French vs Japanese

Even French class, my last refuge in this troubled world, is going slightly crazy. At the beginning of the lesson, our teacher came in and greeted us, as is her wont. Here is how the conversation went:

TEACHER (T): Bonjour. Comment ca va?

CLASS: [a variety of indistinct murmurs, some of them sounding like 'Ca va bien, merci', some of them not]

T: I said 'Comment ca va?' You know, 'How are you?'

CLASS: [more indistinct murmurs, but most of them generally approximating the French language]

STUDENT: [who was clearly having trouble coping with both the sleep-inducing temperature of the classroom and the concept of the language itself]: Si!

NB: Due to the extreme heating in our French classroom, it is extremely easy to drift off, and we frequently do. Later in the same lesson, I myself was thinking vaguely about the numerous similarities between Magnus Bane, from 'The Mortal Instruments' series, and the actor Julian Clary. I've put a picture of Julian Clary below. 

Julian Clary is flamboyantly gay, dresses in unusual and garish costumes, and puts coloured glitter in his hair when performing on stage. Magnus Bane is flamboyantly gay, dresses in unusual and garish costumes, and puts coloured glitter in his hair when performing complex spells. Yes, Lala and Ariane, that one was for you. Hope you found the blog all right. Well, obviously you did, if you're reading it. Anyway, I was dreaming vaguely in French when I was jolted awake to realise I was being asked something. I think I got away with it, though. Basically, none of us are at our sharpest in this particular lesson. On with the anecdote.

Anyway, it didn't really improve after that.

T: You should all know the basic animals right now. Tell me, does anyone here know the word for 'skunk'?

CLASS: No. [Well, we didn't actually say no, but our bemused silence conveyed this answer accurately enough.]

T: It's 'mouffette'.

STUDENT: Wait - skunks actually exist? I always thought they were made up!

Three years of the French language - not to mention between fifteen and sixteen years of life, it varies between us - and this is how far we've come.

Luckily, we were feeling a little quicker by the end of the lesson. This was proved when we were asked to translate some sentences about a spaceship ride at Le Futuroscope (a French theme park).

T: Right. [Picks a student randomly.] Can you read the first sentence, please?

STUDENT (S): Well, actually, I have a problem with the first sentence. It says here that on the ride, it will seem like you are moving faster than the speed of light.

T: And what's wrong with that?

S: Well, if you moved faster than the speed of light you'd vaporise and turn into energy. How about 'On this ride, it will seem like you are moving at exactly the speed of light'. I think that's close enough.

One can say many things for the French language. I'd always assumed, however, that one of the things you couldn't say about it was that it was easy to confuse with Physics. Boy, was I wrong.

Of my friends, the only other one to study French is Giuseppe - Peanut speaks pretty much perfect French, thanks to spending parts of her childhood in Vietnam and Burma, but doesn't study it at school. Peanut's pretty interesting, actually, she's got a kind of pseudo-American accent after years at international schools, although she hates it if you imply she's American. Anyway, I often wonder if I'd have been better off taking Japanese, the other language the school offers. Except I'd be up against some pretty fierce competition. Chinny tops the year in it, which is quite unfair, considering her Maths skills. Not to mention her Grade 8 piano, or wherever she's up to. How does she find the time? Gwen does Jap as well, and by all accounts she's pretty good (although I do better in French than she does in Jap. Yes, it's not even the same subject, but please let me count this as a win. She beats me in everything else. We had our first Physics test today, and I assure you, there is no way I'm going to beat her in the subject after that). Marie-Clare and Ness also take the subject, although I think one of the reasons Marie-Clare likes it is because her Year 11 love, the one she has never spoken to, the one we shall call 25, studies it.

I'd like to take a moment now to deviate from the subject of languages. No, Marie-Clare has never spoken to 25. We have been supportive friends and given her ample opportunity. Well, not opportunity as such. Ness has tried to introduce them - by yelling 25's name when he, Marie-Clare, and her are the only ones there, then hiding when he looks around, so he only sees MC. Giuseppe has gone decided to go down the route of chance meetings. She is attempting to engineer one between the persons in question by pushing Marie-Clare into 25's path whenever he passes. Frankly, it's not working. She tried it three times once, in the same day, and Marie-Clare missed him each time. Perhaps they're charged, like magnets, so they can never go near each other. Anyway, as I was saying, supportive friends all the way.

Actually, as you may have gathered from this, we're not being terribly supportive at all. It's very easy to knock, as Stephen Fry once said. As in, it's easy to make fun of people: the hard work lies in sympathising with them.

And those words are as true now as they day they were first said (somewhere back in the early 1990s). It is incredibly, ridiculously easy to knock Marie-Clare's affection. Fun, too. But where was I?

Oh, right. Apart from anything else, I doubt I could be a Jap student. There is almost a silent war going on between the two language courses. They go to Japan and visit Hello Kitty World. We go to France and see Chateau Chenonceau (not that I was there, but some of the students did). We get croissants, they get sushi. We make crepes. They make strange pork dumplings. The rift in the lute grows wider with each passing day.

And so, to we devoted language students, people like Falcon are really pushing it.

(Note: to anyone who actually knows Falcon, and knows what his real name is, I will explain the nickname another time. If I explained it now I'd have to tell you his real name, which would totally defeat the point.)

Falcon managed a trip all through France and England - without seeing any of the comedians, which to my mind, almost defeats the point of visiting England - without knowing any more French than 'Ici, garcon!' to call waiters. I quite like Falcon. I once made a bet with him. He offered up a Zappo, and I, having troubling thinking of anything that would be equal value, offered up an invisible hat. I won. I let him keep the hat anyway. He wore it all day, and later assured me he was disappointed nobody complimented him on it. Anyway, Falcon managed this fantastic trip, with nothing worse happening to him than contracting food poisoning on the flight back home (actually, come to think of it, that is pretty bad. He seemed optimistic, though). His only advice to me regarding his trip was not to eat noodles in the Hong Kong airport lounge. Also, make sure French people know you're Australian. Otherwise they'll assume you're English. And with their history of painful inter-country wars, they're never thrilled to offer hospitality to the English. Apparently they're charmed by Australians, though.

Still, it's basically a kick in the teeth to us language students. He got back and, I swear, actually knew less French than when he'd begun. Which makes a point, really. Why learn a language at school when you can get by without one, and get through school itself without a bitter rivalry forming between you and other language students?

And, having considered all the available arguments, there's really only one decision I can make. Sure, French may be less useful than other subjects. You'd learn more in Food Studies, or Commerce, or Music, or Media (which is my other elective). But considering all of this, one final, rhetorical question really decides my answer:

If I stop doing French, where will I be able to sleep?

Stephen Fry is in the building

Stephen Fry is in our country!

This may be less exciting to those of you who a) don't know who he is or b) don't care about him, but to me, this is a very exciting event.

He will do two talks in the Sydney Opera House, and then move on to Melbourne.

It would be more exciting, however, if I was allowed to actually see any of these talks.

No, despite my various attempts, I can find no one who is willing to either drive me to either of these cities, or lend me their car so I can drive myself. It's tragic, it really is.

I can't understand why Stephen Fry wouldn't want to visit our fair city. For a start, the weather. I mean, it's just as warm as either Sydney or Melbourne. It may be winter, but that doesn't mean it's not sunny. Today Aviator actually brought a fold-up beach chair into school. There were we, happily sitting on the grass, concrete, and benches respectively, when he wanders in holding a green chair, calmly unfolds it, and sits down. Admittedly he wasn't sitting on it for very long - it was stolen from him twice before lunch ended - but the fact that he was able to do this should surely show that it is warm enough.

I suppose Stephen Fry might be worried not enough people would turn up. Makes sense, really. Of all my friends, I'm the only one who really likes Stephen Fry. Except for Marie-Clare, who finds him attractive (although I doubt anything will come of it, considering the esteemed Mr Fry is both 35 years older than her, and gay).

So I'm just going to have to console myself with looking at the pictures of his trip he chooses to post on his website (link here, if you're interested: http://www.stephenfry.com/).

Speaking of British comedians - or rather, writing of British comedians - or rather, typing of British comedians (I don't know, it's too confusing), I recently found a funny, funny ad on YouTube. It's for the English 'Get a Mac' campaign. It's got the duo Mitchell & Webb in it - Mitchell is being a PC, and Webb is being a Mac. You may not find it as amusing as I do. You may think it only deserves one 'funny'. You may not even think it worthy of that. However, for those of you that are interested (for all those I spoke to about it today, it's called 'The Naughty Step'), the video is here:

Have fun. I would be concerned that I am brainwashing the minds of people that read this blog, by encouraging them to view Mac adverts, except I've watched it four times now, and all that's happened is I'm now tempted to buy a PC. And I've been a Mac user all my life. Clearly Apple needs to work on their advertising.

Still, who needs Stephen Fry when my ordinary life is so interesting? People of the internet, I so far have reason to believe that schoolitis is not fatal. Should this turn out to be otherwise, however, I have some information I would like to impart to you. It would be a shame if it was lost to the world.

It is a secret, the like of which has not been heard of before, and is unlikely to be heard of again. It is a control word. And the thing this word controls is Peanut.

Peanut may appear to be as any other person - give or take a few eccentricities - but she has a weakness. Say the word 'tubes' to her, and she will collapse with laughter. I don't know why it works. Well, I know why she finds it funny (it's hard to explain: it's the result of an in-joke we started two years ago), but I'm not sure why it works so well. I tried it three times today, and each time, a success. Try it. It's fun and entertaining.

I'd like to think that by sharing this information I have, in my own small way, made the world a better place. Let's be honest. I haven't. But come on, people. Isn't it enough that Stephen Fry is in the same country as me, but not within my reach? Haven't I suffered enough?

And Stephen Fry, if you're reading this (unlikely as that is), visit. Who needs the Sydney Opera House when you can come here and control Peanut? It's the obvious choice.

Schoolitis: A Survivor's Tale

School is getting to some of my friends.
Who can say why? Possibly it's just holiday withdrawal symptoms. Perhaps the cold, cold weather causes something deep within them to react. Maybe it's a result of the dancing lessons we are given at this point of the year (due to it being too cold to get changed into proper PE uniform - although personally, I think the teachers are just feeling down at having to come back to school and are forcing us to perform inept, and sometimes painful, waltzing steps, to cheer themselves up).

At any rate, whatever the cause is, it is having quite serious implications.

Let us call this mysterious illness 'schoolitis'. It is virtually untraceable, and has no symptoms other than instances of unduly silly behaviour. But it is a serious problem, a fact I will outline through five examples taken from real life.

The first attack began at about 1:15 yesterday afternoon, while we were having lunch. Ariane and Lala - two friends I believe I haven't mentioned yet, but will no doubt get their due share of mentions in the future - began to laugh. I forget what at. I think they were throwing nuts at somebody and it snowballed from there. It was astounding. Normally, it is usual to stop laughing after a given amount of time, varying upon the funniness of the joke in question and the person or people one is sharing it with. In this case, it didn't stop. I've a feeling they were still chortling as we headed off to our classes, at the end of lunch.

The second instance occurred in double Geography, a class I share with Peanut. Little did I know, as I headed into the classroom, what was about to unfold. Even simple things - such as asking her where the Three Gorges Dam could be found on a map - sent her into a fit of silent laughter. I had assumed it would get better when we went to the library to work on our assignments. It did not. I will not go into the painful details, merely state that it involved her nearly falling off a chair, and then becoming intensely distracted by a book about Christmas. The book was actually an improvement. Still, you can see how worrying this behaviour was to me at the time.

The third instance of this horrible disease happened to Vyvyan. She continually jumped at me suddenly from behind, shocking me and nearly causing me to spill my Ovalteenies on a number of occasions. Actually, I'm not sure this counts as a case, as this is normal behaviour for Vyvyan. I had thought Marie-Clare was another sufferer, when she dragged me out to the oval in the middle of lunch, then spent about five minutes hiding behind a tree at the edge of the grass. Except then I realised all she really wanted to do was spy on a boy she likes - we shall call him 25, as that is the number on the back of his sports shirt - so this cannot be counted as a case either.

The fourth case occurred in physics. I'm not going so well on my quest to completely own Gwen in this subject. We were doing an experiment involving pendulums. That is to say, Gwen was doing the experiment, a boy from our class called U (he's not going to turn up again, he doesn't need a proper nickname) was dropping the pendulum, and I was sitting on a desk holding a stopwatch and humming obscure songs from the late 1930s. Well, I only know one song from the late 1930s, and that only goes for about a minute and a half, so I hummed it a few times until Gwen asked me to stop. Anyway, this particular case of schoolitis resulted from U being an idiot. He thought it was cool, after having dropped the pendulum, to move his face in extremely close to it, and move it out of the way again just in time. After he'd done this two or three times he got hit by the pendulum - which weighed 250g - in the forehead. I'm not sure this is schoolitis either. I don't know him that well: it might be normal behaviour for him. I just thought I'd add it in as it was hilarious at the time, although I had to keep a straight face while Gwen was getting slightly annoyed at him for messing up our measurements.

The fifth case of schoolitis happened to Aviator. He has created a dance. It is called the 'Fishing Rod Dance'. He shuffle-steps while pretending to catch something with a fishing rod. It looks better than I've managed to describe it here. He performed it for us at lunchtime. This sent Ariane and Lala into another fit of giggles.

And so, there you are. Schoolitis. A disease which causes even the most mild-mannered individuals to break into spontaneous outbursts of silly behaviour. It is not fatal - at least, we have seen no fatal cases as of yet. Should you, the concerned reader, notice the same symptoms among your friends, contact me with the case details. We may, still, have time to prevent it from becoming an epidemic.

A sixth case has suddenly occurred to me. I had not intended to include it: but as I am approaching this from a purely scientific perspective (actually, who am I trying to kid?) I think it is important to note personal cases as well. It is a sad truth, but I have lately noticed some traces of schoolitis in myself. In my case, the disease manifests itself as a delusion that I am a trained therapist. It generally seems to occur while I am in Gwen's presence. I cannot say why I have spent the past one and a half science lessons trying to convince her I have a PhD in psychotherapy from the prestigious university of Uttoxetercamfordbridgedam. Perhaps you, with your greater scientific mind, will know why. If you believe you have an answer, do leave a comment: it is vital we find a cure before my mind, and others', succumb completely to schoolitis. Please. We need your help.

Dr Leslie M. Harper, PhD (Uttoxetercamfordbridgedam)

Back To School

ACK. First day of school.

I love holidays. I'm always grateful when school ends, and I thoroughly enjoy the holidays themselves while they are happening. But somehow, I never pray for holidays quite so fervently as on the first day of school.

I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed at an unreasonably early hour (6:30 a.m), find everything I'd lost in various places throughout my house over the holidays, and catch the bus to school. There, I was relieved to find that Chinny had already arrived.

NB: Being my first day of school, I'm going to have to mention a lot of my friends in this post. Hope you don't get too confused with the nicknames.

Chinny is an expert in three subjects: maths, Japanese, and music. She is a piano genius.

Ness turned up soon after, and Peanut arrived after that.

I'm starting a new paragraph now, because Peanut is a girl who needs a lot of space. She tells me frequently that she 'doesn't have an inside voice'. She has an interesting - if somewhat perplexing - sense of humour, and unashamedly loves Pokemon.

I saw Marie-Clare, who was thrilled to be back at school. Not because she loves school work, or anything like that, but because she likes seeing friends again. To which I say: you can see friends in the holidays. You don't need to bring school into it. Anyway, that was her opinion.

I somehow managed to bluff my way through the first two periods without falling asleep and/or going mad, then escaped into recess with a glad heart. Peanut and I discussed a project we had a couple of years ago. Basically, we were going to make a film starring all the main characters from Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Spiderman, and Shrek. It fell through after we realised we had about 27 characters needing to be played, not counting the storm troopers, and only four actors. We are considering bringing it back, but this time making it work as a book. We might be on to something. Or, more likely, we might not.

I had English with my friend Gwen in the middle of the day. Gwen is appallingly brilliant at science - she topped the previous two units we did. However, she is also better than me at English. It doesn't seem fair, really, as she wants to be an environmental scientist (probably) and I want to be a journalist. I have sworn to beat her in physics this term to make up for it. Let's be honest here. It's not going to happen. But I can always hope. The race is ON.

Spent lunchtime being berated by Giuseppe about this blog. Apparently I have unwittingly incorporated a number of 'factual errors'. If so, reader, I apologise. At some point I will get a full list of these errors and put them in a post, clearing everything up. The only one I can remember at the moment, however, is that in the post 'Shoelace's Folly' the Yoda on Aviator's shirt was actually wearing shutter shades. Oh, and she disagrees with me about the fashion status of Aviator sunglasses. She thinks they're still popular.

I don't agree with this, but it's probably safer to put it in, or she'll verbally murder me tomorrow morning.

We had dance last period. That is to say, we would normally have had PE, but at this time of year it's too cold to go into the change rooms, and so we are taught the niceties of social dance instead of playing soccer or doing archery.

We did line dancing to begin with. I was standing next to Vyvyan, who kept kicking me in the ankle. Fair's fair, though - I did kick her back.

I have given her the nickname of 'Vyvyan' - despite her strenuous objections - because she reminds me of Vyvyan from The Young Ones. They both have red hair and homicidal tendencies. What more evidence do you need for a nickname?

Partner dancing was painful, both physically and emotionally, and I won't go into it. Made it home with a minimum of mental damage, considering it was the first day.

I apologise, but I feel the need to go into a spiel. What annoys me the most about school is not the work - not the assignment I should have done over the holidays but didn't - not the strict uniform requirements - but the knowledge that on the other side of the world, school students are happily on their summer break.

Take, for example, a friend of mine, Phoenix. She attended the school I currently go to (in Australia, if you haven't picked that up yet) until about two years ago. Then she moved to Washington D.C. For her holidays, her family flew to Europe. France, England, and Italy. Right as I'm typing this, she is in Rome. Yet the rest of us are back here in Oz, dreading school and avoiding homework (at least I am. I should have started my French homework an hour ago. Instead, I've been writing this post). It doesn't seem fair.

Not that I'm begrudging her the Italian trip. Far from it. I just wish that I could be there too.

(Told you I'd be able to mention you in a post, Phoenix. You may have moved to the other side of the world, but you can't get away that easily!)

Anyway, school today, and tomorrow, and for the next two and a half years of my life. Fabulous.

Leslie's Recipes: Leek-and-Potato Soup

My family are convinced that I am a budding young chef. They refuse to accept the fact that the only time I ever cook things is when I'm hungry, and even then it's just mixing varying amounts of milk, flour, and eggs together, tipping the mixture into a frying pan, and hoping some kind of pancake-like product comes out at the end. And so, when my mother suggested to me that I could cook leek-and-potato soup for dinner, I was less than enthusiastic. I think I would have objected had I not been watching an episode of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' (the British version, obviously) at the time. I was distracted, and my will power was minimal. And so, here is my own, personalised, recipe for leek-and-potato soup. Do not try this at home.

1. Find 2 leeks. Notice that the recipe calls for 6 leeks. Decide it probably doesn't matter, as they are big leeks. Try to wash leeks. Get bored. Leave leeks in a bowl of water to wash themselves.

2. Find some potatoes. Spend 10 minutes looking for potato peeler. Find peeler. Peel potatoes.

3. Try to measure out 30g of butter. Get frustrated with butter. Put a medium sized lump that looks like it weighs about 30g in the pot. Then put another one in, because I like butter.

4. Viciously hack the tops and bottoms off the leeks. Chop leeks. Have leeks inspected by nearby adult, who pronounces them 'not clean enough'. Put bits of leek in a different bowl of water to wash themselves properly.

5. Find onion. Decide cannot be bothered to chop whole onion. Chop onion in half instead. While doing this, let the knife slip, leaving a painful cut across two fingers. Chop onion half into pieces as quickly as possibly, then throw pieces into the pot and slam the lid in, to prevent them from making your eyes red. It is very important that you drop quite a lot of onion while doing this.

6. Find 2 cloves of garlic. Throw away one when you find a weird black spot on it (the plague?). Chop remaining piece and put in the pot with the rest of the stuff.

7. Rescue leeks from water. Put them in pot. Turn stove on and put the lid on the pot.

8. Look in fridge. Find some leftover chocolate icing remaining from the Ringo cake. Eat icing. Forget to stir pot.

9. After 10 minutes, remember to stir pot. Hope family aren't that sensitive to burnt food.

10. Put water in pot. Discover that recipe says to 'add one fresh bayleaf'. Cannot find fresh bayleaf. Put two dried bayleaves in to make up for it. This is what they call creative cooking.

11. Leave soup to boil. Go and watch television. Return to kitchen when sister complains soup is making 'weird noises'.

12. Discover 'weird noises' are made by soup trying to boil over. Turn heat down. Go back to watch television. Turn television off when cooking show comes on.

13. Soup has finished boiling. Now for the fun bit: to blend the soup. Search kitchen and discover family is too cheap to own a blender. Find a stab mixer instead.

14. Stab mix the soup. Lack of prior experience with said instrument means both kitchen and you are liberally spattered in green mush. Looks like you've been sneezed on by a giant.

15. Realise you forgot to remove the bayleaves before starting the blending. Decide it is probably too late, as little bits of bayleaf are now scattered all through the soup. Hope people don't notice the dark green, leafy specks.

16. Serve soup to family. Realise have forgotten to put seasoning in. Are basically serving bland green mush.

17. Warm up bread rolls to have with soup.

18. Eat soup. Receive assurances from family that bread was 'very nice indeed'.

A Day In Town OR Shoelace's Folly

Today being Ringo Starr's birthday, two friends and I celebrated it in our own fashion. That is to say, I made a cake and they came over and ate it. The friends in question were Giuseppe, whom you have already met, and Marie-Clare. Marie-Clare is not, in fact, French. She does look quite French, though. So far as I can tell, she has solely Australian and New Zealand roots, although I've a feeling her grandmother was Czech. Such is the mystery of code names. Anyway, having finished the cake, we played an epic game of Monopoly. Although it started well I was barely hanging on by the end, so it was quite a relief when we decided to go into town instead. We did so, after organising to meet two more friends of ours there at the chocolate place there (it's basically a cafe . . . but with every food containing chocolate). We arrived and were given seats outside (which was freezing). After a couple of minutes, Aviator turned up. I am calling him Aviator because he loves Aviators. He is convinced they are coming back. But as Aviator is also a compulsive liar (he once told me that his grandfather was the Grand High Chief Mason of Australia), this is probably not true. He was wearing only a T-shirt with a picture of Yoda wearing Aviators on it and a pair of jeans (he was wearing the jeans, not Yoda), meaning he spent the time during which we were waiting for our hot chocolate to turn up shivering and complaining.

Where Aviator needed a jumper our other friend, Shoelace, needed a watch, because she managed to turn up a spectacular 45 minutes late. Despite this, she drank the hot chocolate we had already ordered her in about two minutes flat, then managed to finish Aviator's drink in about the same length of time. Having nothing to do after this, we decided to go shopping. Aviator excused himself from this - apparently he doesn't 'do' shopping - so we four went alone. We wandered around a CD/entertainment shop for a bit, in which I found the complete 'The Fast Show' on DVD, and the others amazed me (not) by their total, demanding, and all-consuming complete lack of interest in anything I was saying about it. I bought a black trench coat and wandered around feeling like a 1930s detective. Marie-Clare, who was wearing a beige trench coat (we matched), nearly bought herself a watch at about three different outlets. Shoelace, despite our advice, did not buy a watch. Instead she was let loose in the makeup section of the shop. You know how they have all those test samples? Well, she came out looking not so much as an innocent schoolgirl but something you'd expect to see leaning against a lamp post in Piccadilly. Coupled with the fact that she was wearing an elaborate top hat she'd made herself (among other things, Shoelace is also a fabulous artist), she presented a very interesting picture. We had chips for lunch (for our American friends, that means hot chips. Not crisps). Our last visit was to the material shop where Shoelace had bought the material she used to make her top hat from. She wanted to show the girl at the counter the finished product. Unfortunately, this counter girl was so astonished by Shoelace's extraordinary make up techniques I'm not sure she paid that much attention to the actual hat. We somehow ended up back at my house (without Giuseppe, who had left to go to a viola lesson) and finished up the game of Monopoly. When Marie-Clare left, my younger brother, Drummer Boy (so called because he recently acquired a drum kit and has been lost to us ever since), took her place at the Monopoly board. At this point everyone appeared to be losing, so we called it a day. I was about to show Shoelace an episode of 'A Bit of Fry & Laurie' - thus converting her to a lover of British comedy (she already likes Monty Python so there's good ground to work from) - but unfortunately her mother arrived at that point, so her conversion will have to wait for a later date.

Markets, Minestrone, and the Money Kangaroo

I spent today working at the markets for community service with a friend of mine. 

NB: As I don't like using people's real names over the internet, I gave her the option of choosing her own blog name. This turned out to be a mistake when she chose the name of Giuseppe L Schneider. Not only is it hard to type (and spell), it is confusing, considering that she is neither Italian nor German. She is, in fact, Chinese (although she insists she is a quarter Sherpa). However, I shall respect her wishes and henceforth call her Giuseppe. She is a perfect example of the type of eccentric person I intend to write about.

Anyway, we got posted to the BBQ for the first couple of hours. As the BBQ was outside, and there were typical below-zero early morning temperatures, we spent the time standing still and freezing slowly. And selling sausages, of course. But obviously that was less important than succumbing to frostbite.

After a couple of hours Giuseppe and I were sent off to the canteen instead. There were both pros and cons regarding this move. On the plus side, it was warm, inside, and we got free soup (minestrone, in case you were interested). On the down side, there was a man playing the panpipes about 20m away, within easy hearing distance. Even this would have been all right had he been able to play anything other than ABBA covers. However, he was not.

After some time in the canteen, the woman we were working under decided we weren't selling soup fast enough. Her solution to this problem was to turn Giuseppe and myself into the cold as soup vendors. Giuseppe held the saucepan of minestrone, while I held the bread and the cups. I was forced to keep the money in a pocket sewn to the front of my apron. Regrettably, this earned me the nickname of the Money Kangaroo. Giuseppe was the Pot Holder. I don't know if you've ever tried, but it is surprisingly hard to sell soup to people walking around. We had to circulate throughout the whole market before we managed to sell 15 cups. We gave a couple away to the volunteers who had taken over our spot on the BBQ, than gave up and went back to the canteen. The man with the panpipes (panpiper? panpipist?) had finished on a high note with an impassioned rendition of 'Fernando', so we sold him some soup.

The Beginning Place

A historic day. I, Leslie M. Harper, have created a blog in which to discuss the strange behaviour and stranger people I am subjected to every day of my life. As I am currently attending high school, this list of eccentricities will be even more bizarre than it might be in the outside world. What exciting journey shall we be taken on? Will this attempt be an interesting social experiment or will it merely fail spectacularly? At this stage, we can only wait with bated breath. And so . . . ladies and gentlefolk . . . boys and girls . . . mesdames et messieurs . . . I give to you . . . 

The Life & Times of Stranger Things