"...A Short and Jocular Conversation..."

Mmm. Double bass porn.

English gets more and more weird. I corrected some of the essays during Bio and they were so cute: one of them finished by saying they thought I seemed cool, and another contained the sentence "she likes music therefore her favourite song is Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil." The teacher is so shocked that I'm completely fine with us talking about the stolen generation for 2 hours - she keeps apologising every two minutes for "dishonouring" my country and I keep telling her Australians are probably the world's least patriotic people and no-one cares, but this doesn't seem to be getting through. She didn't believe me when I said Australia was a continent. This got argued for quite a while before I gave up and blamed the Australian school system for biasing us and let that be the end of it. Also apparently Aborigines wear mud to protect them from dingoes, and they have "scarrification" across their chests (it was OCHRE, but I didn't feel like arguing another point with her). She played a tape of a woman with an American accent going on and on about the shame caused by her ancestors in her country of Australia. And the photocopies (pronounced Frank-style, according to the teacher) are awesomely outdated and funny and have bad pictures of Peter Garrett on them. In the spare period we called Kathryn/Catherine's boyfriend to ask if Australia was a continent or not. I think we put him off slightly by the fact that we were in hysterics and kept asking "but where's New Zealand?" and also the fact that it was 1 in the morning in Australia. But it is a continent.

Did you know: In France, there are lots of different flavours of Fanta, and some are inspired by the fun of Mexico (that's what it said on the can)? Normal Fanta is yellow and tastes almost the same but a little more... natural. Also sandwhiches are big. Like, whole baguette big. AND THEY EAT BOAR. Unless they were just teasing me, drop bear style. I still want them to roast a boar though. With an apple in its mouth. "Are you still going to donate that million dollars, sir?"

The class scandal of today is that one of the guys (class nerd) apparently thinks I'm pretty. This was the source of much attention during English, where everyone kept asking me questions about him which I barely understood and would answer, then they'd all explode with excited talk, and I'd have to demand they explain to me precisely what I'd said yes or no to. I hope no-one brings it up tomorrow, it's highly embarrassing. But they so will. And Marnie, you are hearby warned.

Me and Kathryn/Catherine went back to the Champs Elysées after (technically during, since we sort of left when we felt like it and not when we were supposed to) school, and went and bought stuff just 'cos we could, even though it's super expensive. We found this hyper-stylish shop that had a corner filled with hot pink tutus for 85 euros (170 Aussie dollars) which I kind of felt like buying because that was the kind of mood I was in. Run-into-Harrods-and-buy-a-300-thread-count-linen-set-for-
-no-reason type mood. Luckily I didn't. Nespresso has a huge shop on the Champs Elysées, with a doorman. We had chestnut soup (yes, it is soup made from chestnuts) for dinner. And we went to see Juliette's dance lessons again. Ballet is pretty :)
--Emma

Oh AND, because I said I would: Juliette is not terrible. She is, in fact, very nice. And she eats rubbers