BUI

OK, frank admission: I was pretty tanked when I wrote that last entry. The conventional wisdom on the intertron is that its a bad idea to blog while hammered, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm more interesting when I blog after a few. Anyway, what I wrote basically stands, although I do have to add a caveat. That being, in between repeating my "how I came to France story", I did in fact have some of the most interesting chats I can ever recall having, so its not all repetitive grind.

and another thing

Party tonight. I have to say, the fact that I'm a native english speaker that makes a decent fist of speaking french but am still recognisably not french and the inevitable subsequent revelation that I'm Australian, followed relentlessly by the frankly uninteresting story of how I came to be doing a thesis in France, this is dull. It ceased to be interesting to me as a topic of conversation fairly soon after I managed to master recounting it in french, albeit that this took a number of fairly painful iterations. The variations, including explaining that Brisbane is north of Sydney and that Australia is really quite big, that Australian football isn't like rugby and that as a population we don't much care about soccer, and even the minor ones like that Australian chicks aren't generally as pretty as french chicks, these also no longer hold much appeal. It's all very repetitive, and for someone with a limited vocabulary (as is inevitable for any non-native speaker, I suspect), literally so. I swear I could draw a pretty accurate workflow for the first conversation I have with a french person, and not have it violated more than 2% of the time.

For goodness sakes, won't someone ask me about how the Lions are going to cope with their aging midfield, or how Michael Clarke has to be given another chance, or how John Howard has moved Australian politics to the right? I'd settle for their french equivalents, but if someone asks me again, in french, how I came to be doing a thesis in france, its entirely possible I'll take up the nearest piece of blunt cutlery and stab them in the throat.

wherefore art thy baked goods?

My friends Jacques & Sophie have been baking for a while now, and the bun, name of Juliette going back a long time now, came out the other day. From limited reports, all is well and healthy for all concerned.

Mmmm, baking, eh. Perhaps I'll make me some Anzac bikkies...

Update: The anzacs didn't turn out so well - the mix was too sloppy, so they flattened out too much.

the weekend of the underdeveloped military base

Fairly crappy weekend.

I called a few people, and that was good. Mum & Dad on Saturday on their new speakerphone. Paul, recently relieved of a few teeth, in a conversation which morphed into a skype call while we both played games. Lee on Sunday while we both ate: her dinner and my breakfast.

In the interim and surrounding periods, I basically played Civ. Civ, unfortunately for my weekend, is somewhat of an occupying experience for me, during which I, for example, glance twice consecutively at a clock and see that 6 hours have passed and that I've forgotten to eat. To further examine this phenomenon, I plan to try a network game with Jesse next weekend.

where did you get that pile?

That's my GG, that is. Under the hat, if you can take your focus off it.

the skids

I just went for a walk to the shops. On the way to, there were a couple of cars with their emergency lights (a loose term in France, but that's a conversation for another day) on, and some poor schmuck lying in the middle of the road next to what was once his motorcycle. The police rolled up just as I passed. On the way back, schmuck had departed stage left, presumably in some ambulance-type device, but the wreckage was still there, with 3 divvy vans buzzing around excitedly taking reports and such like. I'll have to check the paper tomorrow.

rarest of things

I had a good day yesterday. I booked my flight home for my holiday in April. I had a good and productive talk with Franck and Jean-Marc about what I'm doing with implementing my ideas. And I went out for a couple of pints at the Webb with Liz, Soso, Nono, Franck, Sandy & Jeremy. I also got rained on, but I guess one can't have everything.

knick knack paddy dack

Tadghy Kennelly might have been born and raised Irish, but he's an Aussie in my book after this stunt:

Sydney Swans player Tadhg Kennelly has apologised to a Catholic girls high school for pulling down a team-mate's pants in front of them yesterday.

Good work, tiger.

Fat Lip

Fat Lip.

A bevy of lovely girls showed up to basketball training last night, most of whom hadn't been before. By way of introduction to one of them, I lip-butted her in the forehead. I quickly checked that she was OK, and she inquired to the same effect, and I lied and said I was fine. Today, my lip is swollen up like a marble. I'm pretty happy with the technique, and intend to repeat it for my upper lip at the next training session.

Le monde est bien petit

L'autre jour quelqu'un a mise un commentaire sur un des mes photos, et c'arrive qu'elle est de l'ecole de Liz. Ses photos comprennes mêmes des portraits des gens que je connais, y compris ashou, et houtan et nadim de basket. Its a small world after all.

This post has been brought to you by bilingualism, and the letter É.

another weekend of basketball...

Another weekend where too much basketball was barely enough. I think I wound up watching 4 games in all - two live and two NBA game telecasts.

Avenir beat Ouistreham Saturday night, and the party afterwards was pretty good - got home about 4:30. It was a bit of a surprise knees-up for Sandy, and she seemed appreciative.

(Aside: how much of a surprise is it that there's a party after an Avenir game, given that it only happens, like, every game).

On Sunday Vezin hosted the Avenir B team, and a bunch of us (Jeremie, Nono, P'tit jou & others) went along to support with face paint, drums, and a helium canister. (Which of these things is not like the others?) Avenir played poorly, and Vezin played really well,including Caro & Soso, who revelled appropriately after they won).

Sunday night I made myself a tartiflette, which I had with some lettuce to soothe my cholesterol-soaked conscience.

black butter eye

In french, its not a black eye, its an oeil au beurre noir - a black butter eye. Mine, from an elbow at basketball Monday night, came up nicely for my presentation yesterday. No-one commented - to be honest, its not very impressive, as shiners go. I thought the presentation was pretty ordinary - my explanations through the technical section were hesitant and unconvincing - but there was some interesting discussion afterwards, and some of the feedback was good.

Ice on the Vilaine again this morning.

elbows

It was a pretty quiet weekend. I did some shopping, cooked a little, watched a bit of sport, some films, had a really good chat with Em about life in general. I even got myself out on Sunday afternoon for a walk, although the weather was a bit marginal.

Basketball training last night was pretty physical. Like the previous weeks, the numbers were a bit thin, so we started with 1-on-1, at which I pretty much sucked, largely due to an inability to score. Another guy turned up later, so we played 3-on-3, which was more enjoyable. I made some nice cuts spinning out of the post, and I was playing with a couple of good passers, so it worked fairly well. I also had a few good blocks, and a couple of nice drives, although I still need to work on my footwork around the basket. I caught a hard elbow from Franck in the cheek, which is showing up just a little today. I also caught a good one to the lip and got knocked down once or twice on drives, which is fine by me. I was very proudly wearing my Lions jersey, so I was asking for physical contact, I guess.

At work, I haven't been making much progress on my talk for Thursday, which will have to change, since I only have a day or so left now to get it done. Still don't have a time scheduled, and I'm pretty sure the room that they've booked will be far too small. To boot, I probably won't know which language I'll be speaking until I get to the talk. Oh well.

booyah!

Lee just totally rocked my world, at a distance of 16,000km. She sent me one of these bad boys, along with a bunch of curry pastes, whose values increase ten times by their mere presence in this curry-forsaken country, and I had the fortune to receive them all a little bit tippled (with Liz and Soso: credit where credit is due), and two days after something for which I actually feel justified being rewarded. To make it even better, the wonders of modern technology and a rare alignment of almost diametrically opposed time zones meant that I was able to call her straight away and gush thanks through the blower. I might just keel over and sleep, I'm that happy.

People will look at me funny, but tomorrow at work I'll be a Brisbane Lion, come hell or high water. If they say anything untoward I'll shirtfront them.

understatement of the day

Surely no nationality does understatement quite so well as Aussies:

A toddler has died after being mauled by the family dog - a dingo-labrador cross - at Bunyip in eastern Victoria.

Later in the article:

RSPCA animal shelter manager Andrew Foran: "... not an ideal family pet."

No kidding. Gold star. Good work, tiger.