I can't say that this week has seemed longer than usual so far, but I'm already beyond exhausted and I'm not sure why. My TV backlog is growing steadily...but it's all a matter of priorities and one of my goals for this year is to keep up my surprisingly good grades from last year and school is going well enough, and even picked up some books for background reading, some of which seem to be actually interesting. How often does that happen ;-)

( Also, in misc news )

At least according to what I read today:

on the back of the official TCF guide it says: Danger - Le photocopillage tue le livre
(for those who haven't taken French in school, it means Danger - Photocopying kills the book.

and on one of my Yoga DVDs, it says that piracy is seriously bad karma

Despite being rather busy with school work, I did go to the French conversation group last night. I was pretty tired and didn't stay too long, but it was much more fun than the French classes I took during the winter break. Downside is, that since it's not a class, it's just conversation, nothing else. Not that I like grammar at all, but that's exactly why I need to do some revising for the TCF. The academic bookstore in town has only some general grammar books, but nothing specifically geared at the TCF. Looks like I might have to order them from amazon.fr :-/

As for school, I've finished two out of the three assignments that are due soon-ish. Those two we were allowed to do on the computer (which I prefer, because it's much easier to correct mistakes or change bits without having to write the whole thing again). The other one we have to do by hand, which sucks because there are among other things graphs to be drawn. I'm not sure what the point is in making us to drawn the graphs by hand. I guess it is good practice for the exams and to be able to roughly sketch something while in the lab, but even there everyone uses computers to do the drawing. But, I've just finished my third version of the graphs and I'm pretty happy with this one. It's not due until the 29th, and I have already done most of the calculations, so I should be able to finish on time without too much stress. However as usual, I haven't managed to make the interactive stuff work on my computer. Sometimes switching the browser and using another computer does the trick, but sometimes its simply doesn't work no matter what.

The disability claim thing is on ice for the moment as I simply don't have time. I have roughly one year left - minus the two or three months that it apparently takes to get a decision, so I figure I should at least make up my mind if I really want to go ahead with it.

Thinking about taking the TCF or at least looking into it. When I helped Bro with his applications, I noticed that they all wanted to have language skills back-up by standardized tests like the TOEFL test.

Hence, I'm looking into the TCF. There seem to be test centers in Germany but the links given on the official page lead to all sorts of general cultural centers and langauge schools. I might ask my French teacher tomorrow and see if she knows anything about it or has recs for preparation books. It says that the test doesn't take any extra preparation as it simplly asses your present knowledge of French. It sounds like a useful thing I could do before OU picks up again in 2008.