday though, because while I had about 6 hours of lessons to fill time in, I found myself actually doing a bit of work instead. I feel a bit pathetic saying that, actually, because when I use the words 'doing work' what I mean to say is 'copying notes off the board so I don't feel so guilty about always writing in English when I'm meant to be learning French' However, I can't help but feel sort of productive from my latest pursuit, because while I don't actually understand all of what I'm copying down, practising written French must be helping in some way or another, no matter how small.

Unfortunately History is the only class where this 'work' is possible because all the teacher ever does is show documentaries and prepare slideshows for the class to copy notes off. She's someone I can't quite make my mind up about to be honest... I mean sure, she's a bit lazy with her teaching method and wears green eyeliner to match her hand knitted jumper that appears as if it might have first been intended for a child (she's plus petite than me, even), but she seems nice enough. One thing I'm sure of, however, is that she hasn't related me to a deaf person yet (I'm still utterly offended by that) and in any case, that's a gold star in my books!

The thing that makes me kind of sad about this particular class though (apart from the fact that whatever you learn in history at school is near to always a tiny bit tear-jerking) is that the topic right now is World War II (no surprises here) which is something I've always found endlessly interesting, no matter how depressing it is. However, apart from the death statistics, I can't understand a thing. I guess in a way I'm quite fortunate that this particular teacher has a very visual teaching style, because at least I have something to look at for the hour long class. Nonetheless, there are a few problems I've encountered with this situation... Since the language primarily used in schools here in France is, well, French, and because I'm still at the stage of recognising certain words but not understanding the topic of the dialogue in general, my attention span with these documentaries (as much as I love these beautiful bundles of facts and joy) isn't very long, and usually after about 5 or 10 minutes, I avert my gaze elsewhere and do some observing, something I've grown rather good at recently.

Here's where the second problem is introduced into the equation (is it just me or is this beginning to sound a lot like maths?)...

Twice now, my attention has fallen upon something in class that has caused me to do something completely inappropriate when watching a movie about german concentration camps... I think you know where this one is heading.

You know those moments where something just has to be the slightest bit funny, but because you know very well that you really can not laugh in this moment and your body thinks it's a great idea to plot against you by somehow intensifying the laugh-creators in your brain, thus making said slightly funny thing approximately 84737957% funnier and rendering it impossible to hold back your laughter? Phew. Yeah, I know you've experienced this. You know exactly what I'm talking about and lying to me here is not going to erase the memory no matter how much you wish it could be so!

So pretty much, I think this is where I shall reveal all and show you what a horrible person I am... As I glimpsed away from the brutal scene displayed on the projector at the front of the class, I saw one of my friends in the front row, head perched comfortably on his hand, eyes closed and mouth ever so slightly open, completely carefree in an angelic snooze... In hindsight, I guess it's not as funny as I remember it being but I guess because I was having one of those 'moments' where my humour deciphering centres in my brain were working at full speed, I seriously was finding it hard to get a hold of myself. I suppose it didn't help that I also had a pair of Frenchies whispering and having a bit of a giggle themselves directly behind me (there's just something about a french laugh I tell you!) but trust me, it was not an easy moment to be in. What makes it worse is that the same thing happened again this morning when the girl beside me was having more fun playing on her phone than learning about nazis, and would really obviously cough whenever her little game made a noise... Why she didn't just turn it on silent beats me, but what can I say really? The French love to have a good laugh, no matter how appropriate the time for laughing.

All in all, I feel I must take this time to give you a word of advice and at the same time sound my apology for seeming so insensitive...

There's nothing funny about the Holocaust, I promise you.

Anyway, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I think that what I was trying to let you know at the very start of this post before I strayed completely and utterly off the topic, was that I've now decided to update my blog every second day. This way I hope to reduce muddle-mind moments like yesterday morning's and perhaps even have the strength to stop myself from doing all the wrong things at all the wrong times and, most importantly, have gathered a bit more to tell you about.

Well I guess that's today's post over sorry, friends. Now, go and have an inappropriate laugh.

Until Friday (my time)...

Yours truly,
me, Eloise x