European Summer.

Well, summer is officially over. In Europe, seasons change on the 22nd of the month, so it actually ended 6 days ago. There are definitely defined seasons here. One day it's raining and you're wearing a scarf, literally the next day you're wearing a singlet and shorts and wishing your skull came with an inbuilt fan.
While I was out running today, a song came on my playlist which reminded me of a time in San Sebastian. The last night Nat and I had before heading home. We were in a bar/club type thing and dancing, and Avicci's 'Wake Me Up' came on. Now every time that song comes on, it takes me back to Spain and Portugal.
And as I ran, I was thinking that most places or trips I've taken this year have a song (or two) that always reminds me of a particular place.
Turkey is Six60's "Only to be", the UK is Florence and the Machines "Sweet Nothing" or Lana Del Rey's "Summertime Sadness" (the Cedric Gervais remix), and the Eastern Europe trip I took is a song I wrote myself called "Little Lederhosen Man" which I sung to mum all the time.
They're all songs on my exercise playlist, and they make me feel nostalgic and good when they come on. I love how music can remind you of specific memories and places!

Back to uni.

I've successfully completed my first week back at uni. After a confusing hiccough, I've sorted it out and am on the straight. The majority of my classes I'm taking solo, which is difficult as if I miss something important or miss a class, I don't have anyone to rely on. But, on the other hand, it forces me to be diligent and attentive in class. I vote for just not missing anything in class.
Monday was a painfully long day. First up was a theory of aesthetics tutorial. It's basically analysing texts written by different artists and writers on the aesthetics of art, what is art, and what it means to be an artist. My tut is young, and seems like she'll mark me in accordance with everyone else in the class which is a little scary, but I'm willing to give it a go.
Next was TICC Infographie. I learnt how to move images in Photoshop. Brilliant. I love using Photoshop and Illustrator in my spare time, so I'm down with this class already.
I then had a 2 hour break until a history of contemporary creation lecture. At 2 hours and finishing at 7:30pm, it was a bit of a struggle to concentrate. But all was well. I'm going to need to sort out something for dinner though, like being prepared and cooking two meals on a Sunday night.
Tuesday was just two art history and art aesthetics lectures. I finished at 12:30pm and skedaddled home for lunch.
Wednesday was a fun but daunting class. Drawing. I'm not the best drawer, and my abilities only really lie in the realm of fashion drawing. The teacher took it easy though in teaching us perspective. I remember learning it in year 9 art, but having not done it for so long it was a bit difficult to pick it back up again. The premise was pretty much how to translate birdseye views of rooms into front on views, drawn with accurate perspective and range. It was difficult to say the least, but enjoyable, and hopefully it will help with my drawing in general. I've also got a few things to buy for this class, but nothing too substantial and nothing I have at home, so I'm not annoyed at not bringing stuff from Aus.
Today was spent reading a history of the colour blue. Yes, that's right. I bought an art book from Mollat and that's the one I chose. Bleu: Histoire d'une couleur. It's a pretty difficult read, but discusses interesting topics and will hopefully enrich my artistic vocabulary. I got lazy during the day and opted for an afternoon/7pm swim, which was a big mistake. Wednesday is usually swimming day, but after my drawing class just wanted to run and relax. As I discovered today, there's no point ever going to the poo again on a Thursday arvo. It was absolutely packed. When swimming in a 50m lane, you really only got 35m of solid swimming in, and then the final 15m were spent breast stroking it because everyone slowed down. I got fed up with constantly overtaking peopler and moved to a 25m section of pool which was a roped off 50m double lane. The only problem was turning around and having nothing to push off at one end. I swam 600m and left lol. Shortest swimming sesh ever.

I've also been baking a lot recently. I'm not sure why, but I love baking cakes now. Tomorrow I'm baking oat cookies and apple cake. YUM.

Little Turkey.

I went back to uni last week. Surprisingly, it was pretty good. I only had lectures to begin first week, so had both art theory and art history lectures. Talking about the renaissance in French was cool. I felt like such an art student, I thought about buying a beret and carrying paint brushes around in my back pocket. I also dropped French Literature after I discovered a computer based design subject. Yeah for computers! Apart from sewing, designing on computers is my favourite thing to do in the fashion industry. I love computers. That class starts next week, so I'll see how I go!

I'm more just looking forward to going back to uni so I have something to do when in Bordeaux (other than eating and exercising). Speaking of exercising, I swam my first ever 1500m the other day, and have been running every day now. The last run I did marked 500km run this year! Here's a link to my strava site if you so desire to follow my physical progress:

http://app.strava.com/athletes/1039069

Also feeling like a grown-up, I noticed a problem with my CAF last month when I didn't get paid. So I went and sorted it out with a very nice woman at the office. I've noticed a real difference in my confidence in speaking French to other people now. When I first arrived, I didn't particularly like speaking to other people, unless I knew I knew exactly what I was saying, and all of my tenses are correct, and the verbs agreed and blah. Now, I don't particularly care. I know I'm going to make mistakes, and I know the other person will always (usually) understand... 

When I was walking home from the CAF, I saw a rockmelon for sale! I live in the the Muslim/ethnic quarter of Bordeaux. I enjoy it, there's always something cultural happening. It's handy also for fruit and veg shopping, there are so many corner stores there aren't enough corners for them all! Jumping on the rockmelon, I went inside to pay and discovered a whole other world. I've walked past these stores a million times, but had never been actually inside them. It was literally like being back in Turkey. This particular store sold all Turkish treats, turkish delight from turkey, hand made fresh turkish delight to try, spices, all manner of nuts, etc. But, best of all, it sells Turkish bread. The fresh circle of bread that can be equated to the circle of life. It is so delicious, it was the first thing I ate when I was in actual Turkey. I'm going to explore every one of those stores before I leave this year!

Out for dinner before uni goes back

Nat and I

At Houses of Parliament for a chill

:(

Disaster. No rockmelon or nectarines at Carrefour today. The wintery fruits are upon us.

Fruit consumption.

I didn't realise I eat A LOT of fruit until my newest housemate made a comment about it the other day while I was eating breakfast. I then totalled every piece of fruit I eat. Here's how much fruit I eat per week, every week:
- 1 rockmelon
- 6-7 nectarines
- 500g grapes
- 4 apples
- 5 plums
- 1 lemon
- 2 pears
- Sometimes a honey dew melon if available

I just can't get enough fruit! I eat it all day long, it's even become my snack food now. And when I go back to uni, it will become my lunch food too. It's just so super easy to eat, and it's delish. And it goes with everything, I mix it in with yoghurt, put apple and nectarine in my stirfry, put pears in my lunch salad. It's everywhere! I'm trying to get as much of a variety in my diet while it's available, because as soon as it starts getting wintery again, the only available will be pears, apples and oranges.
And yes I know, too much fruit can make you gain weight, but it's either I gain weight by eating fruit, or gain weight by eating chocolate. I choose fruit! And the occasional chocolate. (I'm not actually gaining weight btw).
And I run everyday, so that keeps my sugar levels in check.

In other news, the temperature has dropped. The weather has gone back to being bleak most days, and an average of 20 degrees. It rains at least once most days too. Oh happy days!

Subject Selection.

Hi-5's all round for being independent. 

This week hasn't really been filled with exciting things, other than washing, grocery shopping and cleaning. But, I did choose my subjects for uni this semester!

After some problems with my account, which I had sorted out from a previously unheard of IT department, I as able to access my timetable builder. One of the only things about French enrolment that you can do at home. I knew the process of enrolling, much like last semester, was going to be a long and tedious one. So, first day of potential enrolment, office opens at 9am, I was there at 8:15am (I may have woken up earlier than expected, and got bored sitting at home). Last semester, Lucy, Andrew and I did subject selection quite late, and thus missed out on some subjects we really wanted to do. With over 300 international students at BX3, I thought getting in early would be the best option for this semester, especially as I had my heart set on some interesting subjects. 

I wasn't even the first one at the office. I was the second. The first was a like-minded girl from Leeds Uni, who was enrolling too. She was lovely! We chatted until it was time to go in. Once in, my timetable builder wasn't working. So, instead of being helped, I was told to come back in a few days... Frustrated, I left, and on my way to the tram, I passed the head of the International Student office. he had remembered me from last semester (Luce, Theo, and I are the only one's who have already completed a semester). He asked me how I went with subjects, and I told him my account wasn't working properly. He took me up to the main office and enrolled me there and then. Yeah for being the first international student officially enrolled at the uni! My timetable builder was still going to take a few days though to be fully up and working.

Finally, on Monday, I went back into uni (now that my timetable builder was working) and had a rather painless enrolment into every subject I wanted. Score! What's better is that the Leeds girl, Charlotte, had had the same problem as me, and so was there too. So I had someone to complain too about French admin and so did she haha.

Most of the BX7 others have enrolled now, but didn't all get there first choices and had far more problems enrolling than I did with a system malfunction. I'm not sure if I'm in classes with any of them...

Anyway, my final subject choices were:

Littérature Française 1

Culture et Histoire des Arts: Histoire de l'Art, Histoire de la création contemporaine

Théorie des Arts 1: Esthétique et théorie des Arts, Théorie du Design

With 12 hours a week over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I should have enough to keep me busy.

Timetable

Other than that, a few nights ago, a few of the girls went out for Lucy's 22nd birthday! I'm also currently completing my fourth UTS ICS project due in a week. And I'm back to running everyday, and swimming once a week. And looking forward to going back to uni!

Growing pains

Baking nutella cake!

Typical whats-in-my-pantry-at-any-given-moment

Candice, Lucy, Nat and I for Lucy's birthday

Cooking Asian!

Being Accomplished.

Well, my oh my how the tables have turned. I didn't really know what to expect from the new uni semester. Last semester, I would never have enrolled by myself, chosen subjects by myself, or spoken to teachers by myself.
Today, I did all three. I even had a problem enrolling and straightened everything out myself. It was so weird remembering how I was in January with my language skills. The enrolment process was still as frustrating as ever, but it was made slightly more easier by my feelings of accomplishment. When I was getting my student card, I overheard a new international student asking the enrolment staff if they spoke english. Bless her! I was almost just like her a few months ago, except I would never have asked, only nodded and agreed as they babbled at me in French.

Anyway, the last week has been getting busier again, which is exciting. I've begun my first assignment for UTS ICS2, which is looking like a mammoth task, taking on laicité.
I also spent a day at Ikea and surrounding stores. This was such a wonderful experience. I love Ikea. But, one thing I've also noticed a change in is I don't spend money anymore when I don't need to. I'm no longer an impulsive buyer (I came super close with a rabbit that looked just like Peter and I envisioned our life together). But no, I'm not even a buyer at all. If I don't need it, it stays on the shelf. Life win for me!
Yesterday, Lucy, Jason and myself sat through orientation again. The others aren't back from travelling yet, but as it was the same orientation as last semester, they didn't miss much.
All in all, shaping up to be a good second semester! And it's still warm. Uni in the sunshine - YES!