What is this blog all about?

The main purpose of this blog is to give an overview of the things I do, in my everyday life, in order to improve my English. Since I am a very lazy person, I mostly read, and watch movies, and do things which make it possible for me to improve my vocabulary, my grammar and my accent without getting bored... So this blog is going to be about the books I read, the movies I watch, and some other things which I find relevant (or not)...

I hope you'll like it! Don't hesitate to leave comments if you have any suggestions concerning what I should write about!!

lundi 9 juin 2008

Sois polie si t'es pas jolie...

Hey!

New update from Saarbrücken where I am starting my second week as a translator! Things are going fine for me here, though I am a little bored in the evening (which means I'll be telling you about new series I am watching pretty soon...), and the job is getting more and more interesting everyday, except for today when the USV-system crashed down... don't know what it's called in English (though it's probably USV too...) but it's supposed to protect your computer against power surges. Only I did not quite understand what the computer guy told me, but you're supposed to unplug the damn thing before power cuts.

It sounds like these USV thingies are real sissies, and I think (*hope*) I understood the guy wrong (honestly, that would just be too stupid to be true), but whatever the real issue with the USV may be, they crashed, and I spent 3 extremely entertaining hours this morning thinking about the extra time I could have spent in bed and looking intently at my blurred reflection in the blacked-out computer screen. Aaaaay'v aaaad ze taaayme of my laaaayfe....

I am having a much more comfortable week this week than last week (lots of weeks in this sentence) though, because I have brought pans and saucers from Colmar, as well as a wonderfully beautiful orange curtain, with butterflies on it, which mercifully shields me from the outside while at the same time letting some light through, so I can live my life happily and not feel like I am living in a cave. Just as well, really. I was starting to miss my tooth-brush dance sessions (Rihanna bellowing in my iPod tends to make teeth-brushing much more interesting somehow.)

I also spent my time here (or at least the little time I spent not in the office and out of home (i.e. mostly in the bus) discovering a little more about the German culture. Because although I have been living less than 50km from the German bordure for most of my life, I have never actually spent any real time in Germany at all.

Surprisingly enough, really, it is a lot like Austria here, and the more I see, the more I feel I have more Germanity about me than I care to admit when people say "oh, you're from Alsace, you're German..." My reaction is mostly extremely annoyed then, but I just have to say, it is true that we Alsacians have very German characters. For example, our idea of politeness is the same I think. Anyway, my idea of politeness. I think that's why people think Germans (and the French too, I think) are so cold: we people like to leave people alone. It is more polite to let them decide wether they want to talk or not, so we do not start a conversation, but answer with a smile when someone tries to do so.

Unlike the Anglo Saxons, supposedly, who think it's more polite to make strangers feel welcome. On the one side, they feel at home and lonely, on the other, they feel welcome. I don't know, it's up to you to make your choice between Graz and Dublin!

I have also been able to notice that cashiers are just as terrible here as in Graz: I don't know how regular people manage to stuff everything in their plastic bags before running away here, but I am not super-Greta yet and I NEED more than 30 seconds to pack everything in bags. Please, cashier, if you hear me, do not look at me with those evil eyes. I am but an innocent creature, looking for means to feed myself. Mostly vegetables.

Anyway. This post is becoming wayyy to long and confused and has no proper theme, so I'll leave it at that. I would have sent you a nice picture of Eric le Basilic, who's half dead already, only I forgot to bring my camera's cable, so I'm deprived of MP3 player AND photos on my blog till the end of the week. *life's tough*...

Have a nice day!!

6 commentaires:

Anonyme a dit…

well, that's because you're supposed to quickly throw all your stuff into the shopping card. then run away and THEN packing your thing into the plastic bags.

;p

Anonyme a dit…

Hey! This makes much more sense! No rush for you, you can take your time to pack afterwards -- but also no more endless waiting after little old ladies who take ages to pack, then fumble in their wallet forever, have trouble counting their cash, drop their coins, etc. (no offense to little old ladies).

Let's organize a petition for France to adopt this German supermarket system. Maybe they can do something at EU level?

Anonyme a dit…

I'd never thought of that either! Wow! I've also heard that there's a cool solution for this awkward pack-your-groceries time in Japan... But annoyingly, the person who wrote about it didn't describe the actual solution.

PS: Claire si tu veux des photos you're welcome to mine par mail hein!

Claire a dit…

Noo!! NooooOOoo!! 'Tis not cool at all! Makes you feel like you have to pack and run, and might induce people to have bad behaviours on the road too. You never know. uncool and rushy and I reeeelly don't like it. Maybe I should just get used to it though. Because what with grannies is actually true...

Anyway.

merci Marion, je pense que je vais me remettre à taper dans Google images, parce que ça me brise le coeur, mon ptit blog tout noir et déprimant. Tant pis. J'irai en prison.

Pour info, j'ai la migraine, et je vois plus trop mon écran, donc sorry pour d'éventuelles fautes de frappe!!

Bisoux tout le monde!!

Anonyme a dit…

Eh, j'ai aussi oublié de te dire que si t'as pas de mp3 tu peux aller sur raphaelb.canalblog.com, il a deux radios avec une vingtaine de chansons en tout, et c'est top de chez top. En plus que ses dessins ils sont géniaux.

Claire a dit…

XD Bravo pour ce pseudo révolutionnaire!

Et merci pour l'adresse aussi! Ma bibliothèque WMA a doublé en trois jours, ceci dit, le problème c que mon lecteur de MP3 marche plus, et ça craint! Mais de toutes manières, ça ira mieux lundi, car je ramènerai mon câble de Colmar!!
merci en tous cas j'irai faire un tour!