Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts

Being back on track

2007-10-07T03:43:58Z

Hello people, I'm back... online, that is ! Missed me, have y'all ?

Vienna is incredible and I have so much to say, but that will be for when it's not 6 in the morning. I only just managed to connect my Internet (a true, thrilling story) and I have so much to catch up with.

So hopefully, more to come soon. But I can already say that I love it here. He he.

Take care people, stay on, stay on !

Being going away

2007-09-22T21:47:34Z

This is my last post from my dear homecity of Paris for now.

I'm going away tomorrow... To my new place of residence, i.e. Vienna, Austria. That's where I'm going to go to university from now on. And I shouldn't return before the end of the academic year in June.

So... be well, folks. I might be off a few days (but don't worry, they're really not a prehistoric country, they do have wireless Internet accesses !), which doesn't change anything since I hardly post in here !

Being flooded

2007-04-10T23:25:11Z

Here is the lovely message that welcomed my return after a well-earned Easter week-end in my country house :

You have 114453 new messages.

Damnit ! Popularity can be such a burden.

Being a walk-man (revisited)

2007-03-29T01:19:24Z

Hello people who I don't doubt are reading this even if I seem to never post !

Today was the second really nice and warm (nearly) day we had for a while, so after our lecture my friends and I decided to go pick up food, and to walk a bit around to enjoy the sun. And by chance I had my digicam with me, so I got to take a few pictures and I made another page out of it !

Here's the link !

I hope you will enjoy them.
The trip is mainly focused on the River Seine Banks. There are some pics I really like, by the way :)

Any comments appreciated as usual.

Enjoy !

x-posted in parisians and pieces_of_paris.

Being a walk-man !

2007-02-21T20:28:26Z

Long time since I last posted in here, huh ?

Well, long ago, I promised un-touristic-style pictures. I had the occasion yesterday and I made a page out of it.

Pictures taken along the way during a walk between Central Paris (around the City Hall) and through the Second arrondissement.

I took pictures on the fly, which are, as I was saying, un-touristic. So I hope you will enjoy the pics and comments I added !

PS 1 : I will make a design so the page is easier to read/more enjoyable.

PS 2 : Pics 25 and 27 *don't* exist, they're not failing to load.

Enjoy !

x-posted into pieces_of_paris and parisians.

Apart from that, I'm fine. Things are pretty much of a routine. That's about all I've got to say for the beginning of 2007 ;)
All our attention is focused on the electoral campaign which turns out to be pretty dirty... but I trust that the next president isn't going to be a megalomaniac small man.

Being a pirate !

2006-12-03T17:40:52Z

I thought it was a good moment to empty my "LJ Stuff to post" file again. Most of the time when I take a quizz I save the results into that file, and once every few months I remember to post the stuff it has in.

I don't always remember who I took a quizz from, so you'll excuse me for not crediting them.

I rock !

I don't think I needed to prove my point about speaking several languages (why do they make it sound like it's an uncommon, slightly extraordinary talent ?)

Language Scholar

You scored a 310 out of 400 on language knowledge.

Outstanding! You've scored higher than even most Anthropology students would. You are probably a Linguistics or Anthropology Professor yourself (or at least a Grad student). You may even speak several languages and are possibly working on a new one. If not, then you just have an endless drive to learn about the different cultures of our world. Regardless, you are one of the gems of any society, always promoting a deeper understanding amongst all people. Unless you cheated of course.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on knowledge

Link: The World Languages Test written by jeremie096 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Yo-ho, a pirate's life for me !

Since I can communicate so easily with other beings of various origins and am obviously smarter than about everyone else on dear old Earth, let's get on that ship over there *points* and sail the seas to conquer the world ! (Meet on Monkey Island !) Come on my friends !

Your LiveJournal Pirate Crew
LiveJournal Username
Fifteen men on a dead man's chest!
Cutlass or pistol?
What is the name of your pirate ship?
Where is your secret pirate base?
What kind of loot do you prefer?
What do you and your crew prefer to be called?
Parrot or monkey?
Argh!

Your capable first mate	dawnofthevezius
Your bumbling cabin boy with a heart of gold	terathan
The aloof, yet honorable, pirate with a mysterious past	indylos
Is always the first one into the fray	jojolapine
Is the naval officer who ruthlessly pursues your ship	blurhapsody
Is the comical pirate who is always drunk on grog	spanish_lullaby
Is currently in Davy Jones's locker	faeangelique
The amount of money you make as a pirate	$80,435


This Fun Quiz created by Lynn at BlogQuiz.Net

Aries Horoscope at DailyHoroscopes.Biz

More on me !

However, before we can depart and live tons of fun adventures, the crew wants to know more about their captain. Here goes :

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Sa4turn3!

Sa4turn3 was first grown in America by the grandmother Maria Ann Smith, from whom his name comes.

There are roughly 10,000 man-made objects the size of sa4turn3 orbiting the Earth.

Sa4turn3 cannot swim.

Sa4turn3 can clean his ears with his tongue, which is over thirty-nine inches long!

The liquid inside sa4turn3 can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.

The international dialling code for sa4turn3 is 672.

A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but sa4turn3 can not!

The most dangerous form of sa4turn3 is the bicycle!

US gold coins used to say 'In sa4turn3 we trust'.

The difference between sa4turn3 and a village is that sa4turn3 does not have a church!

Does radical make a good captain ?

You Are 44% Politically Radical

You've got some radical viewpoints, but you aren't completely nuts. You're more of a visionary than a radical.

Are You a Political Radical?

The eyes are on you

Now that they now more about me, I need to convince them to join ! (Although it shouldn't be difficult seeing what our destination is ! Oh look, Frikki and Vez are there... How surprising !) And what better to use than my special eyes !

What do your EYES say about you?(picks +detailed answers + quotes)

Your eyes show nothing .You are a mystery to everyone around you. You are very well at hiding your emotions. People find you enchanting , as a witch you mesmerize them with your emotionless eyes making them to wish to know you better. Inside of you, you have mixed emotions, sometimes happy , sometimes sad ,but then again its just who you are, a mystery to all ,a mystery which must be discovered by someone who you will forever cherish in your heart. Try opening your soul to people you love because if you dont , no matter how enchanting you are ,you will lose them, along with every dream you ever had. You asked what was wrong and I smiled and said nothing. Then I turned around and whispered everything. Thanks for taking the quiz, hope you enjoyed it!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Seduction power

Eyes show nothing arg ! Okay, no problem, let's use my wonderful seduction skills instead !

Tarot predicts...

And if seduction isn't enough, I shall manage to make them see the true side of my point ! For I am...

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

So, shouldn't it be all fun ? :)

I shan't be paid for this

2006-11-16T02:26:49Z

Hello folks. I thought I would add a little update since I can't sleep and I'm kept busy by discussions with friends.

My life seems so flat that I spend much more time sleeping than being awake. And if I'd listen to myself I wouldn't ever wake up. How sad is that.

Hum... Other than that, I'm trying to summon the energy to start on a healthier note. That should probably start with stopping going to bed at 4+ am... But I have so few classes at university :/

Oh a happier note, I've been working a lot on Peter's manager project, and I'm up to the point where it's going to switch to Beta. I'm happy I managed to get the cron jobs up and running smoothly ! It's the first time for years that one of my web project is actually going to be used by random, unknown people. While my tests have been successful, I'm afraid they might not find the system easy to use, or buggy, etc... Guess that's my paranoia again, huh ?

The Kiweo project is going well, perhaps a little bit less than we hoped but now that I'm done with the manager I should get closer to an admin position and perhaps even extend from conception to actual coding. There are still loads to do ! but it's a really interesting project on all levels and I'm excited about it.

Also I'm starting to be totally fed up at that stupid idiotic (yet, from what I heard, interesting... huh...) Pay-per-post thing. (Nenya, ne te sens pas particulièrement visée sur ce point, hein ?). And not only on Livejournal (there is actually only one person in my friends page who uses that). I don't give a damn about whatever these posts are about because when I go read a blog, it's to read about its author's experience, not for some hypocrit entry about something they most of the time haven't even used themselves anyway.
Furthermore, those people have taken to write loads of small entries, which also just fill up your (their) space. All of them within a short time. Why posting on four entries what you can post on just one ? That looks like flood to me. I don't like it.

We're living in a dictatorship and money runs it. (That's no news, unfortunately.)

That was today's rant. So long, and mind the step when you get out of here.

Being grown-up

2006-11-03T16:15:09Z

So I went to London on Halloween day. I'll post more about that, because I wrote in my green book quite a fair number of details about the day (and by the way, it's not easy to write when the train will shake you around every now and then).

I had promised my sister to take her the next time I'd travel, so I did that, and off we went at 6 in the morning at Paris-Nord Station waiting for the check-in to open, in the middle of a fairly long line of people.
I'm always amused at the UK Immigration point, because the "EU Citizens" line goes so fast (they just check passports) and the "Non-EU Citizens" line goes so much slower. Gotta love the EU !
But then it was a bit short because the train was leaving at 6:22.
Then we got an extra 2 hours and a half to sleep before we made it to London.
I'll go quickly through this then, don't need you to fall asleep just now. If you want the full story well just ask for it, or wait till I actually type it in ;)

So Sister and I arrived at Waterloo International just before 8:00 am local time. So a breakfast was needed but as we were there I thought we ought to have a look at Big Ben, since it's so close. So we crossed that narrow street at the foot of the station, up the bridge then down the stairs and through the park to the open area at the bottom of the London Eye. As we were there, we saw people running towards us and there were cops among them (recognizable at their bright yellow reflecting outfit). Wondering what was happening, we quickly backed away to avoid the running people. It turned out it actually was a filming and all those people were stunts. They pretty much used whoever was around, so we played the stunts and now we've got to watch every single british series to find out what one it was ;)
Only problem, we couldn't cross the platform to get to Westminster Bridge, so we had to go the other way. Crossed River Thames at the next bridge, and up to Trafalgar we went. There we got some breakfast, and also a bit of heat, because it was a very sunny day but the banks were extremely windy and the cold was biting our ears.

After that, we had to meet David who'd said he'd be at our meeting point around 10:20. The meeting point I'd called for was a pub located behind Leicester Square, at the cross between Leicester Street and Lisle Street, a pub called the Hog's Head.
Well David texted he was running late, so we sat a bit in the sun in the park on Leicester Square, then went to find... that the pub was gone anyway. Replaced by another one called the Crooked Surgeon (what's it with all those weird names for pubs anyway), which happened to be closed. Baaah.
When our juicy-sweet friend arrived, it was already time to go pick up Sara at Victoria Coach Station, but her coach was actually running late as well so in fact everybody was late. Everyone finally met up in the middle of the street.
Off to go for a drink, but when I asked who was knowing London best, they said it was me ! Which really doesn't make sense, because I'd only been there once, but since Sara had only been there twice, that was hardly better, was it ?

Off we went towards wherever looked a more crowded place. At last we decided to get lunch instead, and so David told us about a pub he knew. We were around Lambeth at that moment, so up we went to Lambeth Bridge and back to Westminster and the filming ;), but it so happened that David can't estimate a distance right and his pub was located on Blackfriars Bridge, which is really way further than we expected. Sister and I were starting to be tired, because for our bodies it was 1 hour later (because of the timezone difference) and we had woken up so early. But we finally managed to get there and have nice yummy chips (and fish, of course).

After that nice stop in a WARM place for a change, I decided that Sister wasn't to have been in London and NOT have seen Tower Bridge and I was sure she'd like the Tower of London anyway (she usually likes medieval and possibly blood related stuff), we crossed Blackfriars Brigde and went down to the Tube, which was actually pretty crowded.
After a moment at Tower Bridge, it was time to go to Harrod's, because well it's nice to be seen as well, even though there's little chance you can afford to buy anything in there lol...
Back out it was tea time, so we entered the first place where to get something, which happened to be a Starbucks Coffee house - from what I remember, on Brompton Road opposite of Hans Crescent, not far from the crossroads with Knightsbridge Road and Sloane Street, but from their website & Google Maps, it looks like it doesn't exist... So huh...)

Then back to Waterloo, it was time to check in. I got duty-free food for the train and off we were in a rather crowded train which actually looked more like a pic-nic area at first, lol !

So that was it. Nice day, I have to say. I was really looking forward to seeing David and Sara as well and it's always nice to be moving around for a change ! Juicy-sweet day !

Also, I was really proud of my English talking, which has improved a lot over the past year. Sara said she was surprised because I hadn't got the French accent she was expecting :D but, it seems I still sound a bit German, which I've always been told throughout my schooltime english classes... and all this even though my voice was half-gone from being sick lol...

Then on Wednesday, I added one unit to my Age Counter. Got an awesome-looking book from Frikki and Freyja, it came all the way from Iceland in a nice envelope :) Also got a few cards, more books from my parents, and a number of gadgets such as a new home for my cellphone - the previous one was like 8 year old, and all ruined from being carried around so much lol...

AND MY AWESOME TRADITIONAL APPLE PIE !!!

;)

Being a bunch of nonsense

2006-10-14T14:49:06Z

I guess it's time for a bit of an update, even if hardly anyone still reads this, even if it's hardly interesting at all, etc. I'll make sure never to write my memoires, unless I want to make the biggest crash in the whole history of literature.

So where were we.

Ah yes, university, of course. Well. My situation was going to be sorted when it turned out that the history department hadn't got the right to register me as a final exam student in political science - which they did, because of all the shit of last year's and I registered off-delay. Anyway, nobody ever noticed, and so the second session jury invalidated one of my political science marks.

So now, I'm stuck in third year and I only have one bloody subject to take. With the old system I could've graduated and taken it as a debt, but with the latest reform - the same one as that which introduced the european standard LMD system - you can no longer do that. I could probably negociate with the pedagogic responsible for the master 1, but he wasn't keen on force that, and the office absolutely refused to consider it. Bloody fuckers. I can't even take the M1 subjects as credits. I planned to get them as a free attendant, but that doesn't allow me for exams, so it'd be near to useless. Except, of course, if I decide I've got enough and go seek fortune elsewhere instead.

At least, I could register at all, because the website was blocked until friday, the second session results hadn't been validated. Fuckers, I told you. Making all they can to disgust people and clear out the area - the price to pay for too crowded free universities, I expect. It's still no excuses.

In one word, I'm rather disgusted not to mention angry because I did everything I could to precisely avoid that.
I am to go back to the office on Monday, which will be my last chance to sort it out without too much damage.

-

Other than that, I'm still working on that apathy thing. I force myself to walk rather than to take the bus/métro for short distances (less than 3 métro stations = around 1,5 km), I force myself to take the stairs rather than to use escalators, etc... I still feel tired, which I blame on going to bed too late at night, that's probably true, though. But night time is when I work best.

On the work side, I've got the ADAG website and its webshop (codename Nex B) finished at last, there are only details to finalize now, but the banking thing is totally done and worky. Woot.
Also, I've been doing an outstanding (for me, that is) work on Peter's admin panel project (codename Nex A "TOD"), and I'm rather pleased with my work, something I haven't been for ages. That's encouraging.
Nex hasn't moved at all, but all the work on TOD and on Nex B will help it to greatly improve, so it's all good :)

Anyway, that's about it now. Hopefully I'll get a not too abnormal university year, and that'll help things settle.

I'm going to London on the 31st of October - got bargain tickets (50 euros round trip) earlier in september, I thought I'd buy them even though I'm short on money. My father actually paid them. I need a day off somewhere else, I suppose.

That's it for now, I'll get back here if I have something else to say...

Being in the need for a break

2006-09-18T01:56:27Z

A little change of decoration for a new academic year...

Or well. September has come with its lot of problems, I should be used to it by now. This year, it's a change of value in the credit system that occured earlier last year, and that wasn't properly done. In short, the values have only been changed for those taking full subjects, but not for those, like me, taking final exams. As a result, while I algebraically validated my year, I'm lacking 3 credits so that caused my info to be marked as error.
This is why I couldn't register online for the new year...
Been in touch with the responsible for the Masters I intended to start, to know if I could still register and if needed, take an extra subject (called a "debt") to fill in the hole, because I think having a year to do with only one or two subjects would be a waste of time.

It really looks like it's not going to work that easy... but whatever.

I got my new laptop, too, remember I posted about it ? Well I got it for 840 euros, bargain !
And he's what's in the little beauty :
- an Intel Core Duo processor, 2x1,83 GHz !
- 1024 MB of RAM !
- A nice big fat 120 GB drive !
- A cool 15,4 inches screen,
- Decent graphic card and sound card too,
- A standard CD-DVD-R-RW combo drive,
- A memory card reader (I had no idea there was one when I ordered it, lol)
- And all the usual wifi/ethernet/modem connections...
- Running Windows XP Media Center (rather than Home), which I decided to try before switching it to Linux.

Pretty nice, huh ?

This past year, I've been pretty apathetic. Sort of. Except for the CPE period, I've been mostly quiet, and not precisely energetic. I had little to say to people, unless they started a subject. My phone counter has dropped from fifteen hours a month down to about two hours a month, in spite of having my best friends as infinite (= unlimited calls, text messages, media messages and visio) numbers. I hardly went out, either. Just never really felt like it (aside, of course, from having no money to spend).
While I still assume it may be different if I actually had a bloody idea of what I want to do next/later, I just lack motivation and energy. I even have difficulty to process with my web projects.
What makes it bad, though, is that I have no idea how it started. I know it was around October last year. And most probably around the time I started to think about going to Canada, although I'm not sure if that actually was before of after. I can't think of any event that may have caused that, though.

I feel like I miss stuff, to. I miss being chatty. I miss playing the piano. I miss speaking German. I miss travelling around to see my friends.
I feel like I need a break. I need to go away from here for a little while, perhaps a few weeks, or maybe even not much so.

I think my next trip should be to Germany. Whenever I hear German, I feel like speaking it - actually speaking, that is, not just writing. Nothing's worth a trip to Germany from that. I'll try to get Thalys tickets and possibly hosting to go to Cologne around christmas - it's a bloody nice place to be around christmas for sure.

Okay, it's about all I had to say, so here we go.

Stay around in case there should be much ! :)

Being on holiday (3)

2006-08-27T01:07:43Z

Hello people. Long time no see, huh ? Well well, I certainly do have a few things to add about my holidays...

A few details about my trip to Bayonne
As I may already have said, I joined my parents and sister into their holidays in Capbreton (Landes) near Bayonne. It was thoroughly enjoyable, of course. The camp was just next to the beach, the weather was mostly sunny and not excessively hot - yet I got a nice cycle-like tan, cos you can see where my shorts ended lol. I don't have that much to say, actually, it was rather enjoying the beach, enjoying the pool, enjoying the sun, and doing nothing...
On the 25th of July, we drove down to San Sebastian for a quick visit. San Sebastian isn't that nice a city, even with the narrow streets downtown, but we didn't have enough time to make it to Bilbao. My father said that next time we may just take two days and drive to Pampelona instead, which sounds promising (well provided that it doesn't take us another 12 years to go back ! lol).

A few of the pictures from San Sebastian are hosted on my Flickr Album. I may add some as the end of the month approaches (I can't afford a pro account, so I have to cope with the bw limit) - I didn't want to post too many of them in case I'd need the bandwidth.

The Peter Story
After I was back and spent a few days at my country house with my parents and sister, the two of us moved back to Paris. On the 16th of August, my friend Peter arrived from Belfast for a visit.
Unlucky he was ! We went to my country house for five days, but the weather was mostly bad, it kept raining and it was even cold at some point, so we couldn't really wander around or anything... Here in Paris, we actually managed to have some proper time out : one afternoon at the Luxembourg (FR Wikipedia link | EN Wikipedia link) where we took a fair number of pictures (some of which may well ending up on my Flickr Album as well) ; later that day we went to Paris Plage (FR Wikipedia link) where we just walked about, and could admire various shows that include a very impressive demonstration of dancing by a group that came from Tahiti (French Polynesia)... Exotic music and belly dancing - it was actually the first time I had a chance to see that in real, and I was really impressed). Then it started raining like mad and we got stuck against a door waiting for the shower to calm down so we could run to the nearest métro station which, ironically enough, was only 100 m away, the problem was that we had to cross a huge avenue before we could reach it.
After we went back from my country house, we went for some shopping around the city and ended up visiting the Buttes Chaumont (FR Wikipedia link), the twin hill of the Butte Montmartre, except that it was all made gypsum and ended up dug in to build the buildings around. The quarry that resulted is now the heart of the park, and when you're in there, you can't see the city around (unless you get to the top of the hill where stands the Sybill Temple !) nor hear it, it's a brilliant feeling. The lake at the bottom just adds a nice touch to the environment (yes, I'm very fond of that park because it's all my childhood there, living only 10 mins away by foot !). Do not miss the HD pictures in the links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article !
We then went back home by the Parc de la Villette (EN Wikipedia link) which hosts the City of Science and Industry, the City of Music, and the Géode (an IMAX-format movie theater) - among other places like the parisian Zenith.
The City of Science was in fact where the Parisian Slaughterhouse were hosted. This is why the 19th District Coat of Arms is a hill with the Sybill Temple with, at the top, bull heads that symbolizes the slaughterhouse.

And then Peter went away, back to Belfast on the 24th of August after having to deal with the "no hand luggage allowed" rule, silly brits ! Must say it feels a bit empty, I was starting to be used to having him around ;)

After having had to deal with a bit more of bank problems - they failed at counting some of the money I put on it quickly enough to avoid my limit to be blown up, sent me tons of letters and billed me a lot of "debit fee" or stuff like that (98,75 euros in total), I finally managed to get an appointement, to get my debit authorization back, and everything is settled, except that now I deadly need money.

Funnily enough, something happened tonight that made me all thoughtful.
I was going out to meet Julia and her new boyfriend, Corentin, along with two guys who work with Corentin. The three of them are actually the Kookai computing crew ! We went to Footsie, a place in the 2nd arrondissement near the Opéra, which is an amusing bar : the prices aren't fixed, they evolve depending of how many people order them, etc... just like a stock exchange ! So you can drink for (rather) cheap if you manage... An interesting concept, that keeps you occupied for a while ;) It was good to go out for a change, I even managed three drinks for only 6,40 euros, go me !

At some point, Corentin told me that they may have a job offer near the end of the year : one of the other two will be leaving cos he's been offered an awesome job, so the third one, who is currently only under a work placement contract for his studies, is probably going to take his place. Trouble is, neither of the two remaining of them can develop in html and php, so they're going to need someone. They plan on coupling that with internal helpdesk.
In short, he thought I might be interested, which I actually really am (and I must add that the Kookai HQs are only 10 little minutes away by foot from my home !) because php and xhtml are my thing, I can bring my knowledge of accessibility standards, and as I'm autodidactic, I may not know everything but I can adapt easily... and as a bonus, I'd be working with two people I'm friends with.
... the only problem, as always, is that it takes a full time job to do all that, and my current studies status doesn't allow me for that. I could never fit 35 hours of work into my typical week, not with some 18 hours of work + all the work I need to do outside of univ (well I must admit I'm far from working as much as I'm expected to, but still !). I'd need a part time (half time would be perfect).
So I'm a bit confused because well, I know I can do this, I have the two others speaking for me, and I probably could do well for a job interview, but there's no way I can stop my studies. I can't do anything good with my current degrees, so I need to carry on ; and I've been at school for nineteen years and I really want to finish asap, so I don't see myself taking a year off. If I do that, I know I'll never go back.

I'm going to get a new laptop : a friend of my dad who's full of money, suggested that he could lend me the requiered amount without having to give it back before a year... after he heard the tragic story of my laptop. There are Dell promotions that shouldn't be missed.

After coming back from the Footsie, as I hadn't had dinner, I stepped by the McDonald's Jaurès, which stays open (for take away food) until 2 am. The chips I ate had that particular taste they had back when I was little and that going to McDonald's was rare. I don't know why, but the term that comes to my mind to describe it is : "paper".

I won on the bank application binary file I had to install on the ADAG website. Yay me, I can now bill people and have they pay by credit card ;) it's really handy though, once you get to know how it works...

I think that's it for now. Sister's at home, having friends, but apart from her and myself both being pissed off at the same time (ended up fighting) two days ago, it's going OK.... She's squatting my room at the very moment so she can phone her boyfriend without being hassled by the others, lol !

This morning, I awoke with the radio talking about Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1972. I've been interested in NI story and having Peter around to talk about it proved handy because I learnt quite a lot of things I probably wouldn't have got without him. It made me sort of depressed, and I ended up spending the day listening to U2... yeah, I know.

Stay tuned on Channel Clem for more news coming soon !

Being on holiday (2)

2006-07-22T02:09:48Z

Well this is it, my friends, I'm going to leave you... only for a week, though.

I'm going to a small town named Capbreton (Landes), it's near the very touristic-busy place of Hossegor (if you know it), and near Bayonne (Pyrénées Atlantiques) as you can see on this map (Capbreton is at the top where the green arrow is, and Bayonne is at the bottom).

Beach and swimming pool will become my favourite activities after having spent a whole week here in Paris, suffering from the heat ! My TGV leaves from Paris-Montparnasse station at 8:20 and I'll be there in Bayonne at 14:10 - quite a long trip, but I'm travelling first class so it should be fine :) I made sure I have a lot of cold water to carry, so it should be fine.

While I'm there, I'm going to try and set up a trip to San Sebastian in Spain, as I did last time I was there in Ondres (you can see Ondre on the map I linked above). I quoted the city on my city trip page.

Anyway, here I go. I'll be sure to bring loads of pictures and I'll host the best of them on my Flickr album !

See you people, be good and enjoy your days !

Being a "long studies" student

2006-07-15T23:50:31Z

I got my results this morning. They're better than what I expected !
So I passed the political science side !! WOO !
And I failed the history side ! not cool, but it wasn't the most important anyway ! I'll have to re-take three subjects + 1 side subject in september in order to validate it.

In the meantime, I am the proud owner of a Licence of Political Science !

If anyone cares, my results were as follows : (F = failed, P = passed)
Semester 5 :
Ancient Hist. 9,75 (F), Modern Hist. 11,5 (P), Contemporary Hist 15 : (P)
Political Life in France and Europe : 9 (F), European Construction : 13 (P)
English : 14 (P)
Semester 6 :
Medieval Hist : 9,75 (F), Modern Hist : 14 (P), Contemporary Hist : 9,5 (F)
Epistemology : 8,5 (F), Sociology : 15 (P), Postwar Britain in English : 16,5 (P)
Lexicology : 11,5 (P)

Basically here is what I needed :
- to have more than 10 at the total average (which is 12,16 for me)
- in order to validate the Licence of History, I had to validate 4 subjects out of 6 (I only validated 3)
- in order to validate the Licence of Political Science, I had to validate 3 subjects out of 5 + the English subject from Semester 5

Also, I'm rather happy that my medieval history results are not too bad (7,5 on the written paper, 12 at the spoken exam !). I'm disappointed at contemporary history semester 6, because I thought it'd be better and that's what failed it for me !

Anyway, the important part is here, now that I have my licence, I can get on to the master !
Trouble is, I can't register online because it's what's called a "closed" degree, so I have to get there myself. And the office is closed until the 25 of August !

And now I'm entering the "long studies" students club, more than 2 years !

***

Aside from those good news, I had a sleepless night wednesday to thursday, because I was working and I finished my code at around 4:15, I didn't want to stop earlier because then I would have gotten confused when I'd be back to it. And it so happened that my sister had her train to Béziers at 6:24 at Gare de Lyon and I'd said I'd take her there, and we had to depart at 5:30 just to be safe, so I thought it would be really stupid to go to bed, because then I couldn't wake up, see ?
Loads of people, of course : this Thursday was the beginning of a five days week-end (most of the people taking their time off (RTT) on Thursday, Friday was Bastille Day, + a week-end) + the beginning of the second double-week of the month, means hell lot of people going away on holiday anyway.
I was ROFL as my mother at one point pointed a group of people obviously with north-African ascent, with loads of luggage, whom she said were probably going to take the 6:20 train to Marseille. The funny part is that she was right.
It was the first time my sister (who is 17) was travelling totally on her own : no group, nobody with her at all. As she's got a sometime awkward sense of responsibility (she's sometimes a bit deconnected from what would seem obvious to you, e.g. if she needs to find a train she'd phone me for advice instead of just asking a SNCF staff), my mother was a bit worried, but everything went smoothly (in spite of her nearly missing her train in Montpellier, lol). Whatever, I wasn't going to talk about that anyway.
On the way back home, I tried to start the car using the parking ticket. I decided that my mother would drive in the end.

***

I was working on Nex 0.4 (again, lol) and around 17h40, I get a phonecall from Julia who summoned me to see the fireworks with her and a few friends I either didn't know, or hadn't seen for months and months. All of this after a game of bowling. I wasn't keen on to accept because I was tired and ruined, but for some reason I decided for it, so there I went.
First, I refused that she'd invite me, which I'm now deeply regretting because overall I spent 16 euros on it (2 games + shoes rent + 1 drink), but that was before I know that my account was particularly lower than I thought.
I played particularly badly on the first game, scoring only 5 points and having five null shoots in a row. I guess I'll use my tiredness as an excuse (I hadn't slept for a while, remember ?), but I've been having fun, that's what matters. After I found my balance, I became better (81 points for the second game with 3 spares and 1 strike, not bad for someone who rarely plays, eh ?)
Then we found out that this year the fireworks would be on the evening of the 14th, but we still had our pic-nic on the Champ de Mars, and then as we were going to join more people I decided that I was really too tired and decided to go home.

***

Now, my parents are gone, my sister are gone, it's just me and my two cats Lili and Ebra, until I go join the family in Bayonne next week...

As if this entry wasn't long enough, here is the meme stolen from onespiceybbw and faeangelique (yes, both of you, I'm still reading !) :

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

× I miss somebody right now.	✓ I don't watch much TV these days. (holidays = 99% crap on tv)	✓ I own lots of books.
× I wear glasses or contact lenses.	× I love to play video games.	× I've tried marijuana.
✓ I've watched porn movies. (and trust me, it's highly un-erotic !)	× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.	✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy.
✓ I curse sometimes. (not that often, now that I think of it...)	× I have changed a lot mentally over the last year. (if only !)	× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

* * * * *

✓ I have broken someone's bones.	× I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal.	× I hate the rain. (Rain is good for singing !)
✓ I'm paranoid at times.	× I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free. (no way, the result is way too often worse !)	✓ I need/want money right now. (I accept cash, cheques and visa cards (euros only))
× I love sushi.	× I talk really, really fast.	× I have fresh breath in the morning.
× I have long hair.	× I have lost money in Las Vegas.	✓ I have at least one sibling.
✓ I was born in a country outside of the U.S. (fortunately !)	× I have worn fake hair/fingernails/eyelashes in the past.	× I couldn't survive without Caller I.D. (er... wtf ?)
× I like the way that I look.	✓ I have lied to a good friend in the last 6 months. (it was needed, I swear !)	× I am usually pessimistic. (firty-fifty.)
× I have a lot of mood swings.	✓ I think prostitution should be legalized.	× I slept with a roommate.
× I have a hidden talent. (I wish ! lol)	× I'm always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.	× I have a lot of friends.
× I have pecked someone of the same sex.	✓ I enjoy talking on the phone. (Long live unlimited free phone !)	× I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.
× I love to shop and/or window shop.	× I'm obsessed with my Xanga or Livejournal.	× I'm completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.
✓ I have a mobile phone.	× I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months.	✓ I've rejected someone before.
× I currently like/love someone. (hate 'em all ! ;))	✓ I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life. (aside from becoming the next dictator of the world, that is.)	× I want to have children in the future.
✓ I have changed a diaper before.	× I've called the cops on a friend before.	× I'm not allergic to anything.
✓ I have a lot to learn.	× I am shy around the opposite sex.	✓ I'm online 24/7, even as an away message.
✓ I have at least 5 away messages saved.	× I have tried alcohol or drugs before.	× I have made a move on a friend's significant other or crush in the past.
× I own the "South Park" movie.	× I have avoided assignments at work/school to be on Xanga or Livejournal.	✓ I enjoy some country music.
✓ I would die for my best friends.	✓ I'm obsessive, and often a perfectionist.	× I have used my sexuality to advance my career.
× I think Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.	× I have dated a close friend's ex.	× I am happy at this moment.
× I'm obsessed with guys.	× Democrat. (I'm a lot more left on the political pad than Democrats !)	× Republican.
× I don't even know what I am.	× I am punk rockish.	× I go for older guys/girls, not younger.
× I study for tests most of the time.	✓ I tie my shoelaces differently from anyone I've ever met. (yeah, I really do, now that I think of it...)	× I can work on a car.
× I love my job(s). (what job(s) ?!)	× I am comfortable with who I am right now.	× I have more than just my ears pierced.
× I walk barefoot wherever I can.	× I have jumped off a bridge.	✓ I love sea turtles.
× I spend ridiculous amounts of money on makeup.	× I plan on achieving a major goal/dream. (does ruling the world qualify as a major goal/dream ?)	× I am proficient on a musical instrument.
× I hate office jobs.	× I went to college out of state.	× I am adopted.
× I am a pyro.	× I have thrown up from crying too much.	× I have been intentionally hurt by people that I loved.
× I fall for the worst people.	× I adore bright colours.	× I usually like covers better than originals.
× I hate chain theme restaurants like Applebees and TGIFridays. (?!)	✓ I can pick up things with my toes. (I usually pick up my phone charger with them.)	× I can't whistle.
✓ I have ridden/owned a horse.	✓ I still have every journal I've ever written in.	× I talk in my sleep.
× I've often thought that I was born in the wrong century.	× I try to forget things by drowning them out with loads of distractions.	× I wear a toe ring.
× I have a tattoo.	✓ I can't stand at LEAST one person that I work with.	× I am a caffeine junkie.
× I am completely tree-huggy spiritual, and I'm not ashamed at all. (huh ?)	✓ If I knew I would get away with it, I would commit at least one murder.	✓ I will collect anything, and the more nonsensical, the better. (I just can't throw anything away anyway.)
× I enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner.	× I'm an artist.	× I am ambidextrous.
× I sleep with so many stuffed animals, I can hardly fit on my bed.	× If it weren't for having to see other people naked, I'd live in a nudist colony.	× I have terrible teeth.
× I hate my toes.	✓ I did this meme even though I wasn't tagged by the person who took it before me.	✓ I have more friends on the internet than in real life.
✓ I have lived in either three different states or countries. (France, Germany and the U.S., if my studies trips count as living elsewhere (respectively 4 months and 1 year).)	✓ I am extremely flexible. (if this means that I can adapt easily to different situations, then yes !)	× I love hugs more than kisses.
× I want to own my own business.	× I smoke.	✓ I spend way too much time on the computer than on anything else.
× Nobody has ever said I'm normal.	✓ Sad movies, games, and the like can cause a trickle of tears every now and then.	× I am proficient in the use of many types of firearms and combat weapons.
× I like the way women look in stylized men's suits.	✓ I don't like it when people are unpleased or seem unpleased with me.	✓ I have been described as a dreamer or likely to have my head up in the clouds.
× I have played strip poker with someone else before.	× I have had emotional problems for which I have sought professional help.	× I believe in ghosts and the paranormal.
× I can't stand being alone.	× I have at least one obsession at any given time.	× I weigh myself, pee/poo, and then weigh myself again.
× I consistently spend way too much money on obsessions-of-the-moment.	× I'm a judgmental asshole. (?)	× I'm a HUGE drama-queen.
✓ I have travelled on more than one continent.	✓ I sometimes wish my father would just disappear.	× I need people to tell me I'm good at something in order to feel that I am. (actually, that doesn't do the trick.)
× I am a Libertarian.	✓ I can speak more than one language. (Ich speak trois different Sprache.)	✓ I can fall asleep even if the whole room is as noisy as it can be. (even on a pile of peebles. The only exception is a car that is being driven.)
✓ I would rather read than watch TV.	× I like reading fact more than fiction.	✓ I have pulled an all-nighter on an assignment I was given a month to do.
✓ I have no piercings.	✓ I have spent the night in a train station or other public place.	× I have been so upset over my physical gender that I cried.
× I once spent Christmas completely alone because there was a miscommunication on which parent was supposed to have me that night.	× There have been times when I have wondered "Why was I born?" and may/may not have cried over it.	✓ I like most animals better than most people.
× I own a collection of retro games consoles.	✓ The thought of physical exercise makes me shiver.	× I have hit someone with a dead fish.
× I am compulsively honest.	× I was born with a congenital birth defect that has never been repaired.	× I have danced topless in front of dozens of complete strangers.
× I have gone from wishing I was a girl to revelling in being a boy to feeling like a girl again in the span of five minutes, and not cared a whit for my actual sex.	× I am unashamedly bisexual, and have different motivations for my desires for different genders.	× I sometimes won't sleep a whole night or eat a whole day because I forget to.
× I find it impossible to get to sleep without some kind of music on.	✓ I dislike milk.	× I obsessively wash my hands.
× I always carry something significant around with me.	× Sometimes I'd rather wear a wig in day-to-day life than use my own hair. (huh ?)	× I've pushed myself to become more self-aware and thereby more aware of others.
× Even though I live on my own I still cry sometimes because I miss my mother.	× I hand wrote all the HTML tags in this document. (but I would have if I had needed it.)	✓ I've liked something which a majority of people claimed was either bad or weird.
× I have been clinically dead for a brief period of time. (you wish !)	× Instead of feeling sympathy/empathy with people and their problems, I simply become annoyed.	× I participate/have participated in auto drag races and won.
× I do not 'get' most comedy acts.	× I don't think strippers are money-greedy or slutty for dancing.	× I don't like to chew gum.
× I am obsessed with history/historical things and can't wait for someone to build a time machine so I can be the first to use it.	× I can never remember for the life of me where I parked the car.	× I had the TEEN ANGST thing going for at least 2-3 years. (huh ?)
✓ I wish people would be more empathic and honest with each other.	× I play Dungeons and Dragons weekly.	× I love to sing.
× I want to live in my mother's basement when I grow up. (she doesn't have a basement to start with.)	✓ I have a custom-built computer. (cheaper, and no crappish pre-installed OS = better.)	× I want to create a certain someone's babies, even though there's a 0% possiblity of ever achieving it.
× I would be in a relationship with one of my pets if they were human.	× I've gone skinny-dipping. (huh ?)	× I've performed in three plays. (sorry, but only one.)
× I enjoy burritos.	× I'm Irish and loving it.	× I have a thing for redheads.
× I am a twin!	✓ Most of the times, I'd rather do something intellectual instead of doing something generically 'fun'. (sighs)	× Once I set out to finish something, I always stay at it until it is completed before I move on to something else. (not always but that's the pattern I'm trying* to follow.)*
✓ I wish there were a way to erase past mistakes.	× I sleep more than 12 hours a day.	✓ I wish I could be prouder of what I've accomplished, but it's never enough.
× I need more time to myself.	✓ I wish I was more open-minded.	× I hope that I go really prematurely grey.
✓ I download songs from the internet.	× I've just reenacted chapter 58 of Death Note with my best friend.	× I say random things to freak people out.
× I'm still a little mad about the ending of Death Note.	× I love playing Truth or Dare.	× I love listening to slow music, but I hate singing to it.
× Music helps me remember that I am not alone.	× Playing my favorite sport makes me temporarily forget my problems.	✓ I think this survey is particularly long. (oops, got me !)
× I prefer my LJ friends to my real-life ones.	× I can only hate someone that I love.	× I've ordered an extra two shots of espresso to an Americano at Starbucks. (Yuck !)

Being a (poor) VDQS

2006-07-11T00:29:51Z

Last week-end was the 9th VDQS party, held at my old farm on the country.

The VDQS rugby team was founded by the Rueil A.C. rugby club members in the late seventies and is now the "ancient" team of the club. Its name comes from the French acronym for "Vin de qualité supérieure" (litt. "top quality wine"), shifted to "Vieux débris de qualité supérieure" ("old top quality trash"). My father was a founder of the VDQS, and my uncle is a member of it too.

So you can imagine the picture, I guess : 25 people in their forties or fifties, including the players' wives, and add to that the kids, most of whom play in the Rueil A.C. team either Seniors (my former team-mates), or Juniors (my sister's former team-mates).

All those people, in the rugby spirit, and 75 litres of wine.
Add a big fire in the night, and you'll get the picture (=> a bunch of dirty songs !! WOO !)

As a matter of fact, this year it took place later than usual because of various reasons. As a result, a lot of people were on holidays, including nearly all the young ones. There were only 25 of us in total, instead of about 60 usually.

The absence of my former team-mates is actually one of the reasons why I didn't find a good reason to stay in Paris for the week-end, aside from the fact that it was my chance before last to get there for a week-end before August.
The fact is that I've been growing up aside from the rugby spirit, after I was sent off on injury. I've never been a fan of sports, but I quite liked it, and while I wasn't a very good player, I was still enjoying myself a lot with those mates I'd known forever.
After a couple of years of refereeing, I just stopped and my visits to the team became less and less frequent, I started to feel I was out of the group. My father stopped playing at the VDQS in 1985, so I was less and less involved when I stopped too. I then missed most of the events that took place (new year parties, summer parties esp. in Guadeloupe two years ago, and lots of going skiing) mostly because of that and the fact that faking to be part of the group was becoming too hard on my mind, I just didn't belong to that world anymore and I was feeling really uneasy about that. And so did they.

Note that I'm not really regretting it ; I've been growing in a different world from their world, and I find that we haven't really much in common, especially not in our ways of thinking. That's how it is.
It's just strange to think about all these when I find myself into those parties. The atmosphere, I guess.

Anyway, sorry about the emo part, but the week-end was very enjoyable and I'm pretty satisfied I went there.

Now I'm back to my life and work. I'm still on my three projects - A&C, ADAG and Nex - to which I have 2 new websites to add : the LOLu website, on the Lands of Lore series games (a website I've been promising to the members of the jeuxvideo.com forums, but that will rely on Nex anyway), and my own personal website, with my French blog, which will rely on Nex too.

I'm left with the choice of going to the south-western coast with my parents for one or two weeks, they're going to Capbreton (Landes, see where it is) and I have a feeling a good bit of holidays would do well on me.

My sister has had to cancel her week on the mediterranean coast at the last minute, so I've been trying to find something for us to do. I was still on that idea I had to take her for a day in London (as I did back in September with my friend Luce). But of course, there was no way I could afford the tickets. The best price was 130 euros each, and that didn't include the way back. You can't get any decent offer unless you book the seats six months in advance anyway, travelling has become so expensive that I can't afford anything whatsoever. This is also the reason why I had to cancel the day in London with my sister already back in January, along with the trip we'd been planning to go to the United States to visit my old friends - I couldn't get hold of prime tickets with my uncle's frequent flier card on the Paris-Minneapolis Air France/Skyteam line.

All I can do is contemplate my beautiful - but useless - passport.

When I see my friends travelling to the four corners of the world without any issue, I feel like I need to slap someone in the face. And I can't even blame them cos they're really not responsible for me belonging to the lower parts of the society, and what makes me even sicker is that I'm far from being in the lowest.

The good side is that even if I had a decent job, I still wouldn't be able to afford it, so no regrets.

And with all that, I found that I'm going to have to pay much higher university fees last year, because it so happens that master students have to pay more than licence students.
Level - last year fee - next year fee
Licence : 154 euros - 162 euros
Master : 196 euros - 211 euros
Social security : 180 euros - 189 euros

With the various functionment fees, this makes my total for next year to be 426 euros (351 euros last year).

I know it will sound like nothing for most of you, fellow readers, nothing in comparison of the freaking tens of thousands dollars universities abroad demand.
But take it that way : my family is too rich to be helped, and is not rich enough to afford it. I'm just stuck in the middle.

How the heck am I going to find 426 euros without a job to save the money from ? :(

Being on holiday (1)

2006-06-28T01:11:09Z

I know it's been long (yet again) but hey, I'm still that introverted person after all.

Life's been actually very busy this month. Exams, you know. Loads and loads of exams.
Well the results are starting to spread out, one by one as they seem to have a technical problem that prevent them from releasing them as lists as they should.
Two marks for now : 10 in lexicology which I really wasn't expecting, as that exam went quite wrong. But well maybe not that wrong in fact... I'll call it the happy luck in my dark exam time !
I got 9,5 at contemporary history (11 at my written exam, 8 at my spoken exam). I must say I'm disappointed with the latter, as I was feeling it had been way better than that and I was actually expecting a 12 or something. The former is pretty good because the marks were pretty low for the others. But in the end, I don't reach 10, so it's another subject I don't validate.
It also means that in order to avoid ending up taking a few exams in september, I have to either validate all my other subjects (given that I already failed 2 on the first semester), or have very good marks in all the subjects I'll validate.
Not easy since there is still medieval history (my weakest point) that went horribly wrong, and modern history I wasn't exactly satisfied with. Also I wasn't happy with Epistemology which was a kind of exam I had never taken before and I found it difficult because I couldn't get exactly the idea of what they were expecting.
On the other hand, English political science and sociology went pretty good.

I'm now officially registered as a master student in political science, provided of course that I validate my year (whether in June or September). I'm going to held 2 licences : a Licence of Human Science, domain : History ; and a Licence of Political Science. Woot to me, they'll go just above my "BiDEUG History and Political Science" line in my CV.
I must say that I'm delighted that I'm going to have those two degrees. It should ease my future professionnal life, shouldn't it ? (mind you, that would only work in foreigner countries. One of my contacts at the University of Minnesota already told me that even with just one licence, the word "Sorbonne" would probably get me in straight way. I checked around and it sounds like it opens doors about everywhere. Except in here, where they'll always take someone from a grande école before considering people from universities. Bloody elitist country !)

Other than that, the holidays have begun, and I'm quite fine for now, taking a lot of time off. Although in the same time I still have work to do with those websites I still have to finish. One of them needs a credit card payment unit installed, and it's quite tricky because I still need to understand a few things on how the module works, but it's not that difficult, I just need to get used to it.

I spent the week-end at my country house, and on monday I was sick as hell, paracetamol was no use against my headache and I basically spent the day in the living room on the sofa, with TV being the farthest as it could be, watching stupid soaps with my sister. Mind you, stupid soaps have their patterns that are amusing to observe, providing you know a bit about movie analysis.

Well I think it's about all I have to say for now, keep connected folks !

Being awkward (sort of)

2006-06-02T21:26:48Z

For some reason, I haven't felt much like spending time online these days.

After I released Nex 0.3.6, completed the ADAG website (working a lot on the future Nex A design !) and put the Arts-et-Culture website on standby until after the exams, I haven't felt like doing anything. I could be working on Nex 0.4 but the main changes have been planned for the half-version, i.e. 0.5. Basically what I have to do to complete 0.4 is heavy and boring work.

At the same time, I'm supposed to be working for the forthcoming exams. They start on Monday, until the 16th of June. Bit late really, but they'd been postponed because of the strike and the seven week of closure of the Sorbonne by the riot police.
My planning is as follows : databases analysis on Monday, contemporary history on Tuesday, medieval history on Thursday, modern history on Friday, social sciences epistemology on the following Monday, sociology on Tuesday, English political science (postwar Britain) on Wednesday, and political analysis on Friday.

Pretty balanced planning, as a matter of fact.

Other than that, I've been reading quite a lot. I'm currently reading a book by Fred Vargas entitled Dans les bois éternels. ISBN : 2878582330. I put those links here because I know for a fact that her books are relatively popular and have been translated into many languages, so I expect someone here may know her. That one book released here last month so I don't expect it to be available in English just yet, but it's taking place just a few time after Sous les vents de Neptune known in English as Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand which should release in English in 2007.

Talking about Fred Vargas, I definitely recommend Have Mercy on Us All which is absolutely awesome.

Hey, I wonder how it would feel to read one of her books translated into English ? (especially when being so familiar about where the whole books take place !)

I got my phone bill yesterday. I was finding suspicious that my credit was so low. When I re-activated my line (suspended between the 25th of April and the 19th of May), it told me that I had 31 euros out of 67 euros left. But the problem is that my credit cycle starts on the 24th, and I was pretty sure I hadn't phoned for 28 euros in just two days.
So the bill came and I had a look at the detailed bill bit.
On the 30th of April - i.e. during the time when my line was suspended - there have been several calls made between 16:26 and 16:55.
Here are the numbers :
16:26 : 223 633 30 55 (2 sec)
16:26 : 223 607 53 03 (3 min)
16:31 : 220 566 77 39 (59 sec)
16:32 : 220 566 77 39 (45 sec)
16:34 : 223 633 30 55 (11 min 14 sec)
16:47 : 223 607 53 03 (2 min 22 sec)
16:51 : 33 6 11 76 00 54 (9 sec)
16:55 : 223 623 78 40 (3 min 44 sec).

I'm putting the numbers online because it was definitely not cool and I really don't care about whoever those numbers belong to.
I looked on my world map to find out what countries (tagged "World Zone 3" on the bill) were. 220 is Gambia, and 223 is Mali.
The total cost of those calls is 35,27 euros.

Amusingly enough, it didn't go past my credit (I had 67 euros of credit, as I mentionned, and as a "Pro" customer, international calls are included rather than billed "on top" like regular customers). So there is no real harm done...
... except that it's a very serious problem as my line was suspended and even if someone had grabbed my sim card, it was protected by my pincode and it had been cut away from my line itself five days before.
I phoned SFR and they're going to credit me 40 euros of extra communications next month, and they're investigating what might've happened.

And I promise I don't know anyone in those countries.

I'm pretty sure I already mention how unlucky I could get. When it does happen, it's usually real and strong, not just details. Or well, maybe details in fact. Whatever.
Tell you what, I was gone for food yesterday and when I had to pay... my card was refused. I should be used to it by now, but I know my father's lent me a bit of money, so I was sure it wasn't that, and the message on the terminal wasn't the same as usual ("payment rejected"). It was saying "Expired card".
Yeah, it was the 1st of June and my blue card expired on the 31st of May.
For some reason, my bank didn't make a new one, I hadn't realized it was expiring that month, and it's usually all automatic so I should've got the notice around two weeks ago. They were closed today but I'm going to drop by there tomorrow morning to see what's happened.

Anyway, that's about all what's happened to me these days. I mostly kept to sorting my notes, and watching tennis (Roland Garros rules, go Amélie Mauresmo !). There have been amazing matches, by the way.
What I particularly like is when someone pretty unknown is showing very good abilities and threatens "top" players, it's usually very distracting and as they haven't anything to lose, it can give excellent matches.
Quoting, for instance : Aravane Rezaï, World #145 (lost on the 3rd round after coming from the qualifications, caused real difficulties to Czech World #16 Nicole Vadisova 6-1 6-7 6-0. The second set was awesome, the czech girl was sooo fustrated !). Or in the men's tournament, the French Marc Gicquel who had never played a 5-set match before, who nearly won against Nicolas Kiefer. He pushed him in his last resources, final score was 6-0, 6-1, 5-7, 3-6, 11-9.

Honestly, that's a lot better than seeing matches where they just hit the ball very very hard and fast. I remember a few years ago having seen a match between U.S. player Andy Roddick and Australian player Lleyton Hewitt, no service below 200 km/h and it was just *boring*.

Anyway, that's pretty much all I've got to tell for now. Farewell then, and stay connected !

Being a phone addict

2006-05-19T21:20:04Z

Three and a half week after my phone line vanished from the air, it's back with a brand new cool phone :) I managed to get it for sixty nine euros... It's a Samsung ZV10, basically the one just above the one I used to have, quite not the most recent of theirs (those are like, hundreds of euros worth), but still very nice with a beautiful screen, a 50 Mo memory and a media player that will be useful for putting the songs that get stuck into my head so I can listen to them and get them away from there.
Oh, and it's 3G compatible too. Not that I know anybody that has a 3G phone, so it won't be much use... As for online streaming, while my contract includes 3 free hours of wap connection, the streaming itself remains very expensive (10 c€/min) so erm, no thanks.
Still, there is the free area where I could watch the X-men 3 presentation, pretty cool :)

So I'm back online and no longer left out from the world. Not that I have that much of a busy life, but a phone is still welcome for helping during the mobilisation against the LEC and Sarkozy's CESEDA (immigration) bill.
We're still fighting for people who got sent to jail for three months for having "thrown rocks at policemen", no witnesses, two cops as testifiers... Some people I know where trialed at 4 o'clock in the morning at the 23rd Courtroom. Madness. It's totally crazy... But let's not get into that or I'd need a full five hundred pages book to get over it.

Apart from that, life's back to the boring routine, university, work, etc. Exams to start on the 5th of June until the 14th.

Oh, and I got my new passport. The infamous electronic passport the U.S. have been made us have. You know, by not letting it whoever didn't have one or a visa (excluding those with passports delivered before the law was passed). The queue at the U.S. Embassy for visa was so huge, that they couldn't take appointments anymore for months and they had to get their embassies in Berlin, London, Madrid and Brussels to deliver visas to French citizens as well. Mad, eh ?

Anyway, apart from the electronic chip (look, I'm biometrized ! now the FBI and CIA will be able to spy on me ! Well about time guys, the French RGs are already on my back since the LEC crisis !), it does look cool. The page with the picture and details is like full of holograms representing France with a Marianne instead, the version with the phrygian cap.
The inner pages, aka those who host the visas or stamps, are dedicated to the 5 continents and then the 26 French Régions. Each one has its page, except for the DOM-TOMs and CTOMs that have just to be all on the same page.

While it all does look nice, I liked the "Delphine" passports better ; the pages were dedicated to technology and co-operation. So you had a double-page for the TGV, another one for Airbus or Ariane, but also landscapes, and even the Moon !

But anyway, it's just that now I can go in a lot of countries without even needing a visa.

Just in case you want to know, here is the complete list of countries where I can go freely (well, I still need money to pay for transportation and all, lol). God I must be bored to be doing this :

- All the European Union countries :

Austria

X Belgium

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

X Germany

X Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta

Poland

Portugal

Slovakia

Slovenia

X Spain

Sweden

The Netherlands

X United Kingdom

- The European Economic Area

Iceland

Lichtenstein

Norway

- European countries

Albania

Andorra

Bulgaria

Croatia

X Monaco

Romania

X Switzerland

San Marino

Ukraine

Vatican

- Other countries

Argentina

Australia

Bahamas

Bermuda

Brunei

Canada

Chile

Costa Rica

El Salvador

Equateur

Guatemala

Honduras

Hong Kong

Israel

Japan

Malaisia

Mauritius

Mexico

Morocco

New Zealand

Nicaragua

Palestinian Territories

Panama

Paraguay

Perou

Senegal

Singapore

South Africa

South Korea

Tunisia

X United States

... and I probably forgot a few !
(X : countries that I already have visited).

That's a hell lot of places to visit, eh ? I hope I'll have a list that's full of crosses in a few years !

Well that's pretty much all for the moment. Evening everyone !

Not being travelling

2006-05-03T19:18:15Z

I decided to give up on going to the European Social Forum in Athens, Greece, as a Sorbonne representative.

Communication failures on both ends and money issue motivate that decision, and no need to say that I do regret it already ; yet given the situation I hadn't got any other choice.

Sorry for those who were already expecting the pictures and travel blog...

About the last few days, there isn't much to say, as nothing really happened.

Being a rebel V

2006-04-29T23:51:32Z

I feel like my country is blowing up somehow. I don't have memories of a such politically chaotic period, yet I guess I was just too young to realize.

Life.

It sounds like life is getting more expensive and more difficult. Society always ask more and more. Prices are rising like mad. Gas price had increased again, oil level decrease, prices inflate, it's become so hard to just buy lunch every day... How normal is that ? I'm supposed to be in the rather upper part of the middle class, and I'm running like mad after money. Not that I love money, but I just *need* it to live, as everyone, I guess.

The worse part IMO is that it's quite easy to make yourself guilty, by thinking of those who don't even have a home to start with. I have a 40 Mbits internet line, unlimited phone, cable tv, a quite decent appartment in the city of Paris, which belongs to my parents, I can afford to pursue my studies (well, everyone can as it's free but some people have to give up in order to work to survive :( ;.. ) - so why should I be complaining ?

Isn't it ironic that you end up feeling guilty for "not being in a very bad situation" ?
What kind of lower-levelling is that ?!

It's like the usual UMP political scheme. They want to, say, reduce unemployment pensions by 10%. So they announce they're going to lower them by 20%, then after long negociations and talks they decide to "only" reduce them by 10%. Everyone feels they've sort of won why they exactly lost.

So much for "a better life".

Politics.

Maybe you heard about this. The Clearstream Case.
It's a rather nasty story, in fact. a rumour started spreading, according to which Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin had set the French secret services to "find stuff" about (against ?) Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who would be the main rival of the Chirac-wing candidate in the 2007 election, more specifically something about him having "curious" bank accounts in Luxembourg.
De Villepin and Sarkozy obviously both denied it was true. But an old secret services general testified that he was ordered to "make" the listing.

Just for the sake of it : they found on a made-up listing various suspect funds transfer to a bunch of accounts. One account was owned by Mr "Paul de Nagy" one other was owned by Mr "Stéphane Bocsa".
Now, when you know that the complete name of our Interior Minister is "Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa", you start pondering the fact that there may be something.
The listing being obviously made-up, perhaps by Villepin or Chirac themselves according to the general,

Thus, the judges now want to get further into this. The logical move for Dominique de Villepin would be to resign. Well, the Villepin method is that he'll deny all and stay there no matter what.

First, various unapproved reforms, then the super-bad handling of the riot crisis, then the CPE thing, now the CNE that's started being invalidated by prud'hommes courts, the controversed CESEDA project and now this ?

How can Villepin seriously stay ? Hell, he even reported his project to ban smoking for all public places !
It sounds like the government position is totally rubbish now ! Not to mention the President's, but that's been true for years and didn't prevent Chirac from being re-elected.

Liberty and Equality.

Going the same way, the evolution of the law sounds quite wrong. Liberties are being reduced (last in list : the mayor of Montfermeil, in Seine-Saint-Denis (the département where the November 2005 riots started), passed a bill according to which under 26's no longer can walk downtown if they're in a group of more than 3 people). Long-battle-won fundamental rights are being suspended or removed (like the right to know why you're fired, removed with the CNE).
Racism, antisemitism, xenophobia... are increasing madly, especially since Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy keeps insisting about the "scums" and stating that immigrants are a burden and a pain (to make it short) that are the source of all our problems.
Bargain for the far-right supporters.

I used to be somewhat permissive with liberalism. Not that I ever really supported it, but I was like, trusting people, you know ? But not anymore, I'm afraid to say. I don't trust people. Thus I'm not permissive anymore. I despise most forms of liberalism because when a human can benefit of a situation, he'll do no matter what to get that benefit.

Sad reality.

I'm so annoyed that communist systems had huge flaws in them. I really like the primary idea : getting benefit for the community, rather that for oneself. Well we saw how it was twisted and how it all ended.
Badly.

Capitalism isn't really a problem, I think. I don't like that word nor what it etymologically means. But Marx had it that way, that the capital you got through that system could be useful for everyone.
Liberalism is the problem.
Because if you turn rules down, you allow people to not respect others. And sadly, people tend to abuse everything/everyone if they see a benefit for them.

I tend to think that hopefully, not everyone is like this.
And every day or so, I'm a little bit more deceived.

And the poor get poorer, the middle-class gets poorer, and the rich get wealthier.

What's positive, though, is that as time goes by and all this happens and all, people seem to be more reactive. Or more people seem to be reactive.
3 million people in the streets in France against the LEC in March. That was a record for the Fifth Republic. And then it suddenly happened thrice in a row !

After something like that, doubled by the huge amount of anti-precarity committees that have been set-up these last years - how can one think that nobody cares ?

People care, it's just that they're not in charge, and that's because most people are still unaware, uneducated or maybe just a little bit egoistic. And there are, too, people that are aware but have a lot of problems of their own to deal with - and one can't really blame them for that either.

OK, this wasn't a depressed entry (I swear !), just a few reflexions.

I'm still going to Athens for the European Social Forum, so I'll probably write something from there I think. Most definitely something about there.
I'm really looking forwards to going too :) And we're not going to ride a bus to Venice and then a boat, we're just using a good old plane, so the trip will only take 3 hours rather than 3 days !

And now, my sister's back home and brought fourteen people with her ! ARGH ! it's 01:50 and it wasn't planned (parents away... silly sister !) and I just hope the neighbours won't call the cops because I don't reckon I would stand it, lol, as I hate them so much these days... Well it shouldn't happen (we have cool neighbours and so far she managed to keep the volume rather low, so it'll do !). Oh and in case I didn't specify it, it's her birthday today so I guess I'll just have to bear with it !

Stay connected !

Find your Celestial Choir

Being a rebel IV

2006-04-26T23:19:18Z

The Easter Holidays are over, and we had to head on the way back to our dear amphitheaters and classrooms.

Monday

The first day of the second part of the semester was somewhat chaotic, I must say. Not as much as the second one.
After a 3-hour Espistemology lecture on Monday, the General Assembly took place in Amphitheater Descartes, the one that had been the occupation HQ back in March. The General Assembly had to make a summary of the various actions that took place during the holidays, and decide on what to do next.

The strike was voted at a large majority.
Blockade and occupation were voted with a 5-10 votes difference.

I personally reckon that voting a blockade at that point was very stupid. I usually support it for various reasons that I already posted on here (it allows students to not have to miss their classes, and by getting the classes suspended nobody gets thrown out the exam lists... and other reasons as well). Zones A and B, i.e. 80% of the country (62 universities out of 84), are still on holidays. They were waiting to see what we would be doing, We have no support, as everybody believes that we've got what we wanted thanks to the tv reports. And we were still weak from the holidays. I'd've waited until just before Zone A's holidays would end, i.e. May 9th.

Anyway, as a result the Sorbonne was occupied on the evening by a few hundreds students. The police threw them out around 21 o'clock.

Tuesday

Blockade was prevented on Tuesday morning because they weren't enough against the Guardians. As I said, half the people thought that blocking wasn't a good idea anyway, hence the few support they had.

During the afternoon, Prime Minister de Villepin was due to come to launch his latest brilliant idea : a national debate about university and employment committee.
That committee doesn't take students into account, however, and the Coordination is not invited to debate.
The Sorbonne Committee feels that if the government really wanted to do something for us, they would have had us fill documents and polls and all sort of stuff to get our opinion on the first place !

Needless to say that the Sorbonne students were totally unhappy with this. So they gathered on Place de la Sorbonne.

Here is the map :

Villepin was due to enter the Sorbonne by the private quarters, that's on Rue Saint-Jacques. It's on the far North of the building, on the right on the map. We were gathered on Place de la Sorbonne, on the left side.

Suddenly, around 1 hour before the PM was due to arrive, two lines of riot cops blocked the street that goes in front of the Sorbonne : Rue de la Sorbonne to the North and Rue Victor Cousin to the South. They then started to push us backwards and so we escaped by Rue Champollion. That's the very tiny street going North, parallel to Rue de la Sorbonne and Boulevard Saint-Michel (it's between these two).

As a result, we ended up on Rue des Ecoles, just close to where Villepin was supposed to arrive.

Then again, there was a cops line accross the street we were on and they started to push us backwards towards Boulevard Saint-Michel. We guessed that they wanted to keep us out of focus for the tv cameras. His coming back into the peaceful, nice Sorbonne sort of scenario was being threatened, I guess.

Trouble is... we weren't being exactly violent. No car was hurt and no shop was either. We were merely standing there singing slogans. The cops were unnecessarily hot-blooded.

One of them in particular was some half a metre in front of his line trying to poke everyone with his shield. At one point, he pushed a (rather) tiny girl who didn't want it unnoticed, so she started shouting at him. He moved to hit her in the face with his stick, but I managed to get between these two, turning myself so the strike hit my backbag. To give you an idea, I had one of those plastic water bottles in there, it was completely smashed (luckily, it was empty).

The riot cop wasn't pleased and I didn't give him a chance to do whatever else and I fled towards the boulevard.

Then we were pushed on the boulevard, which they blocked themselves. Inhabitants of the neighbourhood were driven mad. Cops were blocking all the streets out. At the moment, I was on the boulevard, just North of the crossroads, outside of the crossroads where they had most of us encircled. They were just making the place more tight, and at one point, a first air car arrived then went away with someone inside.

We who were still out of the circle suddenly got pushed in there. I ended up going by the cop that was unhappy at me, just as I was finishing a phone call. Bad idea. The cop took his chance and aimed at my hand.

My poor cellphone probably prevented it from breaking, but it broke itself and fell, and ended up behind the cops line, who wouldn't let me take it back and they just pushed us further. When I managed to get out of there, it was gone.

So that's about it. A crap day.

Wednesday

That was a bit awkward. First of all, I woke up at around 14, while I had gone to bed quite early. So much for my Contemporary History class (hopefully not an important one).
So I headed to the Police Office to get my passport done. I at last managed to buy a fiscal stamp (I first couldn't find any around here, then when I found them near my university they would only take cheques !)...
Lucky, I said. It was "exceptionally closed".

Bastards.

So now, I am left here with :

0 money,
my laptop that won't get loaded, HP wants 265 euros to fix it,
I need to buy a new phone, and in the meantime my line goes on. New phones are a hell expensive, I basically can't get a decent one for less than 179 euros at the very moment (when I think that for new lines you can have these for about 49 euros !),
I need a bit of money to buy the present I planned for my sister, which would make me spend around 110 euros in total,
Last but not least, I have to finance my travelling to the European Social Forum (see below)...

Nice, eh ?

Oh, and the Universities Chancellor made up a black list, so that now some students are forbidden to enter the Sorbonne. That's totally illegal, because 1) these students haven't been suspended by their universities, 2) all and every students with a student card has the right to enter the Sorbonne, 3) they won't give out the list, in spite of the law on personnal data (78-17 and 2004-801), and 4) it's not for them to decide on that anyway. All they can do is to sue these students, but I'd like to see what reason they'll use...

Also, I'm on the way to go to the European Social Forum in Athens, as a Sorbonne student representative with about 5 or 6 others ! We'd be leaving on the 1st of May and returning on the 9th. Travelling to Athens takes time...
The price is 150 euros, for transport, entrance and accomodation. Bargain, yeah, but you still need to find them ! A bit of it will be financed by the Strike Cash Point, but it's not very full.
The travel is bus and boat : Paris > Annecy > Mont Blanc > Courmayeur > Milano > Verona > Venice > Patra > Athens. A 2099 km trip... woah ! (when I think it takes 3 hours to fly there...)

I'd really love that, because I'm really keen on taking part in the ESF, esp. since the one that took place in Paris in 2003 ! Plus, I have never been in Italy really and I haven't been in Greece for nearly eleven years, so that'd be an occasion to visit my godfather and godmother as well !

Just need the money :(

Program for tomorrow : Getting at last my passport done !

That's about it for today, off to bed ! I hope you're all doing well !

Being a rebel III

2006-04-11T10:02:25Z

x-posted in france

The CPE has been withdrawn.

A defeated Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin announced the burial of his main measure to fight against youth unemployment.
It will be replaced by measures to help already existing contracts being used by employers, along with new fundings for youth in difficulty (no qualification, those who benefit of a CIVIS agreement, or those who live in a Sensible Urban Zone). Another proof that the CPE really wasn't needed.

We students of the Sorbonne (like, undoubtely, most other students) are satisfied, as it's a first step towards victory.
However, as I posted it on the 14th of March :

What do they want ? They want the latest Villepin law, and especially a bit of it called First Employment Contract (CPE), to be withdrawn.
The CPE is a contract for people under 26, that the employer can break at any moment without having to justify it during the first two years.

OK, so it's gone. But the rest of the law is still here.
Just to remind you what's in the law "for equality of chances" (LEC) :

- (formerly) the CPE ;
- Lowers the end of compulsory school attendance from 16 to 14 ;
- Allows for 15+ y.o. kids to work during nights ;
- Creates a rule so that parents whose children miss school get their social fundings suspended.

Knowing that wealthy or middle-class families hardly get any social funding (2,40 € / month for a single underage kid, 150 € / month for two kids) you see the unfairness of the idea, as mostly families in difficulty tend to have little control over their kids.

... Not to mention the other stuff we want to see gone, like the CNE or the CESEDA project, the law against immigration, or the Sarkozy II Law project, that says that children should be watched in case they tend to show signs that they will be delinquents later starting at the age of 2.

So what to do. The media focused on the CPE. So basically, now that the CPE doesn't exist anymore, everyone will expect us to deblock the universities so that the exams can take place, after classes have started again.
At the moment, it isn't in question here in Paris and Île-de-France (along with Bordeaux), as the Easter holidays started last Friday, until April 24th.

But we're not going to stop fighting against the LEC. We'll mostly keep events, seminars, general assemblies, etc... I think the only way to get rid of the rest of that law is the 2007 Presidential & Legislative election. So we're going to have to get the opposition parliamentary parties (Green party, Socialist party, Communist party, Social-Radical party) to notice and remember that.

We don't know what can happen next... But I'm telling you one thing - it's far from being over.

Being a rebel II

2006-04-04T17:53:21Z

Today was the 5th national strike day in the fight against the so-called "Law on Chances Equality".

That law creates the now-infamous CPE (First Employment Contract) that allows bosses to fire their employees without a reason during the first two years (among other nasty things).
Chirac announced Friday that he signed the law, but asked for it not to be applied before the UMP members of parliament (MPs) could pass a law proposal, that would cancel the allowance to fire their employees without a reason, and reduce the trial period from 2 to 1 year.

The government made its best to get the public opinion to believe that the students were only fighting on these 2 points, while it's not exactly true.

We want the complete removal of this law. As time went by, we added more revendications to the platform.

The Law on "Chances Equality" :
- Creates the CPE ;
- Lower the end of compulsory school attendance from 16 to 14 ;
- Allows for 15+ y.o. kids to work during nights ;
- Creates a rule so that parents whose children miss school get their social fundings suspended.

This last point is one of the less known ones, yet it's pretty bad, because parents just sometimes *can't* ensure that their kids really are in school all the time, and usually that sort of problems happens in those who are already in difficulty, and such a law just adds a bit more pain to that.

The demonstration today was pretty good. No violence was reported while I was on duty, i.e. until the first line arrived at Place d'Italie.
As far as I know, no violence was spotted for now.

The police claim for 1,1 million protesters overall (1,0 million last week)
Unions claim for 3,1 million protesters overall (2,7 million last week).
Several cities hit their protestation record again today, after having hit it last week as well.

For your entertainment, a few pictures I took with my phone's digicam (only a 0,3 MP, sorry about the quality !)
I was as usual with the Sorbonne Security and Mediation Squad (S.O.), this time in the mobile team at the head-left of the group.

Paris - Boulevard des Filles du Calvaire (11e)

The three banners read, from left to right :
- "Sorbonne en lutte" = Sorbonne into the fight
- "Sorbonne contre la loi égalité des chances" = Sorbonne against the "Law for Chances Equality" (the yellow one)
- "Clignancourt Paris IV en Grève" = Clignancourt Paris IV on strike (Clignancourt is one of the centres of the University of Paris 4 Sorbonne).

Actually our group was pretty big today, we had :
- The Sorbonne (Universities of Paris 1 and Paris 4)
- Tolbiac (University of Paris 1)
- Michelet (Universities of Paris 1 and 4)
- Javelot (University of Paris 4)
- Clignancourt (University of Paris 4)
- Saint-Hippolyte (University of Paris 1)
- Geography Institute (Universities of Paris 1 and 7)
- all the Quartier Latin high schools
- One high school group from the suburbs from Aubervilliers (Seine-St-Denis).

This is my arm. It's a special Jake picture, because he wanted to see how we from the different teams are identified. This reads "SORB.", abbreviation for "Sorbonne".
It's a bit clumsy, because all our usual stuff is still locked in the union's room in the Sorbonne, still closed.

Paris - Place de la Bastille

Sorry for the dark picture, I think there were some clouds at that moment.
I'd like to call the picture "The Bastille Is Taken", but it's already been done back in 1789 and 1830.
Students have climbed the July Column, that celebrates the 3 Days Revolution on July 26, 27 and 28th, 1830.

Paris - Place de la Bastille

Revolution again...

Paris - Place de la Bastille

... and again...

Paris - Place de la Bastille

... and even the Opera is on strike. The banner reads "Opéra Bastille on strike. Withdraw the CPE !"
(needless to say that this banner was most popular and that the crowd cheered a lot while going below it !)

Stay tuned for more news ! and don't believe all what the media say !

Being a quizz freak

2006-03-25T02:04:37Z

Hello folks,

Well, I'm still on the watch for the strike and action against the now worldwise infamous CPE. American friends, don't worry, the city is STILL not at war (our press reviews show that the american media mostly concentrate on the violence that is occasionally happening... Well, it's just not that. Remember what I said about the riots back in November ?)

Don't try to explain or understand a european problem using an american pattern. Thanks.

The Prime Minister still won't understand what the problem is, and all he tries to do is to divide the unions union. With very little success so far. My belief is that they will try to let the situation become worse and worse until everyone's fed up with it.
As for student like me, half our year's been sacrified, so we aren't going to stop now without having gained anything, it would be such a waste of time and energy !

So here I have been, helping organizing the demonstrations and various debates, which is hard because our university, the Sorbonne, is still closed, meaning that we still can't inform the other Sorbonne students or organize debates, etc. We don't have any access to our union rooms either, where we have a lot of useful objects such as faxes, photocopying machines, banners, flags and other Order Service markers. Instead we have to nick boxes from supermarkets around to use them !

Personnally, I haven't been concentrating on anything else, except for one afternoon during which i've been working on the ADAG website, one of the two I'm still supposed to work on. In the meantime I hope the exams won't suffer too much from it. I mean I'm ready to hold my responsibilities in that domain, but what bothers me is that we don't have a choice anyway. I mean I know that if I had had the choice, I still would have done what I'm doing, but with the university being closed there wasn't a choice to be made, so there isn't such a responsibility to take ! Let's just hope they're not postponed until Session 2, because it would mean 1 chance only instead of 2, and it would disqualify us all for every single foreigner exchange (university years in other countries usually start at the beginning of September, so the universities want confirmation of degree gain by the end of July).

So that's about it, I haven't gotten arrested and managed to stay out of trouble, esp. with the violences. The Sorbonne committee always dismiss the demonstration group earlier than expected if we get bad news from the arrival point and we give instructions to our students not to go to the Sorbonne either, well still they're free to do so if they wish, but we try to keep those who don't out of trouble. That includes me. (I don't fancy being arrested and molested then kept for hours at the police station, thanks. I'm way more useful out of there anyway.)
On the other hand, I *did* appear on TV on Thursday evening on France 3, during the national news :)

Not much to do until Monday now, I mean there are tract diffusions but I'm tired from the nine demonstrations I've been taking part of during the last two weeks, so I'll skip that. Waking up on mornings is more and more difficult, but otherwise the body resists well. Long demonstration don't even make my legs hurt anymore, so I guess it's good (my back still hurts though).

Well there you go. Enough of babbling I guess, time for the last tests that remain in my "LJ Stuff to post" file !

Your Mood Ring is Dark Green

Friendly
Outgoing
Cheerful

Mood Ring Generator

Cool, I like emerald green ! The charasteristics look good too :)
However, I seem to have a personality disorder :

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid Disorder:	Moderate
Schizoid Disorder:	High
Schizotypal Disorder:	Moderate
Antisocial Disorder:	Low
Borderline Disorder:	Low
Histrionic Disorder:	High
Narcissistic Disorder:	Low
Avoidant Disorder:	High
Dependent Disorder:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:	Moderate
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- -- Personality Disorders --

Brrr... Let's check in my personnality more : (taken from farfromcorsica)
Occasionnal remarks in italics. Also I stroke a few words out, please unstrike them if you're going to take that quizz.

Appearance:

[ ] I am shorter than 5'4.
[x] I think I'm ugly sometimes.
[x] I have many scars. (mostly cat scratches scars !)
[x] I tan easily.
[x] I wish my hair was a different color.
[ ] I have friends who have never seen my natural hair color.
[ ] I have a tattoo.
[ ] I am self-conscious about my appearance.
[x] ~~I have/~~I've had braces.
[ ] I wear glasses.
[ ] I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free.
[ ] I've been told I'm attractive by a complete stranger.
[ ] I have more than 2 piercings.
[ ] I have piercings in places besides my ears.
[ ] I have freckles.

Family/Home Life:

[x] I've sworn at my parents.
[ ] I've run away from home.
[ ] I've been kicked out of the house.
[x] My biological parents are together.
[ ] I have a sibling less than one year old.
[~] I want to have kids someday.
[ ] I've had children.
[ ] I've lost a child.

School/Work:

[x] I'm in ~~school~~ university.
[ ] I have a job.
[x] I've fallen asleep at work/school.
[ ] I almost always do my homework.
[x] I've missed a week or more of school.
[ ] I've been on the Honor Roll within the last 2 years. (irrelevant !)
[ ] I failed more than 1 class last year. (irrelevant !)
[ ] I've stolen something from my job
[ ] I've been fired.

Embarrassment:

[x] I've slipped out a "lol" in a spoken conversation.
[x] Disney movies still make me cry. (Please note that it doesn't take much to get me cry over a movie :p)
[ ] I've peed from laughing.
[x] I've snorted while laughing.
[x] I've laughed so hard I've cried.
[ ] I've glued my hand to something
[ ] I've laughed till some kind of beverage came out of my nose.
[ ] I've had my pants rip in public

Health:

[x] I was born with a disease~~/impairment~~.
[ ] I've gotten stitches/staples.
[x] I've broken a bone.
[ ] I've had my tonsils removed.
[ ] I've sat in a doctors office/emergency room with a friend.
[ ] I've had my wisdom teeth removed.
[ ] I had a serious surgery.
[ ] I've had chicken pox.

Travelling:

[x] I've driven over 200 miles in one day.
[x] I've been on a plane.
[ ] I've been to Canada.
[ ] I've been to Mexico.
[ ] I've been to Niagara Falls.
[ ] I've been to Japan.
[ ] I've Celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
[x] I've been to Europe.
[ ] I've been to Africa.

(What is it that the U.S. aren't mentionned in that list ?)

Experiences:

[ ] I've gotten lost in my city.
[x] I've seen a shooting star.
[x] I've wished on a shooting star.
[ ] I've seen a meteor shower.
[ ] I've gone out in public in my pajamas.
[x] I've pushed all the buttons on an elevator.
[ ] I've kicked a guy where it hurts.
[ ] I've been to a casino.
[ ] I've been skydiving.
[ ] I've gone skinny dipping.
[ ] I've played spin the bottle.
[ ] I've drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour.
[ ] I've crashed a car.
[ ] I've been (water) skiing.
[x] I've been in a play.
[ ] I've met someone in person from myspace.
[x] I've caught a snowflake on my tongue.
[ ] I've seen the Northern Lights.
[x] I've sat on a roof top at night.
[ ] I've played chicken.
[ ] I've played a prank on someone.
[x] I've ridden in a taxi.
[ ] I've seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[ ] I've eaten sushi.
[x] I've been snowboarding.

Relationships:

[x] I'm single.
[ ] I'm in a relationship.
[ ] I'm engaged.
[ ] I'm married.
[ ] I've gone on a blind date.
[ ] I've been the dumpee more than the dumper.
[ ] I miss someone right now.
[ ] I have a fear of abandonment.
[ ] I've gotten divorced.
[ ] I've had feelings for someone who didn't have them back.
[ ] I've told someone I loved them when I didn't.
[ ] I've told someone I didn't love them when I did.
[x] I've kept something from a past relationship.

Sexuality:

[ ] I've had a crush on someone of the same sex.
[ ] I've had a crush on a teacher.
[ ] I am a cuddler.
[ ] I've been kissed in the rain.
[ ] I've hugged a stranger.
[ ] I have kissed a stranger

Honesty/Crime:

[x] I've done something I promised someone else I wouldn't
[x] I've done something I promised myself I wouldn't.
[ ] I've snuck out of my house.
[ ] I have lied to my parents about where I am.
[x] I am keeping a secret from the world.
[ ] I've cheated while playing a game.
[ ] I've cheated on a test.
[ ] I've run a red light.
[ ] I've been suspended from school.
[ ] I've witnessed a crime.
[ ] I've been in a fist fight.
[ ] I've been arrested.

Drugs/Alcohol:

[ ] I've consumed alcohol. (For those who'd question this, I'm forbidden alcohol.)
[ ] I regularly drink.
[ ] I've passed out from drinking.
[ ] I have passed out drunk at least once in the past 6 months.
[ ] I've smoked weed.
[ ] I've taken painkillers when I didn't need them.
[ ] I've eaten shrooms.
[ ] I've popped E.
[ ] I've inhaled Nitrous.
[ ] I've done hard drugs.
[ ] I have cough drops when I'm not sick.
[x] I can't swallow pills.
[ ] I can swallow about 5 pills at a time no problem
[ ] I have been diagnosed with clinical depression.
[ ] I shut others out when I'm depressed.
[ ] I take anti-depressants.
[ ] I'm anorexic or bulimic.
[x] I've slept an entire day when I didn't need it.
[ ] I've hurt myself on purpose.
[ ] I'm addicted to self harm.
[ ] I've woken up crying.

Death and Suicide:

[ ] I'm afraid of dying.
[ ] I hate funerals.
[ ] I've seen someone dying.
[x] Someone close to me has attempted suicide.
[ ] Someone close to me has committed suicide.
[ ] I've planned my own suicide.
[ ] I've attempted suicide.
[ ] I've written a eulogy for myself.

Materialism:

[ ] I own over 5 rap CDs.
[ ] I own an iPod or MP3 player.
[ ] I have an unhealthy obsession with anime/manga.
[ ] I own multiple designer purses, costing over $100 a piece.
[ ] I own something from Hot Topic.
[ ] I own something from Pac Sun.
[ ] I collect comic books.
[ ] I own something from The Gap.
[ ] I own something I got on e-bay.
[ ] I own something from Abercrombie.

Random:

[ ] I can sing well.
[ ] I've stolen a tray from a fast food restaurant.
[ ] I open up to others easily.
[x] I watch the news.
[x] I don't kill bugs.
[x] I hate hearing songs that sacrifice meaning for the sake of being able to rhyme.
[ ] I curse regularly.
[ ] I sing in the shower.
[ ] I am a morning person.
[ ] I paid for my cell phone ring tone.
[x] I'm a snob about grammar.
[ ] I am a sports fanatic.
[ ] I twirl my hair.
[ ] I have "x"s in my screen name.
[ ] I love being neat.
[ ] I love Spam.
[ ] I've copied more than 30 CD's in a day.
[x] I bake well.
[ ] My favorite color is either white, yellow, pink, red or blue
[ ] I've worn pajamas to school.
[ ] I like Martha Stewart.
[ ] I know how to shoot a gun.
[x] I am in love with love.
[ ] I am guilty of tYpInG lIkE tHiS.
[x] I laugh at my own jokes.
[x] I eat fast food weekly.
[ ] I believe in ghosts.
[x] I am online 24/7, even as an away message.
[x] I've not turned anything in and still got an A in a certain class.
[ ] I can't sleep if there is a spider in the room.
[ ] I am really ticklish.
[x] I love white chocolate
[x] I bite my nails.
[ ] I play video games.
[ ] I'm good at remembering faces.
[x] I'm good at remembering names
[x] I'm good at remembering dates.
[x] I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.

[x] all of those are answered honestly.

Yeah... So I have a boring life, all in all.

Ah, and just for the fun, I only cut/paste this and lost the reference test, but for your entertainment :

Genius. Do-Gooder. Complicated. Profound. Disenchanted. Despondent. Always trying to do what you are supposed to. But, it always goes wrong. A world of Knowledge at your fingertips, but you still seem to make the wrong choices when it really counts. Life has beaten you down. You keep trying, but it just gets worse. Betrayal comes into your life again and again. Sometimes you betray others to try to do what's right. Most of the time it is you being betrayed. It's brusied your heart, thickened your skin, and damaaged your mind. But, through it all you persevere.

Constructive reaction :

(¬) 02:24:39 - <Draxinar> dont tell me thats a horoscope
(¬) 02:24:47 - <Saturne-II> nah
(¬) 02:25:28 - <Draxinar> its something like that isnt it.
(¬) 02:26:12 - <albareth> probably a quiz
(¬) 02:26:15 - <albareth> one of the journal quizzes

Well done Frikki you smartass :p
(albareth is terathan and Saturne-II is myself.)

Well this is it I think ! Stay connected for more boring trivia about my rebel life !

Being a rebel

2006-03-14T16:37:58Z

x-posted in france

You probably wonder why I haven't been around much much lately. Well the truth is that I've been real busy with university stuff.
As some of you may know already, the French universities (51 out of 84 according to our statistics, 11 according to the ministry for education) are currently on strike.

What do they want ? They want the latest Villepin law, and especially a bit of it called First Employment Contract (CPE), to be withdrawn.
The CPE is a contract for people under 26, that the employer can break at any moment without having to justify it during the first two years.

Basically, not only do we feel insulted, but it will be totally useless anyway, because having such an awesome possibility, the employers will use it instead of the CDI (the current unlimited-in-time standard contract accompanied with tons of social guarantees), meaning that those who'd have had a CDI will have the CPE, and those Villepin says he aims at - the unqualified, mainly - will just have nothing as well.
Also we think it's a major break into the Workers Rights Code, because the employer will basically have full control on the young employee.
Furthermore, having three years worth of tax suspension for each signed CPE, we believe that the employers won't hesitate to fire their employees after nearly two years to hire a new one.
Last but not least, it would create a difference between people under 26 and over 26, and we can't have that (it's unconstitutionnal anyway).

The CNE, introduced back in July and which is basically the same but for over 26 years old people and only in small companies (less than 20 employees) already proves being a complete disaster with people fired for having asked their extra hours to be paid, or women being pregnant.

Back on track, now that you know the context, the French students declared strikes.

As of yesterday and today, 60 000 students were gathering in General Assemblies throughout the country. Amphitheaters aren't big enough anymore for these. Blocuses are being reconducted by huge majorities of students even in secret polls. Teachers are joining in, administratives are too ; university presidents more or less support them (even though they're not supposed to have an opinion).

Two fridays ago, the Recteur of Paris, M. Quénet, decided to close the Sorbonne after the students decided to have a General Assembly - some centres were being blocked already. The Recteur freaked out and closed everything, probably because last time the Sorbonne was blocked, May 1968 happened -- provocking the anger of the students who then estimated that they couldn't hold democratic meetings and inform other students, and couldn't even vote a strike. He then made a deal with the Sorbonne UP1-UP4 Student Co-ordination, which was being hold by the students. The deal was that the students could occupy the Sorbonne at night - which they successfully did during two nights without a problem - and in exchange, the Recteur would open the Sorbonne and let the students hold AGs and inform the others, without blocking the centre.

So the Recteur broke the deal, which the Students didn't like at all. Riot police ("CRS") were called by the Rectorat to prevent the Students from assaulting the building (see pics below). They weren't successful as on Friday, 10 March, they managed to break through.
400 students were occupying the Sorbonne and nearly 2000 were still outside.
However, at 3:45 in the morning, the cops charged outside and assaulted the Sorbonne themselves. The occupants were kicked out in ten minutes after being gased and beaten.

The following afternoon, Gilles de Robien - Education Minister - and M. Quénet - Recteur of Paris - visited the Sorbonne with journalists to prove them that the Students had shattered the place and burnt books of inestimable value. Which was of course absolutely false, as all that burnt on that night were free newspapers (like Metro) and UNI (right-far-right student union) tracts.. Also the book that Robien was showing is a very common book that every single human science student has somewhere. He then said that most of the students just wanted to go back to their classes and that we were basically a small groups of vandals.

This was, as I said above, proved false by the votes on monday.

In the meantime, the strike goes on. The Students of the Sorbonne don't have a university to organize themselves, no photocopy room, no computers, no place to meet. However, on Monday we could hold a General Assembly after the students from Paris 5 lent us one of their amphitheaters. Organization is going well.

High schools are now holding AGs on their own, and a few blocuses already started after Villepin said on TV that he would never pull back.

Three more national action days have been called for : Thursday 16, Saturday 18 and Thursday 23.

And now, a few pictures. Sources are various, they were taken by different people during the events.

Students building barricades around the Sorbonne. Memories from the events in May 1968...

Barricade on rue Cujas, along the Southern wing of the Sorbonne.

The Riot Cops (CRS) are starting to arrive from the West to secure the building.

Cops securing Rue Saint-Jacques. They were fearing the students would block the boulevard Saint-Germain just behind them, which is one of the main West-East line.

That picture was taken a bit later, but thats how many cops they needed to hold us.

Students being charged by the CRS at the St-Jacques - Cujas angle.

The Sorbonne is taken ! The occupants are holding a General Assembly to organize the occupation.

Barricades inside the Sorbonne.

From the inside. The students that were still outside have gathered on Place de la Sorbonne. They try to assault the building from the main wing (the Western wing) but they fail. The CRS are blocking the way in both Rue de la Sorbonne (foreground) and Rue Victor Cousin (background).

Inside the Honnor Square inside of the Sorbonne, in front of the ancient church. Ready to go block the main door !

Meanwhile, the students that were outside were still holding one barricade on Boulevard St-Michel, securing the Place the la Sorbonne. Note the BFMTV satellite truck in the background.

War for the Sorbonne.

« Do not feed the CRS. Thank you. »

At 3:30 in the morning, the CRS charge the students that were still outside, taking control of the Southern part of Boulevard St-Michel.

At 3:45, the CRS assault the Sorbonne. Here is a view from rue Saint-Jacques, i.e. the back of the building, which lets you imagine the quantity of gas they used in there.

Map of the events.

I'm sorry I don't have clear pics of the evacuation, because everything moved fast and it was all dark... But these give you an idea of the spirit I guess.

Here goes, and don't worry for me - I'm safe ! just don't trust the media too much...

Being a quizz whore

2006-02-14T23:09:52Z

To change a bit, guess what... I don't have much to say... again !

Life goes on and is pretty boring, that's all about classes/lectures/seminars and work and that's about it.
This 14th of February was slightly unremarkable, fortunately.

We handed in the Canada application forms yesterday. They were hard to complete, but here I am. Applied for the UQAM, the University of Montréal and the University Laval. The UQAM seems the most accurate to my course, but I would be delighted to go to Université Laval as it's located in Québec, which I would really love to live in.

Results at the end of May. I'm not confident at all about getting taken, mainly because the Politics department selects their candidates prior to submitting the applications to the canadian universities, and that makes it be like 1 person / university. Plus the fact that I couldn't get a personnal recommendation... (which means, a recommendation from a teacher who knows the student. Lecturers don't qualify for that. And in the double path I'm in, we have no political science class - only lectures. Too bad.). And last but not least, I'm far from having an excellent report.

But you know... No trying, no gaining.

Apart from that, as I was saying, life just goes on. That, and the fact that my british politics lecture, which is given in English, starts at 8:00 on tuesdays and I'm so still asleep then that I completely mix languages and am totally unable to say what language I'm hearing/writing. Hehe... call me wicked !

Here are a few tests, I did them on an evening that I was bored, saved them, forgot the context, so I'm just putting them here for your entertainment.

First, one that has a very accurate result (no kidding) : stolen from onespiceybbw

Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real"

You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love.
You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart.
Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!)
Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic
What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays
Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

(so people ye be warned.)

Your Birth Month is November

Tolerant and inspirational, you are wise beyond your years.
You are universally sympathetic and a great humanitarian.
Your soul reflects: Compassion, friendship, and secret love
Your gemstone: Citrine
Your flower: Chrysanthemum
Your colors: Dark blue, red, and yellow

What Does Your Birth Month Mean?

I like that image of me it tries to build. I really do. For once that I like something about me, lol !
OK, those two were done tonight, let's see the oldies now :

<td align="center">Scorpio

You are very dominant in bed, and you like to control your relationship in general.

You are so intense in the sack that none of your partners will ever forget you. You are an amazing lover, because you like to have an equal amount of give and take.

Sex matches: Cancer, Capricorn, Pisces

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com
</td>

<td align="center">You are a happy drunk

When you are drunk, nothing gets you down. You are friendly with everyone, and probably get free drinks all the time because you are so nice to everyone.

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com</td>

(Bring on the beer, pals !)

<td align="center">You are 5% Gold Digger

You are not a gold digger. Love means a lot to you and you would never compromise your chance of true love by trying to seduce someone wealthy.

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com</td>

(But, maybe for a few millions...)

<td align="center">You are 61% easy

You are easy. You like sex… a lot. You do have some reservations about who you do it with though. Only the hottest of the hot.

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com</td>

(note : that one isn't too false either !)

<td align="center">You should make love during an earthquake

The gyrations will only add to your already stellar performance. Plus it saves you the money you would spend on those magic fingers in the motel.

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com</td>

(ha ha ha, I'll definitely have to try that !)

<td align="center">Hairiness is your number one turn off

Your sex partners can’t have any unsightly hair other wise it is such a turn off. Try introducing your sweetie to the local waxer.

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com</td>

(in French, there is a phrase meaning to be lazy which is about having a hair in the hand.)

Horny, assured, easy

You like sex. A lot. You are not much to experiment though - it is interesting for you because you like to do it with a variety of people.

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com

<td align="center">Clem's sexual nickname:

" Mad Magic Wand"

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com</td>

(I had to really be very bored to take those two tests on the first place.)

Take the quiz:
Are you an independent thinker?

A Free Thinking Rebel
Congratulations. You are a free thinker and a rebel. You blaze the hardest trails. Not only do you dare to think your own thoughts in the face of pressure, but you will stand up for them and fight the crowd.

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

(I definitely wasn't taught to be dominated. Test stolen from faeangelique.)

Take the quiz:
Which prop from American Pie are you?

The Sex Bible
You are the secret sex bible. You are an open minded inquisitiveness and years of collected wisdom.

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

(There is no stupid knowledge, is it ?)

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Sa4turn3!

Sa4turn3 was first grown in America by the grandmother Maria Ann Smith, from whom his name comes.

There are roughly 10,000 man-made objects the size of sa4turn3 orbiting the Earth.

Sa4turn3 cannot swim.

Sa4turn3 can clean his ears with his tongue, which is over thirty-nine inches long!

The liquid inside sa4turn3 can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.

The international dialling code for sa4turn3 is 672.

A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but sa4turn3 can not!

The most dangerous form of sa4turn3 is the bicycle!

US gold coins used to say 'In sa4turn3 we trust'.

The difference between sa4turn3 and a village is that sa4turn3 does not have a church!

(Ha ha, but I do have a Church, it's call the Clémentians ! Worship to your gods, servants of me ! I shall rule over the world !)

Your results:
You are Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard		70%
Deanna Troi		70%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		65%
Data		53%
Geordi LaForge		50%
Uhura		45%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		45%
Worf		40%
Chekov		40%
Will Riker		35%
Beverly Crusher		35%
Mr. Scott		35%
Mr. Sulu		30%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		30%
Spock		29%

A lover of Shakespeare and other
fine literature. You have a decisive mind
and a firm hand in dealing with others.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

(I actually have no idea who Jean-Luc Picard is, but I know that this is the guy from x-men who reads and controls the minds, and I wouldn't mind that !)

Until next time, farewell folks !