"Il est assailli par un paquet de sensations contradictoires, repense à l'exaltation fugitive qui l'a traversé sur le plongeoir précédent, ce transport violent avec élancement du torse : se mettre en danger sans même y penser, ne voir dans toute prise de risque que la promesse d'une intensité nouvelle, vivre plus fort, rien d'autre."

Maylis de Kerangal, Corniche Kennedy.

"Au coeur de nous-même il y a une flamme.

L'histoire d'une vie c'est de reconnecter avec cette flamme, cette lumière.

Et il y a plein de voies différentes." 

Blanche de Richemont.

As rambling on and on about how strangely awesome being an Erasmus student was and being all weepy about it is not the most constructive thing one can do, I'm doing my best to focus on the present moment instead. And I must say it's not that difficult cause I'm already reaaaaaally busy. Actually, I'm in a kind of weird situation. In July, I was lucky enough to enter a sect-like Master's - a brand new one, the very one of its kind in France. The name of it: Master métiers de l'écriture - literally: Master's about the jobs about writing - which sounds a lot better in French than in my English translation, for once.

Maybe it won't appear so unique to many people as creative writing degrees are widespread across countries like the UK or the US. But it IS clearly a big deal in France. I don't really know why, but when it comes to thinking about WRITERS, it would be kind of shocking to imagine that s/he is NOT a pure genius of literature, and does NOT live in a shabby maid's room at the highest floor of an isolated gothic tower, does not wake up in the middle of the night to take up his/her pen and feverishly write some delirious verses on a parchment. Thinking that AUTHORS are merely working every day on their style, creations and (last but not least) striving to get published seems wrong. One would add that this would be truly lacking of poetry - and they are poets, I mean... so if they're not even living poetically, what's the point? Strangely enough, going to an Art school, to a drama school or to a music and dance academy is totally mainstream... but learning how to write? Please, some people are talented, others aren't and that's the end of the story! That's how we French people tend to consider writers. Maybe we like building altars for artists a bit more than other Europeans. I actually like the way we consider ART as the HIGHEST thing human beings can aim at - and sometime achieve - because that's a beautiful and optimistic vision of mankind... But that also makes us a bit reactionary regarding various points, I guess.

Luckily enough, we're also famous for not only being reactionary but also revolutionary! (that's the moment you're supposed to wave your red flag and sing La Marseillaise, in case you hadn't understood) And you may not consider it that way but the creation of this special Master's at my home uni in Toulouse is revolutionary. As you are probably already aware of, literature and most human sciences are threatened because of their supposedly "uselessness" - aka they don't produce anything that you can actually consume - hence the fact universities that only offer degrees in human sciences have stuff to worry about as governments are surreptitiously but progressively trying to cut off their public funds. SO, as you "can't do anything with a literary degree", French Human Sciences universities try to cope with that difficult situation by creating new "professional-qualification" degrees. My Master's is one of these. Except that the paradox is obvious to everyone: as one of the goals of this degree is to give us confidence in our writing skills - and in literary creation, to boot - we're clearly not guaranteed a job at the end of our studies - even if we also have to look for some openings by getting a more precise idea of the jobs you can actually do when you like writing, which are numerous in the end! And that's how I'm gonna meet a winner of the Goncourt prize next week: Pascal Quignard (but as my current life could easily be summed up by these two names standing innocently side by side, I'd rather not say more about it here). So you see, not only revolutionary because we give a new image of the writer (the guy who actually works hard on his writing instead of just being inspired by a beautiful muse) but also because it's completely meaningless from a capitalistic point of view (and not only because literature is useless per se but also because we will soon freely join the unemployed community, all of this because we chose to study something we actually enjoy - crazy yougsters)! ... Oh, the lovely caricature of the French I'm offering here...! :)

So you may think that this is my life. Writing fiery though moving satirical lines that mix intelligent poetry to extreme political positions and getting high with drugs in order to say fuck to this oh so sadly down-to-earth world while endangering my physical health (five veggies a day is all capitalistic bullshit, man!).

In real life, I'm afraid my daily business is actually closer to this picture:

See the blue-hatted, yellow-bagged and red-pantsed girl in the foreground who frames the picture and makes it wholly coherent? That's me.

I guess I am a pretty good sample of the uni neohippie spirit as I was unanimously elected its official sponsor - or at least I wish I were so I could actually get some money from having been caught red-handed lying on the grass doing nothing with my friends by a photographer who probably destroyed all my chances of having a brilliant career when he took this picture. And I must say that, recently, my life is so ideal that I have to repeat myself that this is not what the world is truly like in order not to get the wrong ideas about my fellow citizens, who do not, I'm afraid, live in the same hippie environment as me.

In my class, we are only fourteen. We get along quite well because we are all here for the same reasons and share the same passion of literature and writing. We have to cooperate a lot in order to get the work going on smoothly. We are becoming relatively intimate with our teachers cause we are the guinea pigs of this new literary industry they worked hard on setting up and we obviously share the same ideas as them - we are the FUTURE! The department secretary in charge of Master's students is always cheerful, happy to help and ends all her e-mails with "Have a very wonderful day!". As I also work at the department library, I'm getting to know all the regulars who prefer the conviviality of our small library to the central one. My collegues - who include two of my best friends (a Fairy and a Candle) - are all a bit cranky in their own personal way. To give you a more specific idea: last Friday, all of us "writers-to-be" gathered at noon in the Literature department's common room in order to merrily and noisily celebrate a birthday. Everyone had brought something to share with others and had stocked food and utensils for the picnic in the secretary's office - who was more than thrilled to help us out. Our teacher went to meet us in the common room, and almost gave her class there in order to finish the work we had started the same morning - in spite of the festive music that was played by the declared hippies in charge of the common room. A few days before that, when I went back home, I found a bunch of hippies painting canvases in the middle of my courtyard. They were friends of my neighbour and offered me to join them for a drink - and/or a painting session.

So now I'm wondering. Maybe there are more neohippies than I thought; neohippies who are, like me, living a happy hippy life out there in this world. Or maybe that's just the Tolosian spirit. Who knows.

This oh so deep reflection actually inspired me to re-write Aqua's song "Barbie girl" in "Hippie girl" - hence the fact I've been singing it in my head all week long.

"Barbie Girl", Aqua, Aquarium. 

It would go something like this:

I'm a hippie girl in a hippie world

Life is magic, it's fantastic

You can plait my hair, put flowers everywhere

Imagination, life is your creation!

Come on hippies, let's talk world peace

Ah-ah-ah yeah!

And I'm still working on the rest.

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And cause we hippies have got to "spread the mess around", I'll leave you on this really cool song:

"Hippy Hippy Shake", Big Soul, Big Soul.