picturesque Switzerland

my friend and i toured the Leman lake in April, and this was the other end of it, which i'd never seen. i thought it looked very majestic and 'sound of music'-like. now i know one of my friends lives up in the mountains in the middle, which is far, far away from the real world. :)

kindda.

the other end of the lake

cool as a cucumber

so, my training course is finished. and after spending days and weeks wishing for it to end i am now really sad that it has. i spent 4 weeks with those other 11 people and we got on really well. not seeing them every day from monday onward is going to be really, really weird. going back to work on tuesday is going to be not so fun...

the end of the course was quite funny. on thursday, we were teaching idioms with food (as in the title), and the students had to choose the right word to go with the expression. while i was trying to observe the lesson properly, the two people next to me were going through all the crazy possibilities (are you full of mushrooms? go away, you're driving me sausages. yes, well, it's a piece of toast, isn't it?). when i told them to stop, cos i was laughing and it was getting really hard not to burst out, not the thing to do when a class is taking place, the one told the other that i was cool as a cucumber. it was hilarious! we spent the rest of the day using these crazy expressions.

later than same day, another teacher was devising an activity where the students had to find a mistake in a sentence. his sentence was 'you must come to the party', which he argued wasn't appropriate, as you would never say that to you friend (!). 'you'd say: you can come to the party'. we strongly disagreed and explained why. after a while he got it, but then said that he'd still consider there was a mistake in it. the tutor was like 'no, you can't, because you'd be wrong', but it took a full 5 mns for the teacher to relent. he really wanted it to be wrong. i told my sister, who couldn't stop laughing.

sister is now out of the hospital, just got home yesterday afternoon. after days of being told she'd be back 'tomorrow', we'd kind of stopped believing it. we're happy to have her back.

the stress continues...

as if it wasn't enough to be stressed because of this course (although i seem to be faring rather well), my sister, who was supposed to return to London on Thursday, ended up in the hospital on Wednesday night, which i spent driving from hospital to hospital, as she kept being moved around for tests and things, and we kept missing her. needless to say, the end of this week has been pretty horrendous. as things stand, she has to stay there until Monday, and then she should be able to come home, but for the London part... then again, London does not seem to be such a safe place right now, maybe it's all for the best.

one week to go.

the course

i'm currently following an intensive training course, which explains the lack of posts... but i thought i should make some sort of gesture to prove to all that i am not, in fact, and in spite of all appearances, dead. whilst the timing of the course is perfect (there wouldn't be much to do at work anyway), it's equally totally screwed up, as most of my family has chosen this very month to descend on us. my sister, whom i haven't seen in months, has finally found a week slot to come for a visit, and is of course outraged at the fact that i'm spending all my time writing up assignments and lesson plans instead of talking to her. to which i reply that she's lucky, cos she does get to see me, albeit very shortly, and i, unlike most of my fellow course-mates, actually get to sleep as well.

did i mention i couldn't wait till this thing was over???

lilacs

lilacs are my favourite flowers. i meant to post this ages ago, when they were out in bloom...


lilacs

Live 8

i watched as much as the Live 8 concerts as i could, yesterday, because i love that kind of event. in France, they have yearly events aimed at raising money for the homeless, kids with AIDS, kids who have nothing, etc. as usual, the fact that so many artists turned up for the cause and that so many people came to see them, really touched me. seeing Will Smith and others at different concerts click their fingers every three second, for every child that dies, and seeing all the audiences doing the same... it makes one a little more hopefull about the future. and if it's only a show of unity for one day, it's better than none at all.

now, while i'm technically all for getting rid of the debt, i'm not sure it will really help, as the people in power in the various African countries concerned stay in power and rake in all the money for themselves, so it'll probably just be an incentive for them to use more money and put it down as new national debt. and that is really sad. but the fact that so many people obviously care has to be celebrated.

Disco Fever

i went to a Disco Fever night yesterday. i hadn't been to a nightclub in AGES, and the last time i'd been in that one was over 10 years ago, and i hadn't been overly impressed (a slight understatement - i think i remember thinking i'd never again go to a nightclub). but it was GREAT! went with a couple of friends and already when we got in, great music was everywhere and EVERYONE was singing the lyrics of every song. you could feel the vibrations of all these people's voices hitting you like a subwoofer. all those people who had the same nostalgia for good old fashioned dance music. the only thing was, as usual, that DJs call the night Disco Fever but end up addind anything that's not electronic music, really. and while i have no problems whatsoever with singing and dancing on 'Roxanne', 'Jump Around', 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll' and various other songs that i went crazy on in my youth, it's not exactly disco music... but whatever. it was great. got home at 4am, and frankly, i never thought i'd even stay that long when i left home.

buying a place...

...is not funny. i just spent an hour talking to my new bank manager about the possibilities of a loan for me to buy a flat. it wasn't as bad as i'd expected (being my age, he was not in any way patronising, kind of nice, actually), but i just feel totally depressed, as if i'd been run over by one of those huge rollers that make roads flat. cos apart from the loan itself, there are all those other expenses to cover that are not taken care of by the loan, such as getting papers written up, extra insurance, etc... which come up to about 5% of the flat itself, which is not a small sum. but then again, if i continue renting, that money's just gonna be wasted...


SO, i'll put a grin on my face regardless. tonight i'm going dancing for the first time in a long, long time, and i'll just wear myself (and my new stress) out. go, go girl!!