Je suis Charlie, I am Charlie, We are all French

Can't sleep tonight, thoughts with my French cartooning colleagues, their families and loved ones #CharlieHebdo http://t.co/LqIMRCHPgK—
David Pope (@davpope) January 07, 2015

In light of today’s terrorist attack against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, I feel compelled to use all media channels available to me to express sadness and grief for the victims, indignation and a heavy heart for French people, and solidarity for journalists and cartoonists all over the world.

Knowing that terrorists want to instill fear to dissuade journalists to publish humor and satire about religion motivates me to use my freedom of expression to show my support to the #JeSuisCharlie movement.

C’est ce qu’on appelle…

…être dans de beaux draps (litterally, “to find oneself in some pretty – ironic tone – sheets!”…you said, what??)!

Baby G in some deep sheet… 🙂

être dans de beaux draps

English:

(idiomatic) To be up the creek without a paddle; be in trouble; be in a pickle; be in a spot of bother.

Etymology: white sheets worn for the atonement of one’s sins. (Source: Wiktionnaire)

To be in a right fix/mess (Source: Le Grand Robert & Collins)

It is not too late…

…to wish you a new year of health, happiness and prosperity! I hope you have had a chance to recharge over the holidays and had a good start in 2014. Have you set new personal or professional goals, or is that something you do on a regular basis without needing a new calendar year to remind you?

I must say I have not had the opportunity to update my marketing plan and figure out exactly where I should focus my efforts this year. I have not even had a chance to « digest » last year, because, as you can tell from the irregularity of my posts, it has been extremely busy with:

• 2 classes at NYU towards my Professional Certificate in Translation, English to French: Human Resources and Technical Translation
• developing my freelance translation business while phone interpreting full-time up until early April
• bringing our first child into the world in May (which involved childbirth classes from January to March) and welcoming my parents from France for a visit until early June
• transitioning to full-time translation in June (including translating over 100,000 words in the print industry over several months) while caring for a new baby

Best wishes for the holiday season!

Stationery Card

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Happy Independence Day!

Bébé Gwendolyn, une citoyenne Française et Américaine, est bien placée pour vous souhaiter une joyeuse fête de l’indépendance mais aussi une bonne fête nationale française, un peu à l’avance pour le 14 juillet.
Levons nos verres à l’amitié franco-américaine (malgré l’actualité un peu inquiétante!), pour qu’elle dure à travers les siècles!

A special announcement…

… and the reason this blog has been so silent:

Stationery Card

View the entire collection of cards.

However, I promise to be back in June with occasional posts and blurbs about language, translation, bilingual education, and more. Thanks for your support and readership over the past couple of years!

Le mot du travail : « persévérance »

As a new year begins, many of us take time to reflect on the old year and set goals for the new one. On a personal level, I defined 2011 as a year of disappointments and hope, and 2012 as the year of perseverance and faith. Just the other day, I found a short note that I wrote exactly a year ago, that I could define as a short poem, but also a prayer and a statement of a wish I wanted to come true. I don’t know if the fact that I wrote it down engraved this prayer in my heart and increased my belief, but that prayer came true a few months later.

The return of the Frenchie…

It is so nice to have a permanent presence on the web that does not disappear when I enter a time of complete “non-blogging”. It may have seemed that I must have withdrawn from society to go off to intense jedi training or meditation, but in reality, I got to a point of busyness where I could not focus on “fun”, or creative work other than translation projects and my awesome marketing and advertising on-line class at NYU this past semester.

Le cercle des irréductibles lexicophiles, ou comment les traducteurs créatifs s’obstinent…

Certains diraient qu’ils sont fous, ces traducteurs, d’autres qu’ils font preuve d’un professionnalisme exemplaire. Alors que le grand public perçoit souvent la traduction comme un métier en voie de disparition vu le développement de technologies en « équations interlinguales » (ou officiellement, Traduction automatique…), une centaine de traducteurs français-anglais dévoués se sont réunis du 18 au 22 août au Québec pour perfectionner leurs compétences langagières lors de la conférence « On traduit dans l’Estrie » organisée par Anglocom. Pour ces professionnels insatiables, quelle est la recette d’une conférence réussie ?

Day 7 of our cruise: Rome

Day 7 of our adventure, and the icing on the cake: Roma! With only a few hours to visit a city requiring at least one week to unveil all of its treasures, we focused on the vestiges of the Roman civilisation/ antiquity.
Despite the morning strike at the Coliseum, we were able to wait in line for one hour in the afternoon to finally visit a must-see monument.
In the meantime, the foras, the senate, the Rotonda, Trevi fountain, etc. kept us busy!
We made it back to the boat just in time with the one-hour train ride to the Civitavecchia port.
Same conclusion: now I know what I need to come back for!

Related articles

• Roma! – Rome, Italy (travelpod.com)
• Bernini’s Trevi Fountain, Rome (kerstenbeckphotoart.wordpress.com)
• Roma (letterpressedthoughts.wordpress.com)
• Rome Vacations (orbitz.com)
• When in Rome – Rome, Italy (travelpod.com)

simonbephotography

Rome. Que dire de Rome sinon que c’est une ville historiquement extraordinaire et qu’y passer une journée n’est de loin pas suffisant. Il faudrait y passer une semaine pour voir ce que Rome a à nous offrir.

A Rome, tout est étiqueté Soupe Populaire des Quartiers Romains. Même les poubelles !

Ici, le général Maximus Decemus a combattu contre une comode.

Ceux qui vont mourir… vont mourir. 

Je suis rital et je le reste… Véritable comédien formé par la Comedia dell’Arte.

V… for Vendetta.

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