Eva's Ramblings

Well, those last two days were pretty much hellish.

I think yesterday even went more or less, but today I am both pissed and frustrated.

But let me start at the beginning.

The reason why I haven't updated my livejournal for so long is that I simply had no time at all for this. About four weeks ago I started with my diploma work. So normally when you start with something like that you just read a few papers first to get into the matter and then, when you think that you have enough knowledge, you start designing your experiment. However, the guy I'm working for thought that it was a good idea to profit from the setup of an experiment that one of our study group has made and that I should start designing my experiment right away. I have no idea why I was so mad to agree to that. My mind must have been really clouded back then.

So that automatically lead to an increased stress on my side, since there was no way that I could read myself into things sufficiently enough on such a short notice. Hence, pretty much from the very first day of my diploma work I was under stress. I read as many papers that I could and didn't complain, but I soon realized that despite everything I wouldn't be ready with enough in depth knowledge in time. Even now I don't feel ready. To the stress that I had to read papers and create an experiment at the same time came that I also had to create another experiment which would take some preparation a long time before I would start it. Maybe I should tell you, that I'm working with fish (Neolamprologus pulcher a lake Tanganyika cichlid) and that for that second experiment I had to grow them. So I had to separate the young of a certain fish family and had to put them into separate, special growth tanks so they could grow up.

So yeah, I had to do three things at the same time. You can imagine that this was straining my nerves quite a bit. Since each was of pretty much of equal importance, I just didn't know what to do. I was hopelessly overextended. And I still am.

So these last two days we have been preparing the experiment and all we did was measuring the fish we needed. Yesterday from 10am to 6pm and today from 9:30am to 8pm. I thought that I was going to die. By the end of it my head was so full that I wanted to scream. The thing is, the measuring itself wasn't all that bad — what was worse was that because of Jeremy and most of all me being rather inexperienced with the handling many of the fish actually died overnight. And today one even died in the evening. I don't know if you know how that feels — to be responsible for the death of an animal – I hate that feeling, the pain and unease connected with it. And then I also ask myself if all this is actually worth it. What all this I'm we are doing with these fish in our laboratory is actually for. I don't know an answer to that and that is something that is bothering and disturbing me more than anything. Because if all this we are doing is for nothing then also these fish would have died for nothing. I guess you may think that I'm over dramatizing things, but for this you have to know that I became a scientist to protect life and animals — and now all I'm doing is destroying and killing and harming animals for a reason I don't fully understand. I feel so lost and so hurt.

And: I just wish I never have to do all measuring again. I'm just not good at it. I also had to fin clip the fish — and with one I even cut in too deep so that one could see the blood beneath its scales...

When I finally got on my way home after the paperwork, more dead than alive I knew already now that the way to the train station was going to be hell. The road was muddy and it was drizzling. What I didn't reckon with however that because of the rain there was also something else on the road through the forest.

Frogs.

The first few hundred meters of the path I have to take to the train station with my bike was rather steep and so I had to climb pushing my bike beside me. That's where I nearly stepped on the first one and realized that there were actually frogs on the path for the first time. And then, when I was at the top of the steep hill and the light of the only street lamp near our research station wasn't as strong anymore because of all the trees of the forest that were in the way. That's when I actually stepped on one. I looked down and saw that I had half ripped away its hind leg with my boots and that parts of his muscles were looking out. After all those dead animals today that was just one more thing that I couldn't take anymore. Aghast I fled into the night of the forest — feeling (and most of all hearing) that I had run over another one of the them with the tyre of my bike as I went. It only occurred later to me that the frog I had stepped on probably would have suffered less, had I killed him off with a second powerful step completely. On this entire odyssey through the darkness and the rain I was as if on needles, fearing with every meter that I proceeded that I would end the life of another animal. I just had seen too many dead animals today. I only wanted to go home.

But luck wasn't on my side. Once I had arrived at the train station — I thought that I was just in time for the train — I realized that, since at this hour the trains weren't running as frequently as normal, there was no train and that I had to wait for another half hour (I wanted to sit down and take out my blue drawing folder to pass my time whilst drawing, but then realized that I had left it at the research station. I had left in a hurry because I had wanted to catch the train and had just forgotten it.

My mood was getting from bad to worse — frustrated and brooding are probably the right terms to describe it.

I finally arrived at home 11pm (!) only and just went to my room to write this down. Right now I still feel a bit shaken — but I guess I'm gradually getting better…

I know that I should actually correct all this for mistakes — but at the moment I'm still to miserable to be bothered.

Current Mood: angry, frustrated and sad

Current Music: Utada Hikaru — Passion

The doctor told me that from what I've described it didn't seem half as bad as I had expected, since I didn't fall unconscious and I never really felt sick (except in the car, but that could have been for other reasons). I probably had a very light concussion at worst — but most probably not even that but rather more a contusion of the cranial skin tissue or the fontanel skull bone — which could feel rather painful as well, apparently. He told me though that if the ringing in my ears didn't stop I should go and make a hearing test at the end of the week.

Current Mood: tired

The next day we all went back to Switzerland (again two hours late, of course) and my professor's nephew and his girlfriend accompanied us. The trip home was hellish though — especially the last two hours. My head started to hurt and the ringing in my ears became so strong that I actually talked louder to Nicole than I intended. Good thing that the weather conditions were a lot better this time around and so it didn't take us longer than we thought.

By the time I got on the train form Bern to Biel I actually felt all woozy and barely could keep myself on my feet. I promised myself that I would go and see a doctor the next day.

Current Mood: sore

So today was the day in Vienna.

And who would have thought — we started off two hours late because of you know who (yeah, our professor and his wife) well, we got to Vienna at some point. On the way there we also went to see some church in some village called Schöngrabern — yes, Nicole, I remembered — that was special for its stone Bible — see the pictures below. Let's see how much of it you can guess right.

So at first we went to our professor's nephew's house in the 15th "Bezirk". Vienna, like Paris, is made of concentrically aligned city quarters that go back to Napoleonic times. The 15th means that it's not really in the centre anymore because the smaller the number the nearer to the centre the quarter. Number 1 is the centre itself. We dropped our stuff there. Our professor's nephew and his girlfriend were so nice to take us in for one night and for this we were really grateful. After all, it was because of this that we had an entire day to ourselves to walk around in Vienna.

And we had something else very lucky that happened to us. Alex, one of the Austrian people whom we had become better acquainted with during the seminary told us that he would show us around in town. We met him in subway station at the "Schottentor" (I don't know if there is a good translation for this) and from there onward he mostly showed us the centre of the city where there was great architecture. He told us (Nicole and me — Peter had gone to visit his family since he is Austrian too and Hedwig went to pay a visit to her uncle who lives in Vienna) a lot of anecdotes about the city and various things and made our little walk around a rather entertaining one.

We went up the tower of the "Stephansdom" (Stephan's dome) and also had a look inside. We were also inside some other churches (the others didn't really appreciate it as much, but I somehow have a weakness for church architecture — it somehow inspires me). And we also went along the "Ringstrasse" (ring street) and then past all those museums and on the "Heldenplatz" (Hero's plaza). Vienna is also rather famous for its Art Nouveau things. There is this building called the "Sezession" which is a white building with a nice gold design and a golden tree growing out of it (the people from Vienna call it playfully the yellow cauliflower : p). It's rather nice. But I forgot to take a picture of it. If you're really interested in it here is a photo.

Naturally we also went into a "Kaffeehaus" (coffee house), because Vienna is rather famous for them. Those coffee houses actually became en vogue when the Ottomans invaded vast parts of Europe and came almost to the Austrian border (Ottomans are "early" Turks, if you so wish) and the coffee trade was flourishing at that time. So "Kaffeehäuser" in Vienna have a rather long history and a certain reputation. I had a truffle tart and a melange in there. That was delicious!

In the evening we went to see a play in the "Burgtheater" (castle theatre) that apparently is also very famous (this time around Hedwig joined us again and Alex came too). The play we went to see was called "Der Steppenwolf" and was a theatre version of the book by the same name by Hermann Hesse, a very known German writer. It was interesting but also very weird. Then again it was a very modern production of the whole thing, and usually modern directors have a certain sense to make things rather weird. It was certainly nothing for kids (especially not English kids) since they had some nudity and blood on the stage (yep, that's often the case with modern productions as well). I still kind of liked it though and I it most certainly inspired me to read the book.

After that we went to eat something in a restaurant called "Esterhàzy" (we were also joined by Hedwig's uncle and my professor's nephew and his girlfriend). The restaurant was named after an old Hungarian noble house which is famous for their castle in Austria called "Burg Forchtenstein" and for them having been the financial supporters of Joseph Haydn (well, Haydn actually worked for them). It was a nice little restaurant with walls made mostly of dark wood and it was underground in some sort of cellar as well. I wasn't really hungry so I only had a walnut schnapps (Austrians are known to turn every possible thing into schnapps, no matter how strange it may turn out in the end). The schnapps I had was actually the first schnapps that I liked. Then again I've only had fruity kind of schnapps so far.

Well, soon we returned home and had another nice talk. I came to the conclusion that my professor's nephew was the typical intellectual type and was astonished that something like that actually still existed nowadays. He was very convinced of himself and of what he did, had a lot of books, liked to read Thomas Mann (which is for me something already rather intellectual) and liked classical music. Apart from that he was downright boring to listen to. I could imagine him becoming a professor himself and slowly lulling his students to sleep. Luckily his girlfriend wasn't like that at all.

Well, like this a day in Vienna ended. Here are the pictures I took.

The stone Bible South side.

The stone Bible East side.

The stone Bible North side.

The small church inside.

Vienna underground.

Gothic architecture.

A small organ.

Tourists in the "Stephansdom".

The bigger organ.

Very expensive coaches!

Past some restaurants and pubs.

The "Stephansdom" outside.

Some fountain!

To the new castle.

Sweets! But expensive!

The "Michaelerplatz".

Nice architecture.

Playing for money.

View from the "Heldenplatz".

A linking point?

A musical toilet. With Mozart.

The "Rathaus".

Truffle tart and melange.

Inside a "Kaffeehaus".

A flatscreen TV in the underground!

Current Mood: filled with new impressions

Today we had an entire day with presentations. I had mine as well, but I didn't do too well — I'd say it was boring, but somehow people were too polite to tell that to me (except for Hedwig — she just came to me and told me what she thought — in constructive critics, of course).

A biological discussion.

Playing a game.

So many doors!

The seminary room.

One funny side note about the pictures: this is us playing a game where you have to put small tag papers on your forehead and someone else is writing some identity on it. You have to ask questions about who you could be, but the others can only answer with "yes" or "no". If they answer with "yes" you get another turn, if they answer with "no" it's the next persons turn. You play until you can guess who you are. We didn't have pieces of tag paper with us, so we used the beer labels and stuck them to our foreheads by wetting them with some beer or mulled wine (or a mixture of the two). Rather yucky, if you think about it, but better than wetting them with saliva, right?

We had a lot of fun playing this game. Especially because of Hedwig, because she was a jelly bear, a "Gummibärchen". (Quote from Hedwig: "Gut, ich bin weich und verformbar, man hat mich in manchen Haushalten und ich bin nichts Anstössiges aber man kann trotzdem Spass mit mir haben…". Don't really wanna translate that. :p) I think it's been a while since I've laughed so much.

The people on the picture with the game are from left to right: Nicole, Peter, Hedwig and Alex.

I think I need to say few words about the place we were staying in. The small village was called Riegersburg and was about 8 kilometres away from the Czech border. The house was an old farmhouse, but it had been restored and all the rooms had been freshly painted and redone. So it was really nice to stay in. I loved it. Also the house was well heated and that was the most important thing from me because outside it was "Siberia" as we called it. Temperatures were below zero mostly and everything was covered under a rather solid and thick layer of snow.

Finally that didn't stop us to take a walk though. The seminary wasn't due to start until 2 in the afternoon and that meant that there was enough time to go somewhere. So we took the car and went to a valley called the "Thaya Tal", the Thaya valley — named after the river that runs through it. This river also marked the border between the Czech Republic and Austria and on our little tour we walked along it. So some of the photos I took actually show Czech ground, but I have never been on the other side. Some parts of the walk actually had been rather dangerous as you can see on the pictures below. There have been whole parts of the way covered in ice. Also we saw different kinds of animal spurs. Some might have been foxes, others probably fish otters.

There was also a look out on a hill where you could see over the whole valley. You can also see that in the pictures below.

As we returned we were warmed up anyhow because of the exercise, no matter how cold it had been outside before. We ate something and then got ready for the seminary. The seminary was rather tiring, especially because the walk beforehand in the cold had already worn me out a little. We had four presentations, if I remember it correctly and all of them were rather interesting — but to have two and then a pause and then another two of them with a discussion was a lot for me. So I was kind of glad that it was over, finally.

In the evening we went to eat something in a pension. That was rather interesting since the pension looked very much like an apartment. And elderly woman was cooking for us. I had something that is called "Topfenknödel", which are commonly translated as dumplings, I think. Dumplings with jam that was. Yepp, that means that it's a sweet main course.

When we got back we had some mulled wine and a nice talk (even though some people can only talk about biology stuff — which is kinda sad actually) before we went off to bed.

Look! The Czech Republic!

A "Maria House".

Icy path.

Nicole and Hedwig.

Walking downhill.

The river Thaya.

What a view!

Preparations.

My bed...

Current Mood: crushed

So today was the day that we went to Austria. I had read all my papers and had prepared my presentation. And so, at about 9 o'clock in the morning I sat in the restaurant on the Grosse Schanze in Bern together with my friend Nicole and waited for our professor and his wife to come and get us with the minibus. At the appointed time we met the others, Peter and Hedwig, behind the old uni. My professor and his wife were late, of course, and since he still had to take a detour to take something at the research station we finally set off two hours later than we had thought.

We went over St. Gallen and then Munich. The street conditions were bad, since there was heavy snowfall as we went through Bavaria. So due to these adverse weather conditions it took us far longer than we would have wanted it to take finally (instead of 9 hours for the entire journey it took us about 12).

There is so much snow on the street.

And it's not getting better.

Since it was already very late when we arrived in the Donau area, we went to eat something in a restaurant that served fish specialities. It was rather good. Thing is though, I had a lot of trouble reading the menu card, since there were a lot of Austrian specialities on there that I have never really heard of, and of course that meant that for every kind of menu there was a special kind of expression used that had nothing to do really with any kind of German or Swiss expression. So my professor (who is Austrian) had to translate it for us. And I thought that French menu cards were difficult to read!

After this delicious meal we were off again and finally arrived about two hours later at eleven o'clock in the night. All of us were pretty exhausted from the trip. So we just sat in the kitchen for a while and drank some tea. Eva — no, not me, but our host, a professor from the university of Vienna working on hibernating animals — actually offered us something to eat as well and I took some bread, even though I wasn't really hungry, just because it looked so good. But finally I went to bed not much later.

Current Mood: excited

Current Music: Some strange experimental jazz in the car...

It was the third time that I had kendo training today since I had returned from France and things had actually gone great so far. I didn't get a beating to the head from my oh so hated adversary David up until now and I actually wasn't afraid anymore to fight against him.

But that had changed today again. This time I was sure that I didn't bend my head forward too much so that he didn't hit me on my protection. He hit me too far back. Far too far on the fontanel. And he did it with such force that I thought that I would lose consciousness. My eyes were tearing and I was dizzy for a few moments. That would have been half as bad, but the worse thing was that in my pride I didn't admit my pain. All I told him was that it would be better if he tried to hit me with less force in the future. I should have yelled at him and called him an idiot. An oaf who didn't know jack about kendo, despite him being 1st Kyu (which is the best rank among the lower rank system — there are two rank systems in kendo 5th to 1st Kyu and 1st to 10th Dan — my sensei, Katja, is 5th Dan and she is in the business for 18 years now, so you can see that it takes a lot more to rise to a next Dan than to rise to a next Kyu). Anyway. The guy who hit me is an asshole and he doesn't know much about kendo. I even have the sneaking suspicion that he only participates because he likes to boost his own ego — which consequently makes him a bad looser. And he also hates it when people say that he has made a mistake — which makes him a bad learner. Also he seems to have a problem with women. Hence, I have absolutely no chance to tell him anything, since I am of course of a lower rank than him.

Also I am not the first he has hurt so far. But he just doesn't seem to understand. It always seems to be the other's fault.

The next time that happens I shall tell him! Things just can't go on like this!

Current Mood: angry

Hey, people. I've got some weird news for you today.

I was in Bern (the city I am studying in) because I actually wanted to discuss the issue of my diploma thesis with my professor. But as I arrived, it turned out that, since I am not doing this under him directly, and the guy I am doing this under was currently busy, that I the discussion couldn't be held after all and that I came to Bern more or less for nothing. (Well, maybe not entirely for nothing, since I took the opportunity to go to the kendo training, so I was rather happy about that.)

However, I also learned that there was a seminary in Vienna. I heard about this seminary before, but back then I still had been in France and since all that was connected to the uni in Switzerland was very far away then, it sort of dropped out of my mind — and after all, the inscription date had long passed now. However, it turned out that someone of the people that subscribed themselves to come couldn't come after all and so there was still one space free. And I took it. This is Vienna after all, the capital of Austria, and I have never been to Austria before. True, I now only have about 9 days to read 6 papers and gather all the information I need to make a presentation that lasts for about 40 minutes on "Juvenile vs. adult environmental and transgenerational environmental effects". And I will be doing it in front of I don't know how many people. And I never did something that big before, orally, I mean. I think I will learn a lot though.

And, as I said, this is Vienna, and we are going to stay there for a grand total of four days. And the seminary is only on one, I think. That gives us some time to explore the city.

I'll take some pictures and tell you all about it. :)

Current Mood: excited

Today was rather eventful. And yes, before you all ask, I did recover from that little incident from about a week ago. I don't know exactly what is going to happen now, but as it looks I'll be staying at my mom's place for those next few months. Nothing is certain at this point however.

So back to today.

We (that is, my mom, Markus, Renato, Rico and me) went to Seignelégier to a sleigh dog race. Of course you know that Switzerland in covered in snow, at least in the mountains, at the time and so it was the perfect conditions — and also the perfect weather — for such a race. I have never been to such a race before, but it was really very interesting to see all those sleighs and to mention all those different species of dogs. Most of them were Huskies of course — but there were also some other species, some of them looking like German Shepherds and others I didn't know the name of (as you may know I've never shown much affection for dogs and thus never really bothered to learn their names — even though knowing dog species actually should belong to the repertoire of basic knowledge — ah well, there is so much I don't know...).

There were also a lot of stands with food and clothes and a lot of things used by Inuit, such as snowshoes and Indian clothes. And they were building igloos and roasting food on the fire. It was altogether a very happy gathering. I suppose though that I should show you the photos so you can get a better picture.

A tower.

A lot of people.

One of the last racers.

And another one.

There she goes!

One of the child competitors.

Trusty dog!

Markus and Rico.

White beauty!

So many people!

Eating a broomstick...?

Renato and the igloo.

A winter landscape.

A sledging hill.

After the main event, the race, we looked for a steep hill and passed the rest of the afternoon sledging and getting into snowball fights. I think I didn't have such a fun time in a long while!

Current Mood: tired but happy

Current Music: Chrono Symphonic

I'm back from France and matters are worse than ever.

I thought that I'll be at least relieved when I would come back to the house of my mother, that this feeling of sadness and nostalgia would become a bit less, but as I said, matters just got worse.

I brought home a lot of stuff. Pans, spices and other things that belong into the kitchen usually. So the only logical thing to do is to put them into the kitchen, right. And this is what I did. I thought that my mother would be glad to have some additional pans, since I could remember well that she was always moaning about her Teflon frying pans getting broken so easily for some reason and that she had to buy new ones. Well, I misjudged the force of habit in her. As soon as she found out that I was putting stuff into her kitchen that wasn't hers she was outraged. She screamed and yelled at me, telling me that if I already brought my garbage here, I should at least store it in my room and she told me that she got lots and lots of spices for Christmas and didn't need another set. I understood her arguments, but still — possibly because I had expected that my things I had come to like so much since it was I who had chosen them and I who had bought them, would find a bit more appreciation — I became sad, and finally, when my mother just went on and on talking and yelling, angry. And I told her that I didn't care. I told her that things like that belonged into the kitchen and that there was more than enough space for them there. But she wouldn't listen. She got out of the room still talking and talking.

Finally I couldn't take it any longer. I became so angry that I took one of the spices with the aim to smash it on the ground, but in my anger I aimed a bit too high and hit the glass of the oven and the next thing that I knew was that the whole floor was covered with glass shards and that I felt shaken and very sorry. I called back my mother showing her what happened. I had already cleaned half of the mess up and was still working on cleaning the rest. For a moment she said nothing. And then she started talking and yelling at me again. Telling me how to clean all this up properly (which I knew how to anyway) and how much it was my fault and all as to what happened by recapitulating everything all of the events and the things she had told me over and over again. As I finally felt so physiologically beaten up that I just wanted to cry, I told her to shut up. To shut up now, before this drove me crazy. And as that didn't help. I told her that I would go out of the kitchen and leave all the work to her if she didn't leave me alone. And she still didn't stop. I repeated my threat again (in case she hadn't understood it properly) and as that didn't help either, I just went off to my room and locked myself in, turning on the music.

All was better than to listen to her talking with her sharp tongue, formulating painful accusations again and again, not even listening to a single word I say to justify myself.

Right now my mother is at the phone, telling the whole story probably to Markus. And just as probably denunciating me in the process in front of him to make herself feel better. But who am I to talk. I am doing the same thing at this very moment, right? And that makes me no better than her.

My fingers are hurting. There are microscopically small shards in them. I feel empty. I don't care about the pain. Sometimes a wave of anger's sweeping over me again. I feel like crying, but I'm too empty to cry.

...

I had another row with her, just now. I told her I can't stand her attitude and the way she spoke to me, even though she was the boss in this house — I was no longer ten or five like my brother, still she treated me like them. Not like I was an intelligent being. And then she pointed at the door and said that if I didn't like it then I should go. And I wasn't sorry she said that. I can't stand living in this house any longer under her thumb. I have the feeling that I'm suffocating.

...

She told me I need to pay for the glass. That it will cost much. I told her that I didn't care. That I had enough money. But that's not true. I don't know what to do.

Right. So much happened today, I don't even know where to start…

The day actually started today at 1 am when I came home from the party we had at Stéph's place because all the exams were finally over. We made a rather long round trip around the city in Séb's car, who brought home Claude, Fanny, Hanane and me. The round trip was that long because Hanane couldn't remember the way to her place, fair enough, that's because you take entirely different roads that lead pretty much around the city when you are in a car, than the paths you take by using the public transports or your feet, but then again, not to remember the way to where you lived after having lived for about half a year in a city as small as Montpellier is just lame in my eyes, but then again that is just like Hanane not to remember something like that.

Once at home I was pretty tired because for one thing the day had been rather long and for another I had drunken a bit more than my share, even though not too much, as usual. Interestingly enough there were actually some people awaiting me at home that I haven't seen before and my flatmate wasn't there at all. So after some questions answered I found out that Audrey had had a brush with some pretty nasty guys when she had been walking home. She didn't get violated or something of the kind, but she was still at the doctor for some reason. When she finally came home, she looked alright, but I had to admit that the first mention of what had happened did really shock me at first, hence I was pretty worried.

When I was sure that she was really all fine, I finally walked off to bed. We had another excursion the next day and I actually was almost falling off the chair because of tiredness.

Oh, and something else. Our toilet is blocked again... I hate it when that happens. We put some chemical stuff into it (which I hate even more), but it didn't do it any good. So Audrey said that she would take care of it and buy some more of these chemicals the next day and try to work things out — I couldn't do it, of course, since I was off on that excursion.

I woke up at around seven to the beeping of my alarm clock. I was really looking forward to this. This was supposed to be my last official university day, and sort of was the crowning finale. So I took the bus to the station and from there the tram and really savoured it this time. It's odd how you really learn to appreciate things only when you do them for the first time or for the last, or seemingly the last time.

Once on faculty grounds there was a bus waiting for us to take us to Marseille, to my knowledge the biggest harbour city in the part of France at the Mediterranean. The journey took us about two hours, a bit more. Interestingly, the bus was equipped with a DVD player and a small screened TV and on they way there we watched a concert of Johnny Hallyday (about the most known French old school super star — kind of comparable to Joe Cocker in music style, hence, I actually liked it, even though the guy itself had, well, a kind of interesting style of using make-up).

When we finally arrived in Marseille, the first thing that came to my eye was that the harbour did do his reputation justice. It was indeed huge. The other thing that came to my eye was that there was quite a lot of visible pollution or dust in the air. I couldn't really tell what it was. But the usual very clear air here got a good bit mistier as soon as you came closer to Marseille. As we finally got off the bus, we were right at the touristier bit of the docks and the fishing boats just must have come in less than an hour ago for right where we were the most recent catch was sold. And that meant that you had the vendors with their small basins filled with all sorts of fish (bass, sole, turbot, gobies and even moray eels) and shells. And they sold it fresh — yes, that does mean that the fish is still alive when you look at it and gets cut open and emptied of its entrails right before your eyes as soon as you decide to buy it. On demand you may also take the fish home whole, sometimes even alive, and do the whole evisceration yourself. We took a short walk through this fish market and I didn't really know if I should have been disgusted at it or if I should really have considered buying something, since this was probably better than any fish I could get in a supermarket.

Now, the actual goal of our excursion was a small fish farm on the island of Frioul and for this of course we had to take a ferry ship over. So we all bought a ticket and then went off to drink something at a street restaurant close to the docks to pass our time whilst waiting for the ship. The streets in Marseille, or at least this part of Marseille I have been to, are rather broad, almost like in Paris, and the architecture of most of the buildings is very beautiful and lush as well, even though many of them are rather dirty because of the smog of the city.

Finally we all went aboard. The seascape was fantastic and mostly consisted of those very bright, almost white chalk rocks with only scarce vegetation on them. Also, from the ship, as one looked back at Marseille one could see a lot of nice buildings, one amongst them seemed to be some sort of Cathedral inspired somewhat by the church of St. Marco in Venice for it had the same black and white striped pattern all around.

In the sea there were small and larger islands all over the place, protruding the surface of the ocean like small hedges of the otherwise flat surface. Some of them even had ruins on them which obviously looked like a tourist attraction, but didn't ring a bell in my mind. Our stop was the second, right after the tourist attraction island, and we arrived on a small spit of land, with a harbour for sailing boats of also small size. Surrounding the harbour was a set of restaurants aligned at one single street, leading along the docking area. The fish farm however was a bit further away from that. We walked for about 15 minutes, but couldn't go to the fish farm right away, since there was still a school class visiting it. So we settled down somewhere along the way and right on the shores of the ocean to eat lunch. Man, the water looked sooo incredibly irresistible; all I wished for was that I had taken my bathing suit with me. It was warm enough (at least for me — that means some 17 or 18 °C) to go in as well. I cursed myself that I haven't thought of this possibility earlier. But hey, who would have thought to go bathing in mid-January anyway? It's just not something you do where I come from since the water of the lakes is just too cold for that.

I guess the fun really started when we all had finished eating and when Giang had decided that he'd build a small boat out of things he had found lying about on the shoreline. The boat didn't want to swim away from the shore, of course, because of the incoming tide and so Giang and finally also Séb tried to do everything to make it swim into the open sea (where it can be wild and free and so on...). As they finally managed to get it at least into the middle of our small bay, someone, it could have been the Yann, had the glorious idea to throw a stone at it and see if he could make it sink. Soon just about all the guys of our class, except maybe Giang and Séb, were doing exactly that, throwing stones at that poor little ship — from small pebbles to hunks of the size of a head or even bigger. Finally one stone managed to make it tip over to the side, but none of the stones managed to hit it in a way that it sunk. Brave little ship!

Then, all of a sudden Séb emerged from around the rock precipice sort of shielding our view from another small bay on the other side — and he swam towards the small boat. All firing ceased of course from that moment on and it took a moment for almost every one of us to mentally digest that Séb actually had gone into the water. Well, of course it didn't take all that long for me since I have played with the thought before. I don't know how much I had given to be a man at this very moment. Guys, you don't know how lucky you all are — you can just strip down that easily and go bathing in your underwear whenever you like. With us women it gets more complicated, most of all if we are wearing white stuff underneath (white = getting transparent when wet = not a good idea). Yeah, you guys just don't know what you've got. ;p

Anyway, to return to my little story, Séb wasn't the only one going into the water, Yann also did the same — but not enough with that, unlike Séb, who only went in there stripping down to his underwear, Yann actually swam to the middle of our bay, then stripped of his underwear and swung them above his head, like a lasso. I don't know if the amount of his alcohol intake he had no doubt been gulping down last night still had some lasting effects on his brain, but that he did “the dolphin”, naked, showing his butt afterwards could only been explained by this, I guess. It was generally amusing anyway.

Later on, when the two bathers were dressed again, we learned that Yann didn't put on his underwear anymore because it was wet, of course (Yep, that means he was naked under his trousers and that again was cause enough for some dirty jokes of the French ;p).

On the more serious state of things, Eva (No, not me, but one of my classmates who has the same name as me — something that happened to me for the first time!) has received a wedding proposal from her boyfriend she has been together with for some time now — and she accepted! And she is going to get married in about a year from now. Well, one would think that if I am studying in France, most of the people I am in class with are from France as well, but here in this class we are actually pretty international. So, Eva for example is from Réunion, an island belonging to the overseas department of France (so, yeah, technically Eva is French after all) and is located in the Indian Ocean a bit east of Madagascar. Since I have been invited to her wedding if all goes well, I shall be off to that little island in about a year from now. But nothing is certain on that yet.

Aaaanyway. To get back to our day. After a short march down the hillside of the island we came at last to the fish farm. The whole “looking at it” thing mainly consisted of listening to the farmer talk (which was interesting, but short) and going out to the nets with a boat to see how the fish are actually kept and nourished (which was fascinating). All in all the entire tour only lasted for about one and a half hours and then we were on our way again.

Back on the boat, back in the bus. On a two and a half hour ride home in which we watched “War of the Worlds”. The new one with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning.

Actually, after the film was finished we came to the conclusion that it wasn't all that good, since most of the dialogue consisted of either Rachel screaming “Daddy!” “Mommy!” or “Bobbie!”, Ray screaming “Rachel!” or “Bobbie!” or then Bobbie and his father (Ray) screaming at each other because of a typical Hollywood father-son conflict the two had.

It did have it's moments, but only very few ones...

Well, after we came home we went to Stéph again and had some cake — sort of like a farewell party for me and I said my goodbyes to everyone I knew I wouldn't see again...

After that day I knew that something deep inside of me didn't want to go home. Something deep down there wanted to stay in that freedom I have experienced far away from my mother's house. I just know that I have changed and that there is something inside of me that wants to go out into the world more than ever now.

Oh, and I have to make sure to upload some pictures here, or some links to them anyway, so you get a better idea of how things were. :p

I had one of these dreams again today. You know. One of those where you are surprised when you wake up that it was all a dream in the first place. One of those dreams. It was about Andreas. Some of the people I know and him. We were just hanging around at what I think was my hometown, Biel, and I was talking to him. Just talking. Nothing more. There was such peace in this.

And then, I woke up. And the first thing that came to my mind was: "Hey, why don't you go ahead and call him again. It's been a while since you've talked to him." It was only after a few moments that I realized that with him it wasn't like with all the rest of my friends. When I finally realized again that he was actually dead — and would never return for as long as I lived.

Es ist so seltsam, weisst Du. Manchmal scheint mich die schiere Endgültigkeit dieser Wahrheit zu erdrücken. Und dann unterdrückt mein Geist einfach was passiert ist, oder lässt es nicht zu, was ich fühle. Noch immer fühle. Nach all den Jahren. Vielleicht ist das der einzige Mechanismus, diese halbwegige Verdrängung, die mich noch meine Leben auf eine einigermassen normale Weise führen lässt.

Auch wenn mich der Schatten dieses Ereignisses wohl noch mein ganzes Leben verfolgen und mich bis zu einem gewissen Grade auch unterbewusst beeinflussen wird.

Current Mood: nostalgic

Current Music: Cowboy Bebop — Complete Collection

Hey! Did you all notice? Today is Friday the 13th and a full moon!

Where I am this is supposed to be one of the most feared bad luck day constellations... did anyone feel anything of that? I most certainly didn't. But that may probably be because I slept in late — I only woke up at about 1pm. That's what you get from going to bed at 5am in the morning. But that said, Audrey only got up at about 3pm — no idea what she did...

Anyway, I actually felt and still feel pretty happy today — and lucky too.

I bougth some stuff at the local anime shop. The CDs are pretty cheap there (no, they are actually original ones, astonishingly enough, and not from North Corea).

And I also got this:

It's Ishida-kun from Bleach. Look at him shoot his arrow!

Weee! And he's all mine!

Current Mood: cheerful

Current Music: Xenosaga Soundtrack

The virus is still there. All I could do about it is keeping it at bay at the moment by creating a restricted account and deleting my own on this computer. As far as I know it doesn't affect any usual files (like Word, Powerpoint or Photoshop) or media files — so I could create a backup of all the drawings and the rest of media on this computer without second thoughts (or at least without third thoughts, since I am not entirely, 100% certain about it after all).

So the virus is still lurking around in the system files (as far as I know it's not spreading, but the problem is, as soon as I delete the files that contain it, it recreates itself under a different name and part of it is also in the sys32 file... so I guess that this means that I have to reinstall the system at some point) and those Trojans that it spawned there are probably sending information about every single thing I am doing right now to some server. So I'm not going to go to any site that has my credit card number, just to be on the safe side. But there is no way that it can keep me away from deviantART (well, who would have thought! ;p) and from posting there.

On another subject: I am in the middle of learning for my exams at the moment, and I am soooo bored at the same time. Somehow this whole uni stuff is just wasting away time I'd rather spend sitting at my desk, drawing, or then exploring the environment with my trusty bike.

Whenever I am taking a break from revision I am doing the first. I'm currently inking something rather big. And to tell you the truth inking is the only thing I feel up for at the moment. I tried to draw a standard anime face in one of those breaks I did in the middle of two bits of revision and realized in horror that I was incapable of doing it. It seemed that everything I tried afterwards just turned out to be crap! And I mean total crap! It was really frustrating! I hope that this won't stay that way after the exams are over...

And something else that concerns drawing. I realized that when it comes down to real people I really need to revise my anatomy! I mean it's not bad, its just that I only seem to be able to do good anatomy when it looks “flat” — hence cartoon-like. My drawings really need more substance. I guess that means I have to work myself through some anatomy books — and I really found some good ones on the net so far. As soon as this whole story with this virus is over I am going to buy them over Amazon. At least one thing to look forward to in this whole mess of a time I am having right now.

Current Mood: frustrated — I can't draw!

Current Music: Gackt — Crescent (favourite song: 月の詩)

Happy New Year everone!

This is my first entry of the year 2006. I know I'm a little late, but I don't really care. I'm back in France and have returned from my stay at home with my family yesterday. And I have to say that I have passed a good, if but a little lonely New Year's Eve… but the very beautiful and funny Christmas at my dad's was more than a compensation for it.

I was rather shocked to find in what kind of state our apartment actually was when I got back home — even dirtier than I had had it my memory. The dishes were stacking itself in the kitchen, no one had hovered for at least as long as I had left, all the doors leading to the rooms with the broken windows were open and thus let in the cold, there were empty milk bottles all over the place and when one opened the fridge there was an awful smell coming from it... in one words Audrey (one of the people I live with) had managed to transform the apartment into a complete mess in my absence! No idea how she had managed that!

I had an exam to learn and thus I couldn't really bother with cleaning, but I told myself that I should start first thing when I would return home from the exam today.

And so I did. I cleaned the whole fridge from top to bottom until I finally was sure that I couldn't smell that awful stench any longer (like as if there was a whole bacteria culture in there — for those who don't know what this smells like, it's something between turned bad milk and fresh vomit). Just as I was about to finish with the fridge, Audrey came home and to my luck she actually got inspired by my cleaning frenzy and started with doing housework herself as well. So this was what we did the whole afternoon and now the apartment looks a bit friendlier and clean again — or at least it looks like something one could imagine to live in and not die of mildew poisoning…

After all the hard work I thought I'd go surfing on the net since I was too tired to do anything more and I found a nice "Bleach" info site. However, to my misfortune my computer wasn't protected enough against the Trojans of their pop-ups (why I did have pop-ups in the first place with a popup blocker is still a riddle to me) and I got myself a nasty little virus littered with spy ware. Something that would never have happened had I had Antivir instead of that other strange virus program since it captures Trojans before they can even get into the system... ah well... you're always smarter afterwards, as they say. Thus I downloaded Antivir and Adaware right after I could successfully delete a spy ware program that was blocking just about everything.

As we speak Antivir is still checking everything (one of the reasons I am writing this entry, to kill time until it finishes, basically) and I hope that this whole nightmare shall be over as soon as the scanning process is complete. Good thing that this is not my computer, but I still don't really want to present this machine to Guillaume (the other person I live with) in such a state when he's coming back from Paris. I think he wouldn't be so happy about that. Who would have thought that my cleaning day would even continue in the digital world?

Current Mood: crushed from the cleaning...

Current Music: Bleach — Intro 2 [D-tecnolife — UVERworld]

Right – I am not really writing this because I suffer from insomnia, but because I had something happening to me that changed my mind very deeply. It's as if there was something unlocked in my head. But I guess that I have to start from the beginning.

Today was the last day of university of the semester. It was kind of nostalgic, but I knew that I would see the friends I made here in two weeks again. Man, as I sit here and write this, I am missing them already. Even though my progress in French has been less good than I would have liked and even though I still can't express myself as good as I would have wanted and thus this created a kind of discrepancy between me and the French people I've met so far, I think I still have never felt as close to people as quickly as I had to those I met here in this half year. It feels as though something has changed profoundly within me especially within these last two months. I don't know if you know that saying, but I was always told that you "open up" more when you are faced with new experiences — and now I finally understand that meaning — because there is no better way of describing it: I opened up. I guess that was the reason I haven't been writing a lot recently — I have been on some sort of path to "find myself" (as goes the cliché).

Coming back to what I was actually going to say: Today was the last day of the semester. We have already had an exam yesterday, well, on Thursday, that is, and thus have celebrated in the evening (plenty of alcohol, of which I also have had my share, yet not as much as that I could have lost my common sense of course — just as much to let the level of self-inhibition drop a little... oh, man, we had some great fun — have to remember to ask of Yannick to send me the photos he took, and the movies...). In other words: I got to bed late and getting up today for a full day of university was taking an effort at the borderline of masochism. But I went on and did it anyway. And as the day started and continued I wasn't even as tired as I thought I would be. Around midday I took photos, I took photos of everything. The campus. The trees and plants there. My classmates. Pure nostalgia, I tell you.

And then, after the final lesson there was the question raised if we wanted to go to Tibault's place and have another party there (or just hang out there, whatever you want to call it). My first impulse, of course, was: no, of course not. Are you crazy? You barely slept these last nights? You're tired and you really, really want to go home and do some drawing, you did so little of it the past week because of the exams and your fingers are itching pretty badly, right? No, you're sure as hell not going to stay up late for yet another night. Yet, I didn't decide on going home right away, but declared politely to those who asked that I would be thinking about it, if I were to join the others or not.

But then something inside of me switched all of a sudden. Wait, I thought, you won't be seeing those people again for a longer time and you know that you are going to miss the altogether lively bunch for sure. You can't just miss out on an opportunity like this, even though the lazy and perhaps a little antisocial trait in you decides that you should do so.

And so I still went.

And as it finally turned out, the evening proved to be something that would linger in my mind for a longer time. We talked about everything. Well, not everything, but a good deal of things I had never even considered talking about or discussing in such a big group of people. It was incredible. There were things like the philosophy of life, God and faith (and since we had people of different beliefs and cultural backgrounds in our group — one of Islamic belief — this turned out to be rather interesting), about inter-human relationships, going from something as "banal" as the understanding of one another to the more complex, like partnership and sexual relationships and that in a degree of detail I would never have imagined. Now while some of you people who read this are probably a bit disgusted/astonished/displeased by this, I have found out that I am extremely open and tolerant in such things and that this did not disturb me in the slightest. On the contrary, I was astonished and fascinated by it! Even though I was aware that it was custom over where I come from to discuss such things in private, mostly with one person you can really trust, like close friends and family and that some subjects usually only get discussed with someone of the same gender. All other things would have been regarded as sort of inappropriate. Especially such discussions with people that one only knows for a few months.

To do all this in a group of people though was, quite frankly, a breathtaking experience. Most of all because you are not only exposed to one opinion you act up against or with, but because you kind of swim in this stream of different opinions and get a lot of experiences and inputs of different kinds from all sides. Since I am not used to this sort of thing, I was almost drowned by it. There were all sorts of things flowing through my mind in the end. Many of them new, others I already knew of but hadn't been completely aware of up until this moment.

It was really hard finally to muster the force to rip myself away from this discussion and say goodbye finally. But Séb wanted to go home and, like yesterday, he took some of the other people (today Claude and Hannan) and me with him and brought us home safely with his car.

And just to make the evening even more interesting — on the way home, Claude told me that Yannick believed that I was probably in love with him... and even as she told me, I became aware that Yannick's behaviour had indeed indicated me something of the kind. Well, just to make one thing clear to everyone here — I am not in love with anyone at the moment. I flirt from time to time — but just a tiny bit. But that is it. I guess the misunderstanding is probably either my fault, for sending false signals (I seem to have an affinity for that somehow, even though I really don't mean to — maybe I need to learn how to send the right ones) or then Yannick's fault for interpreting my signals in the wrong way (wishful thinking, maybe? ;p). It might be due to the fact that in human relationship I first need to warm up (a relationship ectoterm, if you so wish) and I am rather timid at first, since I am checking people out to know how they generally react. But then, later on I get more open and also like to seek brief physical contact often. This has got nothing to do with anything sexual, but is just how I like to show my personal appreciation for someone. I guess I can understand that people can be confused by that, especially people who judge other's character by their behaviour and give their judgement too rashly.

Right. So much for that.

The next personal thing I need to train more often is to look people into their eyes longer when I talk to them. After all I don't want to give the impression that I am distracted/weak/or whatever... ;p

I somehow have the feeling that books have karma just like everything else does. I don't know if this ever occurred to you, but I somehow think that also a book can be fated to have good or bad things happening to it. A role model example for this is my kanji learning book. If my theory is proven to be right, then it might be that it has very bad karma indeed. I have no idea what it did in its former life to deserve that, but somehow it seems that it attracts and accumulates the bad things happening to it. I even fear to take it outside the house, just because of that precise reason. Something could happen to it and it could be rendered unreadable.

Just a few examples: the first time it got opened (not by me, but by my flatmate) its cover got bent severely and it never recovered (ok, that was a bad play on words, I admit). Then, every time I eat or drink something in my room, I can be sure no matter how far away I am from the book I am going to spill things on it. It might be just a drop of ice tea or a bit of apple, but it seems to miraculously land on the pages every time, sometimes even without me noticing it. So if I turn the pages around or close the book the liquid would be transferred to other pages. I also have a tendency to step on it accidentally if it lies on the floor and to knock it down form anywhere it put it on to.

On the other hand, the book I am currently reading now (namely: “The three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas) seems to be incredibly lucky in evading such things.

Another theory would be that my Kanji learning book is just under some kind of spell by the other book — maybe “The three Musketeers” just managed to somehow drain all the luck out of the Kanji learning book and now uses it for its benefit. If so, then I need to be careful in my further lecture. Maybe this spell also works on humans...

I'm suffering from insomnia again.

Somehow my whole sleep pattern has been severely messed up recently. Normally I am not the one to whine about my health or about anything like that in general, but I just can't help it right now. I want to sleep, but I just can't — it wouldn't be half as bad if I just lay awake in my bed, but there are my thoughts that just keep on turning and turning and I can't do anything about it. And then there is the fear as well… just creeping around in the back of my head, sometimes lunging at me unexpectedly. Yeah, I think this fear is probably the worst thing.

Writing has always been a good therapy, so I thought I'd just sit here and write until I feel ready to go to sleep at last… maybe I should go back to writing stories again, it really helps to focus some of the thoughts and canalises them into creativity. Otherwise I'm just hanging around, not doing anything here.

I have been drawing, but somehow it only leads to frustration, since the outcome is far below my expectations at the moment. Learning some more Kanji would be nice. That kind of empties my head and I can rather more focus on the shapes and the images that they create inside my mind, turning away from the dark thoughts that otherwise embody it.

Ich war heute bei einem Kollegen, Yannick, zu Besuch, zusammen mit anderen. Dort haben wir etwas gemacht, was ich schon lange nicht mehr gemacht habe — Brot gebacken! Das war einfach wundervoll!! Er hatte zwar nur einen normalen Ofen und keinen Steinofen, aber das machte gar nichts. Dazu gab es kräftigen Blauschimmelkäse, dünne Fleischtranchen, hausgemachte Konfitüre und Wein aus der Umgebung. Und wir sind einfach nur den ganzen Abend da gehockt und haben diskutiert! Ich liebe so was!

Nach einer Weile habe ich mich dann gefragt, warum Brote eigentlich immer rund sein müssen, immer so langweilig rund. Ich glaube ich habe danach angefangen, den Teig wie eine Schildkröte zu formen. Und dann ging's los: bald wurde irgendewas geformt und gebacken. Von Hasen (die dann wie Kamele aussahen), zu Fischen, Ringen, Bäumen und ganz andern Dingen, die hier keine Erwähnung finden sollen oder sollten... :)

Wir haben uns wie die Kinder amüsiert!

So was sollte man öfters machen. Das ist irgendwie so etwas wie Weihnachtskeckse backen.

Sorry to all you English speaking people out there who read my journal. I don't have the energy at the moment to write in English. And for several reasons I want to keep writing in German for the time being.

Keith Parkinson died just over a month ago. I only found out today. The news had shocked me deeply and made me think about a lot of things...

He was (and still is) one of my favourite fantasy artists and I always looked up to him as some sort of role model. An idol. Someone I could learn from. I know that it is idiotic to think that there could have been the slightest possibility that I would have been able to meet him somehow, someday... but it was a nice thought that sometimes came to me when I was working on something. A nice dream.

Well, the dream is shattered and I stood there for a short moment looking at the shards at my feet, careful not to cut myself by stepping on them.

Think... what do you learn from this? The world has been bereft of one of its most astounding fantasy artists. One of your idols is gone. What are you going to do now? It dawned on me rather quickly: try harder. Try to be better, try to surpass yourself with everything you do. Try to ameliorate yourself with every picture. And work hard to at least try to fill this hollow death has slashed into the fantasy art community. Even though I know that no one could (or should) ever replace him, I am now determined above anything else to go on in his memory in order to keep it alive for others to come!

I will refuse to forget what kind of inspiration he was and still is to me!

Keith Parkinson's Homepage

Why do I somehow have the feeling that this is actually very fitting...?

So this is sort of an entry blog here. I am pretty busy at the moment. In fact — I shouldn't even be sitting on this computer. I am working hard to get a practical work done. It's a rather simple experiment about the behaviour of fish, not just any fish, of course, that would be a bit too broad — no, the behaviour of Neolamprologus pulcher, also called the “princess of Burundi”. A fish belonging to the species of the ciclidae and being endemic (meaning "only resident") in the lake Tanganika, Zambia. If all things go as planned I'll be doing work on that fish for the next year or so. All lab work. The problem about this is though that I'm not very motivated for this at the moment. I'm not really a lab rat. I'd rather go out into the field and gather my data there — even though everything gets a lot less simple if you do that, since, naturally, you can't control the environment as good as in a lab.

However, again if everything should go as planned, I should get some time to gather actual field experience as well. There is a trip planned to Africa next mid-September and I shall be on it, doing field work until mid-December. That should be fun.

But right at the moment I'm still stuck in the middle of this practical work I should be doing and can't really force myself to get down to...

... ah well, I might just eat something and then get back to work.