Toddlers and Lighting Technicians

I'm applying for jobs, because there's now only five months until my current one ends and it took much longer than that to get this position. It's annoying, because the time elapsed between applying to work for the British Council and starting the work far, far outstretches the amount of time I will be working for them. I'd kind of like to be paid in retrospect.
That's not going to happen.
Anyway, job applications mean not only updating the old Curriculum Vitae but also writing personal statements, cover letters and just general boilerplate. I actually have to admit a slight passion for writing about myself (imagine that); especially when I get to make it sound like my own Wikipedia article. Case in point:

I am an active dramatist, humorist, journalist and poet.

I actually wrote that in an application yesterday. I guess what I enjoy about writing such things is the opportunity it affords me to pomp myself up: in certain circumstances in social interactions, we are allowed to admit to a particular strength or flourish that we believe we possess. However, more than one at a time and what was once confidence begins to feel like boasting or, worse, arrogance. I'm not saying I want a society where everyone is suddenly allowed to go around declaring themself God's gift or even just a particularly adept human being- I've spent too much time around toddlers and lighting technicians to know how irritating that gets- but I do wish that my parents hadn't instilled in me such a disdain for pomp. I wish I knew how to take a compliment, which is not something I was ever taught, despite doubtless being praised far too much as a child. See? I don't feel like I can even write about this subject without throwing in a healthy dose of self-deprecation just to show that I'm not arrogant.
I think arrogance and dullness were the two things I was raised to be most vigilant for: I remember very clearly my mother telling me I was being boring and to stop talking if no one wanted to listen to what I had to say. And I can recall word for word Mrs. Sharpe berating me for boasting. The thing is, I know that a lot of contemporary acquaintances will be rolling their eyes as they read this, and muttering how I've never seemed too bothered about being tedious or concieted, and I feel I have to acknowledge this because otherwise I'm not admitting the flaws that I have.
I feel I'd be a lot happier if I didn't care about such things. Certainly, I'd be less self-conscious and that could only be a good thing (yet again, I feel compelled to acknowledge the folks who would say I've never been conscious of anything in my life and to simultaneously acknowledge that constantly acknowledging these things is boring for you to read). I spend almost all my social interactions, except those with the people around whom I'm absolutely, completely comfortable wondering if I'm holding up my end of the conversation, if I'm coming across as too self-interested or banal and if the other person has picked up on the fact that only half my brain is dedicated to this conversation because the other half is desperately monitoring my even action.
I don't know why I'm writing about this, other than writing my personal statement made me pensive and I haven't updated this thing in a while. I don't believe there's an answer to this, other than alcohol- although that doesn't really silence my self-conscious side so much as take its hands away from the reins of my body and mouth. I also now feel that I must mention that I don't dare think I'm unique in this situation: although, like a lot of middle-class children, I was always told that I was special, I was somehow also simultaneously discouraged from believing this.
How does that even work?

Honey Badger

I can't sleep. A fire alarm just went off, but honestly I was awake before: naturally, this sleepless night before a full day of work follows a whole fortnight when I didn't have to work and therefore could sleep a full ten hours with no preparation or prevarication. I imagine this is no coincidence: the knowledge that I have to be up in the morning for some reason makes me wary to sleep now, as though I fear that, like Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral, I might overshoot the mark and might as well go round the horn, the long way around.
Is it worry that's preventing restfulness? That seems ridiculous. Honestly, this insomnia far outweighs in seriousness any other niggle that might prey on my mind. I think back to a documentary I watched at the beginning of the holiday that has now come to a rather damp squib of a close with this bout of listlessness about Honey Badgers and how they tackle all their problems head on with a grand display of insouciance and casual violence. Were I a Honey Badger, I'd use this extra night alloted to me to go piss off some snakes, steal some food from a pride of lions or have weird, hurty sex in a hole I dug. Instead, I'm an omphaloskeptic narcissist, so I shall blog my time away.

I never made it to Berlin this halfterm, as was my original plan, but I did go to Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.

PARIS

I spent two days in Gay Paris, as it was Dani's birthday and I wanted to repay her for the marvellous celebration she gave me. The theme for the party was 'Glam Rock Pirates', so naturally I dressed like this:

It was while in Paris, staying with Dani's friends Matt and Dave, that I watched the documentary which gave us the title for this post as well as the incredibly unnecessary opening paragraph.
After the party, Matt and I, as well as a new acquaintance named Cordelia, and two Italians whose names I sadly never caught, went for drinks. The reason I never got their names was that the bar we went to was so loud that we couldn't hear each other talk. This lead to Matt proposing a rather novel form of conversation wherein we wrote to each other while seated at the same table: interestingly, this elevated the talk above the level of idle chittero chattero that one would expect from such loose acquaintanceships and meant we learnt quite intimate, fascinating details about each other (our greatest non-physical fears, when we stopped considering our parents' house home) in a very short time. I don't know why physically writing our thoughts made us more prone to divulge information, but the effect was palpable and incredibly liberating.

The next day, I looked around Notre Dame

Through the rooves and gables I can see them!

Naturally singing 'Hellfire' to myself all the while. This bought home to me something I had suspected for a while: my appreciation of aesthetic beauty has become much greater as I've grown older. I used to disdain looking around churches or my parents' frequent suggestion of simply strolling around and looking at what was around me. But that's exactly what I did, and I was so overwhelmed I even tried my incredibly inexperienced hand at some photography:

Admittedly, very few locations on earth offer up such levels of aesthetic pleasure as Paris, but it definitely contrasts to the first time I visited the city when I was disgusted that the plan was to just look around.
After this, I returned to the same poetry-reading tea party that I attended on my birthday and then caught the train home. It was a great weekend.

AMSTERDAM

On a whim, realising I would be all alone with killer clowns in Laon, I decided to soujourn for a week in 'The Dammage' as Anna calls it. Booking my train twelve hours before it left,  I naturally was left with Slim Pickin's for accommodation and decided to go with a hostel on the beach, an hour outside the city limits.
It proved to be the right choice: I met so many cool people, it made the week so much less lonely and allowed me to relax about trying to see everything- if I was spending time with others, I didn't have to find something for myself to do. I'm not gonna detail everything that happened in that city, because I genuinely don't have words for some of the experiences and also I want to find gainful employment in the future (hint: 'special' cake was involved). Here is just some general life advice for you all: don't go through Daylights Savings time while high. It hurts. And here's some pictures I took, just so this paragraph doesn't feel left out:

The fact that they still had C&A there blew my mind more than any substances I ingested.

BRUSSELS

I spent a couple of days in Brussels because the delightful Grace was visiting there and I wanted my life to be the kind where I meet my friends in capital cities of countries where neither of us live. Also, Grace is tout sweet and I hadn't seen her in too long. We went to the Brussels Comic Strip museum where we learned how Smurfs live:

And also about their depictions in times gone by:

While there, I also met up with Jonathan, whom I hadn't seen or spoken to in three years. Catching up with someone after such an amount of time is inevitably a strange experience, as you're reminded simultaneously how much and how little you've done in that amount of time. Jonathan took me to the Delirium Cafe, which boasts over 3000 beers, and so I finally found a brew that I actually enjoy, and so now I only have to journey 100 miles to drink 'a real man's drink' in the words of my father and every other macho douchebag I've ever encountered.

Apart from the above journeying, I spent the rest of the holiday watching films and writing creatively. It was a lovely break and I only wish it hadn't come so early after I started my job: oh well, only 50 days to Christmas.

God Help the Girl

Hello again, dear readers. First off, I was mentioned on someone else's blog, after I mentioned her on mine while blogging about the same series of events, which is pretty fun: I'm hoping this will lead to the creation of a greater expanded bloggiverse, incorporating my blog, Naomi's, Emma's, Ella's and eventually leading to a giant clusterfuck of blog posts akin to The Avengers, wherein we fight Sir Laurence Olivier or Sarah Siddons or some other ridiculously overqualified thesp.
Also, note benne: I'm typing this on a French keyboard which I've modified to work like an English one, so I should be making fewer spelling errors, as long as I stare fixedly at the screen and don't think about what I'm doing or where the keys are or, God forbid, look down, at which point I get a form of vertigo and lose a few braincells.

So, after two false starts, I had my first class that was just me today. My mother told me that I'm not a real teacher and shouldn't refer to myself as such, but screw her, lecturing eleven nonplussed French teenagers about social mobility and an economy of scarcity qualifies me to call myself whatever the hell I like. It was awful and nervewracking and I have a new respect for teachers, because it is extremely difficult to try and communicate with teenagers at the best of times, let alone when they're in a situation they're predisposed to hate. I felt like I asked 'does everyone understand' a hundred times and recieved a chorus of indifferent 'yes'es but they still retained that glazed look of noncomprehension in their eyes afterward. However, at the end, they were all able to speak relatively eloquently about the topic at hand, so maybe that's just how they always look. Also, I did feel very self-important writing words on the board and underlining them and then turning dramatically, picking on someone random and making sure they were paying attention.
"But what were those false starts?" I hear you ask; well, you know how sometimes you can't read your timetable because it's not only in a language you don't understand but in a truncated form of said language so you have no chance in hell of knowing what's going on, but you don't want to seem like a moron or, worse, a nuisance, so you nod when you think they ask if you understand?
That.
In my defense, four students showed up at these various un-classes, and I taught them all half a lesson apiece until the secretary came and asked what I was doing. So, I'm not the only one who can't read the timetables and also those students are now ahead of their peers academically, and so will now be heroes in their eyes, right? That's how that works in school, I believe.

In other news, the incredibly convoluted web of lies I've been weaving when the students have been interviewing me for class has already started to unravel: they've evidently been talking about me to their peers outside of the lessons, because some classes come in anticipating my answers and asking ridiculously specific questions, for example 'do you know pamplemousse?' (no, it doesn't make anymore sense in context) without the preceding line of enquiry to lead them there. They also seemed puzzled by some of my answers to questions like 'do you like rugby' because they clearly were expecting the answer I gave to the last class, but they haven't counted on my cunning: to prevent them copying from other groups, I'm presenting a different persona to each set of students, Roger-Smith-style.

I save Rory Spanish for the really difficult classes.

I've also told the students I don't speak any french, so as to discourage them from talking to me in their native tongue (although it's also increased them insulting me in French and then laughing behind their hands at my supposed lack of comprehension). This blew up in my face when one of the teachers, upon hearing me engage in a conversation en Francais, shouted 'but you said you didn't speak French! You LIED!'

I'm also getting caught up in the face needs of French people: apparently, you're meant to say 'bonjour' to everyone in the room when you enter, even if you don't know them and you have no and never will have any business with them. Also, I've been referring to all my colleagues as 'vous' because they're older than me and I don't really know them, but apparently this comes across as me wanting to put distance between myself and them. This is really confusing.

On the plus side, I was asked in one class what my dreams were and I answered 'I want to win an Oscar', because I thought it would make the children laugh and it's also kind of true.This lead to the Head of English asking if I wanted to help out with the school play this year and maybe lead some readings of plays with the more advanced kids. So I guess what I'm saying is...look out for more info on the Rob and Roberta 2015 European Premiere! I swear to God, I'll do that play in every country on earth.

Amiens

Hello again, I'm writing to you on a French keyboard, which I can't change to English layout, so my apologies if this post is riddled with spelling errors: rest assured, I'm not losing my fabled pedantry.

Speaking of my fondness for correcting people, I thought this would be a boon in a job such as this; I'd pictured myself pointing out grammatical errors with gay abandon and being paid for the privilege. Not so. I don't feel confident when one of my colleagues makes an error that I'm high enough in the pecking order to say anything- I don't want to step on any toes; and, on the whole, the students' english is so bad that unless the sentiment is utterly incomprehensible, I just don't bother. It'd take too long.
So far, my only interaction with the students has been them 'interviewing' me for a profile: this led to some interesting questions being asked- my favourite was 'are you bald?' to which I responded by tugging my ponytail (it transpired he meant 'are you bold?' [see what I did there?], which didn't occur to me, not because it's ungrammatical but simply because it's such an odd thing to ask). My least favourite question, which all three classes asked, without fail, twice, and which was then repeated at the bank, was 'do you have a wife and children?'- I hope to God I don't look that old.

On Friday, I went to Amiens for a conference for Language Assistants, which I honestly hadn't imagined was the kind of job which needed a conference. I won't bore you with the details of the talks; suffice to say they didn't tell me anything I didn't know already and if they did it was in French and I couldn't understand it. But I met some wonderful people while there: Naomi and Nicole, both Scots with whom I had lunch and very consciously tried not to discuss the referendum (no such luck); John, a Chicago native with whom I spoke a weird kind of pidgin composed of French, English, Spanish and Italian, with me not speaking the latter and he not speaking the penultimate, but neither of us wanting to concede and just speak our shared native tongue.
I ended up spending the night on a former Italian assistant's sofa, as part of couchsurfers. He actually slept on the sofa with me- we'd been Gentlemen and given up the bed to a lady who was also staying the night- and I managed to share a bed with someone without physically injuring them! #Progress

On Saturday, I went to the bank to open an account and I... think I succeeded. They didn't speak any English (naturally), and there were a lot of words I hadn't looked up, like 'interest', 'savings' or 'bank'. Still, the teller handed me something at the end, and it has my name and a bunch of numbers on it, so it's either a bank statement or I'm in the Matrix now.
She also gave me her number and I really don't know why so...winning?

Midnight in Paris

I know you all want to hear about my trip and my first day at work and how I'm settling in, blah, blah, blah, but I don't want to talk about that: I want to tell you about my birthday!

I had just the best birthday this year, in part because it was so unexpected. I'd been planning to go and visit Dani, a friend from sixth form, for a while, but originally I was going to travel to Paris on the day of my birthday. However, upon finding the school completely abandoned during the weekends, and with an invitation from Dani to go meet her (and some lovely Americans) a day early, it was a hobson's choice. So, I stuffed some clothes in a bag and ran to the station and a stroke of luck: there was a bus going right to the station coming just around the corner! I flagged it down and arrived with eight minutes before the next (and, as it transpired, final) train to Paris, which was just enough time to buy a ticket and the French equivalent of young person's railcard and jump onto the train just before it set into motion.
The journey took an hour and a half- during which time I should really have investigated the address of where Dani works and looked into how to get there, but I'm an idiot and so I read my book. I arrived in Gare du Nord at 19.10, with no idea of where to go or how to get there. Naturally, I went to McDonalds and read some more. At 20.00, Dani contacted me and told me to meet her at Republique. I hopped on the metro and emerged in a grand square, with a huge column, ornate lights and a surprisingly underwhelming fountain. Dani arrived soon after and we made our way to the apartment owned by Dani's american friends with whom I would be staying, me not having managed to book a hostel behind the damn firewall on the school internet (more on this in another post). Dave and Matt, Dani's American friends, were warm and welcoming and their flat was bloody enormous and most opulent. Later, another American arrived named Elizabeth, with whom I had an unknown previous connection (more on this later). I was offered wine and pie, and then we discussed getting dinner, as nobody had eaten. We eventually decided to order a 'cheesey box' from a place called 'Burger 66', and this proved to be the Best. Decision. Ever. 8 cheese burgers, 12 onion rings and 24 chicken nuggets later, we were all full but then it was time for pie. It turned midnight just as the pie came out, making it my official birthday cake (complete with candle) and justifying the title of this blog post. I was completely stuffed, but it tasted so delicious and I was so happy not to be spending the first part of my birthday alone that I nearly cried for happiness. Dani had bought me some very lovely gifts from her place of work, and I opened these with a rictus grin of gratitude on my face; soon after, Dani and Elizabeth departed and I went to sleep on the sofa bed, thinking that the evening could not have gone better.

The next day, I woke up to my mother calling me. I don't normally transcribe conversations because that part of my life is over, but this one needs to be read in all its magnificence.

ME: 
Hello?

MUM (Fortissimo):
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY-

ME (Piannissimo):
Mum, please, I'm in someone else's house.

MUM (Massimo Fortissimo):
WHAT?!
  
ME (Piano):
I'm in someone else's house!

MUM (Indescribably Fortissimo):
YOU'RE IN CHURCH?! WHY?!

ME:
I'm in someone else's house!

MUM (World-shatteringly Fortissimo):
OH MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!

 Still, it's nice to remembered on your special day. After explaining things to mum, I went for a walk and got completely lost among the sidestreets- I ate breakfast in the only cafe I could find that was open (even in Paris, French establishments do not open on a Sunday) and then tried to figure out where the hell I was. Eventually, I found a metro and, having arranged to meet Matt and Dave for lunch, travelled to Odeon (I love that the Odeon metro stop opens right by a cinema) and ate some delicious Indian food with them. After this, I went to Luxembourg park where there is, no joke, a working indoor marionette theatre in the middle of the park. I paid for a ticket (the woman behind the till inquiring 'you know it's for four years olds?') and let the magic unfold before me: the show was Guignol and the Circus, and if there was a plot, I didn't follow it (although I think at some point a clown in search of a pay rise sicced a lion on the public). I didn't need to follow the dialogue, though; it was a joy just to watch the recreations of classic circus acts in puppet form.

After this delighftul diversion, I went to a tea party at Dani's place of work, the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, which helpfully provided another justification for this post's title:

Three guesses what film this is from.

The tea party is a weekly spoken word event run by Pamellys and once upon a time attended by Ernest Hemingway. I read a poem and was told that my voice was maginificent and that I was a fantastic actor and writer, and Pamellys even asked me to read a bit of Shakespeare just to hear how I'd pronounce it. I'm gonna be straight here: flattery always makes my day, and the fact it was my birthday just made it all the sweeter.

After this, Elizabeth and I went for a drink and she mentioned that she once went to Versailles with some friends. Now, I mention this because while she was there she met an old classmate who turned out to be...(dun dun dun)...FRANCES HEBERT, my one time Fresherling. Of course, I didn't learn that Frances and Elizabeth knew each other until I went on facebook later, and she didn't mention Frances by name when relating the Versailles story, but then Franny told me about meeting Elizabeth there, and I put two and two together. Truly, the world is a tiny place and the internet helps make it even smaller.

That evening, Dani and I ate crepes and reminisced about Sixth Form and then returned to Matt and David's to watch Kinky Boots. It was a lovely end to a lovely day and really I can't think how turning 23 (the age when my mum met my dad- eep!) could've gone any better. Let's hope this year continues in that vein.

COMING SOON: A post detailing my first days at work and moving to Laon. A bientot!

Single Pringle

I move to France tomorrow; I've packed everything, used up all the food that was going to go out of date and found that, serendipitously, my E111 card still has three years to go on it, which is jammy because I hadn't actually bothered to check until today.
I can't quite calm my pre-departure nerves, and I think back to Jason's preparation for life in Australia, which consisted of watching The Rescuers Down Under: I'm actually quite flush with Disney films set in France- Cinderella, The Aristocats, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame... Sadly, all of these are seventy minutes plus and I have to be up in five hours. "Why are you staying up to blog then, you pillock?!" I hear my incensed readers cry. Well, 1) Aforementioned pre-departure nerves and 2) I care about you dear readers and want you to know what's been going on with my life.

Both my sisters and both their boyfriends came up to see me before I left last weekend: this left me feeling somewhat spare, everyone else in the family having a partner and all. This became especially apparent when we all went to play tennis, which consisted of a heated doubles game and me sitting on a bench reading my book.
Darcy, whom I shared a stage with in the Australian Amadeus, had a wonderfully evocative phrase: 'Single Pringle'. I think he used it only for its coy rhyme, but I quite like the image it conjurs- the lone pringle, left at the bottom of the tube, waiting to be picked, as delectable in its own way as its siblings but for some unknown cosmic reason, forlorn. For now, at least. Because no one ever leaves a pringle at the bottom of the tube for long. They're just too good: once you pop, you just cannot stop.
EVER.

Travis calls pringles 'tubas', because they come in a tube and this seems like a wonderful segue into talking about my visit to my apathetic godchild. He didn't know who I was and alternately called me 'JoJo' and 'Jamie', occasionally detouring to 'Rory' if his mum really pushed it, but even then he more often than not just ignored her. He seemed to like me nonetheless, although I suspect that he may actually have just thought that I wouldn't apply the same rules of 'no hitting' as his mother. No such luck.
He seemed appreciative of my hair, though, proclaiming it to be "much nicer than JoJo's", and since he was also calling me 'JoJo' at this time, I don't know how he held this paradox in his head.
He's also taken a keen interest in bats- I tried to relate to him the time that Josh took me to see the fruit bat colony in Melbourne, but he seemed quite bored until I said 'and then the tree just exploded with bats' at which point he turned to me and, with eyebrow raised in a perfect imitation of Spock, asked "but why did it explode?" I see that metaphor escapes him for another day.
Of course, I didn't just visit Travis but Mel as well. She is applying to rejoin the workforce, and I decided to dash her high spirits by relating some of the more irksome tales of customer relations from my time working for EUSA. She retorted that none of it could be as bad as some of what she has to put up with as a single mum and I suspect she's right: I sometimes forget that, as annoying as some of the douchebags in the cafe were, I didn't have to clean up their excrement.

I just met with Daniel for a drink, and it was nice because he's the only friend I still have who knew me not only from secondary, but also from primary school. We had fun reminiscing about teachers past and experiences in the classroom like when Ms. Fisher used to try and catch us out with math problems and then laude it over us that she was smarter than us, even though we were thirty years her junior. And how she used to heap affection on Alex Newton, smarmy prick.
In this same vein, I actually met one of my old classmates from secondary school in the park the other day: we chatted for a little while about where everyone is (she has remained much better connected than I- not that that's difficult), and I thought about people I haven't thought about in years. I often try not to think about William Brookes, because it just makes me angry and depressed, but speaking with Claire made me realise that all my tormentors will now have grown up and matured (except those who were teachers, obviously) and that I should really get in contact with some of them and give them a second chance, because Lord knows that I'm a better person than I used to be. But then I imagine what if they're as awful as I remember, and then I'll have the smugness of confirmation and then think how insufferable I'll become; better not risk it, to be honest. 

It's almost Midnight now and I really should be getting to sleep: writing this has not calmed me down as I had hoped it would, but hopefully I'll drop off out of sheer necessity. I'm trying to remind myself about what Will told me when I expressed my fears for returning to Edinburgh: "You make your own universe; if you want it to suck, it will suck." Of course, I don't want France to be awful, but if I go in expecting it to be les miserables, then I'll most likely look for things to affirm that belief (see above re: meeting old classmates). So, I have to keep my chin up and my hopes level: I can do this if I try, and maybe I can even enjoy myself along the way.

Edinburgh

I left Edinburgh early on Thursday morning. My last few weeks here were divided between frantically rehearsing two woefully underprepared shows and trying to make the most of my time in Edinburgh: taking walks (including to some places I'd never been before), supping at my favourite establishments and seeing the people who made my time there so brilliant. This culminated in leaving drinks at Paradise Palms, formerly Bristo Bar, with some of my nearest and dearest, which lead to this delightfully sleazy picture:

Callum definitely looks to be under some sort of coercion in this picture.

It feels odd to be gone. I definitely think of this as the end of my studenthood, even though that actually occured in May- it just didn't sink in until I actually departed the place where the majority of my studenting took place. I feel like now, at last, I am moving onto the stage of my life known as 'adulthood' and that it's time to put away childish things: you may remember that I said the same when I graduated and how long that lasted.

There's a description in One Day by David Nicholls of which I am very fond:

"Living in her university town felt like staying on at a party that everyone else had left."

Although Edinburgh never quite got to that level for me, I could definitely see it happening had I stayed much longer, or indeed had I not known that I was leaving at the end of the summer. There are still many wonderful people I care very deeply about there (eagle-eyed readers may even spot a recently-returned Esmond in the picture above), but I've lived there for three years and it was only going to get less fun what with having to work and everything- I think it better to just cut things off now, before my life there begins to stagnate.
I feel a lot less emotional this time than when I left to go to Melbourne, even though that time I had a definite return point- I guess now I know I can keep friendships up over a long distance and that, ultimately, life keeps going no matter where you are. I didn't feel the need to be emotional: I had done all this before and it worked out ok (this sentiment may come back to bite me- only time will tell). And, besides, I imagine I will return to the city: enough of my friends still live there to merit popping in now and then. Maybe, as they move on or die out, I'll stop returning, but Henriette's there for the next two years and that alone makes it a very favourite place of mine.

In other news, I didn't complete any items on my bucket list. I didn't do a Ghost Tour or go to Glasgow or GHQ or even visit the beach. I am strangely OK with this- in the end, those activities weren't necessary for me to enjoy the end of my residency in Edinburgh, and it's not like I can't ever do them in the future (whereas, it's much more difficult to get back to Melbourne).
I have very few regrets about my time in Edinburgh overall and even fewer about my leaving: I made a move then kept on moving, and proved the points that I needed proving. Someone should write a song about that.