Back To School

As a special treat, I was driving my brother to school this morning. Surprisingly enough, my old secondary school (the Collège Royal Marie-Thérèse [CMT] in Herve) is one of the few ones to open its doors as soon as possible. That is the reason why we usually had to stand those annoying TV and radio journalists saying that "Pupils of kindergarten and primary school" were back to school today, but they always forgot us! Even last year, pupils had had to go back to the CMT on 1 September, just for two hours – due to pure bureaucracy matters – which was very upsetting because it was on a Friday, thus ruining a week of holiday. But this year, of course, they had this "longer last week of holyday". As far as I can remember, it was the first time since ten years or so, due to bissextile years. (And for that matter, it won't happen again, due to the additional day of 29 February.)

Anyway, I was driving my brother back to school. In order to spare oil – but also to see my former teachers – I had decided to stay there until my brother funishes at 11 am.

I talked with several teachers, who asked me how did my holiday go; I replied I enjoyed every moment of it since I had succeeded in June.

I went to the small library that the school has because I knew it was a place where I could meet teachers who'd certainly go pass to it. I chatted with the librarian, and she accepted me to help her giving school diaries to the students who'd come. Classes consisted of 24 to 27 pupils. For each class, two students were sent by the headteacher to fetch the books. It was thus quite stuck and crowded in the library when a dozen of pupils came altogether to get the books.

Later, these pupils came back to get the lunch (this is the ONLY thing that the school offers during the whole academic year), which consisted of a waffle and an orange juice.

In the process, I got to see two of my favourite teachers (because they made me laugh a lot back then – and they still do now): M. Kuta and M. Delrée. Last year, I managed to catch one of their numerous "fights" in front of the copy machine. And I put it on YouTube, of course. (Note that these teachers always seemed to argue with each other, but it was just to have a laugh… What a silly school!)



And by the way, M. Kuta lost a lot of weight (more than 60 kg, according to some rumours) since then, but he didn't lose his sence of humour, I can assure you that.

Mid-term Report

The end of July. Already. Yeah… Just a month left to sleep till midday. Oh no, wait, the university only opens on 17 September (!)— and that's just for ceremonial purposes, but I'll be there, in order to welcome the rookies. The next day, we've just got to show up for kind of a speech from our "chieves", Professor Delabastita and Professor Leijnse, but also to buy the syllabi. And the lectures only start on 19 September. It's quite a relief.

Apart from that, I'm fine. I'm done with classifying my lecture notes, my notebooks and syllabi. (Putting all that on a bonfire would have been much more easy, but not really clever.) Everything is finally packed up. It took me almost, say, six hours in all to do that, but I like things to be done perfectly. At least, next year, when my "filleul(e)" (i.e. godson or goddaughter, i.e. a protégé at school or university) gets my lecture notes and all that (valuable) stuff, (s)he'll find whatever (s)he wants. While I was tidying up my old stuff, I read bunch of papers that I had completely forgotten. The "Delete button" in my memory works perfectly: for instance, everything I knew about Plato, Kant and Descartes had been wiped out, erased, obliterated. And yet, I got 18 at the exam. The exams are just something to test us on a (vast) subject on a particular day — for the next day, it's all gone! The pedagogic system is sometimes weird.

Another Day of Great Fun in Brussels

I see that the time goes by pretty fast: we are, with this picture, in January 2006, in Brussels. We were on another school trip (don't assume that we were always doing it: it was only once in a blue moon, but I talk about that here because it was special) whose goal was to see the exhibition "Made in Belgium" for the 175th anniversary of the independence of Belgium.
In the morning, we took the train in Verviers (the nearest station): we were 150 students and a dozen of teachers. An hour later, we arrived in Brussels Central and we walked to the Grand-Place, where a man (a retired one) took care of us: he was going to show us the most famous places of Brussels—strange that some of us had never ever come to Brussels… We went in front of the Manneken Pis (hence the photo) and walk towards the Royal Palace (how original), then the Royal Library, and back to the Grand-Place. Pretty boring when you have already seen that 100 times.

But wait a minute… This sightseeing took place two years before, when I was in 4th year… Oops. Actually, on 13 January 2006, we didn't get any sightseeing, but we went directly to the exhibition. Fortunately, I was in the last part of the group, and I was staying close to M. Kuta, our History teacher, one of the most funny guys I know: that's him on the picture. Instead of looking carefully at the things exposed to our eyes about the history of Belgium, the books, the medals, the suits, the statues, the pictures, the paintings, etc., we couldn't help criticizing everything and make silly comments about whatever we saw. For example, we were talking about the building of the Caroline Europe, with Charlemagne dividing his kingdom between his four (!) sons: John, Ringo, Paul and George.
Later, we arrived in the Hall of Inventions, where we found this splendid ancient engine in front of which M. Kuta stands on the picture. We were kidding by saying that it was his first car's engine. At school, he was talking of his car being a Kutamobile or Fardier de Kuta (after the name of the first steam engine), and we tought it had to be precesely that. We also found his first wheels, as you can see.

Then, we had a one-and-a-half-hour (?) break during which we could do whatever we wanted (except from robbing a bank or something mischievous), so I decided to walk towards the Friterie Jourdan, a chip-shop. (Crap! I can't even find a picture of this worldly-famous institution on Google!) That is to say that, from the Grand-Place, we had to walk for 2,5 km in order to get our fries, and back again to the Grand-Place: another 2,5 km! We did it within an hour! (Needless to say that we walked really fast.) But it was worth the effort: those fries were my favourites at that time (now, I've definitely found better).

In the afternoon, we had to see another exhibition about Russian paintings in the beginning of the 20th century in the Beaux-Arts/Bozart Museum. Pretty boring. I was still with M. Kuta, but due to the guide's presence, we didn't dare saying silly comments (even though there was enough material for doing so).

Afterwards, we had another bunch of free-time, so we went walking not too far from the Grand-Place, and I remember having been to the Quick to eat (yes, I have a healthy life). We took the train in Brussels Central Station round 7 pm and we went back to Verviers. No one was injuried during this trip.

Whistler's Mother

"Whistler's Mother" or, as it reads on the picture in the Musée d'Orsay, "Portrait de la mère de l'artiste", by James Whistler. This painting was made famous the catastrophical movie "Bean", where our favourite Brit destroy the painting and tries to replace it… by a poster… (This film is one of my favourites.) In the French version, Bean says: "C'est le portrait d'une vieille peau, d'un débris, qu'il aima par dessus tout"… Brillant!

The Choice of a Hotel is not Easy

Again a picture taken while being on a trip in Paris. We were all walking in the streets, going from famous place to famous place. Here, we were in front of the Ritz, on the Place Vendôme, probably the most expensive area in Paris, where the biggest jeweleers must have a shop. On the picture, you can see M. Jacquet (on the left), my tutor and Latin teacher, and M. Simar, French teacher. They look as if, while pointing the Ritz, they think they'd better have chosen this hotel instead of the inexpensive (but comfortable, though) Formule 1 in Saint-Denis.

Visite du Louvre (April 2005)

When I was at secondary school, 5th year, we all went to Paris as a cultural trip of three days. On the first day, we went to the Louvre to see the most famous items of the collection, including the Venus of Milo, Samothrace's Victory, the Mona Lisa, the "Radeau de la Méduse" and also "La Liberté guidant le peuple" by Eugène Delacroix, where you see this allegory of France personified as Marianne, who leads the people (and Eugène Delacroix—hidden self-portrait) half-naked with the "bleu-blanc-rouge" flag. On that third picture, you can see one of my favourite teachers, namely M. Christian Jacquet, with whom I studied Latin during three years.