fete des lumieres

The most awaited event in Lyon this year. every year. the city lights up, everyone puts candles in the window, all the monuments are coloured and animated.

*first day, the 7th - heavy rain, presentation the next day, stayed home
*second day, the 8th - even heavier rain, walked around on foot cause public transportation is awfully packed, most of the events cancelled because of the weather. pneumonia danger, went home after a few hours of walking on foot in the swampish disaster surrounded by agressive umbrellas
*third day, the 9th, today - heavy strike of the public transportation network, all metros, funiculaire closed, no way to get downtown. no rain, at least.
*fourth day - tomorrow - hope for the best.

At least i managed to get a pic of one of the buildings: this is a train station in the old town, and it was lit from the inside with a blue light, and white clouds were moving around as if we were inside looking at the sky outside. a tribute to magritte. my favourite.

second contact with french grades

we had to make a presentation about a chapter in a stupid cryptic novel. the stupid system here is that you need to make it in three parts, and each part needs to have three parts of its own. that's the toughest part, cause interpretation and all that is easy when you're used to it.
and of course, when you are making a literary comment, you should never take the text in the order in which it is written. no comment...

so we made a great presentation, disregarding the fact that we couldn't find any books on the matter cause who on earth would want to talk about a novel as weird and ... weird as this one...
so we spent pretty much 3 days on this and made a great comment, with 3 parts each havin 3 parts, with political interpretation and all the little words the guy loves and repeats on each course. and we presented...

of course, i need to tell you that all the semester he kept insisting that we need to pay attention, that our system of education is ancient and not so good as theirs, and we need to be careful when we make a presentation, we should ask advice from our french friends, etc etc.

ok, we just nodded agreement and decided not to answer to remarks which obviously he had taken as the absolute truth..

so we make the stupid presentation, and the first he says is that he thought it was too general, which it wasn't. ok, whatever, this isn't the type of thing saying i'm a victim, at least not yet...
and then he starts by telling us a new plan, his plan, his ideas...except mentioning another novel of the same author, which wasn't included in the fragment we had to comment obviously, he said the exact same ideas as we did, and each time mentioning that we didn't talk about that.

and the one thing that completely made my day: he said we read too many critics about the fragment and we should have rather kept the text to our knowledge or something similar... great! we looked and looked and the only critic who wrote about this novel (except him, we couldn't find his book) was a lady who didn't talk much about the fragment at all.
is it so hard to beliebe that some young people might have general knowledge and that they might use it in literary comments?

can't wait for the presentation on monday, i'm curious if it will be too complicated for him to understand again...

it's kind of true what they say, they rarely give credit to erasmus students...
we should unite and ... and... and... go home.

some money back guaranteed

i received a second letter from caf today, and it seems they accepted my dossier after all...the only problem is i won't get all my money back, as i don't receive money directly, it just gets deducted from my next rent money...
the problem is i only have one month left to pay the rent, and the money they owe me will cover it entirely, and still leave 50euros in their account. which sucks.


second avocado is now 4cm tall, first avocado is making a lot of leaves, fete des lumieres started and my wisdom teeth are killing me.


is anyone still actually reading this blog or am i just waisting my time?

great, no money back guaranteed

gggrrrr this just makes me sooo mad..
i applied for caf, which is a money help to pay for the rent. i was supposed to get a small sum back, but if you count it, it's not such a small sum, let's say it could buy me a ticket to paris in a nice train, so it's not something to disconsider.
when i gathered my dossier for this i was told that i would get the money for sure.
now i received a letter saying that they need my resident card, which i can't really get. i go to my favourite place, the residence accueil ( administration), and they just laugh in my face that i want money back and that i pay such a small rent. that just made my day.
and it figures that some people in the exact situation as me will get the money. just because the person that took care of their dossier was nicer.
"Bad luck" they say.
bad luck which would get me an apartment with bathroom and kitchen back home, not their disgusting little room which isn't even heated.
yeah, bad luck.
if i blow their little heads off, it will still be bad luck, huh?

polish girls and african guys

It seems that there are a number of things going on between these two different cultures (too bad i don't really know which african countries we're talking about)...

1. some african guy knocks at a polish girl' s door. she doesn't really want to invite him in, because she doesn't know him well. he knows this, so he will just push her out of the way, enter quickly, sit on the bed, take his shoes and socks off. it's hard to make him leave afterwards...
as i've heard, this has happened more than once

2. some african guy fell in love with some polish girl. he got her phone number at a church thing, so he keeps sending her messages that he loves her. one day, as he is her neighbour, he knocks at her door. no, not the socks thingy again :)
he tells her that he doesn't understand why she doesn't want to love him back.
she explains that she has a boyfriend, and that he makes her feel comfortable in that relationship so she's not looking for someone else while she is in france.
he replies, puzzled: but why, i'm good in bed, too!!?
plus, i'm handsome, and i respect you cause i don't come to your room in the evening, like your friends do !!?
she couldn't believe her ears..
then he added that if he would have wanted to have sex with her, he could have forced her...so she needs to be grateful that he didn't and should go out with him to prevent this...

3. there's a couple african guy- polish girl on my floor and they seem to get along just fine :)

will add more after lunch

gulii :)

in Poland they call a girl in her full health (the round peasant that drinks milk from the cow, you know what i mean, fata sanatoasa bine...) ....a gulie!

Kohlrabi in English, not turnip as everyone seems to translate it.


this post is dedicated to someone who wrote once about this illusive vegetable

the bank - sequel

i went to the bank again, it's been three weeks without their usual spam in the mailbox...i kinda miss their letters asking me to bring the same document over and over again...

soooo, of course they said that they don't have my card yet, and that in a few days probably bla bla. i lost it and just said to the woman not to waist her breath because i know that it's not the case. she smiled in a way that either called me a bitch or said "i just work at the counter here, they are paying me the worst salary ever and i need to make a lot of coffee, but i have cameras pointing at me so i need to keep lying to you"

either way, i managed to take saome money off my account, and asked to view my account...it had 30 euros less, so i asked the guy (in the withdrawals counter) what's up with that, that i didn't have a card so i didn't spend any money. of course, the poor frustrated man felt like yelling at me that he does not deal with this stuff.

went back to my favorite lady, who explained that this was an annual tax for the keeping of my card. i lost it again, freaked out, behaved ungentlemanly ;). then she assured me she will credit my account with the missing money, with her nice smile.

oh, i can't wait.

and btw, my second avocado just pointed his ...head? point? tail? whatever! since two days ago, he's already 1 cm long wooohooo!