Je déteste

I hate to say good bye. I hate it when friends leave. I hate to be left behind. And I gave up counting all the farewell diners, lunches, parties, drinks and whatsoever I had in recent weeks. Oh, yes, I forgot the farewell breakfast. Obviously, there are some more to come today and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and… No, stop, the weekend, I’ll go home after saying good bye but without any farewell stuff. After all, I’ll be back in Brussels by the end of August and start a new life with a new job* and a new flat**. Hah, take this Farewell-melancholy-I-do-not-want-it-to-finish-mood.

Quand même, la puce

* & **: Still needs to be found.

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Wonderful world of language IV – VII

IV: Obviously, I understand and speak Frech, English and even German only when it suits me. I do not understand a word in situations like a policemen shouting after me because I crossed a red light or if selling, NGO and other money-wanting people in the city centre are bothering me.

V: For German this works only as long as I do not have to show my passport. And, something I cannot longer is to speak French or English with a German accent. I am just not able to do so. This is really a pity since I used the excuse “je ne suis pas française, je ne peux pas savoir” together with a smile and a sligthly desperated attitude for years to bumble through administration. There was a deadline? Je ne savais pas…

VI: Something else I am not longer able to do is to ignore French or English in situation people are annoying me with brainless talking and chatting like in the metro or tram. This is actually something I am really missing, was rather enjoyable not to be bothered by other peoples c***talking.

VII: What I rather like is to dream in other languages. So far I dreamt in English, Spanish, and French but no Dutch. The strangest dream (regarding language) was when I was in England in a Spanish class. Actually, I just knew that it was the Spanish class but I was not able to understand one word, paniking and the teacher wanted to through me out of the class room.

D’autres questions? Toujours à votre service: la puce

Dispensable

I have an excellent memory for things I never wanted to know.

THE Simpsons movie

Done. I watched the Simpsons movie yesterday and it is great. No doubt. First I was a bit afraid that 90 minutes instead of 22 might be a bit long for the yellow folks but it is just enough. The story is basically that Homer makes one of the biggest mistakes of his life [his life so far], putting not only Springfield in deadly danger but also his marriage the rest of love and respect his kids have for him and himself.

What I really liked about the film is that it takes time to develop the characters much more than it is possible in the usual 22 minutes. It is a pleasure to observe the different characters, to try getting all the references to other films and to just relax and let the film take you along.

What else?

• I had to get used to the original voices, hearing them for the very first time. But I liked them even if especially Homer and Marge did not sound how they are supposed to do.
• The only thing missing was an end to Spider Pig’s story line.
• Maggie speaks her first word.
• Itchy and Scratchy is as suited for children as usually but a good starter.

Definitely one of the yellowhighlights of this cinema summer.

Special occasion

La “Simpson” puce

Found here.

In Belgium, the film is starting today. FYI.

Body clock

Whenever I can work the way I like, my performance is much better than usual. Normal working days and hours are a bit frustrating for me because I am not really efficient the four/five hours after getting up. Not to speak about the first hour after getting out of bed when I am hardly able to answer the easiest questions. A hm (= yes) or a hmhm (= non) is the maximum.

Anyway, as I always noticed, my performance is better when I can work when I want. My master’s thesis, I did it entirely between 4pm and midnight. I usually got up around 11 am, went to university to check my emails (no Internet at home at the time), came back home, ate and started working at 4 or 6 pm. Then I worked quite frequently until midnight or even 2 am before going to bed – I got a good mark at the end.

So whenever I can work as I want it, mostly on weekends, I do it exactly that way. The story about body clocks and what a friend told me that human beings should get out of bed with the sunrise is not written for me. My body clock clearly tells me that the later I work, the better I do. If only general working hours could be adapted to this, would be great. Thank you for your understanding,

la puce

My first football shirt

During our great German-Austrian football party, I was wearing a football shirt my British flatmate* had given me for the evening. The day before he left, he did something I would never ever had expected: He offered me the shirt so that I can proudly announce now to owe a football shirt.

* He is now back to the UK, Birmingham, very handsome and single, furthermore the most football addicted person I ever met and reading here 

Belgium

The 21st of July is the Belgium national day celebrated with a military parade* and firework. With two of my flatmates I went to see both of them and it made me aware how few I know about the country I am living in since 5 months now. During the firework, I realised that I would not even recognise the national anthem… Pretty poor performance.

Anyway, here are some impressions from the military parade and the visit from the Parliament – open door day:

*First thought: Why does a country like Belgium need all this tanks, troupes, planes and so on?

* Second thought: If ever Germany wants to invade its smaller neighbour again, it should do so on the national day. All troupes are on detachment to Brussels. They should have no problems reaching the Northern sea within two or three hours…

Irony is:

• To receive a negative answer to a job application from an important German football association with the logo on the envelope “Football is the future”. Not mine as it seems.
• That driver of these enormous, ugly, economicly and ecologicly sensless SUVs are more likely so suffer injuries due to an accident than driver of other car types. → LINK
• The comments of the teacher to the GCE exams “pearls” – perles du bac

Interesting thought

He often argued that human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.

There were times when he saw man, with his giant brain, as equivalent to the dinosaurs. Every schoolboy knew that dinosaurs had outgrown themselves, had become too large and ponderous to be viable. No one ever thought to consider whether the human brain, the most complex structure in the known universe, making fantastic demands on the human body in terms of nourishment and blood, was not analogous. Perhaps the human brain had become a kind of dinosaur for man and perhaps, in the end, would prove his downfall.

Already, the brain consumed one quarter of the body’s blood supply. A fourth of all blood pumped from the heart went to the brain, an organ accounting for only a small percentage of body mass. If brains grew larger, and better, then perhaps they would consume more – perhaps so much that, like an infection, they would overrun their hosts and kill the bodies that transported them.

Michael Crichton: “The Andromeda strain”, 1969