To be continued... Or not...

Artwork by Marguerite Sauvage http://www.margueritesauvage.com/blog/

Will this blog live on? I don't really have this answer yet. Maybe I will go on. I don't think I can still continue to post once a week. But we will see. Or maybe this blog will stop there and disappear into the large comunity formed by internet. I don't know.

Report about the English class of the 2nd semester

Artwork by Benjamin http://blog.sina.com.cn

List of vocabulary that could be helpful for lessons:
-Economics: finance (stock market, money, monetary system); unemployment; vocabulary about variations (increase/decrease, etc...);...

-History: wars & conflicts; industrialisation; transports (boats, carriages, railways); agriculture; names of cities, countries, people, treaties, battles spelt differently than in French; religion; kings & power (different types of monarchs, troubles, rules)...

-Others: ...

Now my comments about the class:

-It would have been better not to choose class hours early in the morning or after 5pm in the

afternoon (sorry, but after 2hours x2 (or 3) of courses, I know I can't concentrate anymore).

-Better to give precise essay subjects, because talking about "ping-pong diplomacy" is a bit too vast for only 2 pages, and talking about our city even orally I personnally find it uninteresting. The subject about the press was good because it allowed lots of discussions.

-The diversity of exercises is good, but spending one hour or two reading one article, even if explaining the vocabulary is tiring and boring.

-Maybe a bit more of books' extracts would be good.

-Watching TV shows for oral comprehension was good, as well as the blog idea to improve the writing.

Du fond de quelle douleur allait-il trouver cette capacité illimitée de créer?

In English: "From the depth of which pain would he find this unlimited capacity of creating?"

This is a sentence by Proust. I found it on the blog of a philosophy teacher: http://hansen-love.blogspot.com/. Actually I like to read what she is writing from time to time, it kind of changes of what I'm thinking about normally. Most of the time, it is short quotations like this one. Simple sentences which seem clear and even obvious sometimes but which can arise a lot of thoughts.

I chose this one today because it echoes my feelings. I used to draw a lot and I had stopped since I was always busy. I draw again since 2 or 3 days now. And it is my way of creating. When I'm drawing, I'm automatically thinking of my drawings as creation because it comes out of me. I reproduce an image I keep in my head most of the times but by making it material, I create it. Anyway. I don't totally agree with Proust. Pain is surely a good incentive to create. To evacuate the pain, you'll try to draw, to write anything. However pain isn't always good for creation. It depends of the kind of pain you're feeling.
If the pain is related to feelings, I will create far more easily than if it is a physical pain. For instance, I couldn't draw for a long time because either I was too tired or because I felt depressed. And each time I tried something, it was wrong. I think we can create related to pain but it will depend on its nature.

Artwork by Lolita Jungle (lolitajungle.com)