So, I'm reading an article on intervention that my tutor recommended to us in the lecture yesterday. It's entitled 'the pragmatic case for non-intervention'. I had such high hopes for it, but, sadly, at the moment I'm feeling a bit like 'stop being on my side, you're making my side look stupid!'

Le sigh....

....just ate my report - yes, hopefully my last ever report... and one for a student rather important to me - Phillipe Bader - which explains why I was taking time over it and making an effort to do it at this time on a Monday evening. ARGH!!!!

And I'd just finished it too and then the system crashed and it claimed it was recovering my file but in effect brought up a completely blank page and couldn't find my file at all anywhere!

I don't really have time to waste this week and sitting here doing admin is not exactly what I call fun. but if I don't do it now, I don't know when exactly I will do it so I guess I'd better start again.

Grr...

So I haven't had the best of weeks - just lots of little things including my newish shoes splitting and Tim drinking all of my new bottle of milk and then getting really stroppy when I asked him to replace it - usually I wouldnt bother, there's no point risking a fight, but I've been getting home from work late and shattered every night and I didn't have anything else for breakfast except cereal and had no yoghurt to substitute for the milk and no desire whatsoever to go to the shops.

The one thing that hasn't been difficult this week is having Miranda around - I thought it'd be tough having a third flat mate but actually it's been wonderful.

Anyhoo, more or that when I've actually found the time to sit down and write up my diary for the last couple of weeks. What I wanted to post about was this - I just had another lesson with Frederick Derkx - he of the deep blue eyes, vertically-challenged stature and diminishing hair. He's great fun and so we did really giggle our way through the lesson - even if he does like my lessons because they feel more like 'real' lessons - his words. He likes to mix it up and have me every other lesson and do fluency exercises with whatever other teachers get thrown at him. Anyway, so today we were revising 'do' and 'make' because even high level students mess up do and make - even our sommelier last Saturday, whose English is nigh on perfect, said at one point during the evening, 'a common mistake a lot of people do, is to think of Beaujolais wine only in terms of Beaujolais nouveau'.

So, we're going over the materials and I always forget that my standard do/make materials include 'make love' so when we get to it, I just said, 'I'm sure you know what that means, so let's just skip over it' - to which, he of course put on his best little boy innocent look and demanded a detailed explanation.

Luckily, my response of 'now that's just mean!' kept him distracted because of all the different meanings of the word 'mean' - as he complained earlier, when talking about phrasal verbs, English is so rich a language, why do we feel the need to re-use certain words?

But, the following phrase was 'make your bed' - which he defined for me by saying, 'so you know, when you wake up in the morning, and your pillows are in the middle of your bed or on the floor....so you have to make your bed before you can use it again.' I was looking somewhat perplexed so he felt the need to double check he was correct. I reassured him but pointed out that it was rather bizarre to wake up in the morning to find your pillows all over the place.

He looked at me, smirked, and started, 'so, when you've just finished making love....you might find your pillows on the floor or in the middle of the bed and then you'll have to make your bed.'

So, am not really having a great week. In fact, every day since Sunday somebody has cancelled on me, in one way or the other. I was supposed to be busy this week - 6 people, 6 days - busy!

But that hasn't happened and now, of course, I'm triple-booked for tonight - or at least that's what people want me to be - and unless this evening is going to turn into a farce, quite literally - like one of those stage plays - something's going to have to give.

Ugh.

On the plus side, I did take the opportunity provided by my complete lack of a social life to go clothes shopping yesterday night. I had some vouchers for a particular French shop and, not being inspired by their branch in La Defense, I hopped down to Place d'Italie, where I had rather too much success. In the end I only bought one thing - a light autumnal sweater - dark blue, off the shoulder - that goes perfectly with that black skirt I bought in the sales last Christmas but have never worn. I had taken the skirt with me deliberately so that I could find something that went with it. And I'm definitely going back for a couple of shirts this evening, I still have some money off vouchers left!

Plus, and this is really exciting, I've finally tracked down those biscuits that they fed me on the Air France flight. I found them in Monop' yesterday - Mere Poulard, Le Mont St Michel - Les Grandes Galettes au Chocolat. In the box, they're in sachets of three - I shared one yesterday with Corry and she agreed that they were some of the best 'cookies' she had ever had. I still can't get over Americans referring to any kind of biscuit as a 'cookie' - even the little Mikado sticks - it just seems so bizarre.

Oh, sod it, just realised I totally forgot to put any jewellery on this morning. It's going to be one of those days....where's the coffee machine?

You see, I sometimes complain, to myself, that I don't get many attractive students - in fact I can count the number of times I've had pretty young male students on one hand ( I could probably also tell you their names, embarrasingly enough ).

But then, I get one and I remember why it's a bad bad idea, because I get a little bit flustered and have more difficulty looking them in their pretty blue eyes and I feel a bit like I'm having trouble remembering my lines. And it takes just that little bit more mental exertion to do my job as well as I would be able to do it normally.

But still, it ain't half fun, though on reflection an hour and a half with Mr Aurelien Ficheux would have probably been better for my general health than 2 hours plus extra chatting time...

Wouldn't say no to teaching him again though...

:)