Is the grass greener elsewhere ?

The Greener Grass feed was supposed to tell my students our small, or not that small, adventures in our new country. Since the disappearance (magics?) of our nest egg made things somewhat harder (I'm fully for understatement, today), I started telling you about it, and for fun, I asked you to give us some ideas to get our money back.
The answers were mostly about retaliation. The Monte-Cristo complex spread like fire. Obviously, I and Pierre were not the only people in the world who would have liked to take revenge against someone.
Then came testimonies from other providers about how difficult to get paid had been. (No one has been as silly and stupid as us, with Pierre going on working one year without getting paid!) And recently enquiries from clients have started to reach my email box.
It is time for the société Cadic Hate Story (I'm fed up with understatement) to leave the family house and get its own (my)space.
I'll tell you when it's set up. If you have ideas for a great, resounding name, drop a line.

It looks like some people are worrying about the finances of the company Cadic, rue Bernouilli, Paris. At first, when I told the story and asked for ideas to get our money back, I received many plans to take revenge against Cadic. Most of them funnier than useful.
But then I started receiving specific questions.
And recently, fearful questions. The general idea being:
- If they can't pay 50000 euros, how could they pay... ?
Good question. But what I do not understand is the reason why they ask me.

A lady interested in learning French told me about two French courses. One of them I did not know, so I turned to Google. I read enough about the course to know that is was not interesting, so enough on the subject.
What surprised me was that many books entitled "zillions of French Verbs fully conjugated" were sold. What is the point? Do you imagine a book that would list hundreds of English verbs because of the handful of them that are fancy? Of course not.
For some reason -I suspect it is to sell their books- there are people who are eager to make believe that each French verb belongs to a category of its own. I understand how scary the idea may be. But it is no more than a lie. If you do have such a book within reach, open it at any page. What do you read? Some lines about a verb, and hundreds of lines that display the conjugation either of etre or of avoir. And it is the same, page after page.
I do not tell you that French conjugations are a piece of cake, but frankly, they are not that hard. Let's suppose that you already know etre, avoir, faire and aller (they are the pillars of the language, you cannot do without them), you only need to learn five forms of 50 verbs, at the very utmost, to be out of the woods. And I count apparaitre, disparaitre and paraitre individually, or venir, devenir, revenir, or prendre, comprendre, reprendre, surprendre, etc.
The next time people tell you how difficult French conjugations are, ask them the titles of their books.

Below is the link for my last video to learn French on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF4D_Vo5DKo
I think that the quality is better on:
http://www.spike.com/video/learn-french/3042142
but for some unknown reason, the video, and the previous ones, are in the "commercials". But they are free.

Yesterday evening, while I was teaching at the Art and Culture Community Center, a young man came with a neat plan:
- "I want to speak French within 4 months."
I calculated and replied:
- "You will have to study with me for an hour and half, twice a week, until your departure. And never skip your homework."
Since he was determined, we started on the spot.
With private and half-private lessons, it is possible to get by with French within 40 hours. Of course, I warned him that he would not be able to speak of high theology or any specialized subject. He swore he was not interested in theology anyway.

Our garden is no more than a small part of the desert of Atacama surrounded with railings. To amend a poor and sandy soil, I thought of making compost with our food scraps. I read that the best time to start composting is in the spring. It's the spring down here. I also read that anyone who has a dry (the desert of Atacama is the driest place of the planet) and shady space (the house is not transparent) can just dump compost in a pile with a handful of red wrigglers. But these pets need water to survive. The soil is too sandy (dusty?) to retain water. I have to amend it first. And to amend it...

Yesterday, in a meeting for the Davis cup, Chile won against Australia. That's may look like a piece of news, but the most important is elsewhere: for the first time since we have been living there, the Mercurio of Antofagasta did not read a disaster for its headline.
I bet that they wondered if they should not rather print the sad story of the Australian team.

Yesterday, we woke up with Violeta Para on the radio. We went to the fair. There were a food stand for every other stand: whirligigs, tombolas, skill games, swings (the kind that makes a complete revolution, to be used before stopping at a food stand), etc. No divination stand. I wondered if I could start mine. But my Spanish is still to poor to reveal people their destinies. Never mind. I am used to keeping for myself what I know about someone else's fate.
Pierre and I stopped at as many food stands as we can and ate our favorite Chilean specialties: humitas and empanadas. Of course, we added churros and things whose names I do not know. We drank dubious mixtures, bought chocolates and a puppet for Marco.
It was our first 18th September in Chile: we did not want to spoil it.

Yesterday, to start the festivities that go with the Country Day, there was dance exhibitions, among other cultural activities. There were not a lot of people since on the same day there was a football match: the local team against Colo-Colo (the best Chilean football team).
I fulfill the first condition to be disappointed: I like dance. I wished someone had told the choreographer apprentices that dance is not a matter of ideas but of movements.
I'm sure the footballers' moves followed better patterns. No one of these dancers would have been able to score a goal.

If you did not know, you will: to teach French I also use a virtual theater. Students act or listen, according to their tastes, or their shyness. To make it known, I had prepared elementary videos -around 3 minute duration- in which I showed how it worked.
It may look strange, totally unexpected, but to explain how the rehearsals work, I needed to write (display) a dozen lines of a play.
Some sites rejected my videos because of copyright infringement!
I wonder how Amazon has not been shut down, since they display a dozen pages of works.

Chile is preparing the Country Day, understand: the Country week. Shops and streets are blue, white, red: French people feel at home. Each house has to have a flag hung at the top of its mast.
Pierre almost made us stoned to death. He remembered that September 11th was an important date in Chile, but had forgotten the reason why, and asked if we should hang the flag on that day. Pierre's question was received without much enthusiasm, to say the least. It's also the date of a disaster down here: the Pinochet's coup d'état.

The Monte Cristo complex may be viral! I receive many ideas of ways to take revenge against Cadic (though I'd rather get my money!)
Someone would like to see an old-style hearse, with the plume on the heads of the horses, the silver tears on black velvet, the men in black (no, not these ones, the other kind), the coffin and a wreath that would read: "Pierre Guichard's 55000euros, the grateful Cadic team" parking rue Bernouilli, just in front of the entrance of their offices.
Yes, I would like to see that as well, but, except around the racecourses, I'm not sure horses would be allowed in Paris.

I am a moron. That's what every big shoe thinks of me. Do not be so proud: they think the same of you.
I wanted to create a myspace account. It displays the page in Spanish, whatever the preferences I indicate in my browser. At the bottom of the page I click on "MySpace International" and choose another language. I log in and it displays my account in Spanish. I have to click again on MySpace International and change the language for the second time. This time, I'm proposed to tick the language so that my choice will be kept for ever. Good, I tick. I read some news, watch some videos, and logout. When I come back, guess what. Yes, my account is in Spanish again.
I'm in Chile therefore I want everything in Spanish. I'm a moron, and they just want to help me. They choose for me, so that I have no problem. They are so good. And so humble.

This morning, a client of Cadic with whom Pierre worked last year wrote him that a bailiff was due to come today, to check and testify that Cadic did not fulfill the contract requirements.
These requirements were very precise and asked for a lot of time to be implemented: the overtime that Cadic refused to pay Pierre for. They stopped the specific implementations when they realized how much work and time it took. And now, they themselves will not be paid because the job has not been done.

I heard about the Oedipus complex. I can testify there is a Monte-Cristo complex. So far, none reader has given us an idea to get our money back, but many have given ideas for means of revenge.
I like the liquid-manure cannon, but farmers usually make their protest marches between La Bastille and La République; they seldom demonstrate in Bernouilly street, and still more rarely at La Bourse.
Of course, if you are a demonstrator, with your own liquid-manure cannon, and want to go out of your way to "water" Cadic head office, who am I to prevent you from doing so?

So far, we have not been able to get our money back. The main -and sole- argument that the company Cadic, the debtor, develops is: "Our contract allowed for 10 days a month. We recognize that we gave you work for more than 20 days each month, but you should have refused to do it. You did it for free! There is nothing like an oral agreement, since you cannot prove it."
That's true. Pierre cannot prove anything, even if it is very doubtful that he agreed to work for peanuts.
Anyway, the 55000 euros miss us a lot. Now that the school could start, from an administrative point of view, we can afford neither computers, nor advertisement.
If you have some idea to make them pay, we take it.

The vernissage took place yesterday night. There were many people, and many who liked the works that were exhibited. We also displayed the poster of the Institute.
Among the visitors was a French man who teaches technology at the Universita Catolica. We chatted. He told us he was looking for someone to teach French to his students: they will have to go in France at the end of their degree course for a period of work experience. I applied. Cross your fingers.

All day long, Pierre and Marco have been working in the workshop, to prepare the exhibition that starts on Monday at the Community Art Center. Since we have been living in Antofagasta, it is the first time that the engraving workshop deserves its name.
In the beginning, it did not exist.
Then, it has been used as anything, even as a dance studio, but most often for DIY activities.
At last, it meets its fate.

Since Marco is more or less the official photographer of the Antofagasta ballet, he had to take snapshots of the young dancers. A class of 83.
It is funny, but difficult to take photos of six-year old ballerinas. Pierre helped Marco. (As for myself, I did nothing. I stood there. No more.)
... blah blah blah, you know, the photographer, with 2 French assistants...
The chic of the chic.

Despite all the problems to open the Institute, yesterday, I did what I wanted to do: I taught French.
My first student, a young woman called Andrea, knew how to count from 1 to 8. Not much, but almost the half of the French vowels. There are 5 vowels in Spanish. It is not an easy task to start to learn a language with 15 vowels (purists would say 16, but I teach French as it is spoken today in France, and more specifically in Paris).
She was surprised to be able to learn so much in so little time. But I was not: since I discovered the "cloud approach", I have been using it with success.
But it takes time to spread the word that there is a way far more easier than the traditional one to learn French.
Never mind! I do what I like to do.