Two months in Bangkok.

I've spent my summer there. If you have the occasion, do the same. Such a long stay is great to improve the language. What can I say, I've eaten wonderful food, been with my family and friends, been with people I'm happy with. Been learning things, thai music too, to hear it you'll have to see me there !
Now, have to find a job beside my studies. Being broke is not pleasant heh.

Welcome back on my journal !

Valentine's day.

Happy Valentine's Day.

To me Valentine's day doesn't mean much. It means much more to Hallmark in my humble opinion (they must be happy right now).
People have to find a Valentine's present, like their life depends on it... It's the lover's day, but don't you dare come with empty hands ! Yes it can be nice to offer something and show your loved one your feelings, but if there is a set day for it it looses the authenticity. Offer a present because it's the day to offer presents, or offer one because you want to ?
Love is not a matter of Hallmark cards (do people even look at it before buying it ? come on ! it's either silly or ugly) nor a matter of one day per year, chosen by... who actually ?
Have a nice day anyway, alone or with that person, I dedicate this photography to the very sweet couple in it (and my very special person that happens to be their daughter). I'm sure they'll enjoy this day, together (they always are :)
After all, whatever I say, it's still lover's day, so... happy Valentine's !

Holidays..

I'm in holidays.. for one week now. Still I don't feel the heavy stress of mine decreasing. Those are not real holidays. I spend all my time in my room. Paris is 1 hour away at least by car, and whatever, my friends are not in holidays. Why am I stressed.. don't know. I don't have work everyday, I would like though. One would say I barely do anything at all. But I would like to. This stress is worse, it's not a one day of work stress that will go away after work, it's more like a non stop many years long stress going on for... I can't even remember. It became something that follows me everyday, every second, all the time.

I need a radical change of life, because I don't know how long I will bear this one.

Thai alphabet.

What to say...
We are beginning to learn the thai alphabet. Thais and logic... never met ! Hahaha. Excepting that I guess there is nothing special. Have to work geography, history, ethnology and history of art for thursday's partial exam.
ไม่สนุก

Blackout...

Finally, I changed my ISP. My connexion is now more than 6 times faster ^^

The drawback is that I had to bear 1 week without internet.. well one week without nagging, maybe it was good.
Nothing special, that doomed partial exam was average, and the last one... The teacher went to eat, leaving the whole class alone in the room during the whole exam ! (that guy is thai... a french teacher would never do that, young french people are all criminals and would cheat). Well, wanna know if anyone cheated ? Hahaha.
That's it for today. Keep posting comments, especially tell me what you think about the pictures.

A piece of paper.

Today I got that partial exam.
Well, the result will depend on the notation criterias. I guess I'm doomed ^^

The fun part is that I have another partial on monday....

What am I exactly doing here... I wonder sometimes.
I wanna go study abroad, one year in Thailand, one year in Japan, one in China or Korea, but I can't because I need a damn diploma, that piece of paper that states one's value.
Instead of talking several languages and discovering cultures, I have to stay here and get bored to death. Not exactly what I planned. Yay, life is full of surprises...

Snow.

Today it snows, not much though.
Some light flakes, that make the roofs white.

I like snow.
I like to look at the sky, close my eyes, and feel the snow falling on my face. In it's silence, actually a whispering, it takes over the world, and you are alone with the snow, as if the world stopped moving, and all your troubles were gone.

Today it snows, but not enough.
I still have an exam in two days...

First pictures, the kingdom of Siam.

Clic on pictures to see a more detailed size.

maabaa

Thai truck

Recognise him ? Going to take more pictures of trucks next time, somewhere between kitch and pop-art, very colorful chromes...

Mountain temple

Hope you like them.
They are taken with a Pentax film SLR camera (it means not digital), that's why I have to scan them.
Most of them are different from the original paper ones (heh, that's why computer graphists are made for...)

Watching the following originals might help you get the point.
You see that after the scan the color is poor. Blacks are washed out... looking gray.
There are stains made by the scanner (have to clean it correctly some day, did I use it as a table !?)
The Thai truck picture is under a blue cast, because of the coloured windows of the car I was in.
The temple bells picture's framing needs some rotation, and I added some special exposure and depth of field effects to my taste.
The mirror picture was a good start point, to make an esthetic image suiting my taste. In itself it was not so interresting. I like the result though.

Below is the original picture I used to make my profile image. As you can see it's underexposed.
The final image is the result of several steps or reworking.

I'm done with the explanations, they are for people who are unfamiliar with computer graphics (no more than a few days ago I was asked this by a friend of mine - Woon, if you read this someday ;) and to explain how I work to get the pictures you will see in this blog.
In the future though, if you are interrested to know how a specific picture was done/reworked, ask me in the comments (public is allowed to post) and I will detail. I don't know who will read this blog and watch the pictures. But it'll be good if a few people like it.

I will add many other pictures soon.
Please check regularly for updates.

Life is a long flight full of turbulences.

Here we go, I always thought I wouldn't create a blog, and finally I do. Don't know really why though...
Probably I just want to share my life and thoughts with my friends... Leave some trail of what happens these troubled months, when I don't even know what I'll be doing soon, when things won't go as planned, and when the plan B is actually way more troublesome than plan A.

Life is a long flight filled with turbulences. All we can do is try to avoid them, and buckle up when we can't. Better prepare your sickness bags.

Holidays are over, and I had to go back to France and leave things I love again (see picture above), until next time. Awesome, I love taking off at 23h30 on the 31st December, when the flight attendants are kind enough to give the 13 kids behind you in the plane a whole new year party gear (from the paperball blowpipe to the stupid cotillions, with that doomed stupid trumpet that would give Gandhi himself murder ideas... especially if he was 1m86 and in a microscopic economic class seat).
I have partial exams at the end of this week and didn't even start to work on it... I will post some of my holidays pics soon, when I have time to scan and edit them (my bday is 12 March if someone wants to offer me a digital reflex camera... I will be kind and send a postcard as thanks).