WORK & TV. Who said I couldn't work in front of the tv? Yesterday, I have spent the whole afternoon working in front of a re-run of all the gilmore-girls episodes stored on my computer. Cool... Or pathetic, depending on how you want to look at it. However, the work I had to do was so boring that it did call for a compensation of some kind.
Anyways, re-reading my previous entry, I realise that it's quite selfish and incomplete. Opaline is one of these people I would like to write to, but then again, wouldn't know what to say beyond ordinary boring things. I can totally bond with her thirst for new places, new languages, new people... And what with this feeling of being opressed, gasping for air upon coming back home... Well, I guess that's the way travel goes - but it's so great that she did get it together and started out on this, straight out of highschool. I would have loved to do the same, but I was stalled, and I let myself be stalled - But that's not the point. As for the wilderness, that's totally a part of it, with its ups and downs, 'til one finds one's goals, one's landmarks - 'til then, one keeps bumping all over the place in a daze of lights and colors, with passages throught the shadowy areas and ocasionnal tunnels, the whole journey leading you to the full *TILT*
So I guess I just want to say, thanks for sharing it with us, goodluck, keep it up, and enjoy!

Reading: Selected Tales , by E. Poe.

posted by A. 11:34 AM

. . .

ANOTHER DIARY. Funny how I need to remain iddle, writing mails, reading and doing fruitless things for ages before actually being able to get to work. Among other things, at work, I read transcripts of Gilmore Girls episodes, movie reviews, articles, and diaries. Today, I was reading Opaline's diary. And: oh, my God. So many things at the same time. 1/ I so want to get the hell out of Rouen and abroad. To Ireland. or Canada. or Spain. 2/ Oh the folly of these wild times!! 3/ She's so young, though, and so intense...
This, and my Canadian friend Carla's mail about her having spend a month in a van at the corner of a street and an avenue in New York city, selling Christmas trees - makes me wonder why I'm stupidly sitting here, at this desk while there's an infinity of other much more exciting lives to be lived out there, while one still can. I have obliviously set chains on myself for the next two years - Since it's no use crying over spilled milk, I shan't ponder on whether it was such a good idea or not to engage in this bloody PhD, but I must promise myself that I will at all costs avoid sealing a similar deal at the end of these 2 years. In the form of accepting an assistant professor position somewhere in France, for instance. Anywhere. I mean it. Of course it will look appealing, of course there will be the horrible doubts of never being offered such a possibility again. Of course. However, I must focus on the ultimate goal of travel, multilingual environment, new horizons, etc. It's not that bad being here, it's in fact much better than before I left for Canada, but then at the time, I was really going crazy. Even though I don't need to go that bad, it's still what I want, it's how I want to live. I'm being too stupidly patient. I should have only one goal, just like a few years ago: go, go, GO!!!
What with going swimming twice per week? How pathetic and typical of people set in their stupid unalterable ways. I will go, still, but I hope I won't forget that there are other places where to swim, other places where to live. I am too conventionnal, to much in tune with what people expect from one. Graduate from Highschool. Go to university. Get your master's done. Then get your PhD done. Then get a job. How about the going abroad then? It's always "later, later you'll see to that". I'm beginning to realise that there's no other time to see to it than the precise moment one decides to do so. Did they think I'd be satisfied with the one short, miserable year? But I WILL go again, I really will.

posted by A. 9:08 AM

. . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR! So much to write, so much to do, and so little time!! First, I'll start with new year resolutions - very similar to last year's, unfortunately, which says something of the failure to keep them...
So:
1/ Exercice more. Viz. go swimming to the local pool twice per week : I'm starting today. Really, I've got the full gear beside me, ready to be used during lunch break.
2/ Take better care of myself. Viz. make efforts to dress properly, use super shampoo and other beauty products, ensure I have a decent hair style, etc. Arrgh! (don't laught!!) I'm starting softly with the use of face cream twice per day, but after a week of this daily annoyance, I can confirm that it is such a hassle! Actually, I'm blaming this on my mother: my idea is that you have to be trained from birth to be able to bear or worse- enjoy the masquerade of attempting to turn one in a beauty queen.
Now, a few add-ons to this list:
3/ Eat proper breakfast in the morning - complete failure since I started work again...
4/ Get up earlier in the morning, and get my ass to work at a decent hour, like 8.30, or 9.00 - nothing extraordinary. The problem is that, observation of 1/ and 2/ demands much more time than one would think at first, and even thought I do get up earlier than before, I'm still rushing out without having had any breakfast whatsoever, and reaching my office around 9.30...
5/ Don't let people give me shit and boss me around. One thing I should have clearly learned from 2003 if I was not convinced of it before is that more often than not, I know best. And secondly, so many people are incompetant at their job, that 1/ it really isn't a catastrophy to make wrong decisions at work from time to time, as long as it's not anything too crucial - I mean, all these incompetant people did get a job, and still have it in spite of their true incapacity to do it properly... 2/ it's really safer to listen to one's instinct, since others are highly likely to push one into doing the wrong thing instead of avoiding it...

posted by A. 3:31 AM

. . .

OH, THE POSSIBILITIES! I've been lazy and unwilling to work for the past hour, so I spent some time catching up with my mails, ... and browsing throught my master's thesis. I honestly couldn't believe my eyes there. It feels like it's been writen by someone else. I mean, it's full of big linguistic words and expressions that could only have sprung from the pen of an alien me, immersed from head to toes in a foreign linguistics-only world. No wonder I came out of it gasping for air! On the other hand, it is quite a strong proof of adaptability. I mean, if I could understand these things and write (over 60 pages!) about them, there's nothing I can't dream of doing in the linguistics world.

Re-reading: Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier

posted by A. 11:36 AM

. . .

SUCH A SMALL WORLD! Yesterday, I walked out the subway into the Department with the book I had been reading on the way in my hand. To my amazement, it turns out that every single person I met there and then has read Small World, which was even refered to as "the book to read for everyone who's got any connection with the academic world". So now, I'm wondering, how could I not hear about this book before, and more generally about its author? In fact, the very first time his name was mentioned before me was during a classmate's presentation in linguistics class. She had a sample phrase like It's David Lodge's last novel, and looking back, I think a wave of approving nods and smiles ensued. However, I did not really think twice about it - Actually, I'm quite sure I had it associated with gloomy crime/horror stories, which I did not want to read. The same thing happened with The Little Prince, which my mom tried to force on me when I was younger, but that I eventually read years later when someone else warmly recommanded it. Funny how one does come to things at the time they are ready to take them in...

Reading: Small World by David Lodge.

posted by A. 5:42 AM

. . .

MAYBE TOMORROW... For some reason, I cannot seem to get to work today. Again. There's so much to do, and at the same time, I'm not sure what to do exactly, where to start. I'm having more doubts about whether I'm really good at this job - research, I mean - and whether I should really be doing this. And if not, what else? So I'm thinking again of resuming a writing project. I'm not at all convinced I ever will, but I'm sort of reading things about writing, realising I have so much to read still - classics, the Bible, modern litterature... And back to scratch: what shall I do today? what shall I do for a living? I still want to go abroad, that's the one thing I'm sure of, but I am not making any plans. No strategies, no investigating possibilities. I'm stuck. Do I really have so little imagination for my own life as for telling stories, really? Maybe tomorrow I will be throught that phase. Maybe I'll be enlightened somehow, sparkling and bouncing again. I hope tomorrow comes soon enough...

Read: Golem 4, Mr Williams by E, L and M.A. Murail.
Golem 5, Alias by E, L and M.A. Murail.
Related analysis, and authors' comments: Le Golem des Murail

Les mal partis, by S. Japrisot

posted by A. 6:37 AM

. . .

WORKING WEEK. Recently, a few French magazines published front cover articles questionning what people do during their working hours. I would actually have been quite interested in reading one of them, especially since I've just wasted almost one hour of valuable working time doing a stupid tv show quizz, that had me looking up on google the French title of "Hart and Hart"... How pathetic, I know...

Read last night: Golem 2, Joke by E, L and M.A. Murail.
... and now reading: Golem 3, Natacha by E, L and M.A. Murail.

posted by A. 5:26 AM

. . .