What's that?

I saw this out of my window yesterday, and I wondered what it was... Planes don't leave such a bright trail, and it couldn't have been a shooting star, right? (unless if it was a really big one, maybe) We don't see that well on the photo (click on it to enlarge) but if anyone knows what it is, let me know!

It's a mortal wound.

I am sooo wounded. It hurts like anything. It hurts so much I need a doctor.

A stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid (yes I typed all that, I didn't use copy-paste) so stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid mistake cost me sooooooooooo much. I'm still numb (more than 4 hours later) I can hardly think straight.

So what's got me so down? Mechanics test. I could have gotten several more points pretty easily. But this one mistake (there were others, but they were more "justified") left me with a measly 9.5. It hurts so much.

Calculating a speed. It was so simple. But I started off using a more complicated formula. I caught myself and changed it to the simple one. BUT I FORGOT TO CHANGE SOMETHING ELSE!!! So blam, wrong answer (and the calculations became much more complicated too). Next question, calculating the acceleration of the same point. Correct way of doing it, wrong "ingredient" => wrong answer. Two more questions using my "wrong ingredients" (and a small error in the last one), and so, two more wrong answers. In a way, I was lucky to have done some calculations before "stirring in" my "ingredients". Might have gotten some points there. But it still hurts.

Note: I don't want anyone telling me why it happened. You DON'T KNOW.

It sucks. Mechanics, of all things.

Now what I want to do is to go play badminton and smash (or at least hit the shuttle) as hard as I can. (I miss Han Xia!) Waiting for 8pm to arrive.

I've really got to be more careful.

(In France marks are out of 20.)

Sudden snow

It was pretty warm here (for winter) up till last week, then it started to get colder...and yesterday it snowed! It even snowed in Angoulême and Toulouse, and that should be quite rare! Anyway here's a photo:

It seems that it's not even confined to Europe (I also found out that it snowed in Rennes (a town in France) and in Spain); I found a weird article:


What's weird is this:

So all this happened on Thursday? But it's only Wednesday!
What a way to predict the future :P

The kennysia.com Kuching Food Awards

The kennysia.com Kuching Food Awards

This makes me hun-greeeeeeee!

And take a look at this super-cute doggy!!!

Feeling, Mika and View (what names!)

Wonder how they think up these names :P (except Mika, I think it's his real name) Check out these videos:

Fill My Little World by The Feeling
Very nice song, but the video is actually nothing, just a photo (and the end is complete silence...weird, why didn't they cut it off?)

(Edit: official video linked from this post)

Grace Kelly by Mika
Live performance


Same Jeans by The View
The song is nice (pretty catchy, at least) but the video less so

Oh yeah, I'm a genius! lol

A fake one though :P

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. -Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

A quote to remember

My Chemistry teacher whom I wrote a post about a few weeks ago just came up with another phrase worth citing : "Ça rapporte pas de points, mais je peux comprendre." (It doesn't bring any points, but I can understand.) He was returning our test papers, and he was saying that he could understand that some of us hadn't answered a certain question. Oh well, however understandable he is, it certainly won't give us higher marks! :P

A rambling post

Physics this year (this school year, I mean (or maybe just this semester, the next might be better)) is one big disappointment. First we get a lousy teacher (it's amazing how I survive) and then now we suddenly push our lab test (sorry, I don't know what else I can call it, any ideas?) forward a week, so that: one - we couldn't finish all the experiments that were lined up for us (hey I like Physics okay!! And labwork is nice...if we weren't given marks for it...:/ ), and two - we were completely taken by surprise; we already had a Mechanics test the same week, and half of us have our Chemistry lab test as well! (and poor little me has a Spanish oral test that she's gonna have trouble with...luckily it's only comprehension and we don't have to speak!)

[okay, I said lousy teacher, but she's quite nice, I guess...or tries to be...she certainly doesn't try to be evil ;)]

This beats the other time when we had 4 tests in 7 x 24 hours (I wrote a post about that, remember?) So here's my test schedule for next week:
Monday: Mechanics test
Tuesday: Spanish oral test
Wednesday: Physics lab test
Thursday: Chemistry lab test

The only times we should have this joyful get-together of tests is during end-of-semester exams!

Another thing...
Today was HOT! (the weather report says that the highest temperature was 17°C) In early afternoon (around 2pm) you could have walked around in a t-shirt and shorts and felt great (just like a cool day in M'sia...) And this is called winter?! Hmm...the effects of global warming? Judging by the temperature just before Christmas, it wouldn't seem so... (it was around 0°C (or less!) at the time...)

Word game

This is a brain teaser with a group of words missing. The four words in each group are anagrams of each other.

Example:
Time to decorate the Christmas tree! Putting up the lights
was my job, but after that it was time to ENLIST some help.
While the kids were busy adding TINSEL, I put on some music
to LISTEN to; my favourite song is "SILENT Night".

Try this!
After we finished decorating the Christmas tree, I hung the
stockings on the __1__. Feeling a chill, I looked down and
had to __2__ my __3__ lapse; the fire was out. I threw on
my __4__ and stepped out into the cold night to gather some
firewood. Upon my return, we were soon roasting chestnuts
and sipping eggnog to complete a wonderful evening.

Answer further below.







_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_.-:*'``'*:-.,_


Answer:

1. mantel
2. lament
3. mental
4. mantle

Trashcan Child

It's a short story in two parts:
Part 1
Part 2

Enjoy!

Dedicated to Harry Potter fans

If you've read all the Harry Potter books and you're trying to think of all the possible endings to the story, here's a site for you! The site was previously called Dumbledore is not dead, but it's changed since the last time I visited it...now it's called Beyond Hogwarts. Still, there's a section on Dumbledore's death...or more like non-death :P Some of the ideas are actually quite good!

However, it can get a little annoying to read when you don't have all the books at your side, since there are a lot of references to the books. I can't wait to get home and read everything again, while looking at the books!

Hmm...I wonder whether anyone (will) actually hit on J.K.Rowling's plot...that would be a pretty awkward situation for her!

Agar-agar

Guess what? While preparing my Chemistry labwork, I came across the words "gel d'agar-agar"! I did a search on the internet and found that it's actually considered a French word! For French-speakers, check out this page: Agar-agar, un gélifiant naturel It seems that the code for agar-agar is E406 (in the list of ingredients you find on packaged food)

Yours truly reading a book.

Not very interesting, but hey, it's in the title of the blog itself! :P I started reading Merde Actually in Toulouse, but only managed to finish the first three chapters... (there are eight in all) One of my friends took a photo of me using another friend's phone one morning...I guess it isn't that bad, so I'll do as she says and put it here...at least I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't :P

Merci à Iz'zati (la photographe) et Hidayah (la fournisseuse du matériel) lol

Never Be Lonely

This is a cute video (and a nice song too!) Do read what's written...you'll have to be quick though, otherwise you might miss this one:

He gave her 12 roses, 11 real and 1 fake, then he said "I will love you till the last one dies"
Pretty sweet, huh?

This song is Never be Lonely by The Feeling... I like another one of their songs better (Love It When You Call) but the video is lousy :P The song's really nice though, and there are several videos on youtube, so you could just go and listen to it.

I heard these songs on Virgin Radio UK...I've been listening to that a lot lately (online). I'd recommend it if you're online often ;)

Well written, as usual!

I believe I posted this link before, to Kenny Sia's blog: How To Make Your Own Official World Cup Ball (or maybe not, I'm not sure) Anyway, it's got a follow-up that I just found up about: Kenny Sia +10

Enjoy ;)

Miscellaneous

Here are just two photos I took for nothing (well, sorta :P). I saw these dogs on the way to the medieval city of Carcassonne. They were huge! Does anyone know what breed that is? I edited the photo 'cos the dogs were quite far away when I took it, I left the caravan (I guess it's a caravan?) in for size comparison.
This one is just shadows on the wall, I found that I could get a pretty "symetric" shot of the objects and their shadows :P (it's in my friend's room)

Returning isn't as easy as it sounds

Even my return trip was eventful. The first ticket is my actual one, reserved in advance. But my first train left 15 minutes late, which made me already late for my next train! And when it finally arrived in Montpellier where I was supposed to change trains it was 35 minutes late!

Since it was the SNCF(the train company)'s fault, they gave us tickets for the next train to Lyon (I believe quite a lot of people were taking the same train) So I got to sit in first class (though I had to change trains an extra time (I guess that was the quickest way to reach Lyon)) I wasted about an hour though :/

But they didn't check my ticket during the entire trip.

The Green Glove Girls

Haha, this has got to be one of my craziest posts. We were in a shop in Toulouse, and we came across these green gloves (40% acrylic, 60% wool if I'm not mistaken) They were so striking I don't think any of us would have bought it on our own, but since we were together (and the gloves were real soft! (and quite cheap)) we decided to go ahead and buy a pair each!

I must say that several names popped into my head, amongst which la société des gants verts, l'équipe des mains vertes (these two are interchangeable), and even les monstres aux pattes vertes, the green handed group(and later I thought of gang), then green glove, green-gloved... Anyway, whatever, it's not like the name's going to be used anywhere other than in this post! Hey, I just thought of Green Glove Girls, that's not a bad one :P
[note: the title of the post was initially Green Glove Gang]

Some vocab for better understanding ;) :
société - society
équipe - group/team
monstre - monster (you could've guessed!)
gants - gloves
main - hand
patte - paw
vert(e) - green (yeah, they add an s after plural adjectives)

And now for the photos...drumroll, please!

on the bus home (we couldn't wait to get a photo :P)

Okay, here we just decided to go crazy and pose with our green gloves :D (it was in Carcassone)


Well, I hope that this silly post gave you a laugh.

Carcassonne photos

I went to Carcassonne on a day trip. I don't know what this building is, but it looked kind of "special" :P So I took a photo. And it turned out to be a sort of headquarters (or office) for France 3, one of the tv stations (I think :P) The photo is purposely cut off where the France 3 logo begins :P
Here's a photo of the medieval city of Carcassonne, from afar. Once we get close we can only take photos of portions of it.
From a little closer:

The medieval city of Carcassonne is actually a UNESCO world heritage site. (so is the canal du Midi in Toulouse, it seems (it's a canal to shorten the way from goodness-knows-where to goodness-knows-where :P I'd gladly edit the goodness-knows-wheres if someone tells me what to put in their places!)) Here are some photos we took after arriving on the site.


[Edit] These photos aren't too bad either:

Toulouse photos

Here are some photos from my Toulouse trip. This is Capitol, a square in Toulouse. I don't know much more about it :P



This is a nice view, eh? It was taken beside the river (la Garonne).











Toulouse is a red-brick town, a lot of the buildings are built out of red bricks. You can also see the Christmas decorations above the street.











And oh yeah, I found a friend! :D

Of terminus-es and brasseries

Terminus - the end-of-the-line station (usually for trains)
Brasserie - a sort of bar-café-restaurant
Gare - a railway station

In France almost all towns have a train station. That's why it's so easy to go around on train. If the town you're going to is so small that it doesn't have a train station, you can be sure that you can still take the train to a nearby town.

I just came back from Toulouse (a town in the south). I went there by train, of course. And a detail struck me. When I came out of the Toulouse gare, I saw a hotel called Hotel Terminus. (okay, in French hotel is written hôtel, but I'm not going to bother since I'm writing this in English anyway) Now there's also a Hotel Terminus in Angoulême, I remember it very well since we used to see it each time we took the bus from the gare. And then when we went to Carcassonne (a town near Toulouse) there it was again, Hotel Terminus! I was starting to wonder whether every train station has a Hotel Terminus near it. I haven't seen one in Lyon, but it might be because there are 2 train stations in Lyon (that I know of lol) and the actual terminus would be the one I don't go to! So there might be one... And guess what, on the way back from Toulouse, I saw through the train window that there's a Hotel Terminus Audran in Nîmes (okay, they added a word after it, but it might be because there's already a Hotel Terminus!)

Okay, enough about terminus-es (makes me think of terminal...and sinuses) I also noticed several Brasseries de la Gare near train stations (but I can't remember which) and it wasn't just during this trip, I remember them from earlier trips as well! So tell you what, the next time any of you go around France, do keep your eyes open for any Hotel Terminus-es or Brasseries de la Gare and tell me about them! Photos would be welcome evidence, but I'd believe you ;)

It's a pity I didn't take any photos, I guess, but then it's not like they were very pretty :P