July 25...
home alone after a serious concentration of Sigur Ros discography, some dark prose from Lovecraft, a grey sky... and it all got me down...after three days...
if i stayed home i totally would have committed suicided...
so i thought of going for a beer in town with some friends... but then got lazy...
i finally called JP... asking if i could crash at his place...
so the man asked me to stay at home till 7... and he'll pick me up via taxi...
packed mah bag... waited and at 7
i saw 6 blokes in front of my gate... singing Happy Birthday to me...
hell yes it was a surprise!
they organized everything... mostly orchestred by Tania!!
so they came over with cake, Vodka, snacks, soda, beer, bread, ham
for like 2 minutes i thought i was dreaming!
hahaha! funny stuff
the guys didn't leave me behind!
we had some drinks, nice convo, the cake was absoFUCKINGlutely yummy!
had a thrash metal session with Stephane, Nicolas, and Roger singing some along some Sepultura... with Ronnie having a teddy bear headbanging! :)
Tania had to leave early because of work...
JP has been to bed for he was tired...
the rest of us went for a walk to the view point... have some drinks... chat... and we had some special fun
that was definitely great
you're my real friends!!!!

default setting...

Holy crap! I just realized I have not updated this since Paris Hilton was in jail... You would not believe I spend all my time in front of a computer. Stupid Global Warming!.

I am overwhelmed with finding Jesus (after someone told me he was lost), selling my soul to Google, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to every man and his dog, my day drifts aimlessly from the light through yonder window breaks to whenever. I am putting money aside so I can run away. life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

I will try to remember I promised you I will make more of an effort to blog more often. Until I need your shoulder to cry on. Just the way life is!

introducing me

hey folks
from now on i will contribute to the bands blog
taking the opportunity to drop in some news
Joel, JP and myself had great fun at Backyard Festival II
we did meet a lot of great musicians and are looking forward for the 3rd edition...
we're active working on songwriting, and trying to come up with a demo of our song Barrier
Myspace and Facebook page to come soon...

Hell Revival Metal Gig

Some pictures from the Metal Gig in curepipe...
cap guy; Sopor Aeternus
black tshirt: Neodammerung
shylooking whitest guy: JP
Girl: Shameema
other dude with square-glasses: Ron
singing guy: spirouven
tatooed guy: Yashil
Double-neck guy who seems to fancy his wife and lover: Dario (i heard someone in the audience saying that he can turn from Kirk Hammet to Dave Mustaine...)
pictures from ALI GHANTY

Abstract

Here is a reason for posting something on this blog...

Le bilinguisme électronique; Le code-switching dans les blogs mauriciens

Dorian Boncoeur

Université de Maurice

Synopsis

La démocratisation de l’Internet via l’accès à l’éducation pour tous à l’île Maurice a vu le développement considérable du nombre d’internaute sur cette ile plurilingue. Avec le développement des technologies qui affectent les langues présente au pays, on constate aussi que les langues affectent aussi l’usage de ces outils de communication. La communication a travers le sms, e-mail entre autres sont les avatars de cette manipulation de la langue de la part des mauriciens.

Depuis le début de ce siècle, le boom des blogs a été un véritable phénomène sociale. Un blog est un diminutif qui vient de l’anglais weblog qui veut dire journal en ligne. Les raisons pour avoir un blog varient du désir d’avoir un petit compte-rendu du quotidien de Mr. Tout-le-Monde aux blogs plus sérieux tel que les blogs politiquent qui sont des dispositifs essentiels lors des campagne électorales.

Maurice étant un pays plurilingue et dont la population est non insensible aux télécommunications électronique, la question se pose quant a le maniement de la langue de la part des bloggeurs mauriciens. Certes, la majeur partie des blogs tenu par des mauriciens que nous pouvons retrouver sont en anglais, mais qu’en est-il de ceux qui ne se limitent pas à une seule langue ?

John Gumperz (1982) définit le code-switching ou alternance codique comme la juxtaposition à l’intérieur d’un même échange verbal de passages ou le discours appartient à deux systèmes ou à deux sous-systèmes grammaticaux différent.

Cecilia Montes-Alcalá (2007) consacra une étude sur les blogs écrit en anglais et en espagnole; elle y met en évidence le caractère ‘démocratique’ que l’on confère aux blogs qui élident les stigmates que peuvent amener le code-switching parmi la communauté hispanique aux états-unies. Elle avance aussi que la raison principale pour ce changement de langue est surtout pour des raisons emphatique et cela démontre aussi la familiarité entre l’anglais et l’espagnol qui existe chez ces locuteurs.

Cette étude de nature qualitative tentera d’observer les articles parus sur des blogs écrits par des mauriciens qui présente des alternances codique et déterminer les différentes formes d’alternance et déterminer dans quels situations les mauriciens ont recours a un changement de langue.

Références :

· Gumperz, J (1982) ; “Conversational Code-Switching”; Discourse Strategies; Ed. John Gumperz, Cambridge, UK

· Montes-Alcalá, C. (2007); Blogging in Two Languages: Code-Switching in Bilingual Blogs. In Selected Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, ed. Jonathan Holmquist, Augusto Lorenzino, et Lotfi Sayahi,. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

· Blood, R. (2002) ; The Weblog Handbook :Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining your Blog; Perseus Publishing; ISBN: 073820756X

monday 3 08:31

I hate Mondays

Death Proof

tarantino is just awesome
i just saw his last movie Death Proof
just simply amazing
Tarantino recreates a world of vinyl jukebox, groovy cars and adventurer-girls that only exists as an illusion
what i realized is that he has just a real fixation on feet
specially women's
we can see that in the beginning of the movie where you see a camera shoot with a
travelling car with two beautiful woman's feet out of the window
kind of like in the sequence when The bride in Kill Bill is into th Pussy Wagon
and is trying to get together
but this not the only connection with Kill Bill
Tarantino uses in Death Proof different shooting techniques which might
help to set in the theme of the movie but not into a time frame
indeed after some shoots you see pretty recent nokia mobiles which
definitely means the movie was set in the 21st century
Soderberg also used previous shooting techiques in his movie The Good German
set back in the 40's post war Germany and using the cinema techniques of the time
the movie is set in Texas(at least for the first part), just like in Kill Bill who is set in Pasadena
then we move to tenesee
we also see Tarantino's art for dancing filming
he shot the scene himself like he did for Pulp Fiction
the dance also reminded of the one performed by Salma Hayek in from Dusk till Dawn
nothing but sexy
and i loved so much his shoots on girls ass making feel kinky from time to time
Kurt Russell is just an awesome actor playing the Psychopath StuntmanMike
his performance is at the top-level in the scene where he stops and tries to get together
and clear his arm...
Tarantino has a certain passion and a very particular way of
portraying pain
like the first to die in the car... with her face totally smashed and her agony before passing away
and the shotS from when the four girls in the car die
each of them is just so fabuloushe used the same in Kill Bill, particularly Volume I, where he had a perfect
mix of macabre and beauty
We also see again Ranger Earl McGraw and Son #1
the two we saw in Kill Bill vol:I
same characters, same moments (after death), same conclusion (stuff everyone already know)
I think that Tarantino's head is like a maze and in each and every of his movie we sometime
see the way in this whole neverending maze
so many intermovie references; to himself, like the girl's ringtone who's Twisted Nerves (the whistling song from Kill Bill vol I)
not to mention the language all over the movie
this whole American accent all over the place... with the Bitch, Fuck, SUck, Damn, SHit (i don't think i need to continue)
the car pursuits have been so well shot and the adreline really bursts in you the whole time
the last scene of the movie still reminds me of Kill Bill vol:I during which the Bride
fights the Mighty 88
here there's three chicks hitting on StuntmanMike...even the mum who got her long skirt up
as usual Tarantino appears in the movie
like here he plays Warren, a barman who drinks a lot, particularly shots and we see a wonderfull make-up work on him!
the movie is just a hail to the independance that all lower-middle class women should have or should dream of!
all in all just a wonderfull movie
i just wonder what happened to the Cheerleader girl.....

i wish its was the 60's, i wish we could be happy...i wish, i wish that something would happen

i just finished watching the movie HollywoodLand with Adrien Brody (and Ben Aflleck -_-).
it was a potpourri of all the clichés i can remember of being fed with in my childhood.
set back in the very late1950's...
it reminded me of the time when i fell in love with literature by reading Sartre.
the book that really shook my life is i think La Nausée.
this was perhaps one of the rare moments when i felt like i really relate to what this cynical character was feeling and going through.
this was also the period when i was getting consciousness about myself and decided to, at least try, to start using this thingy i have up between my two ears...
i really would like to live in those days where everywhere you look people are always smoking (first of all i should be able to smoke!)
and the first thing to do in the morning is to get up from bed, have a scotch, a good round of morning sex and do what you wanna do...
that sounds so untrue!!
but i'd like to empty a bottle of Jack Daniel's everyday while seeing my adult life sinking like the Titanic...
that would be so great to live at the same era as Sartre, Camus, Capote, Cash and all the other great thinkers... and also to have jazz music everywhere...

i think that i might be back on track
today i've been out to buy a waterheater for home..
then i worked the whole day on the paper on mauritian blog languages...
i think that i'm slowly becoming half the nerd(aber keine Klugsheißer!) i used to be.. at least i'm gaining the interest in research back...
and i really like the subject for in some way i'm kind of thinking of the real reasons why i'm blogging..
as far as i can remember, on my first post i mentionned 'Why not'...
well perhaps there is another reason behind it...
i'm somehow discovering myself.. trying to be more open to myself...
maybe the fact that it's something that goes public gives me the incentive to once in a while write some of the many thoughts i have ..
and also knowing that actually pretty few people read it and that i no one's actually following my post breaks down an barrier as for the difficulties i might have to express myself..
and i find it pretty nice to be able to jot down my thoughts, feelings, experiences and pictures.
i believe that everyone has a specific reason why he/she blogs;
maybe to have more self conviction and be able to stand for their opinion, or to share with the online community their ideological point of view, to publish the artistic side of someone, to evade from the mundane routine and be someone else...
all in all blogging remains a narcissistic cerebral masturbation..

back to university

today i resumed university

the morning was quite like a usual monday morning for me; i take much time to adapt myself with the surrounding environment filled with people and moreover those in the class who always cackle and giggle so loud every morning until the lecturer arrives.

today as usual the university was somehow not ready; my friend Ron told me that our time-table is only settled for monday and tuesday...

we had to move to another class found in the faculty of agriculture building. this is a weird fact for the faculty of social studies and humanities to which i belong and which has the most students (if i'm not mistaken) actually doesn't have a problem lecture hall! we students are constant wanderers. the hallways of this building always bare this lack of light and this is everything but encouraging to start a three hours lecture at 8 am!

the day went on pretty cool though as we actually discussed individually about our junior thesis (i'm writing a paper on Mauritian blogs...i should be devoting myself totally to this) and that's it...

today i resumed weight-lifting... needless to say how hard it was after all the junk food i've been having during the summer break and all the incredible amount of coke i've been having daily! usually there are some pretty annoying guys there who think they are the best just because they load their bars with a lot of weight but actually do the wrong movement!! so today, none of them, no damn weird noises like someone's having butt-sex... but i was sweating a lot and now feel the pain in my muscles... i also played basketball; it reminded me of my middle-school days!

been to the other lecture i had and was yet another light one and that was so cool!

shopping and then back at Quatre-Bornes!

had some sandwiches while doing some household work..had milk-spaghetti as diner and now enjoying a nice tea with some music playing!

Cool thing i am just trying; open Kid A album from Radiohead with 17 seconds interval on two different programs it make a question-answer effect!!! really amazingly cool! which shows that these guys are pure geniuses! (PS; thanks Ron)

i guess that tomorrow i should be devoting as far as possible the whole day for studying a bit, doing some reading and working on this junior thesis thingy...

Dies ist Elie, mein Freund aus univerisität... ich mag ihn heißen BROWN BEAR. Ich fragte ihn heute für die ein Bild für den Blog, aber er verweigert ... So i gestohlen das! Immer ich Spaß zu haben nettes Gespräch mit ihm und bewundere ihn für seine leichte unconformism! Gibt! Du bist auf meinem Blog! Und ich schrieb es in Deutsch, so dass du sie nicht verstehst!

summer break

i have not been posting for pretty long

tomorrow my summer break (in mauritius summer break is from november or december to january) will come to an end

when i look back on these days i see a lot of memories, some good and some not as good as i wish they would be

i have been going to ile-aux-cerfs, volonteering for a charity fair, hiking to mount le Pouce, going out with my germans friends, felt lonely and helpless but also worked in a diving centre.

all in all i think that i was able to learn to love this island much more

i have been wandering a lot around the island and was able to admire the beauty that it can give to everyone who can see the bright sight of Mauritius

on new years-eve i still did´t know what to do. and i felt like not doing anything. then Phil and the others invited me to the north. we both also discussed about him needing someone to help him in the diving centre that he was actually managing in the north. i did accept for several reasons

-help a good friend of mine

-have something to do so as to escape suicide

-remind myself how i hate working and that i should get back to studying seriously again

-get a few more bucks in my pocket

Perhaps the job started that same evening when he received a call and had to get the centreäs boat on the jetty to save it from fireworks. i went to help him. funny thing we had to swim to the boat which was some metres from the jettz, and as the sun was already down, i can say i had a night swim! after much trouble we got the boat safely back.

I then celebrated new year with Philipp, Nina, Laryssa and Andreas

had pizza for diner, took our stuff to the beach, drank (a lot) and watched people starting fireworks five minutes before midnight and at midnight we had our fireworks too. then Andy and I stayed on the beach for a some conversation while drinking

the next morning went back home.

i started working the diving centre right the day after. basically there was only Philipp, Bernard the boat captain who i like to call TiBen and me. the diving centre is affiliated to one found in Belle-Mare and sometimes some other instructors and divers came from there.

the spot is definitely awesome. some who have been working in hotels around the island mention that it is the most beautiful scenery you can have from hotel. i agree quite much as it was such a beautifull lagoon where you could islands such as Coin de Mire, Round island, Flat island, Ilot Gabriel, Ile-aux-Serpents.

it took me some days to get used to the very hot climate and the burning sun which definitely got me have much more color now! and also the people who were for most of them crazy. i here refer to the guys from the boat team who was just next to the diving centre. all were very special but yet so nice and funny!

most of the evenings Phil and I used to call the day by having a nice Cuba Libre! just to chill out as it was really necessary after such hectic days at the diving centre. the job was really cool but so hectic from time.

at first my plan was to find a place in the north to stay during the period i intented to work there. but i was unable to find a room for me for everywhere was booked. so i had to do the travel from Beau-bassin to Anse-la-raie almost everyday and evening. i had to take at least 3 bus and a car lift for each way! but this allowed me to discover the north which is really beautfull. i found it pretty strucking the outraged number of palm and coconut trees that you can find on this island! but i never would be able to do all this 6 hours round trip without my buddy-ipod!

sometimes when i had free time i would do watersports which was really cool. i did tubing, and waterskiing which was hard for me for i couldnt keep my arms stretched for long, accident issue. i didnt dare trying wakeboarding, discboarding, barefoot and so on.

i was also able to try fishing, to pilot a boat, make some knots, and get to know and endless amount of things about diving.

on the 8th of January we celebrated Phils 25th Birthday at Trou-aux-Biches with Nina and Jörg and Tanja who prepared such a wonderfull diner!

although that some days were pretty hard for me i really enjoyed my summer holidays and i´m pleased to share some pictures.

my computer was dead because of some viruses which blocked the processor completely. thanks to Jörg who spent the whole of yesterday´s evening fixing it i am now slowly able to use the computer again.

i guess this is the reason why i am still awake and blogging at 2,30 am.

i just hope that i will be able to be back on track soon. i have been working on it though, been making my papers, starting some savings, i also took the books for uni that i have to read.. but didn´t start yet...