Camillo Cavour & Otto von Bismarck

Have you ever tried to summarize the political situation of Italy and Germany during the 19th century in a presentation of 15 minutes?

No? Good for you. I have and I thought I could have died of it. Just imagine: at year 1, there is something like a mess, hundreds of States (for Italy just around ten) that have nothing in common. But somehow the people living in these States start to think that it would be fun to live together and unite. The biggest problem is that the different rulers of the different States don't want it because they will loose all their privileges.

At year 70, all these States are united. There are one king, one language, one economy and one State. A kingdom for Italy and an empire for Germany.

How did this happen?

People did what they always did when they don't agree with their governments: they revolted, again and again, thousands of time between year 1 and 70. But at last, the king of one of those States decided that he had enough, reformed his army, provoked a war (Against Austria for Italy, against France for Germany. For just a second, I want to say that Napoleon the 3rd was just the worst ruler that France ever had, at least in foreign policy.), and conquered all the other States to create one Nation. However the two kings, king of Piedmont for Italy, king of Prussia for Germany, were suggested to do so by their Prime minister that were maybe the most intelligent men of the 19th century (at least in politics). I deeply admire and thank Camillo Cavour (Italy-Piedmont) and Otto von Bismarck (Germany-Prussia) for making my work lighter.

In fact, they should have been born even earlier. Maybe they could have prevented the 2 italian wars of independence, the many Italian and German insurgences of March 1848, and me of doing my long and complicated presentation in front of 19 students that were totally hungry and bored (perhaps bored first and then hungry). Fortunately, the History teacher was listening and paying attention all the time. Because of her, I didn't get the impression of losing my time.

Artwork by Human-Graphik & Made-by-eyes again.

5 books I have to read

1) The first one I should read is my book of macroeconomics. But before that, I have to find out where I put it. My room is not so big but somehow I lost my things easily in it. Indeed, I absolutely don't want to read it. I hate economics. Furthermore, I don't like Joseph Stiglitz (the author of the book). He is way too smart for me.

2) Second one: the book of History. Same thing that for the one of economics. Maybe I should think about tidying up a bit my room.

3) "Le monde d'hier" by Stefan Zweig, I tried to read it in German (I love German) but it was too hard, so I bought it in French (not really, I made my mother buy it for me in fact) and now I don't have the time to read it anymore. It's sad.

3) "The divine comedy" by Dante that I borrowed to my grandmother something like one year ago, that I have still not read and that I always forget to give her back.

4) Another book for the History course that is laying on my bookshelf and that I try to ignore: "Siddharta" by Hermann Hesse.

5)All other books I bought saying to me that I will read them, knowing perfectly well that I 'll never have time to do it: Le parfum (Süskind), les versets sataniques (Rushdie), Neige (Pamuk), Voyage au bout de la nuit (Céline), Le grand secret (Barjavel)...

Making this list really did make me tired.

Artwork by Human-Graphik & Made-By-Eyes

About my neighbour...Again.

After a discussion with Fabien about my neighbour and the fact that I don't hear him when I should, we came to the following conclusion: for being so hyperactive all day long and unable to calm down, he is constantly under medical treatment at home.

Isn't this pretty persuasive ?

I should add that I don't know when anymore (last weekend?), I heard the best friend of my neighbour who lives 2 floors upstairs and who has the same first name talking for hours (it was around 1am and I couldn't go to sleep because he wasn't stopping) through the wall I hear nothing from my neighbour (surely, he was too concentrated on his videogame...).

Somehow I got the feeling that no one listened when Sako-san spoke (as the Japanese teacher of Japanese calls him).

Cover of Sumergi Natsuki's artbook called Gashu.

Asada Hiroyuki

This post is special for Marion and our common interest of Asada Hiroyuki. Here is my favorite picture of him (is he a man or a woman? I'm not sure, I should find this out.).

For the officially declared "otakus" of Sciences-po Le Havre, I recommend his mangas: I'll (Crazy kouzu BC), and the part he draws in the anthology called Robot.

What I want right now

1) I want to be able to teleport myself like Hayden Christensen in the film Jumper (has anyone seen it yet? is it fun or not?) so that I could go buy food for the week without getting all wet (today: rain in Le Havre).

2)I want to be born in France in the 17th century and to go to the court of Louis the 14th, to know what the craziest man of French History looked like. (Paintings are not fun)

3) I want a special button to push to make Fabien happy so that he will stop saying stupid things and being mean, especially on Thursday mornings when I have to put up with him non-stop from 8am to 2pm.

4) I wish that reading a book would take no time. Or that I could know all what is written in it by eating it. Then I will be able to invent books that taste like chocolate or strawberry.

5) I want a subscription to the Japanese magazine Kikan S for my next birthday or for Christmas. Do you think Santa Claus reads email Christmas letters ?

Publishing a newsletter as a teamproject...

A small collection of guidelines for when you try to create a newsletter for the first time in your life :

First of all, be sure something will go wrong even if you planned it so that it shoudn't.

Secondly, you should have an organised team working with you (you can of course try to build a newsletter by yourself, but you'll miss a lot of fun). Finding a team was not a problem for us, the team of the Silkroads Newsletter was constituted pretty quickly and easily. But there is a but.

But, make sure that :

(I'll put numbers again, I love numbers, it makes everything seem so clear... (don't mind this little comment.).)

1) everyone is filled with motivation (that is really not easy to tell beforehand but you'll see it once the work has started)

I like brackets too even if I know it exasperates lot of people, I'll try not to put too many, promised...

2) everyone understood the goal (very important). It should save time and maybe allow people to get along a bit better (even if, anyway, someone will start a fight one day). However I'm proud of announcing that no one died yet in the Silkroads Newsletter team (we just released 2 issues until now, yeah, I know but it still counts).

3) I forgot what I wanted to put for the third one. Um, um, ... *trying to remember*

Nevermind.

Next step, organise the work. Make sure everyone has the same amount of work to do (you can give more work to the most motivated people but it should be in reasonable proportion).

Some practical tips: if you plan to get the newsletter finished over the holidays, be sure to know where everyone of the team is going (special comment for Jiani who was lost in Spain), check if they will all have internet access and a phone that is working, with plenty of battery for their mobile phones (that is a special tip for Julia and me) and be sure (one more time) that everyone knows the deadline and send them to you (the poor one that is in charge of the page setting).

If you don't get all articles by the deadline and don't manage to get ahold of your coworkers, don't panic.

Here is a special thank you for Eleonore who I could always find on messenger. And who is always there to help me when I receive only half of the "sentence of the month" in Korean or Japanese and I'm trying to find the other half.

Just one complaint: why the hell does professional design software like InDesign not recognise the Hindi language ?

Because of that I'm forced to do some weird work-arounds that just look horrible.

End of the minute of complaining.

Once you have got all articles, photos, sentences and others, and you have ordered all that in a pretty way (for this one I suggest the help of a digital artist dad, he is very useful and always happy to give a hand), and you think you are finally finished, you can be sure that something will go wrong. (No, in fact you finished if you created the newsletter only for your own pleasure but for us that planned it as a team project, the newsletter at this step is absolutely not finished).

Then comes the hard time of proofreading/checking/correcting of the newsletter by the high authority of the Sciences-Po campus of Le Havre's administration. For our first newsletter, I think I made something like 7 or 8 different versions as modifications came one after another (always put the exact word they want, it would save you a lot of emails). For the second one I think I only made 3 versions. Next time, the goal is only one version (if that happens, I'll feel really smart).

The last step is to send it. That is an opportunity for a lot of discussion: who sends it to whom, should we send it to everyone at the same time or to some first because we are really late and to others later...?

It is very philosophical.

And you end up sending the newsletter at the beginning of February when there is still "January" written on it.

Very uncool.

But this time it's really really finished.

Uh oh, not really in fact, you still have to ask for it to be on the campus website (what I forgot to ask for, so I still have to do it. The January Silkroads Newsletter was released since... what?... more than a month ago already...oops. But I'll do it...Soon...I swear...).

Now that I said all that I wanted to say (I'm sure I forgot some parts of it though), I'll do a bit of friendly advertising.

Please read the Silkroads Newsletter, at least take a look at it. Thanks.

Artwork by Cannabis.

Oops.... I forgot

I promised a certain someone to speak about him in my first post. He started it as a bet but I think it ended as a sort of joke.

But I'll do it anyway.

This certain someone is my neighbour in Labédoyère (our student housing) and everyone is persuaded that he is an awful neighbor. In fact he's not. Except maybe in exam periods.

I'll explain: maybe he is very noisy and always nervous and sometimes says mean things without noticing, all that during the day (I think he should truly decrease the amount of coffee he drinks, it may perhaps solve some of his problems of stress or hyperactivity).

In fact I don't really hear him in the evening or at night. I looked for reasons because everyone told me it wasn't possible:

1) He's never at home. It could be the case but I doubt it.

2) The workers that renovated the flat did a really good job and my home is super-soundproof. It could be the case too but why is it that I hear cars passing by down the street?

3) I always listen to music too loud and I'm almost deaf. Am I really ?

Last possibility, he's indeed calm when he's alone. Yes that's possible, I'm sure of it.

What I'd like is that he would be calm during exam periods. Because I really don't hate him, but he really stresses me out when he goes out, something like 30 minutes before it is time, the morning of an important exam and that I'm still in my bed when he bangs the door, waking me up and making me totally panicked because I think I'm late.

Or in the morning when I have my breakfast and that I hear him walking (I don't know how he does it, kicking the floor maybe with his feet) on the other side of the wall, as if he is in a rush (maybe he is but he also manages to ruin my day by making me unable to enjoy my breakfast peacefully).

Despite all that, he's a totally charming neighbour.

Sometimes too, it just seems strange to me when we're talking on msn knowing that we are just on each side of the same wall. But it doesn't matter.

Picture from Kikan S of Summer 2006 (japanese mag). I don't know the name of the author. I don't read enough kanjis yet.

Love Japan

Why and how did I come to love Japan to the point to be willing to learn Japanese and wanting to stay one year there? That's a good question.
Most of the people who are with me in the Japanese course will say that their passion of Japan came with mangas (sorry if it's not true, don't take my words for a widely-spread truth ). Me too. Even if my love of mangas is not as extreme as others.
What I love in mangas are the drawings. Pictures. A good story is welcomed too but I could spend my lifetime watching for pictures done by authors I like.
I don't know why and I'll surely never know, but I'm fascinated by drawings and people who draw beautiful pictures. It's like that that my love for Japan came up. Because Japanese people use a lot more pictures than in France or in Europe. At least it's what I think.

So that's why I decided to post a picture I like every time . This time it's Sho U Tajima. (Does anyone know MPD Psycho ?)

First step

First post, first blog.
I'll try to make it work at least to get a good grade in English class (I know I can, my hopes are up!) and then I'll try to do it for fun.
One post a week at least, I'll try to post more. Each time a picture in the post starting next time, the why to be explained later too.