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Saturday, April 3, 2010

America : Walk in Chicago and zoo

 En français
The next morning I went to walk in an other part of Chicago and kind of scared myself with a guy following me. Then I took the train to go to a more secure part of town to the Ernest Hemingway museum. Unfortunately is was close.
In the afternoon I walked to the zoo. Chicago has a free zoo in the middle of town which was pretty cool.
That was a long and warm day and I walked a lot.

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Thursday, April 1, 2010

America : China town in Chicago

En français
The next day I went to walk in China Town in the morning and I stayed there for lunch in a new Japanese restaurant which was just opening. Some people I know went there too but only saw the main street, not the mall that is a bit further away. I think that the mall was the most interesting part of it.
Travel table of content






Wednesday, March 31, 2010

April's challenges

En français
So the month of April is coming and it's going to be really really busy. I intend to participate to two contests that I will describe in this post and I also intend to continue writing my third novel "Demon and fairy".
So what are those new challenges I'm giving to myself and what are they all about ?
The first one is Script Frenzy and the second is the International L2 Reading Contest.

Script Frenzy

For Script Frenzy I will write 100 pages movie script. I already prepare my story, meaning by that I know the beginning in the end. It will be a love ghost story. We will find some of the characters present in "Demon Soul" and "Attic mirror" as some part of the story will be taking place in the usual house where the previous characters and the new one live.
I'm not planing on giving you the script in pieces. Script seems to be a lot different to write than a novel as they need a lot of formatting. I'm not really sure I will be able to cut it into scenes and to finish the story in just 100 pages. So I will probably write it all and edit it before giving you a chance to read it. How ever I will tell you how things are going regularly and if i managed to write my weekly 25 pages, something like that as well as little summary of the story.

International L2 Reading Contest

For the International L2 Reading Contest I will read as much pages in Japanese as possible. You can read in any foreign language as you want but as I'm currently living in Japan and learning Japanese, I think it's a great opportunity to improve. I don't think I will make it in the first 5 to win however as my knowledge of the Japanese writing system is not yet optimum. If everything goes as planed I should be able to finish Heisig RTK in 12 days, also I forgot all the kana I already learned and will need to go back to it. But I still can hope, I'm a polyphasic after all so it's at time like that that it can make things turn out to my advantage.

What do I intend to read ?

Harry Potter in Japanese

I have it as a printed book so that will help when I get tired for reading on screen. Also I'm way slower at reading on screen. Another advantage is that the Kanjis have furigana the first time they appear which will help me get through learning their pronunciation.

花ざかりの君たちへ (Hana Kimi)
Reading manga with a lot of picture is going to help me increasing the number of pages faster (I still need to read 10 pages of manga to have it counted as 1 page of normal text)
Also that will help me relax a little from page of text where I won't seem to be understanding anything at first.

あのときの王子くん
I will read the little prince as an audio book (audio books list). The text is written for children and then full of hiragana which worries me a little. But having the audio as well will help be go through it and learn the kanas more easily, or so I hope.


ジーキル博士とハイド氏の怪事件
I'm not too sure about that one I think I need a book with more kanji to be able to read by meaning more than by sound. It also comes from the same audio books list. So I think this one is going to be good for that, however I can still find something different in the list. Another good point about it is that I already read it in English so that will help a bit.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

America : Walk in Chicago

En français

At the end of the conference, I went back to Chigaco for a week. I was staying with three different couch surfers.
I already hosted people with Sebastien but that was the first time for one of us to be hosted. I made my demands through his account as I don't have one myself.
I didn't do much on the day of going back, just tried to figure out where my first host was and we went to the restaurant with one of her friend.
The next day I took a walk in Chicago in the same area I went on my first night there and in the museum area. It was sunny and nice, that was a good change from Belfast.
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"Demon and fairy" part 1

I started to work on a new novel few days ago. It can be seen as the sequel of Demon Soul, except that Sahel and Brownie are not the main characters anymore. In the new ending of Demon Soul which is not publish here. Sahel is not the only one to fight at the school. The demons that we met in the school, Taram and Torin are present too with their family and especially Seti. At the very end when Sahel left to see Brownie, Seti as already left in an other direction. In this new novel we are following him.
All Novels Draft


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To part 2 New Challenge JulNoWriMo



 

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Attic Mirror : Epilogue

I wanted to write a bit more for Attic Mirror. Something that would explain a bit the situation of David and show the future of our characters a little. That can also be seen as an opportunity for a sequel and a way to link an other novel I have in mind to this story, a bit more. I think that you have already noticed that Demon Soul and Attic Mirror are linked and so it will be for several novels I have in mind, planned or even started to write already. This mean much much more for you to read will come soon and a new challenge will start on the first of April. It will be of a different kind however, I'll let you the surprise for the moment.
Enjoy reading this little epilogue.
All Novels Draft



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Back to end
Back to part 1 (beginning)



Friday, March 26, 2010

America : Kalamazoo

En français
This is a post for my travel in America for a conference in Kalamazoo that took place in July 22 to 28 2009.
After the conference I spend a week more visiting Chicago. The first post for this chapter of the travel section can be find here. During the week-end of the conference I spend my time visiting Kalamazoo and going to the festival "the taste of Kalamazoo" where I tasted delicious Malaysian food. I also visited a free museum about America in the sixties and earlier, which had some science sections where kids were doing experiments and a section about Japan.




























Yes in the museum I also took the catbus and met Totoro.



















Travel table of content