All things English

French men may be like a fine wine, better with age or just time. The more time spent in France the more desperate one gets. Like Emmental cheese on pizza (WHAT the F**k is that actually about?!) There comes a time when you have no choice but to embrace one of them. And surely a hangover and vomit follows both? Why else would anyone eat a French pizza if you were not decidedly drunk?

It is in fact a wonder that the French have not fallen into extinction. The females of the species, rather sensibly, has evolved a very hard armour of steel to deflect the attentions of men. If one considers the finer details of getting a female pregnant and the battle that her womb puts up to stop the little swimmers from getting anywhere and then adds to that the standard armour of the French female, one could in fact be led to sympathise with the plight of the Frenchman. No wonder he is the weird creature he has become. But, dearest reader, we are not want to sympathise with the French in this blog so fear ye not, I am not changing my tune. And as the blog below demonstrates, I am unlikely to ever get desperate enough to encounter one of these creatures at anything other than spitting distance. Alright, I won't spit. So where are we going with this entry?

Well, of course, we are going to England...

One of the side effects of being a second year student at Lecoq is that all of a sudden the teachers are your friend. So much so they tell you on day one that they are now approachable. This is monumental in the world of Lecoq where the teachers as as friendly and approachable as grizzly bear nursing cubs. I use the bear as you would expect teachers at a school you pay 7000 euros a year for to be approachable. Just as one expects the real life version of your childhood comforter to be anything except dangerous. What is the thought behind rearing children to believe these creatures are cuddly? And do they do it still in Canada? I must remember to ask Ryan Gosling when we are married.

So what does any of this have to do with French men or English men? Hannah? Get to the point, you clown. Well now, let me take you back to this time last year...

At the beginning of a movement class with the exceptionally cold English teacher of the course I attempted to tell him I was suffering with my asthma and that should I collapse my inhaler was in my bag. Now I am not always the most responsible person when it comes to my asthma but one lesson I have always heeded is to tell the people you are with that you have asthma, especially when exercising and feeling ill. I never got to explain anything as a hand appeared in front of my face whilst the other hand shooed me away. When I stood my ground in confusion and attempted once again to speak I was greeted with the words 'Just sit at the back of the class'. I shuffled back shocked and did the class as I had planned on doing but knowing should I collapse and die no one would know that the answer was lying at the bottom of my bag. What a way to go. Lucky for us all, I got through the lesson without becoming a corpse. However, this experience was a catalyst for how I went on to view the English teacher who had French coldness down like no other French person. Now you may think the English are cold. We certainly have a reputation for being reserved but reserved and cold are different. The French do cold, straight down the line rudeness like no one else. In fact it's one of the few things I admire them for. It's exceptionally impressive to watch how heartless they can be. And how horrendous they are at customer service. Well just service actually. I digress. I began to feel very suspicious and unimpressed by this Englishman. He felt like a fraud. He was out Frenching the French. This continued all year. He would walk into class with a face one would expect to see on a psychopath whilst they recited their crimes in an interview room. The face would never crack into a smile. So much so that the day after I got punched in the face and he stopped to ask if I was okay I went into auto pilot through shock and answered 'Oui ca va, et toi?' with a HUGE smile. It simply never occurred to me that he was genuinely asking. In fact during that moment I forgot I'd been punched and who I was, it was like entering the twilight zone. My answer was followed by a quizzical frown, a bemused look and an attempt to continue the conversation so I understood him, which failed as I almost ran away from him in horror from a one on one encounter.

When I arrived back in Paris in September I was in school posting a notice on the board (school is open for summer workshops) and whilst sat writing the notice he walked into the foyer. I glanced up and said 'Bonjour' and looked away quickly hoping to disappear into thin air, such is the terror at the sight of a Lecoq teacher outside the classroom. One can only stay very still and hope they don't attack. To my horror he replied in ENGLISH and went on to engage me in conversation asking about my summer and if I had resolved my living scenario for second year (I thought I had at this point). I was so taken aback that I found myself being very shy and sort of hoping the experience would end but at the same time I felt very honoured to have been acknowledged.

Since day one the teachers have all been friendly, approachable and supportive. In class this teacher has taken off his cold mask and started to be himself. And as I suspected, himself is very English. He is polite, open, sensitive, funny and reserved. More and more I've started to find him really attractive. And then I got sick with a cold, the kind that feels like the plague must surely be on it's way back. Being the idiot I am it was during this illness and the crisis of asthma that a cold always brings that I realised I hadn't got a new inhaler before I left and I was now dangerously low. To get one in France involves a doctors visit, 30 euros up front for the pleasure and then 50 euros for the prescription itself. So I had to await for one to arrive in the post. My inhaler ran out before the new one arrived and although I was feeling better in my asthma it was exceptionally dangerous. Faced with a movement class with the English teacher, a weekend without an inhaler and a cold that showed no sign of going away I opted to sit at the back of the class in my weak state and feel sorry for myself. After class in the corridor the teacher stopped to ask if I was okay. I explained rather sheepishly and he told me that I should ask for money if I needed help, that it was not a problem. Embarrassed I thanked him and dismissed him and ran away as fast as I could. On Monday when my inhaler arrived he stopped me to ask if I had my inhaler. I said I did, he then went on to tell me again that I must never do that again, how much would it cost? I told him, he said that was no big deal and I was to ask next time as panic can bring on asthma attacks. He then went onto ask me about my asthma and how bad it was, we had a big chat with him sat on the bench in front of me and me asking him for advice in finding a guarantor for a flat and explaining my living situation. He opened up with personal empathy whilst listening and agreeing with me on how different it is in the UK to here. I even heard the reminisce in his voice as we both fell into the love affair one finds with the UK when they leave. And what had been growing inside of me since the start of term fully realised itself. I have a crush on my teacher. Big style. He is in fact my hero who would rescue me from my asthma prison. Good lord a man who tells me off for my own stupidity and tries to fix the situation is ALL I need to steal my heart. This is an actual fact.

It is not the crush on the teacher though that is the point of this entry. That is inevitable. I always have a crush on someone either at work or school, it gets me out of bed. As work involves a one year old baby, a South African mother and a FRENCH father, it was always going to be school that provided me with this much needed piece of nectar during my day. What it is that I have been led to reflect on and admit to is that I LOVE English men. More so now than ever. With the exception of Ryan Gosling, although let's be honest, who can expect to marry a Canadian and not get a divorce? He's Canadian. What does that even mean? Well except that he probably talks too much. I cannot imagine ever wanting anything other than our awkward, socially inept, shy men. I look forward to June when I get to be in a country full of them. Chivalrous, lost and mysteriously closed shut. I love them all. Every last one. Except maybe those of them who happen to be rapists, murderers etc. But you get my drift. We just do men better. No other country can compete. And no other country has any idea of this truth. I can do nothing but wait for home time as this English man is happily settled, the best kind of rare breed of English man...I love him even more.

It's going to be a long, cold winter.