i'm just not a very big fan of capitals...

they make the rest of the letters in the sentence seem inferior.

what does the brain matter

"She was all that. So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places. Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoken to, some woman in the street, some man behind a counter - even trees, or barns. It ended in a transcendental theory which, with her horror of death, allowed her to believe, or say that she believed (for all her suspicions), that since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death. Perhaps - perhaps." Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Nothing like reading a book at the right time in the right moment by the right author.

"...What does the brain matter,' said Lady Rosseter, getting up,'compared with the heart?'"

a subject i like

Activist Teacher Blog
Because I love reading anything that is critical of the academic system. Because I could go on for days criticising the university system. When I was in high school I would mentally note things I hated about the public school system and wanted to change. And now that I'm working in France I've already started to critically think about the way the school board is run here. The Activist Teacher blog is written by ex-UofO professor Denis Rancourt and examines our educational system with a very critical eye. Sometime I agree with him and sometimes I'm not sure what to think, but most importantly he gets you thinking about how we run our classes, how we 'teach', what we 'learn', how the school system functions to support the capitalist society we are surrounded by etc. etc. etc. and what sort of 'thinkers' we are producing. Do we need to completely disassemble the system to recreate something more conducive to learning? What is the real goal of 'education'? and how do we go about reaching it? Ah I could go on forever.

Anyways, if you are like me and have sat in lecture and have thought 'why am I here?' 'what's the point of all this?' 'I'm not going to learn anything from this course... I hope I can get through it with an average mark...' etc. then you will probably enjoy checking out Rancourt's blog. Enjoy!

Bonjour from Bubbleland

Bonjour!

Just a petit hello from Saint Quentin while I can access internet in the land sans internet! Not only do we not have internet in our chambres, the internet at the school and in the city doesn't always 'fonction' bien... I am beginning to think that Saint Quentin is like the little Bermuda triangle (well circle really) of France. People live here with constantly malfunctioning internet and seem to think that this is quite normal! we live in ancien times here. It's as if Saint Quentin is encompassed by a giant bubble which blocks out internet signals...

Ah mais everything else is bon and I will follow this up with some pics of the ville and some tidbits of info... if I can catch the internet cooperating...