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 !

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 !

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.

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.

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.

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.


( A hidden bunch of tests ! )

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.

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 !!!

;)

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...

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 ! :)

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 )
( The Peter Story )

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 !

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 !

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.

( it goes on... )

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 ? :(

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 !

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 !

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 where I can go )
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 !

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.

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 !

( A bit of testing to cheer you up ! )

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.
( You may need the map to follow the events )

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 !