I mean I want to see

Image © Elle Decor I think.
Such a good idea to enlarge your postage material for the walls.

J’ÉCRIS pour cela, le plaisir, le votre et puis le mien, jamais pour agacer, je tente de poser ce qu’il faut mais pas plus. La peine, la joie, le bien-être, le désir, l’envie. Une complétude, un plein rond et entier, une absence. D’autres vies, d’autres visage et d’autres liens.

On ne peut pas vivre d’abstractions et de fantasmes, tu le sais bien.

*

Beginning to write in French again and all I can come up with are these emotionally-vomity sentences.

Anyway, reverting to the Ms Frivolous And Self-Adornment-Obsessed Bimbo side part of me that’s vital to who I am:

a) may tailor this jacket of Faye Wong’s that I really like.

b) have to go get hair mask, I used to miss this when I was in the States. And the shampoo from this range has the most lovely clean honey smell.

c) was wearing sensible Mephistos for a bit to give my feet a break from high-heels. They’re really good walking shoes and I can run for the bus and traipse all around foreign cities and go for job interviews in them. But I’ve realised I just can’t live without heels — they look so so so much better with dresses and skirts than mumsy Mary Janes.

d) find cheaper sunscreen for face. Will Coppertone work?

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Was appalled when I’d written “Tu sais le bien” by accident, and got thinking about interesting language mistakes I’ve made — in English:

1. “I’ve eaten already.”
- from Chinese construction 我吃饱了 （wo chi bao le).
Should be I’ve already eaten. Intriguing, when I thought about it, for I knew it sounded wrong on hindsight — I’m not a native speaker lah.

2. “I tried calling him.”
- I tried contacting him. Tried calling — was I too weak to reach the phone?

And we’d a good language workshop at work, where we’d to spot errors such as

- The crab scuttles to the coconut and pries the meat from the shell.
(should be prises. Pry, pries different from prise, prises.)

- He, as well as his mother, are fond of coffee in the morning
(you read the “as well as” as being in parentheses, so it’s “is” and not “are”, this one I knew due to good training in school.)

- He was in hot soup for gossiping about his boss
(in the soup or in hot water, not in hot soup, according to the dictionaries, anyway.)

- Don’t stinge on good food
(stint, though many think it’s “stinge” from “stingy”)

and we were pointed to the correct usage of “youth” and “youths” plus put through a spot quiz where we’d to spell

1. liaises
2. minuscule
3. supersede
4. millennium
5. ophthamologist
6. targeted
7. manoeuvre
8. nought (as in zero)
9. commemorate
10. hotchpotch (N American, which we don’t use, is hodgepodge)

AN interesting site by Shanghai Daily for Chinese terms. Some are a bit bizarre

宽粉 (kuan1fen3)
super fans
This Chinese term means literally “thick glass noodle.” Since glass noodle, which sounds like the English word “fans” in Chinese, has been widely used as a moniker of fans, the “thick” ones naturally become “super” fans

But I do like some:

长草 (zhang3cao3)
a growing craving
This word is to describe the growing of some consumers’ desires for certain items. For example, when a girl is interested in cosmetics, clothes or shoes but can’t buy them immediately because of high price or other reasons, her desire will grow until buying them. The Chinese literally means “grass-growing” (in the heart), which reflects the robust growing of the desire for the product.

软脚蟹（ruan3jiao3xie4）
spineless, namby-pamby
Soft-legged crab, as this term literally translates, is no good because it’s premature and yields little meat. It is often used to describe a person deemed a weakling

抱抱团（bao4bao4tuan2）
free huggers
Some people offer free hugs for strangers in streets of big Chinese cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing. They hold signs saying “Care from strangers” and “No to cold shoulders” in Chinese and the words of “Free hugs” in English. The huggers say “free hugs will bring people closer.”

内紧外松 (nei4jin3wai4song1)
floating duck tactic
This translation is based on the English term of “floating duck syndrome,” which describes a situation where a duck paddles frantically underneath in order to keep its body calmly floating on the water. In China, however, people don’t see it as a syndrome, but a tactic to hide one’s efforts in speeding up his work or in controlling damages underneath a calm and relaxed appearance.

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1. Running/swimming again. Pilates practice.
2. French and Vietnamese.
3. Basics of accounting — visit Bras Basah again to pick up second hand textbooks.
4. Writing, writing, writing.
5. Make gifts and send out the latest batch of postcards.

Site update: the money pages.