The Paroissien Diaries

general catch up

FRANCE | Thursday, 29 January 2009 | Views [159]

As the new year rolled in and i mine swept another 10 aus dollar beer ( what? i just dont carry that sought of cash) i made the drunken realization that it had been close to 9 months since ive made any sort of contact with anyone. Clearly i had made the same realization sober many times but it has taken the drunken one to shake me out of my internet captivity and let you know exactly what has happened in short and quick dot points as to not disappoint the fast paced lifestyle you all lead.

let it all be known early in the piece before you all close this email that I miss you terribly, shit loads of missing is occuring as you read...even the annoying parts of your personalities that i left behind i miss, and while im getting all emo...i love use all soooo much.

So the last time i wrote I was in Cornwall in March last year after what could only be described as an epic epic journey around India. If you have any spare time what so ever, India is the place to go. anyway the end of india saw the beginning of the next epic adventure. Barcelona.

highlights and lowlights in no particular order

The city itself, teeming with life and energy. The Spainards have got it all figured it. Wake up early, have a few smokes, eat some breaky, maybe go to work if you feel like it. Get to work and do a few hours, not to stressful of course. Work up an appetite, close for a 2-3 hour lunch and a siesta and then go back to work to finish at around 7.oo pm. Head to the local watering hole with either your fellow Spainish fella's or take the whole family including grandma and grandpa and smash beers until roughly 9.30pm at which point you sit down for a 2-3 hour dinner. Wake up and do it all over again aghhhh needless to say it was awesom. Barca offers heaps from buskers, amazing wallet stealers, grungy back streets, disgusting tap water but most of all a great night life. On every street you're bound to find atleast 15 bar/restaurants which somehow manage to survive with what seems like minimal usage. I reckon old mate just starts up his own bar so his mates can drink there cheaply, it's a lifestyle thing albiet a unhealthy lifestyle thing.
TEFL. Beth and I had planned this teaching english caper a few months in advance but really didn't have a clue what we were getting into. Like most of the people who sign up for this thing, they take it as a...lets give it a go, cant be that difficult can it? Well I'm here to tell you that teaching English and getting the actual certificate was fricken hard and fricken stressful but dare I say rewarding. We had a wicked class of people from all over the world, who got on really well and were all trying hard to be the best which lead of course to everyone doing well. If you're thinking of doing tefl, please dont fall into the trap like me of thinking that cause you got a few A's on a oral presentation at school that your automatically going to be a good teacher. Our 2nd day we were teaching a class and i have never in my life been more nervous...the sweat patches underneath the 1 dollar armani shirt i bought from India were needless to say MASSIVE! the course was 9 hours a day, 5 days a week for 4 weeks. we did 9 hours of teaching, 9 very long hours where we designed the lessons ourselves, up late at night trying to come up with activities in between stressful episodes of lost (bought on dvd in india of course) was horrible. Why are we paying lots of money for this again beth???? But we all came out the other side official teachers and none of us still had a clue what we were doing haha great.
English Grammar is fricken hard, a little dissapointed i didn't listen and nail all those definitions back when i was 10 and learning about nouns with Mrs PPrimary School Teacher. The hardest thing about the teaching for me, wasn't the standing up in front of people, it was that I had no idea about the grammar i was teaching haha it's all about teaching vocab.
highlight 3 came when Beth and I were offered the 2 places the tefl school opens up at the end of the course, a wicked reward for hardwork. What was initially joy turned quickly into despair when they casually handed us 29 hours a week teaching. Aghhhhh 29 hours in 4 days, the patches grew and grew. These students were actually paying me to teach them something, unilke the poor bunnies from the training school who get crap lessons for free. 29 hours quickly led to binge drinking on the thursday night thru to Sunday and a very anxious Sunday night. Saying this, my classes were awesom fun, all my students were really cool and engaging and dare I say, impressed with my efforts to pass on the intricies of the English Language. I would always start the lesson with pronunciation and always point them in the direction of Aussie slang, it was classic, all these sth americans, italians and Spainish speaking with Aussie accents after each month long intensive course...sweet!
Low lights...making up grammar rules in the classroom when i didn't know the answer to a question
ackward silences, being a terrible terrible speller
highlight, encouraging students all over 18 of course, to join me in my drinking escapades and assuring them that drinking helps with speaking english, which it did!
Low light, having my drink spiked by my own student, not sleeping and then teaching 5 hours unplanned completly of my face. It was a highlight after i completed those 5 hours, Although at the time PARANOI to the extreme!
Gemma, our Scottish hot lesbian class mate, house mate and very good friend who was there thru it all in Barcelona. A wicked friend who we recently met up with in Leeds and who took us to an ugly gay bar, which ws dissapointing. Gemma however is not dissapointing, she is a legend. She partook in such classics at the apartment 'the sunglasses party' ultimate friday sessions, cava breakfast saturdays, rythmic expression dance night and also supported beth in her obsession with katie price and peter andre...well done gemma.
Silvio. our german housemate who was classic computer nerd but also a legend. his favourite saying being 'in fact' even if it was complete unnecessary. Example, how are you silvio? 'in fact Andrew I am good' hahaha legend.
lowlight, missing our stop on the night bus and hving to go to the other end of the line and back again...it was both our faults for the record.
Miriam, our landlord in our first house. took us everywhere at the beginning including a cataylan bbq that would have rivalled an aussie one...so so much meat haha.
San Juan welcome summer party....85,000 people on the beach, wicked dj's ext ext Silvio so drunk he feel asleep on an old lady on the train on the way home and dribbled on her nice grey cardigan.HILARIOUS!

There's heaps more highlights but i feel im getting boring and so will leave Barcelona there. Photos aren't yet up on facebook but soon will when i get back to cornwall and put them in. Wicked visitors included Paula and Tanya from JIS days...good times. and Helen ohhh such a sweet time. ill never forget the oven chip cravings!

next...
Cornwall for the summer.
lowlights...there was never a summer. the weather was shite and it was never sunny. UK weather is truly appaling. not as appaling as my spelling but pretty bad.
Getting back in the sea was sweet and like all places around the world it's the people you go back for. Highlights included the return to monday night madness and the general trouble caused by 'Hayle massive,' What was lacking in sun was made up with cracking parties, dinners and movember celebrations ( i won a hair dryer to lamest mo... bastrds set me up, but the prizes made up for it. The end of season work party saw the chef and his partner having a massive fight over her making sexual moves on the chefs younger brother who conveniently was the pot wash hmmmm ackward, step in Dr.Phil ( me) talk it out for hours and then run home 3 hours in the wrong direction, hate my life)
It was a good time, working really hard to save some cash and try and get healthy again. the return to 10% fitness occured with atleast 10 short runs under my belt and quite a few bike rides. I even did a sprint session up some sand dunes once but that resulted in a spew and feeling sick and so that was cancelled. Dan Angelini made the long journey from london on the train and it's safe to say that in all the places he went- greece, italy, crotia, london that Cornwall was clearly the best. Pasties, warm beer, long walks, bbq's- the good times kept rolling for both ange and me.
The parentals came for a visit and met Beth's parents which although initally bloody stressful was a ball of laughs. parents meeting parents is wierd, that;s all i have to say on that. Mum and Dad reprensented is a massive way, except when mum kept bringing up the proper job thing. bless her.

this email is too long but it will end soon. promise

The end of cornwall (which i havent represented very well, it was a sweet sweet time) saw the beggining of where I am now.
Currently an hour away from Geneva airport, Beth and I are living and working in Morzine France, in the French Alps. Life is flat out. helping to run a 30 bed challet, snowboarding during the day and sqeezing in the odd drink is wicked but tiring. The snow has been tremendous, my snowboarding not as tremendous. I keep waking up each day hoping that yep, today is the day it will all fall into place like everyone says but alas it hasn't happened.

lowlights include-serving 34 very rich, snobby english people, sucking up their arse all week, working really hard and then getting 1/10th of sweet f.all as a tip. anyone who says it's not about the money is lying. it's all about the money.
chipping your tooth on new years walking down an icy drive drinking out of a cheap champagne bottle.
highlight- getting it fixed for 50 euros ha who would have thought, a sandwhich on the hill is more expensive!
being hot tub certified, I even have a certificate on my wall. the trick, its all about the chlorine, when in doubt chlorine chlorine chlorine and worry about the rash later.
landing my first 180, which was described as more like an ugly bruce lee karate kick, i potentially just created a new trick???
waking up and seeing the french alps out your window, no better view anywhere. fricken amazing. quite hard to describe and so will cop out and go with 'oh yere it's unreal mate, fucking tops'

allright allright enough i hear you cry.
I love and miss you all heaps.
so far the plan is to be back in aus for christmas. we're heading to central and sth america in may till december and so anyone keen or heading over in that direction, let me know and we'll definately organize plans.
send me address at home and ill put you on the post card list, post cards are cool.
good time and great classic hits
para

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