Mayday! Mayday!

Days off in the middle of the week are weird. I am struggling to reconcile my day, which was spent tutoring, with the fact that tomorrow is not Sunday but in fact Thursday. This is weird and I don't like it.

Still, on the other hand, tomorrow is High Tea day! I'm very excited; I'm going to be spending the morning spreading jam and cream and cutting scones, and the afternoon just giving them away. In addition,  my colleague from the Association went on holiday this morning so I shall be swinging in the breeze, with no work to do. Apart from the cutting and spreading obviously.

Quick question, British brethren - cream then jam, or jam then cream?

This morning was a lovely start; stayed in bed until 9am and then pootled about, trying to put off the moment when I would have to face up to the fact that I had not a scrap of food in the flat. Today is - was, for you future people - the 1st May, the first of many public holidays during the month of May. Everything was shut; everything except McDonalds, which was where I had dinner. French haut cuisine at its finest; even the chips looked offended, as if they'd never wish to be seen dead in such an establishment.

I ate them anyway. McDonalds is to food what cement is to interior design. It'll do the job, but you wouldn't want to see it every day.

Dinner, such as it was, came after a surprise four hours of tutoring. It was only supposed to be two, taking advantage of the day off, but A started to struggle with some of the biology so two hours turned to three, which turned to four, and before long it was 6pm and I finally left.

Just as a notice for students on their year abroad - tutor. Tutor a mere ten hours a week, and you'll find that cash flows from your fingertips. You will wonder why you study. You'll seriously wonder why you ever worked in a bar. You'll question why you worked on a shop floor. You'll start doing it more and more until every hour of your life becomes a race from one house to the next, drinking two coffees per house and vibrating from the caffeine all night in your money-bed.

Tutoring. It's like heroin, only you make money.

So now it's late, and I've booked tickets to the States, because sometimes when a river crashes into you you have to go with the flow. My parents have booked their hotel, and they'll be here in July. My T.F.I test is in June, my project is (weirdly) coming along quite nicely, and my girlfriend is paying me a surprise visit in a week.

Oh. And my student's mother gave me three whisky cakes she had been given as a present and couldn't imagine ever eating.

Year abroad is just a metaphor for awesome.