Don't test me on my culture please......

I have a default.... Well, OK, I have more than one default but well....
The one I'm going to talk about is: I can't answer properly questions like: "Which kind of music do you like", "which artists do you listen to?", "Which books, movies do you like?".... This is pretty stupid I know.
The common denominators in these questions are:
-you have to came up with a list of names
-someone is interested into knowing more about yourself
-you are going to be judged on the accuracy of your answer
-you have to have a minimum of culture.....
Well, you know what... Asking me this kind of question is the best way to make me feel miserable. And damned, this kind of question are not that unusual......
So point per point I'm going to explain my weird behavior:
1-List of name: My memory is pretty bad, not the memory for stories, but memory for names. When I say, pretty bad, I should say "unusually poor".....And specially under some stress, it's getting even worse (Jan notice I'm not using worst.....Jan is trying to improve my English and I appreciate that, he is very patient :-)....). So asking me to came up with a list of names is challenging for me.
2-I think I'm usually reserved in society and I'm pretty uncomfortable when I'm the center of the attention. I just don't know what to say when someone wants to know more about myself.... I kind of think: Why would you want that, I have nothing interesting to say about myself?????
3-Even worse, I keep thinking people judge me when they ask personal questions. This is true but I should be enough confident in myself not to bother about that. I try to make some progress on this topic, I still have to work on it.....
4-I think I have some sort of culture.... I just have the impression I'm a little unusual: I didn't used to listen music as a teenager, I didn't have TV for a certain time.....

Well, that's about it.
I still have to write a post on French movies.... Geoff asked me for some French movies I liked, and as you can imagine I wasn't able to came up with a lot of names... So I assume Geoff thought there wasn't a lot of good French movies..... I have to correct that.....

A new post is coming......

Well, I know I have been flaky lately..... Too much stuff happening at work and with friends. When I arrive at home the evening I do usually two things: I watch stupid TV and/or I go to sleep..... I'm not very proud of that but well, that's the way it is right now. I will calm down my "overactivity", eventually.... and I will came back to more constructive occupations, I hope.... I just feel tired at night and I need to recover my energy by doing nothing or stupid things, it's not good.....
You can look at Geoff blog "Freakfest x2 and more" post and have a description of my last Weekend.
I'm happy because I ran my first 5K. It took me about 28 minutes to finish the 5K, this is not great, but well, I wasn't there to make a performance. I just like the fact to run with other people, it's a very good motivation.
After that, we went to the Folsom street fair, and I have to admit, I realized I'm "very very" standard in my tests (boring maybe????) compare to the population in this street fair. I never saw so many naked people or people with whips and/or leather, these people are very imaginative, way more than I'm, for sure (I don't feel bad about it, everyone can have different test, that's cool)..... It was like a huge sex shop with people making demonstrations everywhere. At the beginning, it was disturbing, after a certain time, I was used to it, and it didn't bother me that much.
So, I started my day in a very conventional way by running in San Francisco, and at the end of the day I was walking in a street fair surrounded by naked people. I like this diversity, San Francisco is really a great city.
And I'm also happy because I'm playing basketball twice a week now. It's good, I start to do more sport and I hope I will feel better and eventually lose some weight.......Let see......

Backpacking weenkend at Point Reyes

I spent a very nice weekend with a group of 14 people.
I left the work at 2pm Friday with Anthony and we had to walk from 5pm to 8:30 pm to join an exceptional camp site in the state park of Point Reyes.
I realized I have to buy a head lamp..... Because doing a hike in the dark require an efficient lamp, mine wasn't that good.... As usually Anthony was here to compensate my lack of equipment, but well, I feel bad about it, at one point, I have to get my own gears (My list of things to buy is growing, growing...).
The nice thing about Point Reyes is the diversity between forest and Ocean. The mix can generate wind and fog but at the same time, it's just beautiful. And we have been lucky, the weekend hasn't been cold.
being in nature is something I enjoy a lot, it just give me a break from my work where I'm seating all day long, working on my computer.
And at the same time, being with a group of cool people is fun.
Oh, I almost forgot.... We had a visitor Friday and Saturday night at the camp site....This visitor wanted badly to be my friend (or at least tried to get some food). Well, I wasn't interested in the friendship of a skunk, way too dangerous....
So to conclude my weekend: I had a very good time.

Labor day weekend....

A 3 days weekend, that was just great!!!! I miss these long weekends a lot (French are so lucky), and because we only have a few of them in the US, I have enjoyed each moment of this one.....
To stay healthy, we went for a bike ride on Sunday with Olivia and Jan. To be honest it was the only "healthy" thing I did.... The rest was just partying, eating, shopping, playing cards.....
At this occasion, Olivia sent me a picture of me using my cell phone!!!!!!!!!!! Hey guys, this is the proof that even an old fashion woman like me can evolve sometime..... I have been very reticent during years to get a cell phone. The reason is that I'm so
independent, and I like so much my freedom... I don't want to have to carry it all the time and I don't want people expecting to be able to join me anytime..... I'm not really proud of my unsocial skill; but well, it turn out that even if I'm not very comfortable speaking on a cell phone, it's very very convenient.....

Lucky at cards, unlucky in love

This is a French proverb which also can be literally translated like that:"Happy in the game, unhappy in love". I thought this proverb could be taken either way ("Unhappy in game, happy in love") and I also thought it contains some kind of justice in it(fair balance). But well, it's not quite working this way for me, I have been specially unlucky the all weekend at cards and/or board games. And at the same time, I'm pretty unhappy and sad in love............. It's not fair..........
Also, during this weekend, something completely incomprehensible happened: I lost 2 pounds!!! Despite the fact, I ate really way too much:2 Barbecue parties, 2 restaurants lunches, cakes, crepes, alcohol, big brunch, chips........ This morning I thought I would break some high records and instead I lost some weight????
Maybe I'm a "strange alien" and rules which usually apply to people are kind of mixed up with me. It's nice to feel different sometime; and some other times, it's difficult....

Number 9, I hate you!

This is just to say that I have a lot of trouble with the number 9 in my list..... I have been writing on excel everything I ate during this last 2 weeks.... And you know what..... I have been able to cut almost all the snacks between meals, I have been watching what I ate, I have been drinking less alcohol, eating more vegetables and I have been working out more..... Consequences: During the day I feel hungry and a little frustrated because I don't allow me to eat my usual "comfort food"..... And result: I lost zero pound!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a fantastic result!!!!!!!!!!!! Obviously there is something not quite right. I will keep going anyway, just because if I can suppress snacks it cannot be a bad thing.....And I'm not yet discouraged, maybe I'll get some results some days........
By the way, if I continue with all these meaningless posts, I'll not be able to achieve the number 13 either......