l'école française 6

hier soir, quand j'arrive chez moi, il etait vingt deux heures et demi. j'etait un peu fatigue. i did not think it was necessary at this time to have a conference call with lexington but circumstances, that were out of my control, dictated it. not to mention the several questions that were thrown, that i thought, we have unanimously discussed earlier, as unimportant. i am/was speechless. (apathetic).

finalement, j'ai vu le film (farenheit 9/11). un film par michael moore. truth or fiction. it had several interesting ideas pointing to a well concerted conspiracy to invade iraq. i remember 9/11 to this day. it was a nice day. the sun was out. i turned the tv on to watch the news as i often did. then was shocked to see the accident of a plane hitting one of the towers. then a second plane collided. when i got to work, people were fired up pompously discussing the political implications of what just happened. and here we are now, just a few years later, and more lives continue to be claimed by a war that was based on, over what we now know, as false intelligence. war is never justified.

genly, the french professor, let me borrow his book. cours de langue et de civilization françaises (de paris). it was not customary for him to do so but i think he saw thru my efforts so he made it accessible. its a small book but it had a lot of things i needed to pursue my learning. already, i feel an improvement just by reading some of the examples. just like in english where i would over enunciate while reading out loud secretly in my room. it should also help my comment dit-on, parle en français aussi .. hehe. another observation, the more that i learn french, the more i notice how closely related all of europe is with each other. especially with the spaniards.

j'ai vu le film (werewolf). je l'aime. it was sensuality taken to a darker place. the orderly asking sexual favors in exchange for access to the substance each patient 'needed'. the werewolf killing anything that gets in its way to have sex with the girl. the girl's sister who had become a wraith making brief appearances taunting the girl. the id incarnate. right in the middle of it was the seemingly innocent girl, who as the film progressed you get to like, becomes the twist of the who whole story. innocence can be evil too.

l'école française 5

read the transcript of moore guesting on o'reilly. moore and oreilly were arguing on about if bush lied or not about the WMDs. i disagree with moore on this point. bush has misjudged/misinformed. perhaps. but a deliberate intention to mislead. that i doubt if anyone can prove an intention. oreilly was on the defense later, that it was better now than ever to get rid of saddam because he was a (perceived) potential threat to the US. a point that was not raised as a reason to go to war. which doesnt help the issue of deceit. it may not be the most practical issue to talk about. wether or not bush lied. but i think in essence it is too. because this is something that has lead (how many) N americans to their deaths.

pour exemple: nous visitons de nombreuses planètes. nous voyageons en astronef. quand nous arriverons dans un nouveau pays, nous achetons des dictionnaires et nous étudions la langue. nous posons des questions. nous goûtons la nourriture. nous comparons. de temps en temps. nous appelons mars. nous aimerons beaucoup la france. nous espérons revenir un jour. et puis, des verbes, va voir les accents. ils ont très important

pour exemple 2: dans mon salon, j'ai une télévision, des chaises, une table pour diner et une etagere pour ma ordinateur et des livres et disques, des rideaux vertes, une grande armoire pour mes vetements et mon chasseurs. dans mon village, il y a maisons anciennes et des immeubles modernes. au center, il y a une grand place avec une vielle église et une jolie fontaine. dans le rue principale, il y a un petit café avec des chaises vertes. à l'entrée, il y a un parking avec des arbes.

bigfoot

i got a call from bigfoot this afternoon and they were offering me a management position. bigfoot is a software company in cebu which is infamous for having large turnovers because of the incessant public humiliation, the people working there are subjected to. from what i heard. i had to decline her offer due to the following reasons: (1) i still have a years worth contract with lexmark and (2) moving to another company wouldnt solve any of my major problems. namely, i cant seem to find my real niche. on the otherhand, i confirmed earlier rumors of bigfoot having great projects. so if there is going to be any changes, i hope to make them for the right reasons. the way things at work is going. it is bound to happen sometime. not soon. but sometime. i remember the exact moment that triggered my thinking about moving out. (yahoo msgr). small thing. HUGE mistake.

when the designated alpha male begins to show panic, it rolls over to the rest of the pack. neither is it helpful if there's been a bypass (esp when its deliberate) of that leadership. undermining each others capabilities (or worse, each others potential) is another obstacle. even if it was meant for a joke. its a bad joke.then there is the match making. it is not as fun 10 years after. arent we too old for that? then there is definitely the language problem. and lastly, i cant stand the sexism. i am resigned to the "culture" apparent. making it distinct because i have a high regard of what culture is and isnt. its out of my hands. i have to remind myself yet again .. that i am not in oz anymore. (sigh)

read a friends blog. it had an intersting case on falling prey to liking a language or coding style too much. when programmers obsess for a number of reasons. like how church goers could be with religion. one of them is more than just the language in itself or the coding style that came with it. we cant say c++ wasnt a big improvement on c because it was/is. or comparing vb.net to old vb. there is good reason for a programmer to become obsessed like a musician to an instrument. or a linguist to a favorite language. when something "better" comes along, it wouldnt hurt to take a look.

sutukil

nous mangeons à la resto nord du cebu ville. à mandaue. sutukil is the collective term of native cuisine, eaten during a feast (fiesta) or a friday night drinking with friends. its popular even amongst the foreigners. sutukil stands for Sugba (grilled), Tuwa (fish stew), KILaw (fresh fish with spices). je mangé du poisson avec riz. je pensé il était un (red snapper) mais il s'appelle (hito) in the vernacular. et c'etait très très delicieux. je te disant! i am going back next week. ^_^

j'ai vu le film (i-robot). although the idea of an artificial and sentient life form has been around for many years. i was not disappointed with the film. it reminded me of when data had fought for his own individuality in a court by starfleet on board the enterprise (tow data produced a daughter). also when the crew captured one of the borg drones and managed to "reawaken" him. there was a cartoon called zeta on cable with the same premise. a robot developed for warfare awakened and the lives to fight for his freedom. how do we define sentience. we are after all just mechanical beings with complex series of gears and electro-chemical processes.

l'école française 4

j'ai vu le film (imelda). she seemed off. preoccupied with an esoteric knowledge that is unknown to most people. especially the part when she was insisting that there is some kind of relation between the binary system (zero et un) with the proverbial apple that was used during the fall of man from grace (check genesis story). sometimes i thought how can we blame her. she is too naive to be guilty of the evil that has been said about her - maybe just rumors. and she was extremely beautiful. i can only speculate what that can do to a person.

en class. nous étudions quelque mots nouveaux (les verbes). les partitifs. les possessifs and autres prenoms. voici sont quelque exemples:

- je mange du riz avec du porc ou du viande.
- tu manges du gateau avec du lait ou coca.
- il mange du fromage avec du pain ou du bagette.
- nous mangeons des legumes avec des fruits.
- vous mangez du hamburger avec du fromage
- elles mangent du poisson avec du beurre et du riz.

l'école française 3

j'etais retardé en class pour trente minutes. j'ai marché rue mango à rue fuente. c'etait un peu loin. aujourd'hui, nous étudions verb conjugaisons présent (encore, je sais). ER verbes

PARLER - to speak



   je parle     nous parlons

   tu parles    vous parlez

   il parle     ils parlent [parl]

   elle parle   elle parlent [parl]

   on parle



   pour exemple:

   q: est-ce que tu parles français? 

   a: oui, je parle un peu de français.   

   q: est-ce qu'ils parlent anglais? 

   a: non, ils ne parlent pas anglais.   

   x:quand aux philippines, on parle philippin.

voici quelque chose, selon le professeur - amongst the francophonies around the world, quebec had the worst accent. i havent heard it personally (to make my own judgement) but i thought that was typical of someone from the old world (or a visitor from it) would say. just as the english is with americans (well most of europe), is likewise true of the french (parisians on parlent) with francophonies elsewhere. je ne sais pas si c'est vrai. i suspect that there are no good or bad accents. just dispositions.

(sigh moment) ce matin, j'écouté à la radio ou je regardé la télévision. m.collum étais chantant. il est très très bon. j'aime son musique (at the least), donc je téléchargé quelque musique par michel buble de l'intérnet. michel est bon comme m.collum. listening to their music brought me back to when i had (a) try-tasted the dinner i prepared. it was memorable and endearing.

"if i ever had the line to heaven i swear" - introvoys
"si j'avais la ligne au ciel je jure" - introvoys

late in the afternoon, i donated blood. un petit sac. i came in late towards the end (hoping the waiting crowd would have dissipated). many did come. i think some where for the wrong reasons. like show off. it was short, painless, et la médecine était très gentille. then after, i felt sick. like i smoked pot without the "high" (the no slowed perception). a long and drawn out drowsiness. i skipped dinner and went to bed early.

j'ai lisant un livre - le code de da vinci. une histoire par dan brown. i didnt realize it was set in france. if i did i would have asked friends to pick it up for me earlier. hehe merci j pour le livre. ^_^

les mots du jour de le livre ..
sénéchaux - fancy term for agents/stewards
symbologie religieux - study of religious symbols (used by monks)

the cult

les échecs - the first strategy game. hier midi, je joué chess (pour la sportsfest) et je perdue deux fois. l'autre joueur était sérieux et très bon. i was obviously an amateur compared to this guy and was resigned to my fate from game one. it was best out of three. the next day i asked the team captain (bryan) if we ever had won a single game yet? he said if we were going to win, it better be soon. hehe. i had fun playing though. and wondered how come i didnt practice playing chess when i was younger. i know i was going to be good at it with practice. i remember being good at it.

quand j'ai vu le film - le roi arthur, j'etais enthusiastique. à la fin, j'etais ecstatic. the mention of the major tribes inhabiting england of that eran- the angles, the saxons, the jutes (which was the suggested tribe whom guineviere et merlin belonged to), the original britons (which i have read is different from a breton), and finally, the nostalgia attached to roman britain. loved the potrayal of - the cultic nature of the early christian church (notice how modern day cults behave the same way), the self importance roman citizens felt beside peoples living 'outside' of their empire. i was thinking later if this was what the movie really was about. a reflection of the modern times. imperial america invading iraq. the price of teaching the 'evil' barbarians how to be civilized. the tribes - the sunnis, the kurds, the shiites fighting for and against each other and the invaders.

my mother called and shes having some porblems with money (again). this afternoon i walked home. i was tense after the call plus the pressures of work, i needed to clear my mind. i passed by the church and went inside to rest thinking this would be a good time to ask god (assuming there is one) for help. a few minutes later i felt ridiculous sitting there. i left and made it home safe. on the way, i felt nothing and knew there wont be any miracles. there werent any then (when i thought it would have been perfect to have one). and there wont be any now.

l'école française 2

aujourd'hui, nous étudions les personnes, les professions, les masculin et féminin des verbes et les adjectifs, les phrases (affirmatif, negatif, et interrogatif), les jours de la semaine, et finalement, les mois de l'année

par exemple:
je parle anglais - affirmative (oui)
je ne parle pas anglais - negative (non)
vous parlez anglais? - interrogative (un question)
parlez-vous anglais? - interrogative (une autre question)

il y a quelque phrases bizarre. par exemple, c'est bizarre en anglais mais parfait en français, comme ce:
elle est actrice - she is actrice (wierd, n'est ce pas?)
elle est une actrice - she is an actress

avec nombres, nous avons .. un à cinquant neuf, soixante à soixante neuf, soixante dix à soixante dix neuf, quarte vingt à quarte vignt neuf, quarte vingt dix à quarte vingt dix neuf.

rule of thumb. when converting adjectives and prosessions into female
1. il est bo(n). elle est bonne. +ne
2. il est boulang(er). elle est boulangère. +ère
3. il est serv(eur). elle est serveuse. +use
4. il est ac(teur). elle est actrise. +trice

l'école française 1

mon premiére jour en école française. genly est le professeur. il est philippin. il parle les langues anglais, français, latin, greek, et un peu de japonais. il déjà visité les pays de france, italy, greece, et canada (et peut-etre plusieur). he was first an expert in latin. j'ai trois classmates. ils sont vanessa, meek, et virgilia. i already knew most of what we covered. we studied declension for nouns and conjugations for verbs. definite articles. indefinite articles. subject pronouns. and basic salutations. i was as excited about the subject as much as learning it with other people. we were feeding off from each others enthusiasm.

the simple life tv series. i didnt know rich people could be that naive. shallow yes from having heard from a few. but stupid? youd think they have gone the best education available.

during the evaluation period, we were asked to jot down how we did the past year (impression). self evaluation. most of it were in essay. for example. are you committed to the company? then we're required to fill in at the base minimum some guided response. in these cases, i wanted to appear modest because that was what i would look for if i were the manager. i used the third person replacing all the i's into we's which i thought was going to help. three weeks later, i got called in by the manager and he wasnt happy with what i wrote it. he failed to see the subtlety of using the third person. and had me replace my changes back to i's. i hated it because then i sounded like those sorry people who felt the need to brag about their successes (remember that slut/bitch). anyway, i looked it up and i was right in using the third person because it gives out crispier sentences. the downside is, it could become preachy. which was another thing i was trying to avoid.

un gig

récemment, j'etais invité à google mail par rob, the Gig era begins ... (beating every free web email host to it). its been the talk of the geek community and now its here. it looks and feels like yahoo minus the cluttered ads that line the window border. i do not know how they managed to give every account 1G. how can anyone say no to 1 billion bytes. toutefois, i am not ready to let go of my hotmail and yahoo just yet. i do not how google will deal with the spam thats plagued the other hosts. but im sure they will be equally clever fighting it.

en plus, signing up for french class might be a BIG mistake considering the staggering state of financial stress i am in right now. this is going against everything id learned from the simplify-your-life gift/book from gladz. on the otherhand, im also feeling life is passing me by so fast im more afraid ill get left behind. so when it comes down to it. im just trying to be alive.

ey look at that .. ive been blogging for 1 year now. un an. c'est un beaucoup à dire, n'est ce pas? im glad they invented this thing. it gave me a perfect reason to get back to making a journal. i used to make one back in college. until one day i lost interest. et maintenant voici moi encore. yey.

l'afrique français

j'ai vu un film français. mousse was a middle aged man from guinea. he went to paris to buy a water pump for his village. it was not easy with all the trappings of being a foreigner (a 3rd world citizen) in the 1st world. he made friends with some locals (the lady cab driver, the gay singer, and the illegal immigrants at the church). nous ne sommes pas animaux. i liked it - african culture. respect. 1st world impressions. 3rd world sensuality? as big as social prejudice down to as small as carrying a box of smoked fish hehe je ne sais pas. he died at the end while he was about to return to l'afrique. the moral lesson was the difficulties he experienced in france, including his death, were unnecessary. things could be made better. i am not sure if he had a different accent. i cant place any difference so thats maybe a good sign that my listening skills arent enough (atm).

i am 90% (soixante dix pour cent) done with my wrapper libraries. just have to clean it up. sort out some overhead. i am being conservative in mentioning that there might be a "few" hehe bugs in it. my guess is, it will help me in understanding the new install code (sakura). if not, it will be a useful addition to my mostly obsolete skills list of a resume. +kernel programming. ce midi, i picked up another book which ive left lying on my desk for more than a week now. Beginning XML. je suis en chapitre quatre et je ne commence pas à l'aime. en fait, il est ennuyeux avec quelque mots qui sont étrange à moi.

soixante quatre

aujourd'hui est l'anniversaire de ma mère. i called last night to greet her and learned that everyone will be present to celebrate. this is one of the few times that makes me think about living away from home. elle est maintenant - soixante quarte. its a small party. i miss her. inspite of my almost daily calls to make sure everything is okey (back home). incidentally, ronnie will be starting college this monday. everyone is hopeful. including the one that will launch his bastketball career into the stars (hehe). then several months from now, sta ana loan will paid off (completely). everyone is healthy. i couldnt remember a time when there is so much to be thankful for. in august, the family is planning to visit the island of bohol. i hope it pushes thru.

only in this country, where people have the habit of meddling with your personal business. giving unsolicited advices what clothes you wear, how you wear your hair, how you take care of yourself. en plus, that basic hygiene is a threat to peoples idea of what is and isnt a man - machismo. its a crazy place. im telling you. and hint? i miss working with the japanese. where work is work. and hey leave your personal business alone.

at work. i was working on a program for the whole week. and last friday i was burned. i couldnt write code. j'etait épuisée. this weekend i was able to sit and think about on what to do next. wrap the kernel APIs. then include it in our outcoming CD Release at the end of the year. yey.

le "static library"

i have been hold up for two days on my static library. the problem stemmed from linking a kernel library, my library which wraps functions from it, and my application. it took me awhile to admit defeat and revert back to dynamically calling the functions. this forces me to use function pointers though, but at least i get to wrap them inside a class. which was my original intention. make the whole thing object-oriented. lesson learned. static libraries are tricky and can be misused. there are 5 steps to the application i am doing. i skipped the easy steps. im thinking ill be finished with it .. within the week.

with yahoo messenger out at work, i am left to resort to other means to amuse myself during the day. make it less boring. i brought my friends cds. last night, i was able to catch leno and conan!! it wasnt one of their best episodes but a bad day at conans is still better anyday at the public channels. if there is a personal hell besides having to listen to tv evangelists rant about their religion, its having to watch the public channel soaps retell the same material a million times, in few number of ways.

i am a hollow reed. the religious debate trap which ive learned to distance myself from ever since i woke up one day and told myself. whats the use? fustrated with colliding ideas like gender biases/roles feminism. liberalism. im tired of talking about it. tired of having to explain. this is the third world. living amidst all the archaic standards that comes with it. putain merde. i couldnt care less ces jours.

hier la nuit, j'ai vu le film (kill bill2). c'etait amusant et grand. familiar yet foreign. revenge. irony. nurture vs nature. raw vs disciplined emotions. je l'aime. it had a fair regard of the opposite sex. a common theme from the west that has yet to exert itself in the east. especially from the grass roots.

human spider

j'ai vu le film (spiderman). i felt that this film was about peter - as an average joe, whereas earlier it was about peter - as spiderman. which i enjoyed, especially the open (or not so open) conversations between peter et le femme. i identify with being in love at a distance which used to work for me in the past, but these days, im glad all of it is water under the bridge.

this is akikawa. one of the characters i created for an rpg game. like all my characters i created in the past, akikawa pertains to an ideal, that is noble, artistic, self sacrificing, and truly alive. she is a hero. she is perfect yet still human. if i were to become even a drop of what they were inside my head. the ultimate acheivement. then i can call it a day. its disappointing sometimes. when the level of ego is right about on the surface. artists feel better about themselves only if they get feedback. good feedback.

im not sure if its ethical for me to write about this here. i was restless about my weekends. i was concerned at how i had been spending them watching movies or eating at les restaurants. i was feeding into the mediocrity. when i could be travelling to different places enriching the artiste. or at the least, spend it on healthier pursuits (like walking). lately, the conversations had been lacking. one-sided, non-reactionary even aesthetically. what does it say when a person has nothing to say to you and got tons for other people. its mostly tiresome because i feel like im over exerting myself to keep appearances of being enthusiastic, happy?. this could also be entirely all my fault. being self absorbed. that could drive other people nuts. i tried convincing myself that this was just a phase. we've been going out for months and the truth is .. i dont think it is going well. i couldnt make myself say it - that i feel j was holding me back. but since i do not want to be hurtful, particularly of people who had been nice to me. i am not going to decide on anything drastic just yet. but who knows.

you ever ask a question for the benefit of other people? well i do. all the time. even though i already know the answer to the question. just to make sure everyone is on the same page. but i hate it everytime when people misconstrue it for being ignorant. esp when it is for their benefit that i asked the question in the first place. you wanna help these people then i get stung for helping. its difficult.

tremblement de terre

there are many kinds of electoral systems. in the states, the people vote for the senate, the house of representatives, and the electors. the electors corps (the electoral college) vote for the president. in england, the people vote for the house of commons. and with the house of lords, both houses elect the prime minister. the french (of france) takes it even a step further by stipulating an equality of the sexes in its constituencies. its a little confusing .. i better ask the experts.

meanwhile with va-cebu. one of the main goals of the group is align themselves to other groups in the region (there one in singapore in the works), so that when theyre big and loud enough to lets say get the attention of one of actors who were part of the series(es) .. they would come down here. if there is one, i hope its laxwanna troi (played by majel barret). her full title is "Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Riix, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed." she doesnt fail to remind people about it which is funny. tout les fois.

earthquake. deux fois (ou selon triffon le driver .. c'etait trois fois). there is an evac procedure that is followed everytime there is an earthquake. taking the stairs took time for everyone to make it outside. after which, it was uneventful. a part of me, which was probably due to a scalding week, wished the building would just collapse under its weight plus the earthquake. then maybe ill be free to go home then. hehe.

i finished an interview with accenture today. i think i did good. i thought i was okey working for lexmark cebu. then i thought, maybe there are other things in store for me. it is defintely safe for me to stay here. if i decide to move out again, ill be putting myself at risk. whatever happens, it remains to be seen. also i think ive made real friends here in cebu, which i have found very difficult to find elsewhere .. so it comes to which is more important to me. friends or getting to travel abroad. (sigh).