changing tires

as winter is fast approaching - it snowed yesterday and there was snow on the ground this morning, although admittedly not much - it was time to change the tires on the car. it only took me 45 mns this time around. pretty good, and quite a workout, especially for my right shoulder blade, which will be hurting me for a few days to come - no amount of warming up before seemed to change that. so yes, i can do it by myself, but i really wish i had a guy to do it for me! so, where are you, my mystery man?

service (or lack thereof)

walked into a shop a little earlier to buy a fire extinguisher. as i had no idea whether they even sold such things, i went up to the 'info' girl. she started by answering the phone, a personal call i believe, after which she talked to someone who i assumed to be of her family as it all took place in a foreign language i don't think i'd ever heard before, until finally daigning to take care of me.

i asked whether they sold fire extinguisher. 'down the electrical alley,' she said. i gave her a look that said: do you want to reconsider that answer? she clearly didn't get it, though. so i said, stressing the word to show there was something wrong: 'the electrical alley?' she looked nonplussed. 'a fire extinguisher, to put out fire?' 'oh, the bathroom alley, then'. that didn't seem to be the right answer either, but she obviously wouldn't be able to answer the question. after wandering around for a bit, i finally found someone to ask. and the answer was so simple: they didn't sell fire extinguishers!

crime capital

no, we haven't actually become the capital of crime, although my friend L. apparently thinks so: she says there's no way she's walking around in town at night anymore, and even driving will be with all doors locked. i find it very silly...

what happened is that over the weekend, we had our first (well, i suppose it was, cos i've never heard of it happening before) gunpoint mugging, which unfortunately actually resulted in someone's death. a security agent was picking up the day's earnings at a petrol station (although why he was doing this at 1.30am is completely beyond me), when he was attacked. they killed him, took the money, and then killed the dog. i heard the shots. i'd just got home myself when i heard the first one. i thought i should call the police to let them know, but then i thought i must have misheard. gun shots, in this little town? didn't make sense. when i then heard a second one, a few minutes later, i thought it was a car exhaust exploding or something, cos it made even less sense to me why there'd be an interval between the shots. but, as i found out on this morning, it was very real.

apparently, we were even on national tv news. not that i saw it, but L. did, and explained that the guy who called the police was our old school supervisor, who now owns the local cinema, across from the petrol station where the whole thing happened.

on the one hand, i feel terrible, not only about the fact this happened, but also about the fact that we've apparently reached the time when things like these will become common place. despite Geneva being really near, we'd been kind of safe until now. on the other hand, i can only cynically say that it was bound to happen and we should just consider ourselves lucky not to have had this before.

girls night out

my friend S. came down her Alpine mountain, over Geneva and all the way to my place last night for dinner. what fun we had! there was of course lots of girl-talk involved. the plan was then to go to the pub, where a band was playing disco music. but first, she said, we had to make-up. kind of an alien concept to me (i use mascara sparingly, and lipstick once in a while, maybe even eye-shadow if i really feel like i need to). but i let her do her thing - and felt about 12 in the process! it was fun, but i did take some stuff off before going out, and wasn't altogether convinced with what she'd done. but what the hell.

we got to the pub, which was packed, and enjoyed the music. i don't know if it was the '2 girls alone' syndrome, but we certainly got chatted up a lot. i basically ignored all the guys who tried. there was this one guy who saw me from across the room. yes, our eyes met for a flicker of a second. he apparently took this as his cue to make his way through the throngs of people and stand right next to me. i don't remember what inane comment he made - my reply was monosyllabic and then i ignored him hard. it took 5 mns of this silent treatment for him to get the message. i know it's mean, but come on - i'm not about to talk to some guy who thinks he's scored simply because he saw me across the room! i know this is what often happens, but to be honest, it had never happened to me before, and i can only be grateful for that!

watchmaking

i teach at Patek Philippe twice a week. if you don't know the name, fear not: it's only well-known to the rich and famous. they make watches, mostly made-to-measure. the cheapest one (ie, one of a series), is CHF15,000! but as i found out yesterday, a lot of work goes into these watches.

one of my students is the guy who shows people the parts they make. and most of them are absolutely tiny! when he first put one in my hand (with a very small pairs of pincers!), i thought i was going to lose it, drop it, you name it. TINY! i asked how much time it took to make. 8 mns, came the reply, but with no guarantee it will actually work. and the pieces were beautiful: they looked like dancers, butterflies, stars, ... and the big pieces (which used to take 4 weeks to make, now 'only' 4 days) had dozens of even tinier holes everywhere. yep, i can kind of understand why they cost so much to make!

les films

'arrête de te faire des films', m'a dit ma soeur la semaine dernière. ce qui était marrant, parce que je ne faisais que relater des faits, à ce moment là. y'avait pas encore de film. maintenant, par contre, ça commence... encore un désastre en vue, je le sens bien!

party night

we celebrated T's birthday on Saturday. and what a night!

we started with the first fondue of the season. yummy! but maybe not the best when you're going dancing straight afterwards! it was either the jumping up and down (also known as dancing) on the 70s-80s' music or the Sex in the Sky, or a combination of everything, but i felt decidedly unwell for the best part of an hour. but it was T's 30th, and no way was i calling it a night. and once the bad feeling passed, i was more than fine and danced till 3am. yep.

a in M - donkeys

one great thing about Marrakech was the amount of donkeys you saw everywhere. they're used to transport everything and anything, and people, too. i love donkeys. this one here we saw on the last day we were there.

a in M - shopping

one of the first pics i took in Marrakech... i loved the way they were so intensely into whatever haggling they were doing.

YES!!!!

i'm really happy Obama won the election. and by such a huge margin too! thankfully no contest this year. and apparently, it's exactly 40 years since African-Americans were allowed the same rights as white people, and let's face it, only 150 years since the end of slavery. well done, guys!

dream

i have this student in my first class of the week. he's great. he's higher than the others in the class but always makes sure everyone else gets a chance to think about the question, or even answer it, before he does. even when he's the only one who knows the answer, i sometimes have to actually ask him to tell us what it is. and often, when the others make mistakes, he'll smile and look at me, waiting for me to correct it. and he's one of the only people i know who actually looks me in the eyes when he talks to me, or when i talk to him. i do that. look people in the eyes, i mean. very few people actually do. mind you, i wouldn't want everyone to! there are lots of people out there whom you're just happy they don't look at you when they talk to you... but he does, and it's nice. and he's nice. and this is apparently enough for me to have a whole dream about him. not a very restful dream, cos i knew i was dreaming and i kept wanting not to dream about him, but it wouldn't stop. this is not good.

a call out of the blue

i've just hung up the phone from a quick conversation with my ex in Australia. i'd sent him an email to wish him a happy birthday and he called the number at the bottom of the email. he had no clue where he was calling country-wise, despite the fact that that's also written at the bottom of the mail. and then what he said... it worried me.

he suffers from bipolar disorder, and already did when we met, although neither of us knew it at the time. it appears the medication worked for a while but the dosage was upped from 200mg to 2000mg and then it basically stopped working. he had to give up his business and sell his house, so he now lives with his parents. his career is over, because stress sends him into hospital. so right now, he lives at night, helping people with bipolar in the States over the Internet, and sleeps by day. i asked him if he couldn't get a job 'without stress', but that didn't seem to go down well. i know manual labour isn't what he'd hoped for, but he did say he didn't want to rely on his parents.

he told me he had hoped i'd have answers for him. but he sprung it on me out of nowhere, so i had no idea what to tell him. i certainly didn't have answers. but his words: 'my life is finished'... he didn't sound suicidal, and knowing he talks to people who are makes me doubt he was, but it can't be easy, turning 33 and knowing there isn't much you can do anymore and that your life is ruled by your illness. i just hope he finds some answers that will help him.