Mouse

I don't know what's been happening those past two weeks but I've been efficient, reasonable and disciplined. The ultimate proof that everything can happen ;-)

I'm - so far - sticking to the resolution to go to the library 2-3 times a week after work for, at least, 2 hours. The feeling of satisfaction once I'm back home is, idk, indescribable? ;-) Basically I can spend the whole evening reading fic, reading a book, cruising LJ, watching my shows without feeling the slightest bit of guilt because I've kept the good work earlier. So I can do all those things, meaning I can do absolutely nothing and be happy about it \o/ Somehow, I can appreciate it even more because I know I'm not wasting time I should be using to study. Win-win situation.

I've also decided to do something about the lack of actual-books!reading that has been going on last year. Complaining about the fact that I'm not reading anymore isn't exactly helpful so I thought of doing something new, ie stop complaining and actually do something about it. So. When I'm back home, I'm now putting the laptop away after I've had a bit of fun and picking up A Book. And, more incredible yet, I try to go to bed before midnight, sans aforementioned laptop, and read some more. I can't believe I'm proud of that "accomplishment" but sad truth is, it is an accomplishment since, up until recently, I spent hours reading fic and going to bed/sleep late because I was, you guessed it, reading fics. I needed to find more time to read books and since I couldn't exactly cut in my studying or my social/familial activities, I picked teh internet. I told myself, "self, it's just a matter of balancing things out. I'm not forbidding you from going on-line and enjoying your time there, I'm just demanding you make more room for all those books you've been complaining of abandoning." And so I did.

So far so good \o/

Having said that - and contrary to the subject I picked for this entry - some things are still my top priorities and tonight I'll be watching White Collar before I even look at my book (I'm re-reading American Gods) because WhiCo is back, did you know? ♥ ♥ This will be the second episode I download since MegaUpload's demise. It's just not the same without it - except for how it is. I will miss MU, though, it was my primary source of tv downloads and, even though I have other means to get my hands on them, it's just another sign that things are a-changing and I don't like changes :-/ Besides, I hate the idea that websites like that can disappear overnight. Let's just hope that MediaFire, RapidShare & al won't follow. I need to download my weekly dose of tv shows in order to be able to dole out some nice amount of money to get the actual DVDs of aforementioned downloaded shows and maybe some merch (mugs, tshirts) and, if I'm lucky - or they are - a ticket for an expensive convention... maybe abroad - so that I can spend even more money as a tourist!

Anyway, that's neither here nor there ;-) Though wait, I have to share something hilarious and brilliant: When LOTR meets SOPA

Right after work, Cookie and I went to a new library that opened near our workplace and we studied there for two hours, go us! We're planning on going there on a regular basis (we'll return as soon as tomorrow, as a matter of fact) as we kinda fell in love with the place and the atmosphere. It's much more modern than Ste Geneviève (the one I picspammed some time ago) but it still manages to be cozy and when you're sitting at the big desks, you don't feel like you're sharing the place with a gazillion other students. I think we'll keep Ste Geneviève for the weekends and the new one for the week.

We got back around 8.15PM, I did a load of laundry, I cooked our dinner then tomorrow's lunch and I think I totally deserve to be relaxing in front of Castle now, Y/Y?

This weekend was very busy too but unlike last weekend (or the next) it was fun all the time: afternoon tea with greedy_dancer at moimoietmoi's (SAM always has yummy treats for us when we have afternoon tea at her place) followed with dinner at my parents'. Then on Saturday we had The Esu over with my nieces for our second raclette of the year (hopefully not the last) and late afternoon we went to the mall, hoping to get our hands on new clothes since it's the sales at the moment. Which I did, score!

And! In between everything - well, it was before everything as I did it on Saturday morning, to be exact - I suddenly had an idea. What if I uploaded my SPN fics over at AO3? I have no idea where the idea came from, but I realised I had very few of my fics in general and none of my SPN fics in particular (remember when I used to write fic? Back In The Day) archived there and I thought it might be a good idea to do some saving. Especially as I don't even have a single of my (own!) stories saved on my computer any longer. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I used to have them all stored on my HD when I had computer!Clark and computer!Dean then they both died, I stopped writing altogether, and I sorta forgot that I didn't have any trace of my stories anywhere but on my LJ.

So far, I've uploaded one SPN fic but I'll add more whenever I have the time/remind myself to do it. I'm also downloading and saving them all (for keeps) via the site - thank you Download button :-)

PS: it has nothing to do with anything but omg, White Collar D-1(+1)

Hello, flist. It's 10.00AM and I'm awake, for no reason that I can understand after going to bed past 4.00AM. I'm lazying around in bed, typing this with some Frank Sinatra on - perfect music for a lazy and cozy morning - because less than six hours of sleep isn't enough to be up and about, imho. So I'll be staying in bed for a little while longer and maybe treating myself to a breakfast in bed. Poor Cookie isn't there to share it with me as she had to run some errands. I feel for her.

Happy New Year, you guys! Hope you had a good NYE. Mine and Cookie's was low-key and just the kind that we enjoy. We had two friends over, we cooked our meal together, we exchanged our Christmas presents (I have two more John Irving books in my collection!) and then spent the evening/night eating and playing Guitar Hero and BuzzIt. Because we are wild, you see :-) They left around 3.00AM, we cleaned up a bit so that the place was clear when we'd get up - which does make you rejoice when you do! - before puttering a bit on-line, as you do.

Sad thing, though: because we were playing games all night, I couldn't watch the traditional NYE documentary on the Crazy Horse that they always air every year past midnight. Sad thing, like I said! No gorgeous and bendy naked dancers to welcome the new year ;-) I'll try to see if I can watch it on-line, mind.

Ok, I started this last night and I'll post it now, before I go and help myself to some leftover tiramisu made by Sandra #Yummy

I snagged it from loki_dip - ( behind the cut, the 2011 review meme )

Well. That was a happy and satisfying review. Let's hope the one I do in 2012 is of the same vein :-)

Hmm. Listening to Sinatra makes me crave some White Collar. Quick, to the kitchen, prepare everything then eat while I watch Peter and Neal's antics :-)

Hope everyone who celebrate had a wonderful Christmas *hugs*

Christmas Eve (the 24th is when when we celebrate Christmas here) was fantastic. It was spent at my sister's with the usual suspects and two new family members, namely Cookie, who was with us for the first time and my niece Emma who was spending her very first Christmas, period ♥

We did our traditional team cooking and "created" new appetisers, the entrée was a novelty as well, the idea came from my aunt who suggested we tried a crème brulée au fois gras - it was very different and very delicious. Our main dish was roe deer with, as it happens, no side dish as my mom thought that my aunt was bringing the vegetables and my aunt thought it was my mom lol But turns out it wasn't such a bad thing because we had salad with the meat and the meal ended lighter than it would have been, which was of the good. Especially as it meant we could get at the cheese part of said meal without feeling like we were on the verge of exploding and, even more importantly maybe, that when it was time to savour the assorted desserts, traditional bûche de Noël/yule log + ice cream'ed yule log + almond paste + macarons + the traditional clementines, we could basically take a piece of each :-)

While waiting for midnight, ie for Santa to come and deliver his presents, we played crazy dart and passionate Trivial Pursuit games - I dare say it was epic! Then midnight rang and we woke up my goddaughter - who was, as you can imagine, Extremely Excited all day - and aww her little face when she saw the presents under the tree and she realised that Santa had come ♥ ♥ We distributed the presents among us all and then just looked at her opening hers - like the crazy stalkers we all are lol She kept squeeing and telling us what toy Santa had brought her and then displaying it for all of us to see. Sis filmed the whole scene, to which I say, I love technology!

After everyone had squeed over their own presents, my BIL suggested we played some Wii and omg! We just couldn't stop afterwards lol Those Just Dance games are so addictive. And so hilarious when playing in multiple players mode. Also, dude, we totally burnt some of the calories we'd ingested that same evening ;-)

Anyway, it was awesome. We went to bed around 4.00AM only to get up at 9.00AM because Cookie and I were doing the second part of the celebrations at the in-laws', ie at Cookie's mother's place, with her brother and cousin. Which, the calories I burnt when playing Just Dance? Were absorbed again thanks to the raclette we ate. And the crêpes that followed said raclette. Well, one of the gifts that Cookie's mother received was a crêpe maker, we had no choice but to christen it, right? Right!

After that, we headed back to Choisy where we spent the evening at my parents' and ate our third Christmas meal of the weekend and, to my delight, there were snails on the menu this time. Score!

And now it's past 10.00PM, we're back home, listening to some Christmas songs and waiting for the DW Christmas special to download so that we can end our Christmas weekend as any DW fans should :-)

Day 2 of Christmas break (the weekend doesn't count - because I usually don't work then - it's really when Monday comes that you realise that something exciting is going on and that your alarm didn't wake you up. Such a beautiful moment ♥). We had ourselves a lovely weekend, which was much more restful somehow than Day 1 of Christmas break because we basically spent the whole day yesterday playing with Ikea items and turning the guestroom into a real study; that is, we moved stuff around, got rid of some others and installed our brand new desks \o/ Admittedly, ours has nothing to do with, say, Charles Xavier's kinda study but, well, we have desks, right? :-)

Don't think I (or she) mentioned it on LJ (she always means to update and then doesn't) but Cookie went back to school to study Arts - same system as me, ie distance learning. She enrolled at the same university where we work :-) Each of us wanted to have our own student-y territory, so yesterday we went to Ikea to purchase the desks we'd seen on Sunday (Ikea, or one of people's favourite place to visit during the weekend? lol) Between the visit to the store (which took ages omg), the delivery, the assembling of the desks, the disassembling of the old desktop desk, the moving around of some shelves, the putting things in their new place, the cleaning up, the putting things away in the basement and the throwing away of the trash, we were busy from 12.00PM to 12.00AM We were so sore in the end omg! lol

But! It was all for the good cause because we totally love the result, we felt very accomplished; there's still a lot of room to move around and we both have our respective space to work and it's pretty neat. The couch and the remaining bookshelves don't match anymore, colour-wise, but we'll take care of that in the upcoming months so let's ignore that little detail :-)

Let me reveal a sekrit, I love it when people post pictures of their homes, even if it's just to show off their new lamp shades (we happen to have a new shade in the kitchen, as a matter of fact!) but I always feel a bit of a voyeur so that's why I put pictures of my own place up there, for all - so inclined - to see. So that I can peek inside your own places without feeling guilty of never reciprocating ;-)

( In other words - a couple of pictures of our study :-) )

There you go :-) Today's program is: some work - sitting at our new desks \o/ - contemporary arts for Cookie and literature for me. Then! Some Christmas shopping in the afternoon and we'll end the evening - if we have the time - with Hugo before getting back and catching up on Once Upon a Time. We're all up-to-date with American Horror Story (I still can't believe how much I enjoy that show!) and we've heard some good stuff about OUaT so it's time to catch up and see what we missed since the last episode we saw :-)

I swear I'll try to make this short because there're so many times people will listen to other people whining about being sick but omg, you guys, I feel miserable! Nasty cough made a nasty come back - in as much as one can talk about "come back" when there was no real departure to begin with - and I had to go see the doc again today; turns out I apparently have something else/different from the last time I went, which might be a bit ridiculous as it's usually associated with little kids (namely whooping cough, thanks to GD for the translation). When I told my co-worker Aude she was all "hahaha you're doing childhood diseases nao?", which was damn ironical coming from her because guess who had chicken pox just last month? Yes ;-)

Anyway, I hope I don't have two more weeks of Coughing From Hell, as predicted because, well, it just sucks.

But! Because there is more to life than whining, I'm happy to say that the first batch of cards was posted today \o/ I meant to get nice holidays stamps but things are always Very Complicated at the post office so instead I had to get the non-pretty ones. Next year maybe :-)

Even better yet, Christmas break is in two days! My saturday will be spent with my best friend Sandrine and my nephew. We'll do our traditional Christmas outing; we'll start with the Christmas window displays, see what they came up with this year, then we'll head to the cinema see a special showing of Le Chat Potté aka Puss in Boots - there's a gorgeous little show called La Féérie des Eaux before the film starts and we're both fans so we always pick that showing as opposed to a regular one - then I'll sleep over at her place and I'll have the pleasure of savouring my first raclette of the year #Yummy

Sandrine and I started this tradition when we were in middle school - she's a Christmas lover like I am - and we've always tried to stick to it. Only now, we're doing it with her son and it's like we're passing our tradition to the next generation \o/ Mind you, I'm under no illusion than in less than ten years, Lucas will still be interested and I'm sure he'll abandon us without a backward glance - or only a mocking one lol - and it'll be the two us again. Well, in the meantime, we'll enjoy it with him :-)

There are a lot of fantastic fic memes around LJ but the Peg All the Dudes one just makes me dreamy *happy sigh* And the unofficial banner made for it is the best ;-)

I need to post some prompts! Let me think, let me think. El pegging Neal while Peter whispers filthy things to them. Jessica pegging Mike sucking Harvey. Dude, pegging and DP, be still my heart. I'd also love Charles being pegged by SomeWoman and projecting to Erik so that Erik gets all hot and bothered and then just fucks Charles whenever Charles comes back to the motel room he shares with him. Yes, definitely need to post this entry so that I can go and post those comments :-)

And, er, without the slightest segue; so one of the - many - things I love about Christmas is Christmas films. I don't care how cheesy they are (seriously, those you know, A SomethingOrOther for Christmas that seems to come by the dozen? Love!), they just make my heart sing and make me want to cuddle them. turps33 was talking about how Sky has a Christmas movie channel in December and hearts.in.my.eyes! At least we get one Christmas film every afternoon on M6 and some others here and there so it's not as if I had nothing but I wish we had more of those around.

Would you have a favourite Christmas film to rec me? Classics, oldies (I'm thinking of Christmas in Connecticut, for instance), made-for-cable... just any Christmas film that fills you with glee and that you consider part of the season :-)

( What DVDs are on my Christmas films shelf )

I just love that period because I can indulge my inner sap and I can just justify it by being part of the Christmas season \o/ Also ♥

Stop the presses, it's not even December and I already have nine, count 'em nine, Christmas cards in my possession! Yes, I've bought Christmas cards! In advance! I might even send them this year! I don't want to scare myself, though, so let's not talk about it too loudly! Ush

I think it's been approximately an age since I did a meme like this, let's see if I remember how to play (snagged from babydracky): Your job is now your Time Lord name. The last digit of your phone number is the current regeneration you are in. The nearest clothing item to your right is now the most notable item in your current wardrobe. The last person you texted is your current companion. Your favorite word is now your catchphrase.

Hi, I'm The Communicator (I think it's one way to translate my job that works really well for this meme) or Four if you want to call me by the current regeneration I'm in. You'll recognise me easily thanks to a red hoodie that seems to be the most notable item in my wardrobe and my current Companion is my dad. We make an awesome team, if I say so myself. You'll hear me use C'est chou a lot because, what can I say, many things are just that cute! I guess I'm one of those cheesy Time Lords ;-)

I feel all mellow tonight *stretches lazily* After work Cookie and I met a couple of friends for drinks in St Michel before we walked around and made some nice discoveries: we introduced Frédéric to Shakespeare & Co and actually discovered - and fell in love with - their Reading Room. I have no idea how that's possible but until tonight I'd never gone upstairs, it boggles the mind! It's gorgeous and old and there are mismatched furniture and nooks and ratty sofas and leather armchairs. There's a tiny area with an old typewriter - you know one of those old ones - for whoever wants to use it and type a little note. Said note can then be pinned to a wall dedicated to notes and posters and whatnot. It creates such a wonderful atmosphere! You can go up there to have a quiet chat with friends (or strangers, mind!) or read a book or just rest - a guy was actually napping in one of the little rooms lol. If you ever visit Paris and the St Michel neighbourhood, you really have to make a little detour to Shakespeare & Co, it's a must-see for book-lovers, imho. We also discovered Tea Caddy, a salon de thé where they serve - among other things, obviously - homemade scones & clotted cream!! If that sounds mundane to you, then you're lucky lol I can't wait to go there and taste them! We also wanted to show Fred the St Julien le Pauvre church - I guess we were in a Highlander mood ;-) - but there was a Chopin concert so we couldn't get in. Next time!

Then our friends left and Cookie and I had diner in a very tiny but lovely little Mexican restaurant. All in all, a great evening was had :-) Technically I haven't finished my work week since I'll be proctoring an exam tomorrow and I'll have to go to work in the morning but I'm relaxing tonight.

I'm relaxing by watching Raw on the telly and doing something I've never done before, ie download a podfic in a fandom I've never read a single fic in, from a show I've only watched a couple episodes. But the reader, 2naonh3_cl2, is one whose work I love (especially her AI podfics) and I'm more than willing to listen to never-read-before fic from a new-really-watched show just to listen to her read to me. That's how much I enjoy her work! [In case you're wondering, I did leave her a feedback before writing this entry ;-)]

I spent a lovely evening with my dad for some father-daughter time at one of his friend's restaurants - posh enough that it was a change but not enough that you felt ill-at-ease; loved the decor, and the food was delicious *has happy thoughts about her frisée aux croquilles d'escargots et noix - and yes, escargots = snails* Just him and me ♥

He showed me something that was absolutely adorable. So my dad is the worst person to shop for. The worst. Whenever it's time to buy him a present, you can be sure there will be stress involved because it's always Very Complicated. Last year, for Father's Day, we bought him something that he did like - because after so much stressing out, there'd better be some good results! - but I'd also decided to add a little gift a bit more personal; I'd dedicated many evenings beforehand to cutting papers into little pieces on which I'd written little notes before folding said pieces of paper and wrapping them around brown sugar. Then I bought a nice little jar where I put said sugar and gave it to him. It was a sort of second-degree gift as I kept feeling like I was back in primary school when you create simple & easy homemade gifts for your parents, but at the same time I did enjoy doing it for him because I knew he would enjoy it too - my dad is sentimental like that. And enjoyed it, he did. Tonight was a result of that gift, actually, as some of the notes are "vouchers" for a cinema, a restaurant etc. It'd been some time since we had dinner outside together so that was a nice "excuse" ;-)

Anyway. We were waiting for the entrées when he told me he was going to surprise me. He opened his wallet then took something out of it which turned out to be the notes, all neatly stapled together! He actually kept them all and put them in his wallet ♥ Then he searched for one of those "restaurant-vouchers" and wrote "Done" on it before adding the date. Just. How adorable is that?? I always say that my sentimental and sensitive side - some would say 'cheesy' at times, so be it - comes from him, not my mother, and he keeps proving it to me ;-) #SweetestDad

I meant to write and post a late entry for pod_aware Day 1, a sort of companion piece to the original theme "Why I podfic" and do a "Why I Listen to Podfic", since I'm not a podficcer; offer a little perspective from the Other Side (ie Those Who Listen) but you'll only have this RL, self-centred entry instead. And I'm not even sorry :-)