Impressionable nerves

While I wasn't sitting and typing when I should have, I read several books the past month. and believe it or not, it's always been one of my favorite hobbies and yet I don't spend time reading books now that I'm in university, because once I start one, I don't want to put it down until I can't keep my eyes open anymore.... You can see how that is incompatible with school work : the addiction's too strong... I simply can't think about something else in my spare time but to go on reading.

So, I've read my first piece of "chick-litt" last month (yeah, I learnt a new term!^^), the first book of the "Shopaholic" series - which promised to be extremely funny or annoying considering the theme - and during the first quarter of it, the novel made me laugh quite a lot, but as the heroine beat her record of craziness and the tension (yes, the tension!) grew higher and higher, I found myself very much tensed up : she was really in deep shit like we say, and I felt too stressed out on her behalf.

The first book : "Confessions of a Shopaholic"

Not that I identify myself to her to this point, like we could think it upon seeing my reaction, but seeing the heroine putting herself in so much trouble and still trying to turn blind eyes on the matter one second, and panic over it the next one, I grew unnerved.. very much unnerved, and I ended up not being able to fall asleep : I really am too shakeable -__-;

Thinking back, I even sometimes can't sleep because a friend confided her troubles to me, and thinking about them, and worrying over her, sleep is driven away for at least a night while the said friend was, it happened a couple a times, not at all troubled anymore about the matter the very next day and forgot about it as fast as she was long in complaining about it. Making me feel that I'm a stupid girl for worrying over her....for nothing? *sigh*

Yeepie! it's a new car! ^-^

Finally, we got to buy our new car... by new, I don't mean a real "new" car, it's a second-hand one, but the condition is mint and the kilometers very low....

Anyway, it's a cute little "Smart" ^___^ these little urban cars that are quite popular in the big cities of Europe ;p A real publicity spot for it had been included in the Da Vinci Code movie (it was stated nowhere in the book that it was a Smart, but..)

I didn't get to drive it yet..... The insurance has been set on my b/f as first driver, and a paper is still missing for adding me as a second, occasional driver.... paper which my parents' insurance company said didn't exist.... we're not going anywhere on this, it's quite frustrating :)

We plan on going around with it once Summer will be there, for e.g, we'd like to go visiting the Castles around the Loire ^___^

Doesn't it look just like a little orque? (^__~)

Heheh! Donc oui, on s'est acheté une petite "smart for two" d'occaz, une plutôt bonne occasion pour remplacer notre vieille caisse qui nous a lâchés l'an dernier! Les beaux jours vont arriver, et les balades dans la région aussi! En été, on a l'ambition de faire les Châteaux de la Loire! hihihi!

En fait, des proches critiquent cet achat car on conduit peu et sort peu... on va au boulot/école en RER-métro, donc on se sert de la voiture le week-end surtout, principalement pour les courses et un petit tour dans la région (77), ou quand on nous demande de rendre visite à quelqu'un qui habite en Île de France, mais à 1h45 de transport de chez nous contre 40min-1h en voiture....

Déjà, c'est dans leur intérêt aussi, qu'on ait une voiture, car quand c'est chiant d'aller leur rendre visite, on a encore moins envie de le faire..... ;) forcément.

Ensuite, c'est parce qu'on sort peu qu'on doit se couper toute possibilité de le faire! >___<; Photos from our visit of the Vaux-le-Vicomte Castle, last summer. It was a night time visit, I loved it! An example of what we could visit now that we got our new car! this castle may well be in the same region as ours, it doesn't mean that it's easy to go there without a car ;)

Visiting a castle at night is a terribly beautiful experience, the place holds a mysterious aura then, with all the dark spots, the shadows of our silhouettes dancing at our feet on the walls, the candle lights teasing, urging us to fall under their spells. Night and its darkness conferred an eerie feeling to it, much to my pleasure! The lights and colors were just beautiful...


Other shots :

....

I remember when my teacher....

My first rant-remark of the blog ^__^; you don't have to read all this, I just needed to say it ;p
If you really want to though, or if you're damn bored, just click on the "read more" under ;)
[edit] okay, I wanted to use the "hide/show" or "read more" features, but the tutorial on these seems to be out of date.... -____-


Coincidentally, my most interesting teachers were also the strictest ones, and by strict, and I mean STRICT as in unforgiving and sharp-tongued ;) But, I often thought they were quite fair in their remarks.... it's just that those were the bluntest I've had the occasion to hear in my life, even after being out of school.

When we're still in high school, we tend to think : "The teacher is so harsh! Of course, the student was at fault for asking a question whose answer had been given 2 minutes before, but still, she didn't have to be *aggressive* sarcastic about it....." Well, like always, putting oneself into her shoes isn't the same as experimenting what she is now.

I'll get more clear on this :

The forums I join in are often the English-speaking ones, for many reasons, i'm not interested in joining in French-spoken manga discussions. Being often *the* French girl out here, I get asked some questions about my wonderful language by some of those courageous teens learning it, and I'm truly happy to be of help, really! After all, I've always wanted to become a language teacher.

Now, that doesn't mean that I have to be even more patient than the teachers they have at school, who are PAID for the time and efforts they spend on them, and all this is work that fits in their daily lives, not included in their hobby time, like for me. I have my own studies going on, and as a university Language and Civilization student, there are a couple of things that just don't seem forgivable anymore....

So, when I get asked repetitively to give the translation of a single, common word, not even a phrase, an expression or a colloquial smthg, I start to get pissed at repeating : "you know, there is this WONDERFUL online, free French-English dictionary that * I * use daily when I'm only talking to you guys and not sure of a term..... ". Without even speaking of politeness or efforts, wouldn't it be way faster to type this word in this online dico, press enter and get the answer at once rather than typing it in the forum, pressing enter, then waiting for me to get my ass there and decide I'm bored enough to actually give the answers?

Other thing I hate in this line : they give me their essay, I explain where there are faults that require actual explaining and explain them,then I'm diplomatic enough to point out where "stupid faults" (orthography, typos or missing plurals) are but leave them correct them themselves (yeah I'm not that dumb yet) and tells them they can re-write it with my explanations... and then she re-posts one so that I can check it again, and yes, with changes.... but still the exact same mistakes I corrected or pointed out before........ Now how do we say in English : "tu te fous de moi ou quoi?"... that'd be the colloquial and rude way to say "are you messing with me?" :) I think you get the idea....

Now, maybe you never tried such a thing, but by "pointing out" stupid faults, I mean underlining her every single faults using codes.... and even if it's still way faster than actually trying to explain that in French just like in English, plural nouns take an "s" and verbs must be conjugated according to gender and number...it still takes consequent time ^____^; Now, I wouldn't complain if the girl was obviously a real beginner, but what beginner could write a page worth essay? Correcting this via a forum, using colors and codes to make it easily understandable, I spent 1h30 doing it.... all that to see the person hasn't even taken the time to copy-paste my corrections in her new version? I'm not even mentioning not putting the plurals where they still belong!..... --_____--

I'd like to help people, but serious people, not those nice ones who, maybe they don't realize it but, actually abuse my kindness and ask for a beating! Why is it that each time I try to volunteer and help someone, I always get an "unworthy of my efforts and investment" person? >_<>

Now I need someone to give me an English expression corresponding to : "prendre quelqu'un pour une poire" or "être bonne poire" or "être pris pour la queue de la poire"......

I miss my godly English teachers, might they win the lottery or smthg for bearing with a bunch of this throughout their career