Nouvelle expédition parisienne [en]

Le week-end prochain, si tout va bien, direction Paris. Il paraît qu’on s’occupera de mon hébergement et des festivités du vendredi soir.

Questions: en voiture ou en train? avec ou sans mes rollers? Je médite…

Bien entendu, si vous êtes sur Paris et que ça vous dit de m’aider à  occuper mon samedi et mon dimanche en allant boire un thé froid — ou autre chose bien entendu &#8212 faites-moi signe!

Vidéo: Grillade [en]

Dans le cadre de la visite guidée de Lausanne, je vous indiquais l’emplacement de la grillade de la semaine suivante. Virginie y était, et avec elle, une caméra vidéo digne de ce nom.

Le résultat ? Voici la vidéo de la grillade [57 MB.], filmée par votre serviteur et Virginie, et montée par cette dernière.

J'écoute… [en]

Lausanne FM via Internet.

Moi qui n’ai pas de radio, ni à  la maison ni dans la voiture, ça me fait plaisir d’y avoir de nouveau accès.

Bilan d'une tranche de vie [fr]

Je me souviens de ce long été, il y a sept ans de cela. J’avais tourné le dos à  la chimie en échouant mes examens et emménagé dans mon premier appartement, un joli une-pièce au centre-ville. Il y avait un placard immense dans lequel j’avais rangé tous mes habits, une cuisine séparée dans laquelle on pouvait se tenir confortablement, et une baignoire dans la salle de bains.

Je m’étais entraînée tout l’été, entre mes lectures et l’épluchage des fiches que m’avait données l’office d’orientation. Il y avait cette odeur de liberté dans l’air, parce que tout était possible. J’étais chez moi et mon avenir était entre mes mains. J’ai choisi les lettres.

Le début et la suite: Bilan d’une tranche de vie.

Drained Ramble [en]

Zürich-Lausanne train, 5:30 p.m.

Back in the fridge. Luckily, the carriage is packed with warm bodies and I actually did buy myself a jacket in Zürich station on arriving this morning. Quite a nice black jacket too; I’d been wanting one for some time now.

My brain has melted. Trips to Zürich are always nice, but intense. I had a crash course in forecasting and scheduling. I’ll probably be needing more once I get over this first bit.

Back to the “lifelog”? I went to see Hero last night at the Open Air cinema. Beautiful visuals, heroic story, choregraphed fighting scenes. I’ve been to the Open Air a lot this year. I’ll be going again on Wednesday.

The laptop is nice and warm on my knees now, just how I would have liked it this morning. I had to take my jacket off a few minutes ago — body heat seems efficient for countering A/C. Or maybe it’s because this is another type of carriage, which at least doesn’t spout cold air just next to the seats.

This being possibly one of the most boring things I’ve ever written, I think I’ll stop right here and avoid inflicting upon you the rest of the journey to Lausanne. I’d rather advise you to take a peek at what my brother has to say about Argentina, which he will be visiting for the next six weeks.

Frozen Ramble [en]

Lausanne-Zürich train, 10 a.m.

I sometimes get the feeling I spend my life being cold and hungry. They go together usually — one of the first signs of hunger is that I start freezing.

I’ve been in the train for two hours now, finished my book (About a Boy), and covered with goosebumps. Why does the A/C have to be set to winter-temperature when the air outside is as hot as it is? I’ll probably have to stop somewhere in Zürich to buy a jacket if I want to survive the trip home this evening. To say nothing of the day in the office, which has been called “The Fridge” in my mind for quite some time now.

One of the reasons I’m writing this is that I switched on the laptop with the hope that it would give out a bit of warmth. It gets really hot on my lap at times. Not now, of course. It’s behaving like car heating: I guess I’ll start feeling the heat once we enter Zürich station.

Some time from now, I might be provided with a wireless network connection for work. Just think about it! Internet on the train 🙂

You can probably be thankful I don’t write this kind of ramble more often, it’s turning out really lame. My brain hasn’t woken up yet.

Maybe a life update? I’ll be on holidays next week. I’ve been wanting holidays for ages. Now that they’re here, I’m going to spend them trying to translate a Hindi short story by Premchand, because I did my usual thing of waiting until it was too late before getting to work. (No, please don’t ask.) I did have a vague plan to go off somewhere exciting, but it didn’t happen; my last chances of escaping my sad fate as a future-ex-étudiante-éternelle have just drowned somewhere in the ocean. Maybe Aleika will come over a few days. That would be nice, as we haven’t seen each other in ages.

We’re in Zürich. Out of the freezer.

Irritating [en]

  • Car drivers who leave their indicator on at the red light by night.
  • Cashiers who put the coins on top of the banknotes when handing you change.

Code Rouge [en]

État d’alerte maximal depuis ce week-end. Un dysfonctionnement du système a mis en péril les secteurs éducatifs et financiers de l’organisme central. Le stockage des denrées frigorifiques est également touché, et il n’est pas impossible que le département de la santé soit menacé.

Des mesures d’urgence ont été prises pour stabiliser le secteur éducatif. Si tout danger n’a pas été écarté, la situation semble néanmoins moins critique qu’il y a quelques jours. Le secteur financier devrait être également stabilisé sous peu.

Nous prenons la menace globale au sérieux, et maintenons l’alerte jusqu’à  nouvel avis même si la situation semble bientôt être sous contrôle.

Akirno and Reese Witherspoon [en]

Akirno saw a picture of Reese Witherspoon in a magazine some time back. Aleika told me he has been wanting to come over to my place ever since.

Aleika gave the phone to him so we could say hi.

Akirno, last February.

– Hello Stephanie…

– Hello Akirno!

– …I want to go to your house!

– Well, I’d love to have you come to my house! 😀

I won’t even try to tell you how much this snippet of conversation means for me — both in terms of how far Akirno has come, and now much he means to me. I was last in England six months ago, and I barely saw him an hour or so then. His mom and I are going to plan their visit pretty soon!