Nov 24, 2013
Project 365 – Week 47
I guess it’s the season. Christmas decorations are starting to crop up all over the city, and shop windows are also being changed for a twist of seasonal cheers and a few touches of festive glitters. I’m starting to look into my list of Christmas gifts to get, and in the next days orders shall be made online. This way, gifts can be delivered directly to my in-laws’ (where I’ll be spending Christmas this year) and I would not have a million and one thing to carry in the train. Win-win.
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18 Nov: Doors of Paris can be impressively ornated. Solid timber doors with its various knockers, glass doors framed by stylised lines, metal grills with classic motifs like this one above. While cherubs are adorable and make fine adornment, my favourite is to see two side of the grills with couple looking at each other, the man at the centre of one side of the grill, and the woman at the centre of the other side. Come to think of it, I should photograph such pair one of these days, so I can share it here.
19 Nov: On a street adjacent to rue du Bac, these colourful poles always bring a smile to my face whenever I walk by. They are much more cheerful than the boring brown poles found everywhere in the city anyway. However, this is not the only spot in the city where the street poles have been hacked, nor is it the most interesting hacked. I’ve previously seen photos of works by the street artist CyKlop but he doesn’t seem to tag the poles around where I live. I should head out more often to the east of Paris, maybe…
19 Nov: This building is a little, how do I put it, out there? It houses the head office of AREP, a multi-disciplinary specialist that brings together construction, engineering, architecture, urban planning and graphic artistry, running hundreds of projects internationally. Being a subsidiary of SNCF (that manages train network in France) it is unsurprising that many of its projects are rail-related. However, I didn’t exactly expect they put some sort of rust-like metal grills as part of the building’s exterior. This project was completed last year, and yet it felt like it has been exposed to the elements for years. Good thing, or not?
20 Nov: Does it always feel like Christmas? No, not even at the end of the year. Do I want it to always be Christmas? Definitely not. I like the season, and I like the festivities around it, but I think I’m a little tired of the expansion of the holiday every year. It used to start as December loomed, then at the end of November, slowly mid-November, and now pretty much right after Halloween. I guess consumerism has won the war of Christmas…
21 Nov: I physically felt sick last evening, when I found out that I’ve accidentally left one of my assignments incomplete and I had just missed its hard deadline. Normally, I would have completed the course work at the start of week together with another course, then ticked them off my to-do list. Somehow, I’d ticked both off and therefore in my mind, it’s done. One was indeed submitted, just not the other, and I don’t know why either. Granted, I’d lose only 2% of overall effective score, so logically it’s not a big deal, but the perfectionist side of me was a bit annoyed for such oversight nonetheless. The irony: I passed the assignment with full marks anyway on the first try.
22 Nov: It has been a while since I went for a walk at any Parisian cemeteries. This afternoon, after F and I went out for an apartment viewing, we decided to detour into the Montparnasse cemetery for a brisk stroll. Surprisingly, despite its proximity to where we live, F had never stepped into the compound before! Autumn colours can still be found here, adding a layer of aesthetic to what could have been a somber place. We didn’t stay too long though, for the nip in the air encouraged us to head home for a cup of hot tea.
23 Nov: Ah the festive lightings are officially up in my neighbourhood. The decoration had not necessarily changed from how it was last year, but given the short winter days, it still bring a bright spot to the neighbourhood while complementing the white wooden huts that have been erected around the mall of Montparnasse tower. The only thing missing now is the Christmas tree vendors but I’m sure they’ll be setting up shops within the next few days on certain streets, market corners and so forth. Christmas is in the air!
Hehehe…pretty sure u will do fine without the 2% ;)
I passed the course with 98.1% – ah, that bugger 2%!