Down Spiral

I was surprisingly unaffected by my departure, neither exited nor worried, until last Friday. Suddenly, after this weekend I started do get slightly depressed.

After: I’m worse

So, I think we should make a law to prevent what I call hair cutters from auto-proclaiming themselves “hair stylists”. The one I paid – I need to mention it as people might think it could have been a free job – was barely a hair cutter, just good enough to shave sheep.

At the end, she said:

Is that short enough?

Did I ever say I wanted them short! It’s a ridiculous hairdo, If I had been her, I would have apologized and tried to make thing better… Now that I think of it may be she was asking “Is that short enough?” (so that nobody can fix it!).

That’s me after…

Before: I’m fine

Now is the difficult time of the year when I need to get a haircut. I want something a bit trendy, a bit corporate too. I fear the worse: I am always disappointed.

That’s a picture of me before…

Son of A Policeman

I like the sweet sound of music and the fulfilling security of the beat. Hip, hop, sing it to me like I like it.

The Assassination of Damien by the ecstatic happy bunny

Back in Paris, I spend most of my time crossing out items of my to-do list one after the other. Day after day, the list shrinks until I have done it all. With a week and a half to go, I have a lot of time on my hands and little to do. For some reason – that I have since then identified – I have an itch: I need to visit my past.
This does not look like it yet, but this has to do with sweat and blood. I need to introduce my subject first.
So I sit around all day on my couch, bored and stressed out because I am not doing anything. Finally, I decide to call friends I have not seen in months, some in years. We have a drink, a chat, nothings much has changed and nothing much will.
But I’m still itching, so I decide to answer an email from my former high school and meet teachers over there – to talk about dejavu-production.com – and others things.

Fly me to the moon

So hours go by, slowly and unstoppably. Twelve days to go. I want to say it is going to be both a very long period and a tiny chip of time. But it is not. I feel like I am leaving tomorrow, that I will be gone for a while before I realise what is happening.
I think I have fulfilled all the administrative tasks requested before my departure. I was still waiting to receive my plane tickets and details on my journey and arrival.
I just received them.

I was expecting a smooth trip, Paris-Johannesburg, around seven (7) hours of high flying. I was wrong. I got a ticket Paris-Dubai-Johannesburg, eighteen and a half (18h30) hours of journey. Oh Boy! I’ll be getting there on Friday afternoon, so I guess I will have all weekend to get organised, and hopefully socialise.
As the very conscientious digital writer that I am, I had to check the actual direct flight time lengths. I was wrong. Count more than ten (10) hours to go down to the south of southern Africa.
So what am I saying?

I am under-prepared. But that is not necessarily something to fear.

Say it loud!

So I had friends over from the UK last week-end. Yes, let’s have fun. I had decided to spend an evening at the karaoke, thursday night, in a Korean restaurant. Everybody wanted to come, no one – or just a few – wanted to sing and as soon as we set foot in the private booth we already had a few dozen songs lined up. We sang like there was no tomorrow, we sang as if we knew how to sing.

New hits, old classics, cheesy tunes. We sing and we shout, What, tonight our shame went to bed early. Yes, another glass of Soju please. In the background, behind the lyrics running on the screen, images of tourist videos.

Visa VIE (vis-à-vis)

Here we go. I finally have the paper between my hands, my precious passeport with the small and basic grey piece of paper that will allow me to work in South Africa.

I have posted the final forms (banque statements, contract, health checkup etc) and appart from my tickets, I am all set.

I am excited and suddenly the departure date seems to be really close, may be too close (13 days to be precise). I have so many things to prepare, so many things to settle before I leave! Oh my! I have not even started to unpack my luggage from my move from london.

One Flew Over My Nest – Paris la belle

And so it is all over. No more fish and chips, rough pubs, London Bridge or funny accents. I am back in Paris. It has only been 4 days but it seems like weeks already.
After the goodbye parties filled with the absence of friends who were supposed to come, I took my things and left on a sunny wednesday evening. The night before I had had a last super with my girlfirend in an excelent Argentinian restaurant in Clapaham – ironicaly the best meal I have had in the UK.

Wheelie, won’t ya? (And the chocolate factory)

So before I leave the country, a friend of mine tells me book your Sunday and don’t forget to bring boots that protect your ankles and a leather jacket. Originaly I thought he was going to invite me to some motorcycle thing, may be go gart, but then he told me it was from 9am to 3pm on an aerodrome.

So yes it was a wheelie school, really fun – No, I’m not a motorcycle adict – and one day was enough. We did manage in the end to do a few runs of 60m or so.

You’ve seen the picture, that’s the video: