SPOILERS! (Click to view)

I'll start chronologically.

5. My sister got married to her high scool boyfriend last Summer and while her and me aren't close at all, I really didn't expect to be put through so much abuse by my family. 'take off your piercings this, no nail polish that, don't wear this, don't do that bla bla bla'. Sure I don't fit into the family mould but my mother and sister made me feel like I was some sort of embarassment. To top it all off, my sister had everyone around our age at one seperate table for dinner and excluded me because I refused to wear a pink dress with a big bow (seriously wtf..). Not that I liked the dress I had to wear anyway. I got to sit with people I had nothing in common with, who all had kids houses etc. Fucking sucked. And so nice, when I got up at 6am to decorate the church with flowers for her and got no time to make myself up.

The Church :






6. I then find out at the wedding that my dad had been married previously to my mother. Okay... My dad refuses to really discuss it and after badgering my mother, I find out that she 'thinks he had two kids but there's no point in making a big deal out of it' Oh yeah, no big deal at all to find this out in your twenties ! I had specific orders not to question my father about this. So I live with this secret for a few months. Coincidentaly, my half-siser gets back in touch with my dad during this time and my dad then announces to me over the phone that he had kids before my us, and I will meet one of them with her kid at Christmas... At the time I was so looking forward to anyone giving me any info on the situation that I thought meeting her asap would be a good idea...

Now imagine sitting at Christmas dinner with someone you've never seen before in your life who's calling your father 'dad' and looks exactly like him. Yeah. Then it gets even better when she tells me 'You know when I found out my dad had redone his life, I was really disapointed to find out his kids were girls !'. Was I supposed to apologize here ? Way to make your host feel great! I haven't seen her since though my dad keeps in touch with her. As for the topic of my half-brother, the subject is very taboo. Mostly because he is severely mentally ill, has been in an institute his whole life and that my dad was against having him (it was known very early on in the pregnancy that things were not going to be good for the child). Things all went downhill from there and my dad was eventually forced out of his marriage, didn't get to see the kids since etc. That's about all I know as no one seems ready to discuss anything more with me.

My sister fell out with my dad because of all this. Fair enough, I'm pissed off that I was kept out of it for so long but I don't think it's fair for her, or me, to make my dad suffer even more for things which we aren't in the position to judge.

8. Last June, I asked my landlord (young guy who always acted like we were friends and for whom I took all responsibilities, did all the paperwork for new tenants, assumed full responsibility for the place etc.) if I would be able to stay a least another year in the place I'd been renting from him for the previous two years. I wanted to know because I was going to install a giant rug, buy furniture etc. After he tells me that 'no problem, I'd love to renew your contract after the summer !', he then announces to me in the midle of the Summer (while I'm out of the country for two months) and after I've bought all the stuff, that his girlfriend and him are moving in and I've got to leave by September. Asshole.
So after a very painful move (I was too broke to pay for storage or movers so I had to move my stuff at four different people's houses in London while I found a place) we eventually found a beautiful house in Shoreditch and, despite the hefty price, things on that front are going fine and barbecues are aplenty

(I love the house)


9. My dad had some cancerous cells in his nose which he had to be operated on to remove, and, after months of debate on the subject, he might need to be operated for prostate cancer now. My dad has always been the one to cover for me when I needed it, pick me up at 3am from parties when I've missed the last trains, and generally been an awesome friend so I hope all will go well. It's scary how many people around me have had their parents develop cancer in the las year or so.

10. My grand father passed away last month and though I didn't know him that much, it's still very sad. He had not been very well for a while so it wasn't a shock, but still. The night he passed away, my grandmother called me from the US at 9am -4am US time- and I didn't pick up the phone. I'd been working the whole night through and was going to bed ; my grandparents never really call me so I knew the call was bad news and was just not in a state to deal with it. I feel really guilty about it now. I wasn't invited to the funeral, largely because there was no one to pay for a plane ticket I suspect. My grandpa was high up in the army and apparently super authoritarian and hard to deal with ; my mother (who is made of steel) really doesn't sem to care about his passing. I guess they weren't friends but that's still pretty bewildering.

11. My cat was diagnosed with Diabetes about a year ago (and he's only 5..). Giving him shots everyday was fucking awful. The vet was a fucking bitch and ripped us off of a lot of money for nothing (long story). After talking to someone on facebook and going through him having hypoglycemic seizures, we decided to change his diet and he hasn't needed a shot since ! If you're in a similar position and would like to know more please leave a comment or message me.



12. I have never discussed my relationships on here; mostly because my ex used to pay for my account, I love him dearly and I would never want to inflict on him what was inflicted upon me. Now that I pay for it, that we are very close friends and that he seems happy with his new lady, I feel okay about sharing. And, well, I need to get this out of my system.

Last fall, I broke up with someone I had been with for a while, and have been going through the worst break-up I've ever known since. I won't go into too many details - that would take far longer than this passage and it's not my purpose to drag his name in mud - but it's been absolutely horrendous. The situation was made that much more complicated by the fact that he is my Jitsu instructor, 40 and I have to see him at least twice a week. I decided to break up (although things were not going well from either side) and ended up regretting it and realizing how in love I was. The worst part was that he refused to be friends with me, stating that while I may stay friends with my exes, he never has. I would have understood that, if it wasn't for the fact that we were going to see each other twice a week anyway...
After months and months of crying, I met up with him and suggested we get back together. He didn't think it was a good idea and then later sent me an e-mail telling me he was now with one of my training partners from my club.
I think I'll always remember reading that exact sentence and the feeling that my heart had actually just shattered in a billion pieces, that someone had just put a bullet through me (forgive the clich�s). Sure I expected him to eventually be with someone else but not someone from Jitsu, not someone from my own club, a friend, worst of all not someone who was my grade, who I had to fucking train with twice a week, and not someone who had previously commented on 'how cute we were together'. It's bad enough when you imagine that person with someone else but fuck, that is one of the things you fear the most after breaking up with somebody: them getting with a friend of yours. And telling me in an e-mail ?! My reaction might have been more measured if he had told me to my face.
What followed was not pretty. I've been angry/sad/upset in my life but nothing this bad. I was screaming through my tears, broke all sorts of stuff, nearly burnt his books, started completely self-destructing ; In short, I completely fucking lost it (and I'm generally described as having my shit together). Lucky for me (and my posessions), my flatmates came home and stopped me from going onto further stupidity. I don't think there was a single drop of water left in my body to cry at that point anyway. I then left for France to get away from it all. I came back and exiled myself from my club for two months which also meant not seeing my friends.

I'm back at my club now and it's very very hard. I guess he didn't expect me to come back and doesn't quite know what to do with me. The first month or so, he stopped giving me any feedback on what I was doing which made me suffer even more. Fuck, hadn't I been punished enough ? I never did anything wrong and it was a hundred times harder for me to show up then it was for him to teach me. Things have been getting slowly better but showing up every week is like being prometheus, going through that punishment again and again and yet I keep showing up, because that's how much I love Jitsu. I wish he noticed that...

The fact that I am probably more committed to it then 99% of people who have ever shown up. That despite having no natural abilities I made it to blue belt. Despite every fucking injury I still show up at every single course and training session and that really, of all people, I don't deserve to be ignored. The worst part is, if he'd accepted my friendship, I would have been able to turn the page and might have even been happy for him. I think breaking up was the right thing to do as I was unhappy on many levels but still, I wish it wasn't this hard. Not only did I lose my boyfriend (then again, that can be questioned as he refused to call me his girlfriend under various excuses ; and let me tell you how much that hurts when you're with someone for that long), I lost one of my closest friends, (And my Nintendo 64 which he pointlessly threw away along with a few other things) who was also a bit of an anchor point for me in London.

13. Shortly after we broke up, I had to deal with a greek guy who liked me far too much. I must admit he helped me out tremendously when I moved and I liked him quite a bit at first as well but quickly realized how immature he was for a 28 year-old. The worst bit was what backward thinking he had about women. He ended up hacking into my e-mail-and god knows what else- first stating that an 'enemy of mine' (is this pre-school or what..) had sent him a screen capture of a mail in which I talked about fucking this guy (after I had pointed out that him and me wasn't going to work), couldn't deal with rejection and proceeded to bombard me with messages calling me every insult in the book, saying I had used him bla bla bla. I got a message every day for nearly two weeks, as long as this entry... It's a long story, not worth my or your time though.

I've been more or less single since, for the past year. I've seen a few people but I was too emotionally exhausted to feel anything for anyone for a while which was a shame as I met some nice people. After being with someone who had just turned 40, I'm findng it pretty hard adapting to the habits of the guys I meet who are generally much younger and hence have their shit much less together. Hopefully someone will eventually manage to pull me out of this coma.

14. My left shoulder 'popped out' two or three times this year which has been less than fun. It got slowly better until the last time, a few months ago when it happened again. Oh the irony that it was from training with my ex's new girlfriend... Of course I can't blame anyone but let's just say training conditions haven't been optimum - it's not exactly easy to focus on jitsu when it's a constant reminder of what goes on off the mat.
Anyhow after, one more pointless run in with the NHS. I finally got proper medical care in France, scans, IRMs, physio, etc. I just saw a specialist who suspects bankart lesion. Because I'm only in my twenties, it's almost certain they'll have to operate as I'll otherwise have no more shoulder in 20 years, since it's now too instable not to pop out all the time and fuck up the cartillage. Oh and apparently I suffer from constitutional hyper-laxity (read super flexibility) hahaha ! *insert innuendo*. Damn I knew I should have opted for a career in porn !

THE GOOD

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

1.Destruction inc.'s first record, THE DOGMAN'S TALES is finally out !! Hooorah ! Actually it's technically the second one as we recorded 'Greatest Hits !' beforehand, to which I had a much broader contribution. For this one, you can hear me on 'The Good Son', which I did in its entirety live, as well as another one I wrote called 'Appoggiatura' which is on Greatest Hits ! (You can hear that one on our myspace: Destruction inc.). I also wrote the tracks 'O'Mother' and 'Puppenhaus' (which annoyingly has been entered in itunes as Ruppenhaus..). GO BUY IT !!

Here : French Amazon
Or here : Fnac.com
Or in ITunes!

It got great reviews by the way Here are two excerpts:

« This album is close to perfection, if it weren’t for its cover, which is a throwback from another time » ROCK ONE

� Destruction Incorporated sums up what rock has done best since the begining of the nineties which, is a real tour de force !� ROCK MAG



We're currently looking for management and distribution internationally, in the US or UK. Makes more sense to have the record(s) out and do shows there anyway as it's all in English so if you have any address, PLEASE pass on ! I will love you forever.

2.I came around for a concert at La Loco in Paris last July. The sound in that place was just awful, I couldn't hear myself which was pretty frightening... The run-up to the gig was stressful to say the least ; No real fuck-ups though ; ) Pictures by my father (a.k.a. a very notorious photographer !) and others below in the picture section. Here are two :





3.I graduated with an art and performance degree from the University of London last Summer !! Wooo ! I'd never mentionned it on here because I hate to be pigeonholed : there's this assumption that being a student is a full-time thing and that you're not doing anything else with your life. Untrue in my case as I had lots more exciting stuff going on.



I would have liked to do a Masters in the same area but let's face it, an art degree only gets you so far. It's the opportunities you get outside of university and the work you do that gets you to where you want to be.

4.I got a kickass job ! Last Summer I was offered to become a full-time journalist and translator for Guitar Part magazine which is, I believe one of, if not the biggest music publication in France. Funny thing is, I never applied to work there ! My guitarist has worked for them for years and I had previously helped them out but that's it (yes, I'm bragging I admit it).
That being said, it is hard work and because they're not the most organized people ever, this is journalism after all, and there are deadlines, I'm often asked to do things last minute ; but hey I'm writing and translating stuff that I'm really into, nerdy guitar stuff etc.
I worked on a database of amps, pedals and guitars for a few months so I've since become a complete know-it all geek Coil taps, spring reverbs, active pickups, skunk stripes, sawtooth waves, EL34s, DSP, sandwich guitars, phrygian modes, minor thirds and fifths... oh baby ! The best part is that I get to work from home and that they let me stay in London ! Currently looking for a job in an another UK or US guitar/music publication as well, or guitar/amp/pedal company, something like that...

Might I add that it is so sweet (and yet so hard) to work from home (or wherever I want), by yourself.

Yeah ummm... Looks nothink like that though...

5. I interviewed Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame) last month which was fun. He e-mailed me some stuff we talked about later ; it's pretty surreal to look through your inbox and see e-mails from Dave Stewart ! I asked him what the key to his creativity was and he told me about how he took loads of LSD when he was younger... Hopefully our readers won't take his advice! He got totally confused at one point and was saying 'wait, is this a French magazine, I'm interviewing for ? You sound American..' (I've always been fully billingual with no accent in either language which often confuses people who don't know me)
I asked him for Gwen Stefani's number and he said he'd give it to me after the birth of her twins ! I'm so happy they published that bit tehehe!

6.I got my light blue belt last Summer !!!!! Being a blue belt in my style is a big deal because you start to be treated like soon-to-be instructor material, you get to teach more, attend 'blue belt courses' (one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life, both physically and mentally), train with instructors etc. I did the Instructor course 2 months ago where I got to teach to a full class which was brilliant. I got great feedback as well : )

7. I bumped into Tim Burton a few weeks ago in a small London pub. He was all 'oooh you're part French ? I loooove France' and then kissed my hands ; he seemed a bit pissed... My friends are all very jealous now ; )

8. I made some new friends in London... I probably shouldn't mention who they are on here for all to see. Let's just say, they all drive Harleys (or Buells, you know what I mean), and wear a lot of leather. Lovely guys actually ! They throw great parties too : ) Here's my good friend Cyran :



9. I'd been dreaming of owning a Standard US Fender Telecaster for a while now and finally got the object of my desire Last September ! Or almost since I settled for another model in the end : A Fender Telecaster thinline '72. It's a semi-hollow body, great neck, warm tones and the twang !!! Only the pickguard is an atrocity but I'll change it soon. This brings my total to 8 guitars!
My next purchase will be an amp, with tubes, probably blackheart (fantastic gear, sweet price). I can't wait...



10. I made the switch. I got a Macbook! I wish someone had told me how much better this was than PC earlier! Essentially I got it because music production software just runs better on this but wow, everything else runs better too ! I get my mbox and pro tools this weekend (thank you Shanka <3), after which I might never leave the house again ! All my compos won't be going to waste anymore, hoorah!

11. Because I think the environment is -obviously- more important than what happened with my ex, I'll pimp his (very, very good) book out, which he was writing while we were still together : The Ethics of Climate Change



I wrote a review which you can read on the following link if you're interested in the book.

Go buy it here : The Ethics of Climate Change on Amazon

12. Yey, the London tattoo convention starts in just under two weeks !

13. Currently making a myspace music for myself... I'm trying to think of a way I could change my normal profile to a music one, whilst keeping all my friends etc. Ummmm...

14. My stepmother, who is an incredibly talented sculptor, invited me to attend one of her teaching seminars : Here's what I produced (with extra work). She said it was incredibly good for a first time and that I should really keep to it. So when I have more time hopefully... In the meantime I'm translating her website.







Here's her website by the way : Sculptures Rivaux

And one of her pieces :



(It's Zimbabwean Serpentine.. Oh and I modelled for it :p)

16. Other than that, there was SOOOOOOOO much Partying this year... Fun, fun, fun!
Many related pictures below and I'll end it on that !

THE PRETTY

Warning ! There are a LOT of pictures !
(All the Jitsu pics are from me - unless I'm on them obviously)

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

(the person who spotted me in there has good eyesight...)








(I'm right on the left !)










Man do I love this girl ! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3










In case you haven'st seen it, head on over to youtube and search for 'Rapist glasses' (by Jon LaJoie)




















Destruction inc.'s Drummer, Pierre from Lofofora : )








(I can assure you we aren't trying to undress each other...)

Now for my usual questions (because after reading all about my life, I care to know about yours as well) :
-Tell me about an event, good or bad which significantly affected you in the past 12 months or so.

-Tell me about the worst breakup you ever went through and how you dealt/are dealing with it. Do you think you'll always love that person ?

-And just because everyone might not want to be so deep, the latest record you bought and what you thought of it ( ?)

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Basically, I became more and more upset at the attitude of some people in the club, most notably that of someone who was meant to take care of the club's finances the previous year but could never be bothered to do it. This resulted in me having to take care of the entire club's administration. When said person was no longer part of the ruling body of the club, he started taking decisions which were not his to take, replacing our secretary, talking to me like a dog, sending outrageous stuff on the mailing list I moderated, basically trying to make himself important and being a complete pain in the ass. After several remarks from me he was still unwilling to change his attitude which resulted in me being very vocal about the problem which eventually found itself exposed (by me) in a sports publication. This did not go down well with my club who instantly ostracized me for speaking my mind. To make a long story short, various pathetic excuses were given to me by my instructor as the reason for the club (by that read two or three backstabbers who led a flock of sheep into this) asking me to step down. It all comes down to this, my ex-treasurer was more 'popular' than me. (just writing this makes me feel like I'm 16 again). Another factor was probably the difference in motivation.

This club was my baby and that I devoted a ridiculous amount of time for it to run as smoothly as it did. I spent countless hours on the budget I wrote during spring 2006 and it was eventually largely approved which, combined with my harassment and persistence, awarded the club more money than they should have ever gotten. In early 2005, I prevented us from being shut down by the aikido club who claimed we damaged equipment and facilities in order to protect their turf. I spent weeks exchanging e-mails, talking to various levels of the sports administration, involving as many people as I could until eventually, aikido realized that they shouldn't fuck with us and retracted in complete fear. If it wasn't for me, the club might not exist today. While I was never thanked for all my hard work (That's not why I was doing it but it would have been nice), I certainly wasn't expecting this amount of ingratitude.


My previous club

What I regret the most about all this was having to tell my instructor, who introduced me to and made me love Jitsu, never to speak to me again. I did this because I believe he should have stepped in at some point to defend me in front of the club and make them realize how much I had done for it. He never encouraged the club to listen to me and then let various people carry on this mutiny. (And to think, I was his first female student to grade). I'm not friends with doormats. I also cut my ties with everybody else in the club including a girl I had been very good friends with. She doesn't seem to have understood my reaction. I think that what happened was essentially the result of one thing: a difference in motivation. Last week, my ex-instructor started turning up to train at my club (which is where he started). It's been awkward to say the least.


My ex-instructor

Since then I have joined UCL Jitsu, a club where I started training 2 months after I started Jitsu and which I had been unofficially a part of because of all the friends I had there. Being the biggest and best club in the country, I've felt almost honoured to be competing for them at the nationals.

-Looking back I'm happy this happened, hypocrisy is just not something I do and today I can enjoy Jitsu with people who are as motivated as I am. I don't have to sort out nationals, payments, scream at people who haven't paid their fees despite me asking them to do so 5 billion times, go to boring meetings, spend 3 hours writing group e-mails which no one bothered to read or deal with any form of administrative crap. I can just enjoy training.


My New club

7. Speaking of which, I might be doing my light blue belt a the end of June (on the 23rd). I originally wanted to do it last March but different instructors had different views on whether or not I could get it and so I couldn't go for it. Unfortunately I'll be away in France for the first two weeks of June which means I've only got the next two weeks to get my shit into gear…

Some pictures from the nationals




Part of the line-up at the 20 years of London Jitsu extravaganza (spot the Dicey..)


And Finally a link with a bunch of videos from my club. Here I am doing my favourite throw: Tsuri Komi Goshi

8.I decided not to apply to do a masters next year. Essentially because I should be focusing on music and that I can't do everything at the same time. Who knows though, maybe next year. I'd love to do a Ph.D. as well one day but there's no way I could devote three years of my life to such a task. For the moment academia will have to wait.

9.Bones and Hollywood had sets shot in my living room and on my bed last fall. I won't go into details for fear of my account being deleted but I'm fairly unhappy about the damages to my house this resulted in.

10. I urge you to go buy this excellent book which was written by someone very close to me! The book will allow you to sound like you know great works of philosophy and all of their complex details without actually spending months isolated in a hut reading them and most of all understanding them. No, really, this book rocks; Buy it, you'll thank me!

The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books


11.Here are pictures of some modelling I did last fall. The photographer was after weird angles or something like that... I might upload some more in my albums, it's pretty boring though.








12. Have you joined my newest group? European Politics? Go do that now! And while you're at it, why not also join The Lesser Played Instruments orAthletes !

13. We have split from our manager who turned out to be a flamboyant asshole, saying that he was doing all sorts of things to promote our record when really he'd just been sitting his lazy ass on it for the past year. Good news is it will come out on a label called 'Discographe', bad news is I still don't have a date (it will probably be october though)! Maybe we should re-title it Chinese democracy, what do you think? A tour is planned for January-February 08, I'm SO fucking excited!

14.So for the past couple of months I've been working 2 days a week as a vibrator specialist for Ann Summers. Working in sales suck but it covers my rent and is actually pretty fun for a little job on the side. People are seriously thankful that I can help them out with their sex lives, give them advice etc. It would appear that I'm good at it. If you ever need recommendations, I'll tell you what's awesome and what sucks!

15.My cat almost died!! Turns out he had a freakish tumor in his liver which was really bad considering he's only 5 years old... My parents, kindly, hid this from me until he survived the operation because of how upset they knew I would be.. I'm glad to report he's made a complete recovery

Swann, being a whore


16. The flatmate situation in my house has been a disaster over the past few months… I very nearly had to kick one out last November and will now be kicking out the biggest bitch I've ever met in my life in June. It's like all of London's nutters flock to me like sheep… Admittedly, a 15 minute slot is really not enough to judge whether someone is an asshole or not (Any tips?). I've been living these past few months with someone who is loud (most notably in bed despite me telling her), doesn't clean, doesn't pay rent or bills on time, uses my stuff without asking, has had her boyfriend practically living here, has been verbally abusive towards me etc etc. It's not been fun and has lately made me feel very bummed out and isolated. I look forward to the end of June when I will be looking for two new flatmates!


Happier times with Toni and Deep-Ti, previous flatmates

17. I went to see 30 seconds to Mars in concert last month and it was one of the worst shows I'd ever seen. I went because I loved their first album and they only played 1 track off of it (and not even their single)!!They played 50 minutes (after a 3 hour wait) with a 15 minute opening band. Jared Leto and the audience completely ignored the rest of the band, he couldn't be bothered to sing half of the time and stand in front of the mic. He sang off-key half of the time he was actually singing. No encores. Pathetic.

Previous comments will be answered as soon as I can, but now tell me:

What have you done for the environment today?

I need more hours in a day... How can I stretch time?

Some pictures of The Studio

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

It started as a joke but the record will be called 'greatest hits ! volume 1' (hey it makes me laugh…). If you're wondering where the name of the band(s) comes from, it's from a novel by maurice G. Dantec.


Us. Top row :Greg, drummer for [No One Is Innocent], Shanka our guitarist and the one who founded these projects. Bottom row : Bastien, our bassist, Pierre, our drummer (who also plays in Lofofora), me, Gaspard Murphy, Elliott Murphy (his dad). No idea who these people are ? Then read on...

b.Featured on the page are four of our songs, good but not the best of our stuff which is remaining hidden for the moment. I will however tell you that I'm incredibly excited about some of the tracks...

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

One of my favorite on the record is a cover of an incredible track which we remade into a duet featuring me and Elliott murphy, who happens to be a good friend of my guitarist and a close friend of Bruce Springsteen. Really interesting and talented guy. His 14 year-old son (who's a crazy guitar whiz kid) does a kickass solo on one of the tracks !

c. Then there's a tribute to Motorhead which I wrote called Ace of Clovers.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

The vocals on that track are by Kemar who is the vocalist for my guitarists' main band [No One Is Innocent]. You wouldn't know them in America but they're really big in France and have been around, with a few line-up changes, for a while. Their style is very close to Rage Against The machine without being a cheap imitation. I've been given the privilege to write a track for their next record and do some vocals which I'm also very excited about ! There are a couple tracks in English so if you go have a listen, Genocide and Henry (from the first record in 94) are both in English. Anyhow Eliott and his son Gaspard have done an excellent introduction to the song, I swear it cracks me up everytime I hear it !


Kemar... You've seen him before in my journal.

d.Then there's the track Mayngel which I wrote with my guitarist. It was originally my only involvment in the project which step by step I became more and more involved with until I was officially part of it.

e.Finally there's tacit fauna (which I wrote) and Be My Slave which I wasn't involved in. Both great tracks (Obviously I wouldn't tell you otherwise !)

f.There's a track which is probably my favourite so far which won't be featured on the record (we're not quite sure what we're going to do with it yet).

The other tracks, you'll discover later !

Our mascot, the giant animated Elephant! No one really knows where it comes from, it's always been there :


g.The pictures I've posted on here previously (one of them is my profile picture) -and for which I have received numerous compliments which I didn't deserve (if being the daughter of a talented photographer has taught me anything it's to acknowledge what an incredible work our photographer did on this)- were intended as the main illustrations for the record but are not yet featured on the myspace page because it's a bit early to release them (you get to see all of it early, you lucky bastards !).

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

h.Oh and we have a manager now, he manages a really big French metal band (yes, there is such a thing !) called Gojira. He'll essentially be looking for international deals for us at this point.

An article about us from Rocksound magazine : (sorry if you don't read French!)


i.I'm not quite sure what the whole story is on this but basically Mike Patton likes our stuff (talk about a compliment !) and put us in his top myspace friends thing (I'm told that means we're really cool). There are talks about him contributing to a track for the rock trio but you know what they say, don't count your chickens until they're hatched (In French that's don't sell the bears'skin before you've killed it !)

So there you have it, I've given away some of my secrets !

2. I managed to get myself fired from that shop I'd gotten a small job at …

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

I've had shit jobs before but seriously, I've never seen so much abuse going on in a single place... I really tried my best too but there comes a time when it was simply not possible to continue working for these assholes. I won't even begin on all of it because it would take a whole entry to talk about it. So while it was fun to bring home the bacon and not be broke for 2 months,I'm happy it ended. These people actually made me cry in the shop twice ! I'm also glad I threatened them before I left because they did pay me a week for not showing up. Never in my life did I think I could actually scare someone by threatening to beat them up.

In a way it worries me because I imagine you deal with abuse (though probably not to this level) in most jobs you take up in your life. But what my father imprinted onto me is 'don't take shit from anyone !' ;a code of conduct that's now so much a part of who I am that I really wonder how I'll survive the next time I have to get a shitty job for a few months.

The last thing I'll say about this horrible experience is that come this fall, they're going to fucking pay… While it would probably be wise to let this go and get on with my life, I believe the kind of abuse that went on there is due to people not doing anything about this. I'm not out to rid the universe of evil or whatever but I think it's payback time…

Part of a window display I did for them


I can't afford to go anywhere on holiday now and I'll be broke again come this fall but I'll still have my sanity. And hey, at least I met some really nice people.

3. So I went to my first 'Saturday session' which my new belt allows me to attend now. It took me a while to get the guts to show up and I was seriously petrified when I got there...

4. We had our annual jitsu ball last july which was lots of fun ! We had the place until 4am which meant hundreds of Jitsu people getting really, really drunk…


The dress I was wearing was this gorgeous, open back 1940's frock. I wish I had something better than a blurry self-shot but unfortunately most Jitsu pictures usually end up like this :


5.So now I'm in Paris until sometime in september getting fattened up by my parents and sleeping in late. It actually feels great to be away from Jitsu. I got so absorbed in it last winter, it was becoming unhealthy. I'll have a lot of work to do for my club when I get back, recruiting new members, making sure my comittee and treasurer are working hard etc etc. Only this year I need to not get so worked up about all of it. Most people in the club aren't as motivated about jitsu as I am and I need to understand that.

I'll finish this update with a big acknowledgement and thank you to Shanka without whom I wouldn't have been a part of all this, wouldn't have moved to London very successfully and generally wouldn't have have half of what I have today...

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The man!

I hope you've all had a nice Summer!
Now tell me, would you rather listen to mediocre rock music or good dance/pop music ?

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We were only 2 girls amongst the higher grades in a crowd of big angry men. The grading was roughly 5 hours long (no water breaks either) with 2 hours before that of training. I was already exhausted upon the start of it and simply starving and dehydrated by the end… My training partner then proceeded to leg it (damn you T.) after the training without telling anyone which made it that I had to be paired up with someone I’m really incompatible with... This eventually got me bad remarks from the grader. My technical stuff was all there which made it even more annoying that this happened. I never got asked one of the most important things that I was relying on to show my skills which was another annoyance (2 man attacks). Knowing the grader was of no help as well and he called me out about stuff a few times while I was just trying to hide. Oh, and his reputation as the hardest grader was certainly confirmed. This big novice guy from my club was grading and I think he was envisioning the grading to be easy: show your stuff and you get the belt. He’s a brown belt in another style and has done gradings before but I expect his were a lot less hardcore as he looked terrified during the whole thing (who isn’t to be fair). Anyone who has done one of our gradings knows that after months of hard training and 5 hours of psychological and physical abuse, it just sucks not to pass. So yeah I was pretty bummed out last week. I expect I wasn’t the only one either as quite a few people didn’t make it through. At least I didn’t get told to fuck off like this one guy… Thinking about having to do this all over again is rather unpleasant.

4. My record is expected for this fall which is a lot later than we thought but the deal is sweet and would pretty much allow us to do one per year if they sell well! In the spirit of Josh Hommes’s “Desert sessions”. This means we’d probably have volume 2 done before volume 1 would even be out haha. I couldn’t be there when all this was discussed but they were apparently quite impressed with our stuff

5. Some articles on us are expected in the coming months in a French magazine called Rock Sound. They want to interview us for an article in their most selling issue of the year as well which is great!

6. I competed in the Randori (think Jitsu with Judo rules) nationals 3 weeks ago. My club won, again (for the 8th time I think) which was groovy. I spent the night celebrating in the emergency room of UCLHospital to get some treatment for the lung infection which fell upon me 2 days before competing. I did well but let’s face it I was ill and tired, missed my medal because of that and came in 4th… I’m so getting my revenge next year.

Pictures if you click below:

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I apologize if they’re shit, the lighting in that place is horrendous for photography.

at the beginning…


I’m the one on the right


I’m the one on top


Then there was a mix-up with a strangle and I got fucked (I’m on the bottom)


Standing stuff (I’m the one with the bun like ponytail)

7.My dude was asked to give a guitar lesson to the guy from ‘Simple Plan’ while they were in Paris last month. I was around so we watched their show a bit and hung out. Not really my type of music but they were very nice.

8. Due to some theatre writing stuff I do, I get to meet this author I’ve recently discovered and love this tuesday. She’s called Moira Buffini and wrote this fantastic play called ‘Dinner’. I strongly suggest it to you!

9. Chai drew me! She’s fantastic and very talented, go congratulate her!


10.One of my new toys! (on the right) It was given to me last month and is incredibly cute (and hard to tune right). The Channel tunnel cops thought it was fucking awesome when I brought it over! The other one is to give you an idea in regards to its size…



That’s it for now, hopefully the internet will stay and I’ll be able to answer comments soon!

So, tell me what your ideal birthday is!?

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I’d be this thrilled to get married…

6. I still can’t believe is that I got up the day after Christmas to follow my mother and aunt to go shopping at 6:30am. Even more unbelievable is how many people were there at 6 in the MORNING!! Americans are serious shoppers…

7.I’ve been stuck at home these past weeks writing for a very important project concerning body modifications. Basically, I aimed to prove that the body is a theatre in the sense that body m.’s help the creation of self-identity and are very strongly tied to our social ties and behaviour. Lots of interesting stuff and SG proved to be a very good example.

8.

I swear this is one of the most amusing things I’ve ever seen... Why must I be so poor!! I need the t-shirt they’ve made!!

Check this out: O rly plane

Hahaha
Even more amusing is that I think about this now everytime someone mentions the airport in Paris, it’s called Orly…

9. I’ve just started translating a play for the Gate theatre in London. It’s the newest of my exciting projects and has to be finished by the 26th of February. I’ll be in Paris in two weeks to go see the play itself which was adapted from a novel by a very talented friend of mine. So much work ahead of me…

10. I could of course wish for a lot of success in my various projects but what I really want for 2006 is good health. Seriously it’s only until you’re as ill as I was last summer and as injured as I was during pretty much the whole year that you realize that there’s nothing more important. I don’t care if I sound like a granny.

What do you want for 2006?