Ah! My first term at law school. I am going to get a Graduate diploma in Law (GDL) under my belt, where it will join my MA and BA. I am taking control of my life. I am ready for the real world. I have been offered an internship at the EU commission and am discussing it at a conference for students going to Brussels at my university...
So I enrolled on a French class. By July 2015, I not only passed my GDL, but I also took my DELF A1 exam in French (more on this later). I was on a roll. I was a fresh new legal mind, on my way to an internship at the EU. I was ready for the world of commuting, and negotiations, and discussing the development of canals in Ljubljana...
Except...
I was exhausted.
I was frustrated.
I was TRAPPED.
I had been in education since 2008. I had studied archaeological sites across Europe in a Library but never actually been to them. I loved learning languages, but never got the chance to use them. As a 'useless' arts graduate I foundmyself highly undesireable in the post credit-crunch market, despite living in London. So I took an MA to bide my time. After my MA, I moved back to my parents house in rural England (in other words - the middle of nowhere) to work for just over the minimum wage for a year. I had taken the GDL as a way of escaping, but found that its reputation for being one of the most difficult and gruelling postgraduate courses in the country was not a lie! I had passed my exams to find a market saturated with more young lawyers than the firms can support...
It seemed that every application I sent off came back with the same replies.
"We're not looking for employees right now, but we will offer you work experience or a voluntary position."
"I'm sorry, ideally we were looking for someone more science-y or an engineer."
And possibly the worst of all: "You're over qualified for this job."
Then I saw a picture of an old classmate from university on Facebook. She looked tanned. She looked happy. She was inexplicably holding a six year old that she was definitely not pregnant with when we were at university.
She had become an au pair in Italy.
When I asked her about it she said that she was having the best time. Her room, food, and bills were paid by the family, she was paid to do finger painting with the kids, and the family were even taking her on holiday. She had also become fluent in Italian.
It was like a lightbulb went on in my brain. This was what I wanted. I could learn French in France - not in a library. I could eat soufflé whilst practising le subjunctif, croissants while I worked on le conditionnel, pain au chocolat whilst I practised the passé composé! I put my name up on a website that set up au pairs with potential families, listed all my qualifications, and then closed the window and vowed to come back to it in a couple of days.
When I came back in three days I had almost one hundred offers from across France, and even from Spain and Italy. After years of rejection letters from a variety of positions, this was unbelievable. These people didn't just like me, they wanted me. They were practically fighting for me. I knew I would find a place somewhere in France, but where exactly?
The mountains or the Massif Central? Rivers or the Riviera? Nice? Bayonne? Aix En Provence? Alsace? Strasbourg? No...
Paris. I wanted to go to Paris.
And so I am.
This blog is where I will document my experiences in the City of Lights - my mistakes and my discoveries. Please join me.
Allons-y!
Careers Officer: Do you speak any foreign languages?
Me: Oh yes. I speak Greek quite fluently, and Spanish. I can also get by in Italian and Japanese. I also read Latin and Ancient Greek, even identify a bit of Cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics...
Careers Officer: Well that's great. But the EU has 3 official languages - English French and German. If you are a native speaker of one, you have to learn one of the others. They won't accept fluency in a non-official European language if you want to get on the blue book (the official internship auditions for the EU).
Me: ... bu....bu...but I speak 2 European languages with a great deal of fluency... I can even do Latin American Spanish dialects. Do you want to hear me recite Neruda? Also - I did the ERASMUS... I lived in Greece during this recession... Do you know the Greek for strike or teargas? Because I do!
Careers Officer: You need French. I advise you take one of the courses offered here at the university.
So I enrolled on a French class. By July 2015, I not only passed my GDL, but I also took my DELF A1 exam in French (more on this later). I was on a roll. I was a fresh new legal mind, on my way to an internship at the EU. I was ready for the world of commuting, and negotiations, and discussing the development of canals in Ljubljana...
Except...
I was exhausted.
I was frustrated.
I was TRAPPED.
I had been in education since 2008. I had studied archaeological sites across Europe in a Library but never actually been to them. I loved learning languages, but never got the chance to use them. As a 'useless' arts graduate I foundmyself highly undesireable in the post credit-crunch market, despite living in London. So I took an MA to bide my time. After my MA, I moved back to my parents house in rural England (in other words - the middle of nowhere) to work for just over the minimum wage for a year. I had taken the GDL as a way of escaping, but found that its reputation for being one of the most difficult and gruelling postgraduate courses in the country was not a lie! I had passed my exams to find a market saturated with more young lawyers than the firms can support...
It seemed that every application I sent off came back with the same replies.
"We're not looking for employees right now, but we will offer you work experience or a voluntary position."
"I'm sorry, ideally we were looking for someone more science-y or an engineer."
And possibly the worst of all: "You're over qualified for this job."
Then I saw a picture of an old classmate from university on Facebook. She looked tanned. She looked happy. She was inexplicably holding a six year old that she was definitely not pregnant with when we were at university.
She had become an au pair in Italy.
When I asked her about it she said that she was having the best time. Her room, food, and bills were paid by the family, she was paid to do finger painting with the kids, and the family were even taking her on holiday. She had also become fluent in Italian.
It was like a lightbulb went on in my brain. This was what I wanted. I could learn French in France - not in a library. I could eat soufflé whilst practising le subjunctif, croissants while I worked on le conditionnel, pain au chocolat whilst I practised the passé composé! I put my name up on a website that set up au pairs with potential families, listed all my qualifications, and then closed the window and vowed to come back to it in a couple of days.
When I came back in three days I had almost one hundred offers from across France, and even from Spain and Italy. After years of rejection letters from a variety of positions, this was unbelievable. These people didn't just like me, they wanted me. They were practically fighting for me. I knew I would find a place somewhere in France, but where exactly?
The mountains or the Massif Central? Rivers or the Riviera? Nice? Bayonne? Aix En Provence? Alsace? Strasbourg? No...
Paris. I wanted to go to Paris.
And so I am.
This blog is where I will document my experiences in the City of Lights - my mistakes and my discoveries. Please join me.
Allons-y!
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