お花見 au Parc de Sceaux

At last!

Spring has come and I’ve gone to the Park of the Sceaux Castle for my first hanami! I’ve been invited each year to do so, and never was free but this year, I set my mind to go see these famous cherry trees.

I wasn’t disappointed : they were numerous, a whole “bosquet” to themselves and they were in full bloom, petals falling diligently on our heads and our meals for 4 hours. This is how it looks after :

Plus, the weather was fine, and it IS worth mentioning in this region (we’re around Paris). We’ve had sun occasionally and briefly over the last few days, but we know it won’t last.. Sun never lasts in Spring here, and before last eyar, we could say : “except in summer, sunny days never are certain”, and now we know that even in summer, warmth and sun aren’t a given ^^;

What surprised me, is the number of people who came and mostly played games, like volleyball, football, badminton, even baseball… others came to practice their joggling skills or revise their last Tai Chi lesson

Of course, children couldn’t help but pulling at the lower branches to receive a rain worth of falling petals!

I found another blog entry with superb photos of the cherry trees at night, around the Kumamoto Castle! It’s reallly, really worth seeing! here’s the link : http://overoften.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/hanami-pt-1/

A Coffee named Desire

The coffee brand “Carte Noire” released a month ago its new line of coffee called “Splendide“, and the advertisement going with it decorates the walls of the Parisian subway now, making heads turn around.

Splendid Amaïta, by Carte Noire

“Refined and Sensual“

The brand has been using the slogan “a coffee named desire” for some years now, and the publicity spots following the same motto are well known for preceding movies on screen in all cinemas. But this one I found particularly well done; I enjoy gorgeous photos and publicities quite a lot ;p

The three new coffees of the brand have striking allures for their publicity posters, and at first glance, they look more like adverts for a perfume or a luxury chocolate than for a commonly-sold-in-supermarkets coffee ;) They set stands in the largest supermarkets’ malls of France, offering free cups of the new coffee along with discount coupons for buying it, huge panels adorned with the three beautiful photos attracting glances and tasters.

Splendid Maélé, by Carte Noire

“Intense and Ardent“…

I noticed these posters in a big station in Paris somewhere around early March, and I was surprised that I could not find them on the internet. Even now, more than a month later and with the publicity made in the malls for the product, I could only find a page or two with the pictures in a not-too-bad quality and resolution on the net.

I thought the new product had better be very good in order to not disappoint buyers first attracted by the advertisement, and I tasted both the Amaïta and Tesoa coffee, the latter I ended up buying ^-^; They were both good, but the Tesoä is more perfumed. The yellow one that I didn’t taste sounded strong, and I’m generally not very fond of strong black coffees. I’m now happily enjoying a nice cup while blogging ^___^

Splendid Tesoã by Carte Noire

“Aromatic and Captivating”, she says

*sigh* This is the kind of publicity that tempts one into becoming a happy vandal, returning home with a “Splendid” poster from the nearest station ;p

problem on this blog…

I’m encountering a problem with the display of the blog…

Everything just went fine until I started setting up “more…” tags on all my entries, to save up space on the main page. I edited one, two, three posts with the new tag, checking the new presentation after each change and suddenly, the main page can’t display the layout correctly! And only the main page, if you click on a special entry, which opens it completely on a new page, everything displays fine….

What’s the mystery? I tried removing the “more..” tags, changing the layout, removing the flickr widget (I thought maybe my side bar was too long to fit anymore, that’s why it’s been moved to under the messages…??? O_o)… But nothing works….

You can see that with some layouts, the second layer of background colours isn’t even showing, so the messages can’t be read then. With some other layouts, the second colours is showing, but the cellules of the side bar are still under the cellule of the messages, not by the side -____-;

Above, the faulty display on the left, and the right one on the right

Now, with the Banana smoothie mayout, the side bar is showing … on the side, it’s just not entirely visible.. why I don’t know, but a huge space has been put between the message cellule and the side bar…. and it’s not a customizable feature with this layout (nor with any layout I used so far, so this is not in my power)… if someone knows what to d, please tell me -________-;;;

今年もまた、春が来る。。。

Une fois encore, la saison des fleuraisons arrive

Renouvelant le cercle des rencontres et séparations

Cette année encore, le Printemps viendra….

*

また桜の季節が来る
出会いと別れの繰り返し

今年も又、春が来る

*

The cherry blossom’s season is coming back.

The circle of meetings and separations along.

This year too, Spring will come…

＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊

This is one of my favourite quotes from マリア様がみてる (the Virgin Mary is watching us). For better or for worse, time is passing by, bringing novelty along with the new seasons.

Tainaka Sachi

I was writing about Tainaka Sachi’s song previously, “saikou no kataomoi“. I just watched a live version on youtube and I must say I’m quite impressed! Her singing is even better, and with only her piano and the accompanying guitar, we can appreciate her voice even more. I felt she sang it even stronger and more passionately, adding little changes that were charming…
On a side note, she’s rather pretty ;p I don’t often find a japanese woman pretty ^-^;

About the song itself, there’s a very high part in the introduction and repeated once at the end of the song… well, it IS high, and well, some people just don’t like singing that high, truthfully I even find it hurts a bit, not that it’s not well done, but…. I somehow got used to the high line in this, but just to warn you….. ;p

Here’s the thing :

最高の片想い。。。

いつもすごく自由なあなたは今
You…. Always so full of freedom
Toi qui respires toujours la liberté,
この雨の中どんな夢を追いかけているの
What kind of dream are you now chasing after amidst this rain?
Quel rêve poursuis-tu donc à présent sous cette pluie?
どこかで孤独と戦いながら
Somewhere, you’re fighting your loneliness
En combattant cette solitude bien cachée
涙も我慢してんだろう
And your tears are also being held on
Tu retiens jusqu’à tes larmes

一人でも大丈夫とあなたも私も同じ
Saying you’re fine by yourself, you’re just like myself,
Toi comme moi, nous disons être heureux seuls
遠回りばかりだけど　なぜかこの道が好きで
We may stray on detours but, somehow this path is the one we like
Et bien que nous fassions parfois des détours, cette voie nous convient

幸せだとか嬉しい時は
Because through joy and happy times
Moments de bonheur ou simple joie,
あなたの事を思い出すから
I still think of you then
Parceque tout me fait penser à toi
色鮮やかな季節はきっと
The colorful seasons will surely
Les saisons passent riches en couleurs
この思い届けてくれる
Convey these feelings to you…
Et surement,
Elles m’aideront à te faire parvenir mes sentiments

** This song **

The Virgin Mary is watching us

One winter, I was bored and randomly looked at the new animes that were starting to air. Intrigued by the title of one of them, I decided to watch the first episode. Truth be told, only two things made me watch on after the first episode : the first, was the appearance of one of the main protagonists, a graceful long dark-hair girl, typically the type I admire : good mannered and dignified but capable of terrible fits of anger ^-^ The second was the language: everyone uses keigo, the most formal and difficult level of Japanese, that I’m supposed to know but frankly, I can’t use it without making mistakes.

[excerpt] “The give away”

This is the first piece I wrote that’s part of the story I’m writing. this scene, or rather the image of it has been stuck in my head for a very long time, and one night where I couldn’t sleep, I got fed up with turning in my bed and was gradually getting unnerved. I sat down, lit up the light and decided to put into words this scene I had in mind… It was already almost noon when I finished this, and I felt pleasantly empty after this, and slept verrrrry well afterwards ^___^

Notes :
- There are words that my automatic orthography corrector show me as inexistent, though I had seen them several times in books or articles…. and “some” online dictionaries have them registered…
- I’m not even sure the title is right ^^; but i wanted it that way, so I left it even though I don’t know if it’s correct English *sigh*
- French and English seem to have differences concerning typology, presentation, punctuation rules.. I tried to respect the English ones by what I had remarked in my readings

Writing & Rain

Introduction to what I write.
I got fed up with running away and started writing what I want a month ago… pretty recent huh? ^-^
So far, I write two kinds of texts:

On one hand, there’s a story I’ve started, I always write down bits when they come to me through a mental image. Of course I have an overall idea of the story and the characters’ development, but I want to leave some freedom to my creations : there are some days where a strong idea comes to mind and at this moment, it feels obvious that the bit will be good for the story, even if it’s not always coherent with what I already had in mind…. So I either adjust the rest, or write the idea in a note to decide later, but if I absolutely want to keep it as it came to me, I try writing the scene before I “lose” its atmosphere : this is when the best ideas flow one after another without warning…. editing and fixing the coherence will come after :) I always revise them many times before showing them, so a lot have been done but aren’t ready for viewing yet ^__~ They’ll be posted with no consideration to their chronological order or whatsoever….

And there’s on the other hand, things I wrote, still out of the spur of the moment, but about my own feelings or reflexions. I just feel like writing it down, get it out of me, and why not, keep it as a souvenir ) The piece I’ll put below is one off them. I had “my” feeling, “my” reflexion, and I wanted to describe it. I knew how I had to start telling it all, and how I wanted to finish it, but in the middle, i had an idea of how it could fit in my story, how the main character would see it too, so the second paragraph is more viewed from her point of view… but I still wanted to end it as originally planned, so I tried to attach them all together, and this is how we have today’s piece ^^

Dreams of an Artemis

Why “Dreams of an Artemis”?

Several reasons made me choose this title for my first blog.

- First : “Artemis” – I have always liked greek and roman mythology, from this I got interested in the planetory systems and such as a kid. Amongst all the great mortals and gods of this mythology, the Lunar Goddess, Diana, Artemis, Phoebe, Selene, has been one of my favourites, and her love with the Mortal Prince Endymion seemed poetic and simply fabulous to my 9-year-old eyes…. I guess it left a mark in my mind after all these years ;)

- Second : I recently discovered the new blog of my favourite writer, Diana Gabaldon, which is called “Voyages of the Artemis”, and the title seduced me at once, of course…. so yes, I guess you could say it’s a reference to her blog. I hope it won’t be considered as plain offensive copying if she ever stumbles upon this blog :/ (or worse, I wouldn’t like any fans’ wrath over this matter through heavy spamming….O_o)

- Lastly : Why “Dreams”…. Diana Gabaldon is now famous, and her continuing work Outlander is now rivaled by her new projects, so we could say her literary career is a “Voyage” still going on. On the other hand, I just only recently took the courage to take time writing and let my impulse go free : I’m only at the beginning of my literary “career”, which isn’t one per say, since I’m not doing it as a professional or anything…. So I’ll call my literary journey a succession of “Dreams” compared to her actual achievements. They’re part of many readers’ reality, and of course of her family and friends’ lives, while mine is still only affecting Me, myself and I…. it’s in my head….and my still few written texts.

Ahhh….as usual, I meant to write something short, and tons of lines lie there now, who in the world would read this bunch of blabbing? or maybe this is just for me alone for now ^__^ hehe, I don’t know where this will go….

Is it really a good idea to post my writing here in the first place? I’m not really sure but I don’t have English classes anymore, no teacher to correct or guide me, so if constructive remarks or encouragements can be gained through here, I have very little to lose :)

NB : I created a blog here on wordpress because I had been writing a blog since March, in which I only wanted to post excerpts and notes about writing, but the tempatation of blogging is just too strong : a bit of everything made its way there, so I needed a new “clean” one to post only my “extras” or only my writing…. which will it be? ;p

Anyway, this is why I set up the original date at which the messages were posted at…..

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