I've just read an article about some people in Switzerland who have the ashes of their dear but dead ones transformed into gems. It keeps me puzzled. I've unfortunately lost quite a few members of my family, and I sometimes find difficult to live with their memories. I'm not a churchyard-goer, or else to churchyards where I know nobody. I don't have photos all over the place in my house, although I like meeting their faces by chance in my albums, and I like diamonds and gems, but I wonder if I could wear a piece of jewelry (a ring, or earrings) knowing it was made of the ashes of my Mum or my friend.

I advise you to read this article : http://fr.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080701/tsc-suisse-societe-prev-c2ff8aa.html and please, then, give me your opinion !

Great news ! I've got through my heap of A-level papers ! I actually feel a great weight off my mind. That means of course I will be able to enjoy a long weekend with ADMV. Although she doesn't know yet, but she will have to help me copy down all the marks on the official slips and then to enter them into the computer. All this has to be done before Monday 8.00 AM.

My method consists in correcting each exercise 79 times rather than correcting a whole paper. Today wasn't a bad day as I was marking the written expression exercises. This is the part I find the least boring. It can sometimes be depressing though. When you come across sentences like those :

"It's money wich to interesse them and they don't think to idealism but lonely at money." "I have very happy because I make my love job." "I work in a librabry." "The food isn't disturbed in the same proportion." "There is a sun who shoots." Well I must admit it sometimes makes me smile too. 

And there are also sentences like this one: "No sooner had I arrived than I was adopted by them." Grammar exists, I've met it !

In France the lowest mark is 0 and the highest 20. I've given marks from 2 to 19.

I was summoned to go and test 12 candidates in Lyon as part of an exam entitled "BTS" (Brevet de Technicien Supérieur). They have 20 minutes to get ready to talk about a document (text, ad, painting, cartoon...) dealing with art, design, advertising, architecture, media, etc. They have never seen the document before, so they have to be able to work efficiently and concisely. In the last part of their oral, we have a conversation about their professional experience and their plans for the future (job, further studies, etc.).

Doing this is usually an interesting experience for me. But this time I didn't enjoy it so much. Was it because the weather was so hot and sticky ? Or because the majority of the students seemed to be very reluctant to speak English at all, or to say anything slightly original about the documents ? (Some of them should have read this book, and maybe would have remembered the basic vocabulary !) Or was it simply because I was particularly tired and traveling for five hours on Sunday had not done anything to help, that I found so hard not to fall asleep ? Some rare but precious moments enlightened my stay though. A nice stroll on the quayside on Sunday evening. A nice meal at a Pakistanese restaurant with my friends. An iced coke drunk at a terrasse on a beautiful square outside the Beaux-Arts Museum.

You may wonder where my name, Ed, comes from. Well, it all started in April 2006 when I decided to create a blog in French. I thought then that I would mainly talk about my job. Indeed I had been reading lots of blogs written by young colleagues, lots of whom seemed to find life difficult and sometimes sounded depressed, and I wanted to show the life of a mid-career teacher, in a not-so-awful high school. As a teacher I work for the National Education Ministry, in French "Education Nationale", which some of us nickname "Educnat". I thus chose that as a screen name. But soon I started to talk about many other things and often forgot the original aim of my blog. Some bloggers started calling me Ed. I didn't mind, though it is the name of a famous branch of cheap grocery supermarkets in France, and I guessed I'd soon become known as "Ed l'Epicier", which didn't suit me at all. Actually the name reminded me of a TV-series I used to watch when I was a child, in which the main character was a talking horse called Mr Ed. Then a kind and creative blogger made a banner for my blog, and that's how I became Ed the talking horse.

Do you remember that series ?

I've been thinking about it for a while, admiring Claude actually for managing two blogs at the same time and Silver Tiger has convinced me. From now on, as well as writing in French about my daily life, I will try to write in English too. And this will be the place ! As it is more difficult for me though I teach English in France, I may not publish new texts as regularly as I do on my other blog. I hope you will be understanding.

Writing or telling something in a foreign language is not just another exercise. It means letting oneself seen from another point of view, revealing another facet of one's character. Believe it or not, I feel different emotions, reactions, when I speak or think in English.  If you happen to be a reader of both blogs, please tell me when you notice such a difference.

For those who don't know me yet, I've been teaching English for 25 years, including the last 13 years in a high school. I'm a woman and will be reaching 50 next July, which is, as you will soon realize, a real trauma to me. I share my life with someone I will refer to as ADMV (as it means something in French, you may even guess what !), she is a woman too. Ed is not my real name, but things being what they are, I'd rather remain anonymous, as some members of our National Education have already got into troubles when their identity was known, even though they hadn't actually criticised anyone namely, or told any lies. Moreover I may mention some details of my private life which are none of my pupils or colleagues' business.

Forgive me if what I write happens to be boring, I feel shy you see, and your comments will help me improve my writing.