Still waiting...

There's not really much to update on the Year Abroad front, just that I've just received an online Travel Health Plan, as it was suggested by my doctor to do so. It's good news, there's nothing that serious in the North of France and as I don't plan on doing any extremely dangerous activities, I should be fine. I shouldn't forget though, some mosquito bites can lead to some sort of brain disease... fantastic. What a nice way to put the fear into people. You can get your own brief from this website. I'm just going to take a small, and I mean small, first aid kit. Probably only really consisting of diarrhoea tablets and insect repellent as I'm sure things like plasters and painkillers are pretty similar on the continent.

For my university, I had to fill in a risk awareness form, which was more tedious than anything else. I've not been able to completely it properly as I still don't really know where I will be going, but I've told them I'll post an updated copy to them. I'm sure they get the same problem every year. The form required me to think about acclimatisation, crime and cultural differences. I tried to not be too sarcastic by reminding myself that this is the same form for everyone; no matter where they're going or what they're doing for their Year Abroad. With regards to the climate section, I just said I presume the weather would be the same, but maybe with the possibility of decent snow.

The crime section has me looking at the (Foreign and Commonweatlh Office) FCO's website, where I learned that there are a lot of recent theivings and attacks on the metros and RER lines in Paris. This is actually useful as I am going to Paris next week for Paris Pride. Pride. That's a fair point, the final issue from this form which I'll discuss, is the cultural differences in views of religion, gender and sexuality. As an atheist, gay woman, this is definitely something of which I'll have to be aware.  I believe I concluded to something such as 'as long as my responsable doesn't know or care, then I'm not too bothered what anyone else thinks'. Which is pretty much how I feel, I don't plan to be shoving rainbow flags down theirs throats at every opportune moment, just as I don't do so back here in the UK. Here's one now, though.

All I can do really is sit here and wait for my arrêt de nomination, the letter from France stating which school I'll be working in. It's so frustrating. I know people in the Rennes region who've heard but they're not from the UK, and then I know people from home who've heard but they're not going to Rennes. I JUST WANT TO KNOW. Dammit.