The Life and Times of the Curious Cockroach

Location: French village
Reasons for being in French village: 1) am angsty 20-year-old, 2) am sick of living in parents’ leaky, smelly attic  3) am sick of discovering new fauna in attic every day, 4) am not particularly keen on raccoons and pigeons discovered in attic, 5) raccoons and pigeons in attic not particularly keen on me, either, 6) oh yes, and will be teaching English to French children

Right. So I’ll be living in rural France for the next eight months of my life. Believe me, it’s a bit of a shocker to me too.  A year ago, upon my return to Vancouver from my exchange abroad, if someone had told me I was going back to the Old Continent so soon, I would have stepped my foot down, furrowed my brow, and said:

“Now, hold on a minute there, sir. What’s the use of all this hopping around? How can I even begin to replenishing my sushi deficiency with so little time back in Vancouver? And to leave those mountains, rivers, and glistening skyscrapers again? Unthinkable! Just let me be. I insist this is a joke!”

Then came a particularly cold and rainy Vancouver evening.  I was sitting in my parents’ attic, staring at a blank Word document on my computer screen. Pages and pages of research on the 1898 Hague Peace Convention lay on the floor — limb, scuffed-up, and totally unwilling to transform themselves into an essay. It was going to be a long night.

A few hours later, I was about to stuff a hand-full of coffee beans into my mouth when my computer made an all-too-familiar noise. Yes! Mail! There was a tart little message from my university.  Apparently the French Ministry of National Education was recruiting English language assistants. Apparently they were still doing placements in Southern France. And what was more, was that at that exact moment, destiny turned its trick and sent a particularly offensive whiff of pigeon droppings my way.

Suddenly my mind became blank. All other considerations vanished, leaving one thought behind:  “wouldn’t it be nice to go away somewhere?”

So I did. I went away somewhere. Though that “somewhere” turned out to be in the middle of nowhere.

My cherished readers, welcome to a new chapter in The Life and Times of the Curious Cockroach. Hereon you’ll find reports on my life in deepest, darkest rural France. I write to you from a village that I’ll be referring to as “The Village”. Why not use the real name? Because if my neighbour finds out I am (or will be) blogging about her pet ferret to 21 countries, imagine the scandal that would ensue. And there’s only one pet ferret around so I can’t just say it’s someone else’s ferret.

Stay tuned.

The Curious Cockroach

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