Je n'ai pas rien lecon francaise. =P

So yesterday i had the most amusing exam ever. It was my first french test, complete with a concurrent oral and listening compre. This teacher would come in every now and then and summon a fearful student to the gallo.... er, test room. Only, le professeur c'est francaise! So he must do it in styyyyle. How, i hear you ask?

Scene 1:
*door opens*
*french guy comes in, puts a foot on a chair to show off his addidas shoes and strikes a pose*
*teacher stares deeply into the eyes of this lady sitting first in the row*
"me? shit."
"ALLEZ!"
*exeunt with a flourish and a 'after you, madame'*

Scene 2:
*french guy leans against doorframe, staring at another student who's looking over her paper*
*student looks up and groans audibly*
"ALLEZ!"

Scene 3:
*door opens a crack*
*addidas shoe sneaks in and lifts up against the wall*
*voice from outside: 'ALLEZ!'*

and so at the speed the oral was going, we finished our paper before the orals, so the guy comes in, and takes a look at his last victim, and decides to hold the exam in the classroom itself with all of us there. And he switches off the lights, and locks the door ("pour ambience") and starts asking him some basic questions.
"What's your profession?"
"A teacher of chemistry."
*makes approving noises* "I'm a teacher too." *shakes hands*
"Where do you teach?"
"ACS." *class goes ooh*
"Are you married?"
"er, no.... no i'm not married." *in conspicuous complete sentences*
"WHYYYYYYYYYY?"
"er, because i single life like. because i like the single life..."
"Do you like lawyers?"
"uhhhh, yes?" *woman in class stifles laughter*
*points to some lady* "She's single too. Lawyer, teacher, lawyer teacher..... hmm."
*lady makes protesting noises*
"SHH! C'est un EXAMEN L'ORALE! *looks at her* Don't you like him? Teacher, ACS...... very stable!"
*looks at him* "Do you have a car?"
"uh, no...."
"Ahhhhh then no wonder."

and he proceeds to try and set him up with every single eligible female, heck, every single female in the classroom. Terribly amusing, but the poor guy, to his detriment, couldn't come up with very eloquent responses in french. But it was good entertainment. =)



And in other news, it's durian season! And rubbing your hands in salt after eating durians takes away the smell. Anyone can explain why? Adsorption? Some enzyme inhibition? All i know is that it works better than trying to mask the smell of it with scented soap.

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Life's sometimes very similar to a CuSO4 crystal, all it takes is a small bit of help in a suitable environment, and you can end up with a thing of beauty. That, and it's full of blues.

more KL

And while i was in KL, we stayed at my cousin's old house... which is now inhabited only by his parents, and a maid who cares for the disabled father. And then i realise that very little has changed there since i last visited 7(?) years ago, i remember the stickers on the wall, the stone bench which Rusty (the dog) used to sit and laze away...

and it's all STILL THERE.

and the stall nearby which sold yong tau foo... still there... and the one at jalan ipoh which sold really good hokkien mee? check. Important things all there. =)

And then i realise that these old folks, they don't have a computer. No net connection, either, of course. The simple life. And of course, since they don't speak a word of english, computers would probably not have much use for them. hm. Practically everyone i know owns a computer at home, it's become just so surprising to see a home without one! But then again, i wonder if my grandkids will come to me when i'm old and wonder how i could survive without a VR headset and a jack to plug me into the matrix.

In other news, vouloir est peuvoir! blogs will hopefully be more frequent in the near future. The mood's returning.

Food, Ferris wheels, Flowers, and Flying.

Just back from KL trip, which was LOADS of fun, partly because of good food:


which included perennial favourites like KL hokkien mee from the corner shop opposite the 7-11 in the row where my mum's sis used to have a shophouse, and the lor mee from the place which only opens at night and has its main centre of operations in the carpark in front of the shop it's actually supposed to be in. And of course, A&W and baskin robbins. =)

Then there was the pro shopping, but there's not much to say about that, except maybe this pic of a breadtalk clone. Which came first, the story or the talk about it?


And then of course there's genting. Unfortunately i didn't have enough time to go visit the outdoor theme park and the roller coasters, but who cares about those when you have ferris wheels and a nice camera?


And stay in a nice hotel with nice flowers, which has no relevance whatsoever to the flower and hotel tower in the picture? (it's a picture of another hotel.)


Of course the most fun new experience was dressing up in a weird suit with pink frills and looking like a biker mouse from mars, all in the name of attempting to pseudo skydive in a vertical wind tunnel (seen in the back just next to the sign saying 'no pictures allowed') blowing winds at 193km/h, which creates interesting intrinsic effects like being able to fly and having the drool blown right out of your mouth.


And in other news, photoshop CS rocks. It has a nice improvement to brightness/contrast called shadows/highlights, which i used on the overexposed ferris wheel, and then it has a neat colour replacement trick which keeps the relative colours relative, so things like textures and shadows are maintained. So, if you ever decide you need a differently coloured shirt, photoshop it!


oh and yes those 2 people are one and the same person, who's actually hanging on to the side of the ferris wheel cage coz it was shaking. The casio feature of split pic is quite fun to play with.


And if that sounded a bit disjointed..... i guess it'e because i should've taken more pics that they logically flowed into one another. oh well. At least they all start with F, coz that's how they spell Fotoshop in malaysia.