The Little Mothereffin' Things that Get to Me

The title should be self-explanatory. If not, then I'll present you with a list of various annoyances that bring a frown to my face.

1) The fact that there is a trio of flies that are currently buzzing around my room. I have since opened the window to allow them with a means of escaping. Instead, those sand grain-brained bastards are too stupid to recognize when a window is WIDE OPEN and opt to hover or cling to the window's frame, not actually going back outside. They are just close enough to freedom without feeling the need to liberate themselves into the world, and it's enough to irk me with their incompetent fly ways.

2) The fact that I would like to cook some proper food this weekend, but the security code to enter the front door in the building where the kitchen is located has changed...and no one has bothered to inform me what that new code is. Hoorah.

3) The fact that weekends go by in the blink of an eye, and that the amount of work I have to do simply is does not balance out with my so-called "free time."

4) The fact that I purchased on Saturday a reduced-price bookcase/booze cabinet from the local LeClerc supermarket for 50 euros, which is right across the street from where I live. The only hitch is that I have absolutely no means of transporting it on my own and was thus left with no choice but to pay for it to be delivered.

On Wednesday afternoon, a.k.a., my free afternoon, between the vague hours of 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

And the price to have it delivered across the street? 40 euros. That's 90 euros total for my bookcase/booze cabinet.

5) Plus, the man who handled the bookcase/booze cabinet's transaction needed a lesson or two on friendly customer service. He probably thought that it would have killed him to smile.

6) I remind you: I literally live across the street from this LeClerc. Considering that I nearly paid double what the bookcase/booze cabinet was priced, they could have at least delivered the damn thing that same Saturday. Ugh.

7) Now one fly from the trio is attempting to become my friend by landing itself closer to my person, either next to me on the bed or right on my laptop's screen. I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND, FLY.

8) No, don't come next to me. GO AWAY, FLY. You hear me????!!!! GO. AWAY.

9) In fact, the window is still wide open. Why don't you tell your fly buddies to just leave?

10) No. Instead, you opted to call over your other pals and have them hang out next to me. I recently showered and washed my hair, so I don't understand what the appeal about me is since I don't smell of poop.

11) At least, I don't think that I smell of poop. Perhaps these flies are trying to tell me something that I don't know...

12) The fact that this blog post is about me griping about flies and expensive delivery fees and how I can't even be bothered to provide an illustration with it.

I shall remedy that.

Here is a totally 100% accurate illustration about my delivery woes.

13) The fact that my cartoon was so utterly unimaginative and repetitive that it makes me want to draw something even more eccentric. Fat chance that will happen because I have to keep working.

14) The fact that I have remorse over having wasted time painting a wooden tissue box.

I don't even use tissues.

Barb the French Bean

Strange Urges

Sometimes, in my budding adult life, I have the desire to partake in an activity which traditionally would have only crossed my childhood mind to do.

Sometimes it's eating an entire bag of Doritos*...for lunch. And not regretting each of the crunchy, cheesy and highly addictive tortilla chips that I have greedily consumed.

Sometimes it's shelling out several Euros' worth on the whole** Doctor Who and Sherlock series when I should be saving up to buy a used car.

Sometimes it's going all the way to London and deciding, quite on the spur of the moment, to splurge out on a burger at the Friday's in Piccadilly Circus merely because I have been burger-deprived for far too long.***

Be it unwise food choices or exorbitant financial splurges, or both, my little kid self wouldn't have even thought twice about it. She would have dove head-first into whatever endeavor tickled her fancy. I, as an adult, have to worry about the bills and saving up for my forever uncertain future.

Yesterday was no different.

As a teacher, I am touted as being someone who is fortunate enough to be blessed with an endless abundance of free time. For those of you who believe this notion, you rightly deserved to be stabbed repeatedly in the jugular with a #2 pencil.

I spend my so-called free-time grading tests, quizzes, essays. I also plan lessons, create hundreds of documents involving more tests, quizzes, and essay topics which, as a cycle, means that they will be graded later.

So, for those of you who can't grasp the notion of what "free-time" is for teachers, here's a handy chart to illustrate it:

As I have figured out, relationships, with their encroaching ways of sucking you emotionally and psychologically dry, are often a waste of time, and time is something that I cannot afford to waste these days.

Yesterday, I did something that I wouldn't normally have done.

I painted.

I was struck by the urge to paint. I have not painted in over two years, for that matter.

Yesterday, as I was browsing a store for useful housewares, I came upon a wooden mug stand. With my trips to Ireland and the U.K., I have since amassed a collection of mugs that take up far too much space in my room. I didn't think twice and grabbed the stand.

However, something about this item nagged at me uncomfortably. With its light beige shade, I couldn't help but think that it was so generically bland. Yes, I know that such items are better sold as generically bland to appeal to all tastes, but I didn't want to sacrifice aesthetic need for practicality.

As I walked around the store, I came upon the aisle which sold arts and crafts supplies. I glanced as the various containers of acrylic paint and the bland, light beige wooden items begging to be colored. I didn't think about it twice.

My mug stand suddenly had several jars of acrylic paint, paintbrushes and a set of  coasters to keep it company.

I paid for the items, went home and, rather than using my time (on a Saturday, mind you) to grade papers and plan lessons, decided to use my allotted "Actual fun stuff" time to paint.

My inner child rejoiced.

The mug stand with coasters

Formerly drab, generic mug stand, now with squiggles.

Coaster #1, the first thing that I have painted in two years. I have lost practice.

Coaster #2

Coasters #3 and #4, respectively

And now that I have blogged, I have clearly used up all of my allotted "Actual fun stuff" free-time for this weekend. Time to go back to grading papers, planning lessons and shit.

Barb the French Bean



*French Dorito bags are considerably smaller than American ones. I also recently found Cheetos in France. No regrets there, either.


**Doctors Nine to Eleven. France 4 hasn't been generous enough to show the program all the way from the First Doctor on TV, nor did the DVD set for season 2 include the Christmas special. PURE SACRILEGE.

***France's version of American burgers is limited to McDonald's. For someone who knows better (à la Fuddruckers and even Denny's), that just doesn't cut it.

A Quiet Birthday, a.k.a. A Message for Our British Readers

Today is officially my last day as a twenty-five year old.


Today, I received a care package from Mom, which brought a smile to my face. Then I received a wedding invitation to my dear friend Emily's mariage for this summer. I can hardly believe that just a little over a year ago, unemployed and living at home in Miami, I was uncertain as to how I would be able to make it across the Atlantic to see her on her big day. (At least I accomplished one of the four goals I had set for myself last year...)


Tomorrow, I shall cross that threshold of experiencing my second quarter of a century in this finite life of mine. Unlike last year's hoopla, tomorrow will prove to be a tranquil birthday. No cake. No candles. Not even an appearance from my DJ alter-ego and the Cartoon Party Cookies.

Rather than feeling a bit morose, I'm quite pensive on the matter. Moments like these provide me with a sobering shock that I am well into my adulthood.

But adulthood? Yes, I am a grown-up who has crucial responsibilities of ensuring that several French students learn English and Spanish, but I still feel like a naïve and ignorant child at times, especially whenever I experience a brief relationship that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. I suspect things can only get better for me in the long run.

Moreover, I certainly won't have any time to reflect on my solitude. In three days' time, I will board a bus at 6 a.m. and chaperone 19 French Middle Schoolers all the way to Albion.

That's right, British pals. I'm going to England for two weeks! TWO. WEEKS. I can almost taste the Cadbury's Dairy Milk and bottles of Irn Bru already.

I'll be mostly around the London area with my students, but in case you see an American shouting in French at her pupils to look both ways before walking past vicious gangs of "Keep Left" signs and reminding them to mind the gaps in the London Underground, then it's probably me.

Anyway, I do apologize for the lack of cartoons in today's post. I'll probably make up for it when I do my re-cap of my trip to England later this month.

Cheers from Barb the French Bean

Elsewhere, A.K.A. Ireland

I grew up and lived here, right in the south of the great phallic-shaped state of Florida.

I then lived here.

I now live here.

But, occasionally, I like to take trips elsewhere. "Elsewhere," in this case, turned out to be Ireland.

Allow me to tell you how travelling abroad inevitably leads to some eye-opening soul-searching.

But first, here's a sampling of eye candy from last month's trip to the Emerald Isle.

Dublin

I started my journey by doing the most stereotypical thing a tourist does when they first arrive in Ireland: I had a pint of Guinness.

The actual first picture I took from the entire trip. (Seriously.)

Or, rather, I tried to have the pint. I barely made a dent in the dense stout before I called it quits after feeling sickly after a few gulps.

Dublin's famous doors

The Six Nations rugby tournament was also in play

Trinity College

O'Connell Street, with the Spire

Night-time stroll by the River Liffey (rhymes with "jiffy")

The Harp bridge

It was cold and I needed some Irish coffee from Temple Bar

The Ha' Penny Bridge

The Temple Bar area

The River Liffey

James Joyce statue

Christ Church Cathedral

St. Patrick's 

Belfast (transportation thanks to the Éirann buses)

On the drive...

So peaceful

Belfast Epcot?

Things I immediately noticed that were different in Belfast from Dublin: 1) The flags and 2) the signs were no longer bilingual in English and Irish

Titanic Memorial

Let it be known that Waldo lives in Belfast, along with his wife and kid

The River Lagan

Samson and Goliath, the two ship building cranes of yore

Look. Proof that I was there.

Believe it or not, this is the entrance to a mall. Wut?

On the drive back to Dublin, the bus passed by this sign: "The Brontë Homeland." Seeing as how Jane Eyre is my absolute favorite novel OF ALL TIME, I freaked and vowed to return to Northern Ireland to visit this place someday! 

I quite like Irish accents and find them rather, well, sexy, but the smattering of English that I understood in the garbled Belfast accent made me seriously question whether or not I spoke the language fluently.

Galway (transportation thanks to Éirann buses as well)

JFK commemoration

Friars River

The Cathedral

The Spanish Arch

Of the three cities I visited, Galway turned out to be the one that captured my heart with its port, dockside, the familiar briny aroma of the sea, street musicians, colorful buildings and cafés. It was also the coldest city I visited in Ireland, which, under normal circumstances, would be a major deterrent for me. Go figure.

Random Barb the French Bean fact: I like sheep.

They are number one on my list of my most favorite animals in the world, coming just before tigers, ducks and dogs. Coincidentally enough, Ireland seems to be sheep-crazed as well, which meant that every time I passed a cobble-stoned field corralling a flock of them, I squealed like a pre-tween at a Justin Bieber concert.

Oh, and all of the Irish souvenir shops happily catered to my wallet with their cutesy sheep paraphernalia...

I *finally* found a salt and pepper shaker set that pleased me. My life is now complete.  (And, yes, I use a red stool as a table.)

I nearly bought a flock of these babies.

If it weren't for my Doctor Mew and my "I See Dutch People" shirts, this would easily be the best shirt I EVER bought.

(By the way, if you too want your own snazzy "I See Dutch People" t-shirt, go here to get one. While supplies last!)

Remember the Sheep Mug from the previous photos? This mug, I am sad to say, is no longer with me. Merely five days of using it, I clumsily kicked over the table-stool hybrid that sent my Sheep Mug flying straight to the ground.

Let's have a moment of silence for our fallen mug.

Welp. Guess this means I'll have to go back to Ireland to get a new mug.

On a more serious note:

I thought that I had been feeling at home in France, but this trip has certainly brought into question whether or not I should experience other cultures.

Ireland felt different.

If I were to go back to Spain, it would be to visit the people I know. If I were to return to Ireland, it would be to fulfill something in my life.

On my last full day in Dublin, I decided that the first thing on my list would be to visit the long-awaited Writers Museum.

I won't lie: walking in the quiet rooms and gazing at the excerpts of letters crafted by Ireland's most well-known wordsmiths evoked emotions of going back to my calling. What if one hundred years from now, museums put up my stuff on display for others to see?

It may not happen; I'm not conceited enough to claim it so. But thinking about that possibility certainly doesn't hurt to make me dream of accomplishing bigger things in the brief time I have on this Earth. I won't delve on the matter for long because it evokes a twinge of sadness that I can't quite understand.

For now, though, I definitely want to return to Ireland and stay for more than just the contributed week. I envision obtaining a degree in Trinity College and building a better tolerance for gulping down entire pints of heavy stouts.

Barb the French Bean

P.S.
Joyeux Saint Patrick!