Raining Cats

"Pourquoi faire simple quand on peut faire compliqué?" – my math teacher

Translation : "Why make it simple when it can be complicated?"

Last Sunday I travelled to Estonia for a day for the funeral service. It was great. I got to mourn properly, since even though I had thought about it and mourned a fair bit I was not in Estonia with my family so it lacked profoundness. Furthermore it felt very good to switch atmospheres for a little.

This meant that I got to travel back towards Lille on Monday morning. The alarm went off at 05:15. It was rough. At the airport, whilst I was walking towards the gate I grabbed a potato salad which I ate during the walk. The plane ride went smoothly, but it only got my sister and I to Brussels. Our train to Lille was to depart around lunchtime, but we managed to miss it due to a misread departure time. We then spent some good time in Gare du Midi, till the next train that was at 16:17 (this time we checked the departure time excessively).

On a separate note : I have decided to set up a gratefulness journal. This means I try to write down 3 things that I am grateful for every other day. There are supposed benefits to it, but personally I just wish to gain a little perspective on my emotions. The point is not to just say "Today I am grateful for music," but to also justify : "That is because it gives me energy and helps me channel it. Tracks with higher beats per minute (bpm) and more ups and downs (build-ups and drops) help me when working out on the other hand tracks with a bit lower bpm's and a more constant structure help me when trying to concentrate on a task."

This Thursday I got my highest grade in my prepa time so far : an 18/20 on a chemistry oral examination (it’s not worth a lot, but it’s still cool to get that kind of a grade). For extra context I went to the khol (aka khôlle or colle – used for oral examinations since they make the subject at hand "stick") without a calculator and without a pencil case – usually we just do things at the chalkboard and do not need anything. Fortunately enough the teacher conducting the khol was nice enough to not make it affect my grade. I also got a 15/20 in my last week's chemistry devoir survéillé (DS).

I tend to call my DS' exams due to the lack of a better word. These tests are usually two to three hours long, but they correspond to a certain continuous assessment. Directly translated they are called “supervised schoolwork”. Each one of those corresponds to a percentage of the final grade of the year. This being said the exams of the start of the year were worth close to nothing and in the end of the year there will be a devoir de fin d’année (DFA) which is worth about ten times any exam I have done so far. Not so continuous after all.

On the contrary to last week, this Saturday’s supervised works were sort of a setback. My preparation was not good enough and halfway through the exams I got a rough migraine that made thinking clearly even more challenging. I am happy that I can let this slide this one time because my grades in most subjects are good enough.

Now let's talk about cats, books and cats in books. Last year in my Estonian class we read Kafka on the Shore. I still remember enjoying Murakami’s layered style. One has to sometimes stop, and read a sentence again to actually grasp the meaning(s), if there is one. Furthermore its full of action structure kept me as a reader hooked. There are two storylines that run parallel to each other. They are related to a certain extent but it is up to the reader to interpret it at will.

Two works that I have spoken about beforehand are The Master and Margarita and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Both respectively include Behemoth and the Cheshire Cat. This means we can make a certain link between the plot including a speaking cat and a great read. Well in Murakami's work we have speaking cats (yes, cats plural). Make your own conclusions.

Let your thoughts fly high and get in your water supply!