L'examen du DELF

I believe that people perform better and are more productive when there is a goal. Even though Dr. Stephen Hawking insists that there is no heaven, if thinking there is one makes people behave better, why not keep that as the ultimate goal of humanity? Well, I believe in my grandmother who used to say, "If you behave badly like that, you will be a snake in your next life!" So I behave decently enough...probably a mammal at least...

Speaking of goals, exams here and there are good stimulators and rhythm keepers for our lives. Together with my teacher, I was prepping up for DELF B1 exam, and I just finished it today. Hooray!

Last Tuesday, I had the speaking part of the exam in which you are asked to 1) present yourself, 2) role play, and 3) express an opinion on the subject given. The role play part is very funny and truly French. They will give you a situation such as "You parked your car in the area reserved for the handicapped, and the parking officer gave you a ticket. You justify yourself and avoid paying the fine." It requires not only the language skill but also some nerves! The third part is the most difficult one as you only have 10 minutes to prepare your discourse. As they choose articles from recent publications, I was guessing the subject to be on 1) alternative energy (environment), 2) royal wedding (culture, politics), 3)kids (kids), etc. It turned out that my topic was mass tourism versus alternative tourism. I have no clue what I said and how I argued, and I felt a great need to work on my vocabulary.

I did the listening and reading comprehension and the writing part today. Listening was brutal, and I blame myself for not immersing myself in French media. The reading part was okay, thanks to me being Japanese, and the writing part, I managed somehow, but again more vocab would have been helpful.

I do not get anything out of this exam except for my self satisfaction (or dissatisfaction), but I am glad I took the exam to find out what I need to work on. Oh, I also took DELF A1 (required by the OFII), which is exactly the same style but 120% easier. I am also glad that I had to take A1 exam because I now clearly know that I am not in that level. The result of B1 will come in a month or so, and I will start working toward DELF B2 (even if I failed B1!).

On a side note, those who talk during the exam with their neighbours, those who keep writing after the time is up, those who cheat! Shame on you! I could not believe how people behave poorly under such strict circumstance. Dr. Stephen Hawking, I think I agree with you now. The existence of heaven or hell seems to have no effect on our behaviours. God, you should have created us with a "Pinocchio function" or at least some sort of justice meter attached to our body. With all the money we are spending on scientific researches, can we not make that as one of the goals?

Alpine Flowers

Happy Mother's Day to my North American and Japanese moms! In France, mother's day is not until the end of this month. Interesting!

Our doggie friends invited me for a hike up in Chamrousse from Bachat Bouloud up to Lac Achard. It could not have been better in terms of temperature, scenery, level of exhaustion, etc. I got to see some alpine flowers including wild tulips, pulsatile printanière (the fuzzy one, a type of anemone), gentiane (Japanese "rindou") and many violets.

Grenoble's altitude is around 450m and I was above 1900m today to see those flowers. This is a small hike in the afternoon.

Doggie Health

When we were living in Waterloo, we had an excellent veterinarian for Chana.

Among hundreds of vets, we chose Michelle because of her location and her website. It was certainly a practical choice rather than a logical one, but in the end we really lucked out. She was also an animal chiropractor, and most importantly she prescribed homeopathic medicines. Focusing on keeping Chana healthy by raw-food diet, we were really happy with Michelle's expertise in alternative medicines.

Here in Grenoble, there are also milliards of vets, and we again chose ours for the practical reason: 5 minutes walking distance. He has a very small practice; no receptionists, no vet techs nor vet assistants. His waiting room is usually busy, which I take it as a good sign. Using my fieldwork skills--i.e. visit as often as possible even for a minor thing, I established a fairly good rapport with him. He even let me leave without paying one time, as telling me to come back the following week for the paperwork.

For me being a mild case OCPD (self diagnosed), I had some difficulty at first to comprehend the veterinarian practice here. After all, it all comes down to the French laxness and individualism, and of course my excellent ability to imagine the worst case scenarios. Here are some case studies.

Q: Chana's rabies vaccination is valid until 2012. How does it work here in France?

A: In France, the rabies vaccination is administered annually, and it is the law. HOWEVER, it is the same vaccine as you get in Canada, so if you prefer not to give her, I guess that's okay too.

→Um, did he just say that I can ignore the law? For sure I prefer not to inoculate Chana unnecessarily, but does this mean that there are many people out there who do not care about the rabies vaccination? Maybe I should get vaccinated...

Q: In Canada, we had Chana on the heartworm prevention. How is the practice here?

A: You don't need it. HW is not common in this area, but in southern France. On the other hand, if you go to the mountains, you should probably use some tick prevention. It is up to you though.

→Um, where does "southern France" start? Do mosquitos (carriers of the disease) know not to cross the border line? Is this map just another marketing tool for the pharmaceutical companies? Mountains? Do I see a mountain 100m from our apartment? Why did I not study veterinarian medicine? Okay. I will choose a product which repel both mosquitos and ticks, and time for herbal and nutritional home remedies.

Q: Chana was using homeopathic nosodes for canine cough prevention. Do you have it?

A: No, but I have regular vaccines. Wait. You only have one dog. You don't need it unless you see other dogs regularly.

→Um, many dogs run loose in this country, and doggies like to greet each other. Those dogs probably don't have rabies vaccination, carry bugs, and who knows what. Chana! You have to get this one.

Well, I still trust this vet, and I will keep him as Chana's home doctor. I trust my doggie nose.

Chanagility Le 16 avril 2011

Road trip

I must have written about my Aussie-ness fostered by Emus and Red Kangaroos somewhere, but when I drive, I am the TomTom and I hate going backwards after taking the wrong route. The question is, should I change my approach as we are now paying by mileage?

Our road trip to Evian included a short visit to a medieval port town of Yvoire. It is on the Lake Léman, established around 1300. In February, our Lyonnaise friends took us to Pérouge (1200~), and we have been fascinated by small fortified towns, preserved as a national heritage and inhabited by ordinary citizens! Yvoire was rather touristy, probably more than Pérouges, but they did have a great seafood (lakefood?) restaurant. Nathan had local perch and I had a fera fish, apparently extinct but delicious.

Instead of staying at a hotel, we chose a chambre d'hôte (B&B) in a small town called Margencel for our accomodation. We had a lovely room only 1.5 years old with lovely decoration, in the building which used to be a barn established more than 150 years ago. The lady who ran the chambre d'hôte was so welcoming and lovely, and spoke with us in French even though she spoke fluent English! It was such a warm experience, and I would love to go back again.

On the following day, after tasting a delicious cheese called Abondance, we were on the cheese hunt. The lady of the chambre d'hôte gave us some info, and here we were on the country road looking for cheese. After driving through some nice woods, we finally found the sign and really shabby building as described by the lady. Given all three cheese we bought were great, (Tomme, Reblochon, Abondance), it is proven that you don't need a nice house to make good cheese.

We were in a hurry back to Grenoble as the car started smelling delicious with cheese warming up. However, this is France. When you are on the road, random views of castles capture your eyes. We drove up a random path in the vineyard (Chignin), and found the castle which is a private residence and the remains of seven towers of the castle wall.

For our next road trip, we do not need a destination. It is truly "yours to discover" :).

I love driving

I love driving. I do not know what Nathan would do when I am too old to drive... It won't be pretty.

Getting French driver's licence was amazingly easy. Firstly, we were lucky that we had an Ontario driver's license. I do not know why, but not all Canadian provinces are granted simple exchange of license in France. Secondly, we had our Driver's Record which states the day we obtained our license. One must be driving at least two years for the exchange to be granted. As the Ontario driver's license only shows the date of renewal, we needed this second piece of document. Thirdly, thanks to Canada's official bilingualism, we had no need to have our license translated. We went to the Prefecture, and surrendered our beloved, credit-card size, plastic license. In a week, we received our French license, good for the rest of our life, in paper!! It is carefully laminated so that it is still good when you are 80 years old! Now I regret that I did not use a better picture...

Although we still do not own a car, we now have access to one....or many :). We are now members of Alpes Autopartage, a car sharing system. For €16 per month, we have access to almost 50 vehicles in Grenoble, and we are entitled to use the system in other French cities as well. Making a reservation is easily done on-line according to your needs. You pay the hourly rate and the mileage, but gas is already included in the price. From our apartment, we have three cars within 5 minutes on foot, and so far the experience has been great.

What is great about this car sharing system is that you only drive when you really need it. So far, we only booked the car three times, and other than that we had no need for cars. It encourages people to take the public transportation, and in Grenoble, it is truly ideal with the tram system. In addition, we now bike most of the time. Nathan bikes to work using his Métro-Vélo, a bike rented for a year, and I take my red folding bike which we shipped from Canada. I happily ride my small bike as I do not stand out as much as I did in Waterloo! And when it rains, there is always the tram and bus.

At the same time we try to be as much environmentally conscious as possible, I am happy to have the sense of mobility and freedom that having an access to cars provides us. Car sharing system: brilliant.

The source

Nathan and I are both SIGG users, and we hardly ever buy bottled drinks. We live on tap water, and the quality of water here in Grenoble is pretty good. No need for Brita filter, no need for Culligan. However, I noticed that the water Nathan brings back from his work (Montbonnot) tastes better than ours, and the water at our friends' place (Le Versoud) is even better. This is quite interesting as all three loci are within 15km.

This past weekend, we left for a short excursion to drink the most celebrated water in the world: Evian. Évian-les-bains is on the south shore of Lake Léman (Lake Geneva), about 2.5 hours by car from Grenoble. Not yet too crowded with touristes, the city welcomed us with a perfect weather with delicious water for free. Originally "owned" by Mr. Cachat, the Evian water is now sold by Danone. The city also offers the thermal therapy. We missed out on the spa opportunity this time, but any town with "les-bains" have the spas.

Here on the Avenue des Sources, you can freely get "Evian" water in your bottles. We chatted with a couple who had two dozens of bottles. They come from 30km away whenever they need more water. I am sure their tap water is labeled as "French Alpes Water." I must say, the water in Évian-les-bains in our SIGG bottles tasted really good, definitely better than the one in plastic bottles.If we ever move to Germany, we will be drinking water in glass bottles (so I heard?)!

(Original Cachat building with Lausanne, Switzerland in the background over the lake)