No, I'm not narcissistic!

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It's nothing but random I guess, anyway.

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Y	Yum

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Daily miracles

Everyday life is actually full of tiny details which are rather interesting, if not amazing. If you really pay attention to them (what i probably don't do everyday, far from it) it can be enough to brighten up a not-too-terrific day! If you're in a receptive state of mind, only, such little "miracles" can take place. Well, they're miracles only if they are funny ones; discovering a fresh, annoying little fine on your car is not among those! But discovering one on a shiny red Porshe can be. It's all a matter of perspective in fact.
Today, still receptive as i was, i.e still in a good mood, which is not an all-time feature of my character these days, and the heat is not smoothing things out, i saw an old lady (well not THAT old, but still...) riding a really tiny bike, i mean really short for her. Please, don't think i was making fun of her, (well, maybe a little?) but what was really "funny" was the way she believed it so hard, trying to go faster and faster, even though more and more cars were passing her by. It's like you could invent a whole story behind that. Maybe she had to borrow her grandson's bike to go and visit her husband at the hospital, er, no, that's not funny.
Now, I'd love to abide by Rilke's principle, who said that if life isn't interesting, don't blame it on life but blame it on yourself (and your imagination) for not being able to see its richness, to make it interesting. For a long time i've loved that idea, and i still do. But what could we then say to people starving in shabby houses in poor countries for instance?

I need my "Six Feet Under" shot!

Billy: That's the thing about Narcissus, it's not that he's so fucking in love with himself, because he isn't at all, he fucking hates himself. It's that without that reflection looking back at him... he doesn't exist.

Margaret: Just because both your parents are shrinks doesn't mean you're a shrink.
Brenda: Well, just because you're a shrink doesn't mean you're not insane.

David: I have to get control of myself.
Claire: No, David, if you were any more controlled, you'd be a sculpture.

Claire: [to Nate who is angry because she can't watch his baby] You know, Nate, this isn't "The Matrix." The rest of us that don't have babies - we're real.

Arthur: [after Ruth & he broke up] Perhaps you'd prefer if our laundry didn't mix anymore.
Ruth: Honestly Arthur, I don't care what our laundry does.

Post world championship thoughts...

Hey guys, I'm just recovering from France's defeat in the final...
No, I'm joking, i'm not feeling that bad, but i was really disappointed, especially about Zidane's rash gesture (and the attitudes of the Italian team...no comment!) that's too bad it ended that way. But it was just unbelievable our team reached that far considering its difficulty at the beginning. I was so sad Germany didn't reach the final, they really deserved it... And i would have loved to watch a Germany vs France final (so i wouldn't have been that disappointed if we lost then). The final was the only match i watched entirely, cos the great thing is that we had our exam during the whole championship. But the atmosphere was truly unbelievable, every time France won the streets were resounding with horns, shouts etc., and the main streets were full of people, bathing in the fountains, etc! Quite funny!
And even funnier were the excuses the players tried to find, at first, during the qualification stage, accusing the grass, the ball or the judges.
And let me end with the French team's coach most brilliant thought (yep, unlukily, they decided to keep him...) "we played better than yesterday but not as well as tomorrow"... Wow, he seems to master his subject and have a really great theory there. But enough irony! May we all find such mottos to help us cope with life!

Nostalgia...

Some pictures of Brighton...


A view of the "Brighton Pier" by night

The "West Pier" ... or what is left of the Victorian structure, built in 1863. It burnt in 2003, just a few month after its partial collapse.

P.S: If you want to see more pics, just click on the link in the sidebar.

How Victoria Beckham can help me improve my German...

When reading my weekly French-German magazine the other day, I came across this supposedly touting article with a picture of Victoria Beckham & the title "perfect bottoms". Stunned as I was to see that this article had been published in the serious newspaper "Der Spiegel", I read on, to discover that her pair of jeans costs 349 euros ("because she's worth it" probably...), and the whole growing market of clothes customizing.
It's actually pretty ironic that holes are more expensive than the cloth itself... How void, emptiness can become more valuable than matter? mmh, wide subject.
The clothing industry seems to be a good epitome of society itself.
I didn't know that Victoria Beckham, beyond helping me with my German, could also contribute to raise (pseudo) philosophical & sociological questions!

Enjoy... (if I may say so!)

And here is the script matching the image...

"Shit happens"

Here are some quotes from a poster I bought in England, that's just so funny I couldn't resist.
So, this is actually a series of aphorisms on the theme of "shit happens"…

* Atheism: "I don't believe this shit"
* Agnosticism: "can you prove that shit happens?"
* Televangelism: "Send money or shit will happen to you"
* Jeovah witness: "knock, knock, shit happens"
* Capitalism: "this is MY shit"
* Feminism: "men are shit"
* Existentialism: "what is shit anyway"
* Mormonism: "excrement happens (don't say shit)"
* Communism: "let's share the shit"
* Conspiracy Theorism: "THEY shit on us"
* Psychoanalysis: "tell me about your shit"
* Freud: "shit is a phallic symbol"
* Amish: "modern shit is useless"
* Shakespearian: "to shit or not to shit, that is the question"
* Descartes: "I shit therefore I am"
* Politically correct: "internally-processed, nutritionally-drained, biological ouput happens"
* Einstein: "shit is relative"
* Vegetarianism: "if it happens to shit, don't eat it!"
* Fatalism: "oh shit, it's going to happen"
* Americanism: "who gives a shit?"
* Disneyism: "bad shit doesn't happen here"

A student without a university!!

It's been quite a long time I haven't "updated" my page… But life's pretty chaotic lately. As you may have heard, there are lots of students' demonstrations and strikes going on for several weeks now, in France, and many universities are literally blocked, mine among others, and for the 3rd week now. That's really becoming utterly annoying! We have had an exam and quite a few courses cancelled, and finding days that would suit everyone to postpone all these will be a huge dilemma since all of us have different timetables; and that will undoubtedly infringe upon the time that was kept free for us to revise and write our theses… And most of all, even the library is closed, so we can't have access to books, which is extremely practical when you're making research and writing your thesis!!! (Especially as other existing libraries don't have specialized books at all! That's pathetic)

Anyway, I find these blockades totally unfair and undemocratic, even though the student unionists claim that they "voted" so, i.e. it's a democratic gesture… But they forget to mention that the 1st day they decided on the blockade, no one but the union knew such a vote was planned or what they were up to, and they keep on voting among themselves, so of course, they are pro-blockade… The ones who want to be given the basic right to have access to university (cos, well, we've paid our fees and, hello, the streets are there if they want to protest! If you just think that so many people in the southern countries still don't have access to education, and here we are, acting like stupid spoiled children!), so the ones who want to study freely are in majority but are afraid to show up to these assemblies to vote cos during these sessions the pro blockade are actually ruling everything…and also deciding on the time of the vote so if you don't sleep inside the uni, you don't necessarily know when it's taking place…(Fair, fair, fair…)

I've just been here today, and we were more and morer numerous against the blockade, but literally insulted! That's what they call democracy and respecting your opinion...Not mentioning how they can prtend it's fair to count thousands of votes just by appraising how many numbers of hands are up, in an eyeblick!

And being against the blockade doesn't mean we are in favour of the Prime Minister's bill** AT ALL. Many students are against it but still want to study and get their exams. What's totally irrational is that the ones blocking the university are actually evoking "freedom of expression and of opinion" but they actually exert it against itself, since by blocking universities, they stifle the freedom, not only of expression and opinion of those who may have other opinions than them, or not (since, as I said, many are against the bill too) but basically the freedom of movement, of going to school!
In that respect, the "occupation" is obviously illegal (totalitarian even, since it negates the freedom of others)
Thus, resorting to freedom in order to justify their protest is totally absurd and contradicts that very freedom!

Well, sorry for pouring out all that resentment, but I really needed to, I feel as if I were on another planet, with no timetable, and well, great you may think, but it's not like that at all. I cannot really plan anything 'cos we just know the day before if our lesson will be held or not, and even if it seems to give you much spare time to prepare your thesis &c, but, quite paradoxically, well, at least it's like that for me, when you don't have a fixed timetable anymore, your goals are less foreseeable, and you don't feel that "motivated" to study when deprived of any sense of schedule; it's like when you have a whole day with no class (i.e. vs your expected timetable) you do less than when you have only a couple of well-planned hours.
But I guess that's just me and my need of frames, to structure my stream-of-consciousness-like state of mind; hey how did you guess I was working on Virginia Woolf and British Modernism?!
But enough rambling… Sorry for boring you guys, but you've managed to read that far though! Thanks ;)

**P.S: I haven’t mentioned the bill itself: very briefly, our Prime Minister plans on setting up a work contract reserved for 'the young people' under 26, in order to fight unemployment (reaching an unsettling rate in that category of the population). This contract is rather flexible and enables the employer to "sack" the employee whenever and without motive during a trial period lasting 2 years, and that is the main bone of contention since this period will nourish precariousness and the lack of job security…

By way of relaxing interlude: Funny "Six Feet Under" quotes

[In front of a casket]
Elderly Man: You did a real good job on her.
David: Well, we do our best.
Elderly Man: If there's any justice in the universe, she's shoveling shit in hell right now.


Ruth: I joined "The Plan".
Claire: Isn't that like a cult or something?
Nate: No, it' one of those '70s self discovery clubs that yell at you and don't let you go to the bathroom for 12 hours, right?
Ruth: [takes out yogurt cup] I think this will do. All right, I'm leaving you without dinner. I'll be back really late. [leaves]
Claire: This whole concept of mom self-actualizing is making me nauseous.
Nate: You're sure it's that and not the concept of mom pissing in a plastic jar?


Margaret: That white blouse would have worked, if you had gotten rid of that bra.
Brenda: Yeah? Well that skirt would have worked if you had gotten rid of that ass.

Freaky? Spooky?

Check out this from The Guardian:

2.15pm
France confirms bird flu on poultry farm

Associated PressSaturday February 25, 2006

The European Union's first outbreak of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in commercial poultry was confirmed today in France, the EU's largest poultry producer.
But President Jacques Chirac, trying to keep the lucrative market alive, sought to ease fears by insisting that eating poultry is safe and panic is unjustified.
The agriculture ministry said lab tests confirmed H5N1 in turkeys at a farm of more than 11,000 birds in the south-east Ain region.

Hundreds of birds died and the remainder were slaughtered even before the presence of the lethal virus was official. The farm has been sealed off.
However, Chirac said there is "no danger in eating poultry and eggs" and that panic among consumers is "totally unjustified." * (Er, is it, really? Remember the Mad cow disease & the lies We've been told about it? Now, it's easy to blame the population for not believing the politicians...)

"In any case, the virus in question ... is automatically destroyed by cooking. So there is strictly no danger," the French president said as he inaugurated the annual agriculture fair in Paris - where poultry has been banned as a precaution.

Panic appears to have developed among consumers. There had been a drop of up to 30 percent in poultry purchases even before the announcement.

In an indication of the global impact of the French case, Japan temporarily suspended imports of French poultry, including the delicacy foie gras, meat and other internal organs, (what a nice precision!!) according to the Japanese embassy in Paris. In 2005, Japan imported 1,510 metric tons of duck and other poultry meat and 377 metric tons of internal organs, including foie gras, from France.
The spread of bird flu to commercial stocks in France, which has been working for months to prevent and prepare for an outbreak, served as a sobering sign for other developed countries that consider themselves well protected.

France has some 200,000 farms that raise 900 million birds each year. In 2004, the latest year for which figures were available, the French poultry sector generated more than €3 billion in revenues - more than 20 percent of total EU production. (Thanks to the foreign viewpoint, we can clearly get the point, whithout the pseudo-reassuring, hypocritical jargon...that our home politicians use, pretending to hide what is really at stake, i.e. "Money, money, money, money...lalala",)

Scientists fear the H5N1 strain, which has spread from Asia to at least 10 European countries and Africa, could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between humans, sparking a pandemic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1717919,00.html

Confessions??

Rousseau, De quincey? No, don't worry, I'm not pretending or even aiming to compare myself with any of these great writers...
"Confessions" is just a title I chose, maybe ironically, for something which is supposed to be "intimate" i.e. a blog, a diary, but which is now generally becoming less and less so, developed as it is by anyone, and mostly by politicians, whose goal we can imagine is not to reveal their intimate life, but rather a political device...
So, who am I, a tiny minutie grain of sand, adding up to that immense realm of web-blogging?
Anyway, let's assume our tininess...
Let's throw words at whoever wants to hear - or rather read - them... Or let's throw them to that self-reflecting screen (narcissistic fashion?)...
Who cares?