This kid's got talent!

I've been watching the Britain's Got Talent videos.

I suppose almost everyone has heard of Susan Boyle and her audition. She got through to the finals, but I'm rooting more for this dancer, Aidan Davis:


(his semi-final performance is here, it even has special effects that "clone" him, making it even more spectacular)

The judges mentioned George Sampson, 2008's winner. Here's his performance in the finals:



And here are some other dance acts that made the finals this year:
Flawless - they're really creative, do check out their semi-final performance!
Stavros Flatley - a Greek father and son act; their dance is mainly funny.
Diversity - a dance group like Flawless, also with pretty creative choreographies.

The links are to the Youtube videos of their auditions. All the finalists' semi-final videos can be found on the official website's playlist.

Most videos don't allow embedding...though here's one that does. It's a grandfather and granddaughter team. The girl is twelve...I can hardly believe it; she looks as old as me!


(I like this performance a lot better than their audition. In the audition, the grandpa's voice sounded a lot raspier...maybe it just didn't suit the song?)

It seems that the 2009 finals are tonight...go go Aidan! :P

Patricia Highsmith's redemption

Just wanted to mention that Patricia Highsmith redeemed herself (in my eyes, at least) with another book, The Blunderer.

This book is about a man who wishes that his wife were dead. But she dies without him killing her, and he becomes suspected of killing her.

Frankly, just a few chapters into the book, I was wishing the wife would just hurry up and die! She is just so awful. She accuses her husband of infidelity with another woman when the husband hasn't even noticed the woman. (and has only met her twice) When her husband wants a divorce, she threatens to kill herself. And she also has the nerve to say that she doesn't want a divorce because she "knows" her husband's affair will blow over. (and this is just amongst other things)

I'm not giving away any spoilers with these details...the actual story is about what happens after she is found dead. I liked the story...but the ending was rather disappointing. Let's just say that it wasn't quite neatly wrapped up. There were a few possibilities for what happened, or would happen. I would have preferred the ending to be more conclusive, and not hanging in the air like it was left.

There are several other books by this author in INSA's Humanités library...I shall try reading some more ^_^

What's your PeopleRank?

Thanks to this blog, I learned about this site. You can type in your name and discover your online "presence". I checked mine, and my "PeopleRank" is 1.8 (out of 10, according to the first blog I linked)

From the results, it seems that the most of my online information comes from my participation in the table-tennis association in INSA. Not only is there the official Sport-U Lyon site that has my info (e-mail, phone number), there are also two blogs for the association that have those info. (I made one of those!) There is even an Excel document which records our participation in the Thursday tournaments at Gerland!

I also found out that somehow Yahoo gives out my INSA e-mail address...I wonder why. I can't even remember when I gave Yahoo my INSA address.

So much for keeping my e-mail address private. But if an address were to be leaked out...I'd sure prefer it to be my INSA one (since it's so easy to contruct the address from a name), so I guess it's okay.

And then there are two other "popular" results...minesweeper websites and Facebook. Minesweeper websites usually have my full name and nothing else, so that's not a problem...and Facebook? Well, there's my profile picture that can be seen...which I was pretty aware of (and that is why I don't put my photo there ;P ) And with the privacy settings which I have gone through several times already, if my contact info gets leaked out into online searches, I'll sue Facebook!

Also, it seems that I'm listed on the French online phone directory. Not surprising, since I was already in the paper directory during my second year in Angoulême (I remember that we got the phone book in our mailbox...weird. How come I never got one in Lyon? lol)

And how about namesakes? I found two. One of bigulo.com, some dating site where "I" am a 21 year old girl. The other is on mylife.com, which is, according to itself (lol), America's #1 people search. There "I" am a 23 year old. Hmm... I can't remember signing up for it, and when I tried to log in with the e-mail address and password I usually use for these purposes (useless sites, I mean), it didn't recognize me. So I concluded that it wasn't me. lol

Then, for investigative purposes (lol again) I decided to inverse my surname and given name. This gave me a PeopleRank of 1.5, but I found a blog by an ex-schoolmate...she posted my photo on her blog! (ceh...didn't ask for permission...just filched it off Facebook :P )

Actually, halfway through writing this post, I suddenly felt like writing this in French. After all, the site is in French. So what am I supposed to do in that case, huh? Huh? Huh? -_-

Free straws

There is a kind of yoghurt here in France that comes with free straws. (I just bought it, which is what prompted this post) And mind you, the straws aren't for drinking the yoghurt. This is the thick kind of yoghurt that you're supposed to eat with a spoon. (and proof is, for a pack of 8, there are only 6 free straws)

Now why on earth would anyone want free straws? The straws aren't even especially pretty (and too short for me to be able to fold anything with them) So I started thinking.

In Malaysia no one wants free straws. It's like...duh! You go to the nearest kopitiam¹ and you can get as many free straws as you like. Or those fast food restaurants like KFC or McDonalds. (come to think of it, we can get those straws in France as well)

But! One difference is in "normal" restaurants. In Malaysia cold drinks always come with a straw. But...I've dug into the depths of my mind for an instance when I had a straw come with a drink in a restaurant in France...and I can't find one. The drinks come either in their glasses, or in their original bottle/can with a glass. (Ma, you will sure like this :P) I guess a straw is considered too informal, too casual.

So the straws are probably for children... I've also seen "flavoured" straws before...for drinking milk. On the package it says that when you drink plain milk through the straw, the milk will become chocolate/vanilla/strawberry-flavoured, depending on the straw. And one straw is for a glass (200ml) of milk, if I remember correctly. I remember thinking of buying a packet for WW, but then I forgot all about it :P I'll have to see whether it's still being sold...

Oh yeah, I just remembered...the lassi in Indian restaurants come with a straw. Dinie was just talking about it when we went to an Indian buffet last Saturday, about how a lassi in another restaurant was so think that you needed two straws. How on earth could I have forgotten that? (so let me know if you can think of any other "straw" moments, will ya?)

Besides, I believe there is less use of ice cubes in French restaurants as well... (again, I rack my brains) Cold drinks come chilled, not with ice cubes to chill-and-dilute them.

Hmm...what else? :P

Small bottles of yoghurt drink in France don't come with a straw either...unlike the Vitagen (and all its descendants :P ) in Malaysia. The cover can easily be poked through with one of those Vitagen straws...but they just don't come with straws! What conclusion can we make...that the French learn to drink at a tender age while Malaysians learn how to suck through straws before drinking? lol

Well, I'll stop here...if my imagination runs a bit wilder I might have enough material for a second edition... With all this "cultural" thinking (and blabbing about it in writing)... I'd soon have enough material for a second PPH²! lol

Glossary :P
¹coffee shop
²Projet Personnel en Humanités, a project for INSA where we have to find a subject to "reflect upon", write a report, and then do a presentation.

Introducing Mr. Ripley

I just read Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith, a book about a murderer who has new neighbours who might have found him out.

On the front cover, the Times says "The Ripley books are marvellously, insanely readable."

Readable? Yes. Page turner? Not really. Marvellous? Sorry, but no.

It was actually quite interesting, looking through the eyes of a killer. You see how normal he is, in everyday life...but faced with a problem, one of the solutions is: to kill.

And when I say "normal", I assure you that I mean really normal. And nice. At a moment in the book Ripley was thinking "good neighbourly relations are important" or something to that effect. I can just imagine the neighbours' reactions if ever Ripley got caught. "Oh, he was such a nice man! Whoever would have thought?!"

But the story moves a little to slowly for my liking...I wonder whether it's just this one, whether the others (yes, there are more books about Mr. Ripley) are more exciting. After all, it would depend on the problem faced by our Mr. Ripley, wouldn't it?

I have another book by Patricia Highsmith lined up to read...one not about Ripley, though. (I wonder whether I had already read any of her books) There were other Ripley books in the library when I borrowed this one, but I thought it best to try one first...in case I didn't like it at all. Now I might try another one...though if it turns out to be as slowly evolving, I'd probably drop the Ripley books altogether!

Phua Chu Kang SARS rap...and more!

I totally have to share this video. I've heard the rap before, but I doubt I've seen the video...it was probably all over Singaporean TV?


Under W can find me lah! :P

For non-Malaysians/Singaporeans, you might not know who Phua Chu Kang is, so I'll explain a bit: Phua Chu Kang is the title character from a (very very famous) TV series, he is a contractor (which is why he talks about discounts at the end of the video) The English used in this rap is basically Singaporean/Malaysian English (I doubt there's much difference between the two, except that there are maybe more Malay words in Manglish?)

And the guy who says "even if your boss is a jerk" is actually one of his workers in the series :P

The actor is Gurmit Singh, and Phua Chu Kang is his signature role. But I found another video starring him, this time playing a guy who dreams of being a hero and saving the girl. This one is in four parts, so I only linked the first.

I also found some episodes of Phua Chu Kang Sdn Bhd (the first part of the first episode is linked). In Singapore the company was called Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (Pte Ltd = Sdn Bhd in Malay), and the series has ended. Now they're "expanding" to Malaysia, that is, shooting the series in Malaysia with the storyline of Phua Chu Kang moving to Malaysia. I couldn't watch it on TV since I'm in France, but now I can watch it on Youtube! (I don't know whether all the episodes are uploaded though...and these videos look like they're direct from TV, even including commercial breaks)

Edit: The Malaysian sequel is nowhere as good as the original Singaporean version, in my opinion...you'd be better off watching one of the old episodes...such as this one.

Would you prefer pasta or noodles?

On my way back from work today, I was surprised to see this upon reaching Saxe-Gambetta, a metro station where I change lines.

a sea of humans
(sorry, picture quality VERY bad!)

I think that the only time I saw so many people (more, probably) was when they cut the B line for a strike, and everyone took the A line instead to change at another station to the D line. There were so many people that Bakary and I decided to take the D line (that we had just gotten off) another stop further where we could take the tram directly back to INSA. It takes longer that way, so maybe it wasn't worth it anyway...but then we couldn't quite know how long we would have to wait at the metro station! What's more, a metro arrived while we were there, but it went straight through without stopping. I wonder why...I must remember to take a newspaper tomorrow morning! lol (every morning when I arrive at the metro station, there are people distributing free newspapers (mini ones)...I never take it because I can't read in the metro anyway, and at home I don't even have enough time to read everything on my Google Reader!)

Then I went to the INSA library to return and borrow books. I have a four-day weekend coming up, so I need books! lol No...actually what I really need is to get started on my internship report...but I have no idea where to begin!

Okay, but I'm digressing...the reason why I wrote about going to the library is that I saw this on the way:


Notice anything that shouldn't be there? (click on the photo for actual size, then it'll be easier to spot what's out of place!)

If you don't want to figure it out or if you give up, here's a zoom (actually a second photo):


What on earth is Spongebob doing up there?! I'm wondering whether it's a remnant of the 24H weekend! (see previous post) :P

And I wanted to talk about this as well...at my internship there are two guys from CPE, which is an engineering school beside INSA, where there are a few Malaysians as well. Then one day at lunch (at my internship, I mean, not CPE lol) somehow the conversation turned to noodles, and one of the guys was saying that the Malaysians (girls, so I knew exactly who they were lol) had made some kind of noodle dish for some event (sorry I know I'm being vague, but I haven't got the details :P) Then he went on to describe the noodles...saying that they were "longer than usual", "like this" *shows length with hands*...and I was like "those are like normal noodles...", and he said that to him normal noodles were "like this", and pointed to the pasta on my plate.

And no, the pasta was not spaghetti. It was tortellini. You know, the spirally thing? Er...I don't call that noodles. lol

After all, the dictionary told me that pâtes = pasta and nouilles = noodles. It's true that I've already heard of noodles being called "pâtes", but that was the first time I heard of pasta being called "nouilles"...

'Tis a bad year for watches.

This weekend was the 24H event in INSA. (type 24H into my blog search bar if you want to know what it is...I can't be bothered explaining it every year :P)

I went there both days, and it was pretty good. What's more, the weather this year was great, unlike last year!

I didn't take photos of everything, but here's what I've got:

the Poweriser

I met up with Alberto, a Mexican exchange student. He wanted to try the Poweriser, a kind of jumping stilts. I didn't try it...even though it looked really fun, I was pretty sure that I would never gain control of that thing. I prefer my feet flat on the ground, thank you very much.

Here's Alberto at the beginning:


And at the end:

Yeah, I've got control of these things! (okay, he didn't actually say that :P)

Then there were the wood games, where I spent the most of my time. There were lots of different games and puzzles, some where you have to figure out how to get a string untangled, and some where you have to arrange blocks of wood. There are lots of other games, but I can't write about them all...

I took photos of two "arranging" puzzles that I did.

The first one is a puzzle that I played when I was small, but it had been such a long time that I had forgotten how to do it. Here's a photo of the pieces that we have to arrange to form shapes. There they asked us to make a square, something I had done loads of times before, but I had totally forgotten how to do it. There were 3 other people there and we worked together...and I finally managed it with a little "clue" I remembered. Here's the finished square:


In another puzzle, we had to arrange the blocks with each flower beside its stalk. I did it with another girl who happened to be there.

Yeah, teamwork helps! :P

Then there was this science booth where there are those little tricks using scientific facts. Here's something the lady in charge was showing to this group of four people (and all the bystanders):


She had them sit on four chairs and then lie down on each other...then she took away all the chairs. I had seen this before, so I didn't ask about it...but one thing I didn't quite understand was that they gave each of the guys a drink of water (through a tube) after taking away the chairs. I didn't get what that was for...

Then there was this at another "booth" (it was more a group of tables and chairs than a booth)...I took a photo simply because I wanted to say that I managed to do it :D


You have to move the ring (it's on the left, on the black patch in this photo) along the wire to the other end (the yellow patch) without touching it. It's like in the Takeshi's Castle game show...except that it was much easier since the ring was quite big. It still took me a few tries...had to get the hang of it, I guess. A bell trills if you touch the circuit.

But today wasn't all great...it was a pretty unlucky day for me! First a branch (luckily not a very big one) fell down and hit my thumb while I was sitting down trying one of the wood games (it was a really windy day) Nothing serious though...but then later (much later, I mean, it has nothing to do with the incident with the branch) I realised that my watch wasn't on my wrist any longer. Backtracking didn't help me find it, and I think the clasp must have come undone and it must have fallen on the grass somewhere....which means it is very very difficult to find! And I'm not even sure where exactly it fell off...I realised it was missing near the tennis courts behind the Gymnase C, and the last time I remembered checking it was on the lawn in front of Humanités. (so for those of you who know INSA...there's a great big surface to search!)

I retraced my path (what I could remember of it, anyway) but couldn't find it...so I went to tell the people organising the 24H that I had lost my watch. Now it's all left to luck...

So for me to get my watch back, first someone has to find it (tough), and then that person must be kind enough to get it to the 24H people. But maybe no one will even find it if it's in the grass, and the next time someone cuts the grass the blade will smack my watch and split/crack it. But of course, by that time the rain might have gotten to it first and "drowned" it. (allow me to be morbid, this isn't even a living thing) Or if, if, if...someone finds it a week later, safe and sound...no one would ever think of it being lost during the 24H, so they won't know how to give it back even if they wanted to. So. Nothing short of a near-miracle will get my watch back.

Yeah, yeah, some of you, who know that I have several watches, will say that losing one watch isn't that serious...it's bound to happen anyway. Yeah, I agree. It happens. (like Stephen Clarke says, merde happens) But still, this has been a pretty bad year for my watches, even if it's coincidence.

When I came back from Malaysia in September, I had 3 watches to last me the whole year. Two of them already died since September (their batteries died, I mean (I hope!)), and I was left with one (not counting another one that I don't wear but put in my pocket when I play sports) And now this last one is lost, and probably already crushed by some bigfoot :'( Luckily this year I had ordered something from Yves Rocher and received a free watch. It's not the greatest-looking watch, especially the clasp which is pretty...um, enormous, actually. I'll have to wear it tomorrow since I don't have another one to wear, but I shall try getting that clasp taken off...either by replacing it with another clasp or simply a string.

Still. I really liked that watch. It's the one with the bracelet to match. It's almost my favourite...the only drawback was that it's a little loose. But there's still no other watch I can say I like better. *sniff sniff* Argh.

Navigating helicopters

I didn't really write about the SSI (Séminaire Sport and Innovation), but the result of it all was that I got to go to the Thales site in Valence for a visit. So today we left INSA at 7am, with those from the second semester.

Note: This is not going to be a detailed description.

We arrived at Thales nice and early (the bus journey took about one and a half hours), so we had plenty of time for the coffee (or tea) and pastries that they had prepared for us. Then they presented us some of their equipment, one for measuring acceleration (and so the speed and position as well) and another for measuring altitude and speed (like for aircrafts)

After that we had a presentation of their salles blanches (Wikipedia tells me that it's called cleanroom in English), their "quality control rules", etc. Then there was a sensor for drilling for petrol (and some other sensors)...and a headgear for army pilots.

The headgear was pretty interesting...it controls the aim of the aircraft's gun, so that it is aiming where the person wearing it is looking at. So each piece of headgear has to be custom-made to fit the person's head snugly and take into account the position of his eyes. (Cool, huh? I want one...it's like "Hey, I'm looking at you, so don't make me angry or else I'll hit the button and shoot you! lol)

We had lunch at the company canteen (they paid for us, of course), and in the afternoon we had a demonstration of Thales' TopDeck, a new helicopter control panel. They had a simulator with the scenery projected on 3 walls (you know, where the walls are slightly angled so that they're like "enclosing" you somehow) An ex-pilot came to show us how the control panel works, and after that we each had a go at navigating :D Like he warned us, it looked much easier when he was doing it. I am sorry to say that even though my take-off went quite well, later the (virtual) helicopter started spinning round and round 'cos I had completely forgotten about the foot pedal and was too occupied with keeping it horizontal (there are 3 different controls, one for each hand and the foot pedals). I didn't attempt landing...the helicopter was already spinning out of my control!

Actually we didn't all do take-off and landing, some people took off where the previous person left off, and some did the take-off and we reset the simulator because the helicopter crashed (which was actually what I did right after Marvin passed me the controls with the helicopter in a perfectly stationary position in the sky, so I got to try taking off instead :P ) or was out of control.

We got brochures and a Thales cap each, and we took group photos (one of which with everyone wearing the cap) They said they would send us the photos...so I hope to put them here when they (finally) do!

I initially had reservations about this visit; I wasn't quite sure whether I would enjoy it. But I really did (despite the very small number of people I knew on this visit), and that was a pleasant surprise! ^_^

Perplexed?

I am a word which means to bewilder or perplex.
You can get lost in my last four letters.

What am I?

Answer below.















ANSWER: Amaze

Babble gabble

The sun is rising really early now. At 6am, the sun is already shining so brightly into my room, I don't even have to switch on the light. The weird thing is, this usually makes me wake up nice and early and get out of bed happily...but not this year. These few mornings I've been waking up to sunshine but all I wanted to do was to grab a few minutes' more sleep. Except that it's hard to be satisfied with the few minutes' sleep when the sun is shining into your face. (or around your head, for that matter, from my experience :P )

This weekend is a 3-day weekend, the 8th of May being a public holiday for the second world war. What a pity there weren't more world wars, we'd have more holidays that way! :P Ahem. Just kidding.

I have loads of stuff I want to do, I have my PPH report (don't ask) to write, and I should probably get started on my internship report as well (50 pages!) But I also want to read and do other stuff... But the weather forecast says it'll rain this weekend, so I probably won't go out, and I think I should accept that my leg's injured (again, don't ask, I'll tell you on the phone if you want to know, provided I don't have to pay for the call :P ) so I'm staying away from sports, at least until Monday. That makes already a few less things to do, leaving more time for the rest. Unless if Facebook rears its ugly head and gets me hooked on something.

By the way, I had a whole lot of ideas for status messages on Facebook, and I was thinking of listing them all here instead (one of the reasons why I titled my post "babble gabble") but I can't quite remember them. They're kinda silly stuff anyway...just blah-blah fit for Facebook silliness. But the problem is that I can't post them all, one by one as status messages because then (1) I will flood the news feed, and (2) no one will see those I wrote a little earlier.

Oh, of how Facebook has taken a grip on my life, I log in every day, looking at stuff...in a way it's good because it keeps me up to date (sometimes) on what some friends are doing, friends whom I never hear of/from otherwise. And then in a way it's bad 'cos I spend time doing stuff, which is fun, but then I complain that I don't have time for other stuff -_- But then Facebook is also useful, like for getting someone's phone number, which came in very useful once, or getting someone's e-mail (provided they make those details visible to their friends, of course) Not to mention that I met Phoebe through Facebook...and so widened our "Malaysians in France" network.

And besides MASAF (Malaysian Students' Association in France) is having its annual elections this weekend...frankly I am basically pessimistic about its (MASAF's) working out, but hey, the candidates seem quite motivated for the job...let's hope it's not hangat-hangat tahi ayam only... Though less can be said of the voters...I wonder, how many will vote for someone just because they know that person? I even started writing down some thoughts about these elections, but oh well, like I said, I have things to do. And sitting down and getting my thoughts in order will probably take some time. So...I won't be posting anything like that anytime soon.

Note: hangat-hangat tahi ayam is a Malay expression which roughly means to be excited about something only at the beginning.

I love Lee Hom!

I started off looking for Wang Lee Hom's video of gai bian zi ji (Change Me) because I heard that he played four characters in that video. The video I found was subtitled with English and pinyin lyrics. (I had already seen the lyrics before though) Then I found ni he wo (You and I), of which I hadn't seen the lyrics before...I was in for a nice surprise! I initially thought it was some "you and I, together" love song, but it turns out that it was otherwise. I love the lyrics, I'll let you check it out yourselves!

For more subtitled videos of Lee Hom's songs, you can find them on this blog (there are download links and Youtube links) I haven't looked at them all yet, but I will one day! :P

The leaning cake of chocolate

Voilà...


It is a microwave mug cake, and if any of you are interested, here is the recipe:

4 tbsp. flour
4 tbsp. sugar
4 tbsp. cocoa
1 egg
3 tbsp. milk
3 tbsp. oil
3 tbsp. chocolate chips (optional, but not really. Add them!)
Small splash vanilla

Measure flour, sugar, and cocoa in a large mug. Mix well.
Add egg and mix well.
Add milk and oil and mix well.
Add chocolate chips and vanilla and mix well.
Microwave for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise up over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed.

I microwaved it for 4 minutes since my microwave oven only goes up to 800W. And I put dark chocolate (the cheapest type) instead of cocoa powder.

Here's the finished "product":


I don't think it's supposed to spill over though...it's probably supposed to rise only a little. Next time I'll put a little less flour and all...it's hard to measure tablespoons, since you don't quite know how big or how high the tablespoon's supposed to be!

The cake was okay, but nothing to shout about. The texture was a bit dry...and the bottom was a bit hard, like a biscuit. I guess it's okay if you don't have an oven...or if you feel like eating just a bit of cake and don't want any leftovers.

Awesomeness unlimited

This afternoon I went out to town with Yi Zhou...and we came upon a street artist. We arrived just as he was starting a new canvas, and stayed until he had finished. (that was how good he was, and how mesmerized we were :P )

the artist, preparing his stuff (he took ages taking out the canvas and spray cans, by the way)

And in the meantime I took photos of the ones he had already done.

gorgeous, I love them

I found those less nice (sorry for the finger, but I wasn't blocking anything ;) )

He made a black and white picture (that kinda disappointed me a bit 'cos I was hoping to see him do one of the blue or red-orange ones) But it was awesome to watch...he sprayed the whole canvas white first (goodness knows why, since the canvas was white to begin with...not white enough, maybe? (it makes me think of a little play I saw, with a painting with white lines on a white background...one character said"Then how do you see those lines?" and the other replied "There's white and there's white!" lol) ) then he sprayed a lot of black, etc etc... What I found interesting was what he used...he had circular objects that he laid on the canvas to block the paint, and he used his fingers (gloved in those white rubber chemistry-lab gloves) to spread the paint around. Those are kinda "classic", but he also used a penknife to scratch off parts of black paint, exposing the white underneath (I wondered whether that was why he needed layers of paint), and he used crumpled newspaper to lift off flecks of paint. Besides he also used a small piece of cardboard that he spray-painted, then flicked to send tiny spatters of paint onto the canvas.

And this is the finished painting:

(I didn't take this photo)

I took several photos of his different techniques...but unfortunately the photos are really blurred and we can't make out the details on them.

After he finished, Yi Zhou and I took a look at an album he had left on a pupitre, with pictures of his different pieces. There were contact details on it...and his name: Pascal Froment. He even has a Facebook profile, of which I am now a fan :P (the photo of the finished painting was taken from there)

And here is one of my favourites:

(also taken from his Facebook profile)

Nice, right? It's similar to the far one in the photo I took.

Itching for squash

On Wednesday I went to a soiree découverte sports (literal translation: sports discovery night). It was a girls-only event (though "strangely" enough the people in charge were all men) We got to play badminton, squash and football (actually a kind of 2-on-2 indoor football called Jorkyball)

There were more than 40 of us, and not really enough courts, so we were split into three groups to rotate among the three sports. My partner and I started off with badminton, and we played doubles in 7-point matches against all the others. (the 7-point matches were only to let us finish a game and change opponents)

Most of the other girls weren't that good, so we won all matches but one. But there was this girl who, upon coming onto the court, practically barked at us, "You know the rules?", as if we didn't know how to play. I was darn glad when we beat her. She did beat us later, with another partner, but they sure didn't have it easy!

Next we moved on to squash, which I had played once before. There were six or seven of us in a court, and we took turns playing one against one (are there doubles in squash?), with the loser stepping out and leaving her place to the next player. The others stayed against the wall in a corner of the court. So with lots of breaks, it wasn't really that tiring.

However, the last sport, football totally sapped me of my energy...the worst was that I chased the ball all over the place but managed to do next to nothing with it. -_- But I did score a few goals :P Even though it was more out of luck than anything else... Luckily that was the last sport we did, because after that I was absolutely tired out.

After playing, we had dinner in the club (included in the event, which was free of charge, by the way) It was past nine o'clock by the time we finished playing, and probably close to ten when we actually started eating. As a result we left the club after 11pm, yawning and longing to go to sleep. (okay, that last bit was probably only me :P )

All in all, it was a great activity, and I hope they do it again...and I also hope it will be a day when I can actually go! (they're thinking of doing it on Thursday afternoon next time, and if I'm doing my internship I won't be able to go... :/ )

The aftermath of this is that I was sleepy the whole day on Thursday...and that I am really hoping to play squash again. It was really great, a lot like badminton. Though I do wonder how I would divide my time among table-tennis, badminton and squash...seeing as the first two are already taking up so much of my time!

Of yummy birds

Guess what I had for lunch today.

wood pigeon (pigeon ramier in French, or palombe in the south of France)

Yep, that's what I ate. Not that I knew what it was...I just knew it was a kind of meat. It was good, though ;)

And while we're on the subject of food, or more precisely, poultry...let's talk about KFC in France.

KFC really isn't that famous here in France. Somehow most people here prefer McDonalds, or a similar chain called Quick.

The main reason behind this might be because the French like to eat healthy. Most of the time, anyway...let's not consider the foie gras which is a food for festive occasions! It is so hard to find fried chicken here...I believe that deep-frying is almost never done! (is the "almost" even necessary?) They do a lot of grilling instead...

So, to come back to KFC...of course it has to have its trademark fried chicken, even though it might not get a lot of support from the French (it does from the foreigners though...each time I went to KFC here it was filled with foreigners) So now it has come up with a new item...the brazer wrap. I saw the publicity boards...it's a bit like the twister they had in Malaysia (do they still have it?), except that the chicken is grilled instead of the original fried kind. And what's more, on the advertisement it was written "oven-cooked"...if it were in Malaysia they'd have to come up with a better description to attract customers to buy this wrap! After all...when we go to KFC we want the original recipe! Be it simply fried chicken, in a burger or with their "chicken rice"...I can't imagine going to KFC and NOT eating at least a bit of their fried chicken.

***change of subject***

I wanted to blog about this yesterday, but didn't have the time. It's about something I saw on my way home.

Really, we can see the weirdest people sometimes, taking the public transport.

We were waiting for the metro at Saxe-Gambetta, and there was a lady with a dog in front of us. (the dog was on a leash) It wasn't a very big dog, and since there were many people waiting for the metro, I wondered how she was going to go into the metro with it...I mean, the dog would probably get trampled on, or give someone a good bite when they stepped on it!

And then when the metro arrived, she picked up the dog like you would a child. O_O

It so happened that behind this lady (between me and her) there were two girls, and the dog was kinda sniffing at one of their shoes. (before it was picked up by its owner, of course) They were looking at it while talking among themselves. And just as the lady picked up the dog, one of them burst out laughing. I can't help but wonder whether she was thinking the same thing I was... :P

Okay, that's all for now, I have a nice 3-day weekend ahead and I plan to finish reading The Black Dahlia (at least; I have another book waiting) I've read about a quarter or a third of it and it's been pretty disappointing up till now. Hopefully it'll get better...