My favourite crime fiction author of the moment is Pierre Lemaitre, a French writer. For those of you who are fans of crime fiction (French it call “Polar”), I strongly recommend you read his books. Pierre Lemaitre writes only in French. However, some of his more famous works have been translated into English. I came …
I first heard of Moxie two weeks ago. It was in a dialogue between elderly Mrs. Strauss and the Jimmy McGill, the protagonist of Netflix’s Better Call Saul (Season 1 Episode 5). Mrs. Strauss : “Moxie is in such short supply these days.“Jimmy McGill : “I pride myself on my Moxie.” What is Moxie? Not …
I have just added two more fresh-from-the-bookstore books to the wobbling pile of ‘to-read’ books on the shelf. This pile does not include the stack of Reading-In-Progress (RIP) books (my 3 summer reads too) sitting on the other end of the shelf. And, the latter has yet to account for my various kindle purchases sitting …
One of my summer projects is to catch up on my readings. The fickle-minded and multi-tasking me embarked on my ‘to-read’ list by with the following three summer reads, in parallel. Summer Reads Read 1: The Three Musketeers I want to read the original text of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Why? We happened …
We moved! We bought and moved to a bigger apartment. Still in the same city, just 3 minutes walk away from the previous flat. It’s in a 70s building with a balcony that goes around the whole flat – the kitchen, living room, study room and bedroom. More than twice the size of the previous …
Time really flies. It’s already 13 days into 2018. Time to make New Year Resolutions. Ready to start 2018 I have had a good rest since I got back from Italy 3 weeks ago. There was not much teaching and my second semester of French classes will only start next week. It will be a …
I have enrolled in a one-year French classes at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3). It’s one of cheapest (compared to those offered by private institutions) language courses in the city and has a very limited of places. Hopefully the 16 hours / 8 classes per week heavy-duty schedule will bring my French to the next …
The year end festive season is coming to an end with Epiphany (Three Kings’ Day), a christian feast day. During the weekend of Epiphany, one gets to eat the Galette des Rois (The Kings’ Cake). It is a cake stuffed with almond flavoured filling. King of the Household The tradition goes that a figurine is …
4 more hours to the last day of 2016. It started well with waking up in the morning and seeing light snow sprinkled on the roof tops, bare trees and streets outside the window. It snowed a tiny bit earlier this year, but today was the first time that the snow was heavy enough to …
I find the public transport system in France to be generally efficient, especially the railway system. Unless, there are occurrences of unexpected events such as concrete falling onto the railway tracks, and malfunctioning of the railway signalling system. And of course, there is sometimes the acts of God. If your stars are not aligned, throw a …