Thursday, March 4, 2010

Recent news: Bread, laptop stress and warm weather!



Current events in the life of Madeleine:

-bread: I am currently baking my own bread, and right now have a loaf rising. It's cheaper than buying a new loaf every day, probably healthier (I buy the 5 grain pain aux céréales) and relaxing to make by hand.

-laptop crash: I had to take my laptop in to an Informatique boutique last Friday in Agen, due to a random crash that my laptop experienced about two weeks ago. Since then, I've been going to Atlas, the local Internet/phone store, and paying 2 Euro for an hour of connection to the outside world. I have my computer back, with the internet, but the technicians weren't able to restore the files properly from my old hard drive, so now I am missing loads of information (music, photos, documents, et cetera). The owner of the shop was quite rude with me; and when I tried fighting the 24-Euro fee he decided to tack on for "recuperation of files", when really, nothing was recuperated, he wouldn't change his mind. I paid 114 Euro to basically have a new hard drive installed with Windows XP (in French) reinstalled, and hardly any of my old files from my other hard drive. The owner said my files still existed, so it wasn't impossible to recuperate what I had lost; it just took time and effort, both of which he apparently didn't have. Why is it I seem to be encountering this repeating problem of workers getting paid in France to do absolutely nothing?

One nice thing about that recent trip to Agen was the beautiful sky that appeared to be on fire on my way home. Looking out the train window, this was my view:


-Warm weather: The sun has been out and is bringing along with it a feeling of Spring that I have been missing for a long while. Spring means several things for me: The completion of this assistantship, answers from graduate schools, visits to Nice and Biarritz/Hossegor/St. Jean de Luz, and better moods. I am affected by the weather so much, that these cloudy, rainy days we've been having have been weighing on my mood and causing me to stay inside my apartment like a hermit. But dry, warm weather means exercise outside, summer vacation and vitamin D. All of which I need badly.