As-tu fermé le robinet?

As-tu fermé le robinet de l'évier ? Il me semble entendre l'eau couler ! // Have you turned off the sink faucet? It seems to me that I hear water running!

I suspect water is indeed running, but the cat is oblivious, obviously.

When I half-finished the drawing I noticed that the earphones are not where they should be (for a cat). Never mind, though.

Régime assez strict

Elle est un peu grassouillette ; c'est pourquoi elle a décidé de suivre un régime assez strict // She's a bit plump; this is why she decided to go on a rather strict diet

It is a sad truth that, on average, a woman would readily go on a crazy diet when she feels she has some extra weight, whereas a man under the same circumstances would not even think about it. Look at him, he looks as pleased with himself as ever.

Well, good for him, bad for her. Strict diets don't work, long-term, sigh...

Je suis passé à la banque

Je suis passé à la banque pour retirer de l'argent. //

I went to the bank to withdraw some money

Partially the pic is explained by my frustration with pretty much everybody (banks including) wanting you to install their app on your phone.

As if your phone didn't know enough about you already. Feels like not only putting all eggs in one basket, but also collapsing said basket to convenient, easy-lo-lose size.

Consider this pic is a possible, albeit partial, solution to the lost phone problem.

néanmoins je l'ai écouté; story of my life

J'étais pressée ; néanmoins je l'ai écouté pendant une heure // I was in a hurry; nevertheless I listened to him for one hour.

And once again, Transparent Language word of the day holds the stage.

What a strange word "nevertheless" is, don't you think? French "néanmoins" is no better, same sort of combination of complete negation and an adverb "moins" (less), making it what? Less than nothing?

Come to think about it, Russian "тем не менее" is not exactly logical either.

In other news, this is the last leaf of my sketchbook which I started  back in November.

Shanti

Le chat a trouvé Shanti // The cat has found inner peace

It’s the last week on my French course and we have exams (lotsa them). It is important to find inner peace at these trying times, and the cat has found it.

“Shanti est un mot sanskrit qui signifie paix, calme, sérénité” (Shanti is a Sanskrit word meaning peace, calm, serenity).

Good for him, shame that I can’t find it.

I have till Thursday though.

The little pic is done in Harmony (quite appropriately, I think)

More photos related to Yin and Yang @ Shutterstock.

PS: Je joins une photo que j'ai prise du balcon de l'hôtel

PS: Je joins une photo que j'ai prise du balcon de l'hôtel. Ce sont mes chaussettes préférées // PS: I attach a photo I took from the hotel's balcony. They are my favourite socks

Today i discovered that there were at least two homeworks of which existence I was not aware. There are very few lessons left, so I decided I'd better hurry. One of them was to write an email to a friend in France, supposedly for a hotel in Nice, describing what you did so far and what your plans were.
Last line of the task was to "attach a photo from your travel and describe what's on it".  Somehow I immediately thought of a pair of socks hanging from a balcony railing.

I am not going to describe that in my homework, no.

In case you are wondering : I do possess a pair of very similar over-the-knee socks.

Il s’est déguisé en pirate pour le Carnaval

Il s’est déguisé en pirate pour le Carnaval // He was disguised as a pirate for Carnival

Once again, “French Word of the Day” to the rescue.

Nothing to add (it is perfect as is).

Pictures of carnival @ Shutterstock.

Que faites-vous pendant les vacances de Noël?

Que faites-vous pendant les vacances de Noël? Le chat, par exemple, est allé à Tenerife. //
What are you doing during the Christmas holidays? The cat, for example, went to Tenerife.

There are no classes now (well, obviously), but our teacher sent us another audio file today. It is titled “Que faites-vous pendant les fêtes?” (What are you doing during the holidays?).

Well, I figure it is a perfect pretext (as if I need any) to show you the pic above.

We went to Tenerife for a few days. There, we visited a pretty university town of La Laguna (full name San Cristóbal de La Laguna). That is, its central historical part is pretty; the outskirts are most certainly not, plus it is now merged with Santa Cruz de Tenefire into one (generally unappealing) conglomerate.

But the center indeed is cute. It has many historic buildings, one of them housing the tourist information office.

This time, we saw an open wooden door which we didn’t notice before. We went in and found ourselves inside a small museum. The entrance was free and the building looks interesting enough in itself, but apart from that, upstairs there is the permanent collection of Cristino de Vera, contemporary Canarian painter I’ve never heard of. His style is very minimalist; the choice of subject matter also seems to be quite limited. One of the rooms was entirely dedicated to black and white windowsill still-lives, mostly consisting of a few (maximum three) bowls and one skull.

Mind you, I do not wish to sound disparaging — we liked it a lot.

So. The pic above is a sort of tribute, based on his Ventana, dos tazas y Teide II.

Pictures related to cats, Christmas and Tenerife @ Shutterstock.

il a débuté sa carrière

En 2017, il a débuté sa carrière dans ce blog // In 2017, he began his career in this blog

We are nearly at the end of the academic year - tomorrow is the last lesson.

We continue working with  Passé composé (a débuté in the sentence above) but you can tell that the year is almost gone by the number of people who attend. Basically, the class is almost gone also.

I really need to work on the lights. I will do it on my winter break.