Journal entries - December 2008
Humour and culture
Hi, my name is Peter (“Hi Peter”), and I’m a foreigner (“Good for you!”). I’ve been away from my native country for sixteen years, and have grown up in a hybrid, multicultural environment.
Sesame Street and English books formed an integral part of the upbringing of my sister and myself, while Ici Bla-Bla and other TV programmes in French were our source of entertainment.
This lasted until my sister and I discovered with great horror that many of these (films and series) were dubbed, and we turned towards the British (BBC 1&2) and Flemish (VTM, VT4, KanaalTwee [now 2BE], VijfTV) TV channels.
Merry New Celebrations
From the colourful trees in houses to the decorations on the street, from the MacHeist Giving Tree to the Google Holiday Doodle, it seems like everyone is celebrating, in person and on the internet.
Some celebrate Christmas on the 24th (in Belgium among others) while others do it on the 25th (in the UK, for example); some celebrate Yuletide while others celebrate the signing of Taiwan’s Constitution. Others just wait for the New Year and then party until they fall dead.
Despite the busy workload due to impending exams, I wished to send a message to my family and friends, and so I share it here, “for future generations” (read: “just like that, for little or no reason”).
Remembering stuff
When studying for exams, you usually stick to your method if it’s worked in the past. But perhaps, with a little luck, you might end up discovering something new that seems to help a whole lot more.
Usually, you then smack yourself on the head for not thinking of this other method beforehand.
Well, it happened to me three days ago.
Office suites and user interface
I decided to re-download OpenOffice and NeoOffice to see if anything had changed. After all, OpenOffice 3 came out in October, and I hadn’t taken the time to try it out.
However, there is a huge problem with these productivity suites: the interface. No matter what features they add, they still haven’t changed the GUI (graphical user interface), and that pains me.
Christmas comes
I’m sure you’ve noticed it, but Christmas is on its way. Well, it seems to have appeared on arpia.be a few days in advance, despite the studying. A little touch, just enough to remind me of the fact that it is going to be a time for getting together, as a family, as friends, and so on.
Yay, presents & such. Rats, exams. Bother.
For all those who can relax, enjoy your holidays and the Christmas spirit (if there is anything of the kind).
Hope returns to Culuria
Returned to writing some of Arpia. Long day, so I deserved it.
Five days went by, and life returned to Culuria, despite growing doubts about the fate of Argoal and Fezzan’s team. Parmil took the girls out to each open exhibition or cinema she could find. Though no one was sure what to expect of the future, the present seemed bright enough not to be afraid.
Just before three in the afternoon in Yubenia, a message was spoken out in the speakers. Parmil and the girls stopped walking in front of the Bardrien Memorial Park entrance and listened carefully.
News wrap: coseismal
Many things have happened these past days or will happen in a few days, and I thought I might as well write about them all in one go: King’s College’s conditional offer, studying for exams, watching an idiotic film, the announcement of a lack of a keynote by Steve Jobs at Macworld, the impending launch of MacHeist III, an interview at Allen & Overy for a summer internship and solving a legislation problem for the year below at university.
All of these are completely unrelated, yet somehow linked in time. And when you write the bolded letters together, it gives the word “coseismal” (“relating to points on the earth’s surface affected by an earthquake simultaneously”). Coincidence? I think not! We’re doomed!
The blocus has arrived
There are a couple of periods in a student’s life when he or she gets to do something completely different for a while. There are the holidays… and there are the exams.
Belgium happens to have one of the most cruel systems I’ve encountered, though it seems that this system is becoming pan-European: exams in January, and studying time at Christmas and during the New Year.
So, tomorrow, I start my “blocus”, as we say in French. Three weeks of “non-stop studying” (well, theoretically – historically, I’ve been able to write a lot during these periods, because I just can’t study all day).
Good luck to all in the same situation. To others, I have but three words: I envy you.
Brussels speaks English
Today, walking through an area around the centre of Brussels, I saw a huge advert for the film “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (a remake of a 1951 film). In English.
I was surprised to see it in English (usually, such ads are in French), so I looked around. Posters and shop signs with a huge “Merry Christmas” were all over the place. A tram went by, and had adverts on it in English. Turning the corner, I saw a huge ad (two full façades of one building) for the new “Toyota iQ” (which does seem very well designed, after looking it up).
All in English.
It’s an interesting observation for me, as an English speaker having lived in Brussels for 16 years. I remember seeing lots of ads in English over time, but it had never made such an impression.
Have recent events and demographic changes meant that English is well on its way to become the true second language of an officially bilingual (Dutch-French) but officiously French-speaking city (only 10-15% of the Brussels population is Flemish)?
Speeding things up
I decided to take a look at possible optimisations for this website, in order to make it load faster, and so on. I’d already done a bunch of this some time ago, but I rediscovered the Firebug plug-in for Firefox, and in particular its YSlow extension.
YSlow is a set of guidelines that Yahoo! published a while ago to help web-designers in their quest for the optimal code, and WordPress hasn’t ever been very YSlow-friendly.