Samedi soir fatigué [fr]

[en] Tired Saturday evening post.

Après quatre jours de SAWI (module 4), je suis raide, mais contente. C’est surtout aux étudiants qu’il faut le demander, mais je crois que ce module s’est vraiment bien passé.

Je voulais aller au cinéma hier soir mais je n’ai pas eu le courage de m’extraire de chez moi. Aujourd’hui, par contre, je m’y tiens. J’ai besoin d’aérer mon cerveau avant que la semaine prochaine démarre (une demi-journée de consulting, une conférence, une demi-journée d’enseignement: je vais encore bosser samedi).

J’ai sorti les chats et fait une vidéo de Tounsi, qui est fort câlin ces temps. Période des chaleurs? Possible. Quintus et lui sont de plus en plus “copains”, si on peut dire. Sommeil “en contact” (ils aiment visiblement les deux assez un coin particulier sur le canapé pour tolérer la proximité de l’autre afin d’y être), un peu de judo, courses-poursuites dehors… Contente aussi.

Cats in Contact

En passant, j’ai remarqué la forte viralité des photos de Tounsi sur Facebook. Quintus est moins populaire, peut-être parce qu’il est moins comique que Tounsi, juste très très cute.

Tounsi Facebook screenshot

Quintus Facebook screenshot

Premier panier de légumes du jardin potagerPour la deuxième fois, je suis allée chercher jeudi mon panier de légumes du jardin potager. J’adore. C’est juste en face de chez moi. Je vous en dirai plus long dans un autre article.

Encore contente: #back2blog fonctionne bien cette fois aussi, et mon groupe Going Solo pour indépendants également. Tout baigne. J’ai juste un peu trop de pain sur la planche d’ici fin avril.

2ème Back to Blogging Challenge, jour 6. Bloguent aussi: Nathalie Hamidi(@nathaliehamidi), Evren Kiefer (@evrenk), Claude Vedovini (@cvedovini), Luca Palli (@lpalli), Fleur Marty (@flaoua), Xavier Borderie (@xibe), Rémy Bigot (@remybigot),Jean-François Genoud (@jfgpro), Sally O’Brien (@swissingaround), Marie-Aude Koiransky (@mezgarne), Anne Pastori Zumbach (@anna_zap), Martin Röll (@martinroell), Gabriela Avram (@gabig58), Manuel Schmalstieg (@16kbit), Jan Van Mol (@janvanmol), Gaëtan Fragnière (@gaetanfragniere), Jean-François Jobin (@gieff). Hashtag:#back2blog.

Blogging Inertia [en]

[fr] Peu d'envie d'écrire (et donc de bloguer). Pas courant pour moi!

This hasn’t happened to me often before, but I’m going through a phase where I don’t feel like blogging at all. Actually, I don’t even feel like writing, which is really quite unusual.

I’m still in a “tired of documenting my life” mood. And, related to that, I think my brain is simply tired, and I think it’s going to take me some time to get over having spent too long in overdrive. Burn-out? Maybe, or not quite, but possibly a family member of the big nasty one. For those of you who worry: I’ve had a medical check-up and I’m fine, I’m pretty happy, chugging along with my work, but I feel a kind of general tiredness.

So, I’m making sure I rest enough, and not pushing myself too much. Which includes not pushing myself to write when I don’t feel like it. Does this have to do with my experiment in keeping certain things to myself?

A lot of questions, you see. Maybe this is it. I’m going through a phase of my life which contains a lot of questions (personal ones only I can answer) and not many answers or insights to share with the world.

To be honest, though, I’m still blogging. It just feels to me like I’m not, but posts actually get posted.

That being said, now I’m going to give my brain a rest!

On Being Wiped Out [en]

[fr] Epuisée mais contente. Si je ne vous reconnais pas, si je vous demande trois fois votre nom, si j'essaie de vous donner des cartes de visite trois fois... soyez indulgents. Je suis hyper contente de la réception de mon discours sur l'histoire de Going Solo.

My poor brain can’t follow anymore. I’m loosing track of who I speak to, who I’ve met, who I’ve given Going Solo moo cards too (even to my friends). I’m delighted with the reception of my speech about Going Solo — swept off my feet, even.

Many people have come to tell me they liked my speech, that it was inspiring, that they are going to come to Going Solo, that they want to interview me (I’ve lost track of the number of interviews I’ve given today, honestly), or talk about partnerships or possible synergies.

I’m feeling bad, because I was invited as one of the electronic media crowd to live-blog the event, and I think I’ve done a really crappy job of it. I hope to earn my pass tomorrow.

I’m not feeling overwhelmed as I was at FoWA, because I’m happy rather than frustrated and anxious. But I can’t keep up. Don’t get me wrong, I want to speak to you, and I’m going to. I also know that this is important for my event 🙂 — but if I look a little exhausted, if I ask you your name three times, try to give you Moo cards twice, or forget what you just told me… please be indulgent!

Holidays! [en]

Tired and looking forward to holidays. Doing good apart from that and the messy flat.

[fr] A la veille des vacances, je ne peux que confirmer que ce n'est pas pour rien que les enseignants ont tant de vacances. On en a besoin! Je suis fatiguée mais je vais bien, et je me réjouis d'avoir un semblant de vie sociale durant les deux semaines qui viennent. Ah oui, et aussi de ranger l'appartement et de préparer les cours jusqu'à  Noël. Peu de chances que je m'ennuie!

Tomorrow is the last day before the holidays. I can tell you it’s high time! I’m tired, a bit stressed out, and my flat looks like a dump (no trespassing). Some people wonder why teachers have “so many” holidays — I tell you, it’s simply because this job couldn’t be done with only 4 weeks off in a year!

Having seen the office world and the classroom world, I can say two things: I like the classroom better, but it’s much more tiring.

Holidays will be devoted to sleeping, reconstructing my social life, catching up on cinema, and preparing classes, tests, and course material until Christmas. Oh, I almost forgot: I also intend to turn my flat back into a place I can invite people into.

Aside from being tired and worn out, I’m doing pretty good. The feeling of these last months that my life is finally heading somewhere and that I know where I am seems to be there for good.

Sloppy Vienna Update [en]

A few random facts about the last two days in Vienna.

This will be short and incomplete because I am just about to go straight asleep in front of the screen. I spent the last two days roaming around with Horst, Suw and Philipp.

  • “Einbahn” means “one-way”, and not “subway” — those signs got me going round in circles on Friday
  • ate good food
  • froze watching “Citizen Kane” at the Vienna open air cinema last night
  • regretted not attending BlogWalk after all
  • Horst is at least as much into Bollywood as I am!
  • lots of thoughts of things to post about languages and weblogs
  • black Switcher jacket lost and found (thanks to the anonymous soul who picked it up)
  • bad lasagna on the riverbank
  • girl-talk during the football match
  • not enough sleep, so much to read, so much to write, so much to talk

First Day in Vienna [en]

A first uneventful day in Vienna. Ethernet at the Hotel Atlas, too much walking, an expensive orange juice and a nice girl on the train.

So here I am, in Hotel Atlas, with free ethernet, a non-feather pillow, a bathtub, and already a few more books to add to my collection.

BlogTalk will start on Monday, so I have the week-end before me to do some exploring. I’m open to suggestions, still!

My first day here has been pretty uneventful (barring “rain” from the “events” category). I’ll just make three notes.

Firstly, if you go to have breakfast at Café Westend, just opposite the station, and the waiter asks you if you would like some orange juice, be prepared to pay as much for it as for the whole breakfast (approx. 5’€, perfectly reasonable for the breakfast, perfectly overpriced for the orange juice — even though it is freshly pressed). I made the mistake of thinking it was included, and was nastily shocked when I got the bill.

Second, I tend to walk way beyond my limits of tiredness. I just don’t stop. It’s so annoying. All the more now, as I actually catch myself doing it, but still can’t stop. I really have to find a way to avoid walking myself to death this week-end.

Third and last, I made a friend on the train to Zürich — fate had me sit right opposite Andrea, who lives in Geneva and was also making her way to Vienna. We’re meeting again tonight, with her (very nice and local-now-expat’) boyfriend.