"Only the First Day of the Workshop"

Today was the first day at École Philippe Gaulier! I got off the train and met my first class mate. A guy from Melbourne called Andre who knows John Bolton! Then got to the school (I'm the only one that knows the area well!) and there was a big line. About 40 people. All for Le Jeu. And all lined up to pay Michiko. Standing in this line, people were a bit tentative but really friendly. We all kind of introduced ourselves and found out where eachother comes from. And why we have come to 'clown school'. (People tend to cool this school 'clown school' - I wouldn't - Clown is just one of many courses - but I think it has the reputation of creating clowns so be it). As we stood in line Philippe came down and shook all of our hands.

"You are?"

"Guy"

"From?"

"New Zealand"

"And you?..."

I don't think he really remembers me. But Michiko definitely does. "Remember Philippe? He was the funny Indian from last year?"

The line.

Finally got my money paid then jumped into Movement class with Thomas. The same tall good looking red headed Swiss Thomas who took Movement with us last year. He is very friendly and fun. We did stuff like running really quietly on the floor, then at times dropping and spinning on our bums and then rising and running again. Good body control stuff. Always fun.

Then the first class of the Le Jeu course with Philippe! There turned out to be 50 of us all here for Le Jeu (Philippe will make a killing at €1200 per head!) so from tomorrow onwards the class will be split into two. One at 11.30am - 3.30pm and the other 2pm - 6pm. I opted for the 11.30am. Partly so I could use the afternoons/evenings to search for an apartment. Partly so I could get more work looking after my french kids. And partly because Andre and Anna from Australia went in that group. And from briefly talking with them I could tell that we would be friends.

The first exercise of the class was to get up in a large group and dance with a partner. "Do you have good complicité and fun with your partner? Or are they fucking boring and dream of killing them?"

Then moving with a partner with a tennis ball balanced between your foreheads. The game advances to two lines of 5 chairs at either side of the room. One side walks to the other side and places the ball in between foreheads then the pair travel to the other side. You start to realise when watching that the people that screw up or make it really difficult for themselves (with tennis balls rested between ears and eyeballs) but are having fun, are much more exciting to watch than people that do a really good job but don't have much fun. I was in a pair that did it really well but no risking or fun. "You have good complicité you two. But did you have fun with eachother?" I say positively "yeah!". Everyone laughs.

Interesting to observe Philippe set up his way of teaching today. Encouraging us to lie. "It's fun to lie". People are nervous about hurting each other's feelings at the moment. He asks who has a boring partner quite often. I said that I did, and Catarina from Italy seemed quite upset with me! But over time more of us a realising it doesn't have to be true. Or even if it is, it's not a big deal.

Finally we played a game where one person is in major and the other in minor. The game is to tease the other person when you are in major and they are in major. To tease them with the fact that you are so lucky to be in major. Just with a simple conversation between each other. But the person in minor can only talk like they are in minor (i.e. more quiet and not much talk) and the person in major must have "a big voice for the theatre" and enjoy having the limelight.

When I got up I was with a 20yr old girl called Ciara from Italy. Quite small and really lovely and playful.

"What is your name?"

"Ciara"

"Ah! Ciara. And how do you spell that?"

"c"

"CEEE"

"i"

"IIIII"

"a"

"AAAA"

Boom. "You are too aggressive Guy." You're not supposed to be nasty to your partner. Just a fun teasing. At the time I mistook teasing for a mean teasing, as opposed to a playful teasing. Bummer. I was a bit gutted because I knew I could do it yet I didn't. I was dealing with a bit of CCC syndrome of wanting to be good, straight away. Feeling like I was being sussed out by the class as to who is good and who is not. But this is silly. We're all of different levels. And we all learn from each other. But as Philippe kept cheekily saying to Thomas next to him "it was very bad, but I won't be too nasty because it is only the first day of the workshop"

Lovely that Philippe is gentle with us at the end of the class at question time. He explained that at this school "the Fun leads". "Here, we try to have fun. Sometimes some of you are in crisis, but we always look for the fun." He explained that when he studied at Le Coq he was bad for an entire year. A whole year. And that it is perfectly okay for us to be bad. It is very difficult to be anything but bad. But keep getting up and searching for the fun. Sounds good to me.

Felt a bit overwhelmed at the end of the day. I've been having bipolar ups and downs all week. I think I expected this experience to be just like last years. And we'd all go and get a drink at Le Chiquito after class. But nobody did. Although I did get Chinese with some people from Bristol and a girl from Scotland. But I need to accept that "it's only the first day" and it is a different workshop!

But some good news came at the end of my day that sent me on an Up again!

'Up'. A fantastic movie.

Earlier this morning I went to meet Antonella and she helped me search for apartments (in French) online and later today I FOUND AN APARTMENT! Got a phone call from a guy called Jean Luc and made my way over to his place around 8pm. It's up the north end of Paris in the La Chappelle area / arrondissement 19 (Métro Marx Dormoy) on the 17th floor of a big apartment building. The place is really cute! I immediately felt like I could live there. It's kind of like back at Roy St with stuff on the walls from trips around the world - including dish towels (my English is gone - what are they called again) of Kiwi's doing the Haka. There's also an NZ calendar on the wall. Turns out Axelle, one of the two people living there has been to NZ twice and loves it. She wasn't there (apparently she had an accident on her scooter) but Jean Luc was there and he was lovely. He must be in his fifties or late forties because he has kids my age. He speaks some English and is really laid back and calm and cool and friendly. I'll write about it more when I move in tomorrow but it's a sweet deal/ 400€ per month all expenses included. That's about $180 per week in NZ! What a deal! The only issue is the area it's in is apparently in the bronx of Paris. Well, that's what Elouise the crazy hostel owner lady said. But her boyfriend told me it's fine. And he's not crazy. I looked it up online and people say to just be careful at night. But it's not like there are constant murders or anything! ...yet...

The girls who stayed in the hostel with me. Maggie on the left from Washington DC. Kelsey and can't remember in front (sorry) from the US and the new girl from Australia.

Elouise, the crazy owner of Lucky Youth Hostels wanted to take photos of us to put up on some website. And she wanted me in the middle because "we don't always have nice boys like you". After she left, the girls told me about how Elouise had told them a story about how some guy had once done a huge crap in the toilet and didn't flush it, so Elouise picked it up in a plastic bag and came and put it in front of the group of people staying in the hostel and waited until somebody owned up to doing it. Nobody did. But she went on to explain that when you do a big shit like that, you should cut it up into smaller pieces. Apparently somebody complained afterwards to a hostel website and she got suspended for a little while and had to apologise. She is CRAZY. And racist. And ugh. I'm glad I'm getting out of here!