Sometimes things happen here and I just think ‘yes, this is peak life abroad’. The thing about being British is that we love rules and regulations and a set course of action. I’ve never known a people better suited to following recipes and flat-pack instructions, no country has produced a population more ready to fill in forms, than Britain.
The most embarrassing part of my life in any place that is not the UK is that I cannot get rid of this particular personality trait. I love a 5-stage process, I couldn’t be happier than when presented with a numbered list. Doing life admin tasks in a place with a system I am unfamiliar with is bound to be stressful, and in the case of going to the dentist, I was not wrong.
The main jist of this story is that two dentists tried to rip me off, one without even having an x-ray machine to assess my teeth with. I accidentally walked into a second one and even they tried to tell me my insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment I wasn’t having with them during an appointment I hadn’t booked. I am of course incredibly lucky to be provided with health insurance (although this experience means that I maintain that insurance systems are total bullshit), and I do have a wonderful dentist now who allows me to have my treatment in convenient slots. Doing the treatment in tiny increments is obviously much more convenient for me as it allows me to arrange them around work and take recovery time, I am under no false pretenses though, I am pretty sure the real motivation for this is so they can claim maximum insurance repayments.
Other updates include the fact that I have very noticeably been spending a lot of time in Lebanon. As predicted by numerous friends I have completely fallen in love and Beirut has planted itself on the list of places I would happily live in the near future, so watch this space but for now it’s no more travelling until I make the journey home in November. As discussed in previous weeks, I’m a bit lost for purpose right now but doing things like taking spontaneous trips to Lebanon make being far from home a little bit more intentional. It also reminds me, along with the friends who message to say they’ve been following my trips on Instagram and they look incredible (which they are), to be a little happier and more excited about the things I get to do during my time here.
Although I believe honesty is important, and I never want to pretend my life is perfect, I also have had a real word with myself lately about not talking my life down because really, it is pretty good. Every time I explore somewhere I love I learn more about myself and the things I want from my life and the place I live. I get to hone my tastes a little more and meet so many people, taste so much food and see so many beautiful places and things. I recently told my friends I needed to ‘dial down the life crisis’ and to be honest, yes, precisely that, a little less life crisis and little more just, life.
With that in mind, things around here are going to change. Which they obviously already have because for the third week in a row we are weekly which is both exciting and also much overdue. I want to talk more about politics because anyone who knows me knows that is an enormous part of my life and it seems pointless to keep it off this space, especially because it’s what I write about the most outside of this context.
This week of this year is seven years since I went to university, which you might expect me to declare unbelieveable but actually it’s totally believable, I would say it feels approximately seven years ago. I will probably write something about being a student next week (ideas box open) because I remember that time of my life as being distinctly average but I want it to be better just because the years that followed were both better and SO MUCH WORSE. I want to find a way to talk about money and career things without making myself unemployable/having to change my name when I go looking for jobs.
Overall, September was just such a weird month because I was away for so much of it, it’s meant to be the start of autumn but actually it’s only just become cool enough here to wear a jacket at night. I didn’t go to yoga and my back and shoulders didn’t thank me for it, I ate more dairy than I should and my skin didn’t thank me for it. The positives of this though are: 1) yoga is worth the money to stop me crippling myself in my sleep, 2) the water here was never to blame for my hair and skin woes, it was just the dairy!
I will be using October as my fresh start.
I’ve still never had a pumpkin spice latte, maybe this year will be the very basic year.
*****
I’m on Instagram - @clairegillesp - solid Lebanese content all round.
I’m on Twitter - clairegillesp - solid leftwing content and shit jokes all round.
I’m listening to The School for Dumb Women, the last episode made me laugh out loud in public so if that doesn’t recommend it, nothing will.
xx
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