Criteria for success are easier to grasp in a new country.

Which is brilliant. I've just returned from a night with the French; I didn't understand everything when the music was blaring, but I understood enough to respond sufficiently. And hopefully tomorrow we'll do it again. I just worry about losing my German. And gaining ridiculous amounts of weight, because I've already put on a bit. And losing the class in seconde, because they're chatty.

That said, I do like the class in seconde. I think they're still enjoyable to work with. I will associate more with the Germans so as not to lose my German completely. And I'll bike more and eat more vegetables to stop gaining weight. Done. I'm on it.

Oooh. Il faut que j'elle donne un nom secret... the doer of good deeds? That's what her name means. The bringer of luck? She always says it's luck. It's luck that she found me a flatshare with someone lovely, it's luck that she's potentially found me a tutoring job, it's luck... it's lucky that I met her. Out of all the lycees in Paris, I happened to fall upon one with a responsable who smokes weed, who introduces me to everyone I want to know and wants to chat to me and offers me her sofa for a week when I'm desperate... and, of course, whom I fancy desperately. That's not exactly a quote from Casonova. I saw someone tonight with long, thick, dark hair and thought 'oooh... it's you'. Even though it wasn't, I couldn't take my eyes off the girl. Same posture, same build. And it wasn't, at all. Though there are those remarkable features that I remark in others, her nose, her hair, her face. Her eyes are never the same; I asked her once, 'tes yeux, ils sont les couleurs differents, n'est ce pas?'. Apparently not, but it seems so to me.

I saw her today and we spent an hour correcting French children. She's wonderful when she speaks English, but she doesn't think so. I think she knows deep down, but she doesn't know how fantastic she is. Her class was so easy to be in... I just float about and do whatever I want to with the children, and sometimes she asks me to come with her because she's unsure of how to express something. But she doesn't try to cover it up, she simply asks, and that's brilliant in itself. No artificial edifices. And she goes to staff dos and integrates, speaks to everyone and doesn't bat an eyelid. She was cold. I went to smoke with the surveillantes, and she appeared towards the end. She shivered and stepped from foot to foot in her boots. I was wearing a duffel coat and my scarf, and my woolly hat. I wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and wrap my coat around her. Ha. It would be difficult to do alone, yet alone with a group of people. I just watched her, being beautiful and needing a coat. Hopefully I'll see her in the holidays. I want to sit on her sofa again and dire des ragots, just to mimic her posture and elle donne le soulagement. Ah, elle est si jolie qu'on faut tomber... I don't know if that's the exact expression.