fine frenchies

Yesterday was a stressful day. This day had the same amount of reasons to be anxious, maybe even more - but I ended up being fine. In fact, it was an interesting day with a mixture of surprisingly good moods at work, challenging situations to deal with / get out of and rich material for sociological observation. I have to shake my head and smile at certain very French moments throughout the day:

• entertaining the press because the interviewee was 30 minutes late
• the school-like mockery of colleagues behind their backs
• the stories invented at the café this evening when someone joined our party
• the solidarity advice in how to do an insurance scam - why not, if you want a new coat of paint, just scratch the car on each panel and claim vandalism.

Seems so typical of what I am used to from living here. But don't get me wrong: I love the French. And this list only contains negatives, so it is not fair on anyone. Yet, when I go through this list and realise that the events hardly shock me until I have to think of the ways in which my day was French, I am bewildered.

Speaking of reviewing the day, Tracy always thinks of counting the daily "wins" after a particulary difficult day. If I were to go through the same process for today, I can count a few nice wins. The only slight loss is the fact that my suit was unbearably hot all day - so that's not too bad a loss. Suit was necessary for such a PR event. Still haven't been able to check out the 30 pages on the "emergent" phenomenon. No worries, I will save the juice for the weekend.