“This, My Dear, Is What They Call an Adventure”

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Here we are: this is the last post that I will write in Australia.

Mind you, this is not the last one that will be about Australia. Because man, I still have 34 shades of Sydney to go haha… What a stupid challenge xD ! No seriously, I am cool with that: I have my whole life to achieve that set of drawings and I am far from being short of ideas. ‘just a bit concerned about time management though..

This post will not be the last one about Australia also because I still have unpublished or not yet completed drawings on hand. Actually, there are even drawings related to Australia that I really want to make but that I have not even started yet.

C’est pour dire les copains!

I am leaving, but it is far from being over. It is only the beginning actually. (et c’est là où je sors ma cape de super héros et je survole Gotham city avec une musique stylée en background) (ok il est vraiment tard là).

One year exactly has passed (remember? “The time is very important!”) since I left Geneva with my blond hair and my teddy bear pyjama. Although I am not blond anymore (finally!), I am still wearing my teddy bear pyjama right now but I will abandon it here. I made up my mind: not enough room in my suitcase and this thing now just looks like a kind a musty fungi as my best friend has pointed out during one of our Skype session (merci pour ta franchise Vic). Tu as fait ton temps fidèle pyjama: Thank you for keeping me warm during these two harsh australien winters (je crois que j’ai oublié ce qu’était un hiver européen et je vais vraiment prendre lourd en rentrant).

Honestly, I won’t even try to make a review of the entire year in this post even though people keep asking my top ten/top five/top thirty-four-and-half of my experiences here. And I am always like… “mm, let me think about..” and finish up with “..Sorry, I have no clue…

The true is that I don’t have any particular and sensational events that I could show off about such as “a skydiving jump in the sunrise” or “kissing an alligator while wearing a flamingo costume” (le truc qui n’a pas de sens) or stuff like that. I would say that it is more an accumulation of small little things, small events and small steps that I took.. all of that taken together, have turned the whole exchange into something very special to me.

Or I do have few of those “crazy” experiences that people love to hear about like: Yes I held a koala, yes I fed kangaroos, yes I tried to surf (don’t get excited about it, it is not my cup of tea). Now that I think about it, except the Great Barrier Reef that I didn’t manage to see, I did pretty much most of the things you are expected to do in Australia when you travel around. I mean, the big things obviously, because when you look at the map of the country, you understand right away that one, two or even five years wouldn’t be enough to visit everything in Australia.

Anyway.. for me, these experiences to check or tick were definitely not what have been the most important or memorable thing (okay, holding a koala was quite cool 😉  (and Uluru and hitting the road and Bali and the Opera House…^.^)

Non mais pour de vrai.

I have been more focused on learning to live here (or surviving I must say) on the mundane, rather than trying to have the hottest picture of me (especially because I have been dressing like a obo during the year LOL).

I guess that is one of the reasons why I started this blog one year ago; so that people can just keep themselves updated on what is happening here if they are interested in and I am kind of avoiding the famous question at my return that would go like:

Alors.. c’était comment? Raconte un peu !

Damned, je la vois venir gros comme une maison. Aussi gros que celles d’avant mon départ du style que j’ai entendu 1000 fois: “Alors? T’es prête pour l’aventure ? T’as peur des requins un peu, et des araignées ? tu sais j’ai lu un article sur les animaux les plus dangereux du monde qui disait que.. Si non, t’as trouvé un appart ? Tu vas faire du surf ? Tu vas kiffer des surfeurs un peu ? etc, etc»

Questions auxquelles je répondais pratiquement toujours non. Étant donné que « Nan, je suis pas prête, nan j’ai pas peur des requins et nan j’ai pas d’appart. » « Mais par contre j’ai pris mes billets d’avion. »

Just to be clear, I blame nobody because I do the same and I will continue to do it because, what else can you say to someone who is about to leave for one year to the other side of the world with no apparent -in my case no actual- preparation?! Carpe Diem? Te fais pas bouffer par un serpent?  I am going to miss you ma poule? Oublie pas de rentrer?

Enfin,

although I said that I would not give you a review, I’ll be happy to release the breaking news right here right now:

Believe it or not, I have officially succeded my one-year exchange at Macquarie University which means that I have completed my bachelor degree of University of Lausanne!!! I wasn’t worried too much but receiving my results that came out on yesterday was still a bit of a relief 😀 After 5 years of twists, I have now a double-degree of computer-sciences-applied-to-humanities-and-geography, bitches!

And… I have been accepted to the media design master offered by the HEAD!! ADVENCED!!!!

Et puis.. j’ai des nouvelles binocles (“Putain on le saura…”)! Mais j’adore mes nouvelles binocles. Elle sont super chouettes!

In short, throughout all these challenges and victories, this exchange has been a life-changing experience.

This exchange has been a life-changing experience even though I have been homesick the first eleven months (haha) (I do this not-so-joke everytime people ask me how I think about Australia xD).
It has been a life-changing experience, even though every unit that I took at Uni has been challenging and every assignments that I had to do for my Unit have been a “f*cking nightmare” as would say my father, well-known for his patience and calmness ♥.
It has been a life-changing experience, even though I am still struggling with English (and I probably always will) and finally, this exchange has been a great life-changing experience despite the fact I have been missing you a lot.

Ça m’a changé la vie les mecs! Mais pas pour les raisons que les gens s’imaginent (ah bah c’est sûr que c’est pas moi qui vais vous envoyer du rêve avec toutes les soirées Erasmus que je n’ai pas faites haha)

Now that I am standing on “the top of this mountain”, that I can admire the beautiful view and celebrate all my victories of the year, I can say that it was definitely worth all of these efforts and I don’t regret anything. “Noooon, rien de rienn, nonnn je ne regrette rien” (même pas mes cours d’anglais hard core qui m’ont fait me lever à l’heure des poules pendant un mois ! Enfin ptet que je regrette un peu mais comme ce qui est fait est fait j’ai envie d’dire..)

Bref, thank you for following my adventures; it has been a real pleasure to write for you, to draw for you, to think about you, to be accompanied by you throughout this amazing journey and to receive all these feedbacks on this blog. I hope you didn’t go mental with my mix of French and English (j’avoue que j’ai abusé vers la fin xD)

I am so happy of finishing the year on such a positive note! That is a wonderful reward!

This drawing has been inspired from the cover of one of my favourite comic books “Lou! Tome 3 : Le cimetière des autobus” written by Julien Neel. I chose this one to illustrate this packing-one-year-article because I could utterly relate to what Lou is going though in this volume and since this drawing took me ages to achieve, I feel like it is the highlight (almost the little master piece) of this exchange (even though I messed up again with the shadows and perspectives). I also feel like the title of the post is so much in tune with this exchange that is so much in tune with this drawing:

“This, My Dear, Is What They Call an Adventure”

Just so you know, about what I said when I was half-way through my exchange, remember, that I wasn’t ready to come home and stuff like that…

I just wanted to let you know that..

I am ready to come home now

Enfin après le Japon quand même!

See ya physically and digitally in three weeks ♪ ♫

And just below, this is my song of the year that it has been played for ever on repeat especially during the very ups and the very downs. I discovered it last year with Nina and Stephen, when I visited them in Basel to see the Gauguin exhibition that was held at the Beyeler foundation. Such a cool song! Whenever I listen to it, I feel like I am such a strong human being (I am!) with so much potential and that life offers so many opportunities to grow! Bodhisattva of the Earth Baby!

Signée : Elsa King Lioness


PS: OMG, it is 06am30, I can see the sun rising and I can hear the dawn chorus. I will take a picture just to prove you that I am telling the true. Punaise,  I am going to be a wreck tomorrow I cannot remember the last time I wrote an article that late. It must have been during my high school years when I was chatting on msn and writing about my life on skyrock..

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Sunrise & Gumtree (photo prise depuis le perron de ma maison)

Pour finir (pour de bon cette fois), voici un auto-portrait que j’avais publié sur Instagram, trois mois après mon arrivée. J’avais pas encore mes nouvelles lunettes mais je prenais déjà cher à l’Uni 😀

Légende Instagram de la photo: "Aujourd'hui cela fait trois mois jour pour jour que je suis arrivée en Australie. Bilan : je parle toujours pas anglais mais mes leçons de guitare se passent bien. 😄"

Légende Instagram de la photo: “Aujourd’hui cela fait trois mois jour pour jour que je suis arrivée en Australie. Bilan : je parle toujours pas anglais mais mes leçons de guitare se passent bien. 😄”

– published from Singapour Airport.

♥ LOVE GENERATION ♥

If you have been reading my blog since the beginning, you must think that I met only birds and butterflies and trees in Australia.

While it is true that I have really sought a connection with green..

yet people have played the most important role of my exchange & when I say “people”, I mean every kind of people, such as:

…People that I have been living with:

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The disfunctional but awesome house. yeahmate..

…Friend that I have been living with:

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My beloved Annie, my gifted housemate who proofread almost all my papers (thank you goddess) and tried to teach me how to cook (today, after one year, she said that I was a lost cause in that domain) and who fed me and who parented me, and who accepted me as I am and who love for who I am (that is, a monster blanket).

This girl, she is going to be a outstanding journalist, I mean, she already is. You should look at her posts that she has written for the world peace organization. They are brilliant!

I AM SO PROUD OF YOU – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING

Even though your eyes bled everytime you had to read my prose. “But Henceforth, WTH?” HAHA especially in the middle of the night. Sorry for that. “What is wrong with you using all the time brackets girl???!!!”


…People that I met at the beautiful center of the Olympic Park:

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Here is an excerpt of my emotional speech that I made last Monday :-‘)

(…)And then I met you guys.. You all have been so encouraging, caring and inspiring. I really treasured each of our meetings and I think that it is wonderful that we can share such precious moments and be friends even though we don’t come from the same country or even the same continent, we don’t have the same age, the same background, the same hobbies, the same icome or whatever…and I am convinced that this diversity is what make the beauty of our organization (…) Thank you again for everything, I will never forget you!

See you in Paris or anywhere

Promoting World Peace, one step at a time ♥


…People that I met at Uni:

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…Teacher that I met at Uni:

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This guy is so cool 😀 Almost as cool as my tutor of my women studies unit! I have to make a drawing of her one day.

If you want to buy this cool shirt, go ahead, it is here, it is cheap, it is for the good cause!

…Friend that I met at Uni:

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This is Alison also known as MY FAVOURITE  ♥♥♥

I could declare my friendship once again here but I know that you know already how awesome I think your are 😀


…Person that came from Lausanne with me ou pour ne pas nommer:

SOFIAAAAA or the sunshine of my exchange!

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“Les grenouilles à Bondi Beach”

Thank you for making me sandwiches (which ends up under a chair during a course of fundamental of computer science, remember? aha…), thank you for the road trip, thank you for your humour, thank you for editing my research paper about backyard gardening and José Bové the day before your exam. Thank you for all our French sessions or our grand-mother’s walks, Thank you for all the nights at the library (I am talking about the first semester of course ;-)…

Thank you for being here, it was great to have you and you are a great friend as said the song “Whenever I am with you, I feel like I am home again” so I guess, that is why I am not worried too much about coming “home” because I know that you will be there ♥ can’t wait for our romantic-bobo weekend

… Person that were friend’s friend and then become my friend

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Sofia & Alex, a morning somewhere in Byron Bay

…& all the people that were in exchange as well, people that I worked with for group projects, people that helped me, people that I helped, people of my district, people that I met on holidays, that I travelled with … etc.

All in all, all the people that I met in Australia have been so important for me. I am so lucky and so grateful for meeting you. Thank you for your patience and care. You have brought me so much and I have learnt so much from each of you. Including a little bit of English in the process 😉

These last couple of weeks have been sick; I had such wonderful time and so much fun at all my farewell events! Thank you so much all your personal, meaningful and infinitely precious gift as well: I have been spoiled and I feel like it is my birthday (but I now that I have already shipped all my stuff, I am praying that I won’t be overweight at the airport haha…). I feel blessed ♥ & I am going to miss you so baaad.

BUT you are all welcome in France (or Swizterland) and I would love to play the travel guide, especially for you dear Ali 😀

ALALA TROP D’LOVE (this is it: I am high on sugar because of the cake completely destroy)

PS: They say all the time that Australia is a multicultural country. I wasn’t sure about that until I looked at my drawings and I realized that I had been experiencing this multicultural aspect throughout the year without noticing it at all. Probably because I was too busy myself to deal with the cultural choc héhé. But now that this is the end, I realize that I have never met nor get along with so many people from such various horizon in a such short amount of time (expect when I was in primary school I guess). That is what love generation is about ♥



However, since we are talking about people, I shouldn’t restrain it only to the people of Australia:
People from home (France AND Switzterland) have actually played a massive role in my exchange (and even people that are neither in Australia nor quite at home at the moment (Bah Victoria quoi, comme d’hab’ ;-)).

Thank you everybody, from the bottom of my heart. I probably wouldn’t have survived without your support, encouragements, friendship and love. Thank for all your emails, text message, video calls, phone calls…When I think about it, I am truly grateful for the new technologies such as Skype, Whatsapp and WordPress which have allowed me to keep in touch with family and friends. But thank you also for the tangible such as all the parcels, postcards, letters…and  thank you for the “intangible” (it put it between comma because I could definitely feel it) such as thoughts, positive waves, chanting etc.

& I TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SAY A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO THE FOUR ARBORES OF MY LIFE!

I LOVE YOU!

I won’t comment each of the following drawings because it is almost one in the morning (UPDATE: it is almost two in the morning) (UPDATE: it is almost three in the morning, holy shit!) and I still have my last post to write (and I have to finish packing tomorrow…..). I am just a bit annoyed that I didn’t manage to collect and put all of the drawings: some of them have been physically sent overseas without being scanned because I was in a rush, or some of them got lost in a vacuum (Lisa, I am talking about yours :’() some of them are not quite completed.. bref

Bon allez, je vous laisse regarder les images et je vais arrêter de parler *Ahhh*

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And I will finish this massive article with a self-portrait that I made from a picture of me that Sue took during my trip to Melbourne:

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(Nice trip by the way :-))

Allez bisous ♥

PSS: Pour être honnête, j’ai un peu hésité avant écrire cet article parce que partager des dessins de personnes non fictives c’est un peu comme poster des photos d’elles et avec tout ce bordel de protection de données et de ce que peut en faire les “bad guys” je me disais que ce n’était peut-être pas un bon plan après tout.

Mais en même temps avec tout ce qui arrive de terrible dans le monde, je parle bien sur de ce qu’il vient de se passer en France mais aussi de partout ailleurs, ben je trouve que ce serait dommage de rater une occasion de célébrer ma joie d’avoir rencontré des personnes aussi chouettes et uniques et de célébrer ma chance d’avoir un créer un lien profond avec des personnes venant de quatre coins du monde.

Aussie Birds

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This beautiful bird with red chicks is called the cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus), also known as the quarrion and the weiro (I must say that I prefer the French name: Calopsitte élégante ou simplement Calopsitte ou encore Perruche nymphique)

Hello my dear,

Can’t believe that one year has passed (I feel like I have been saying that every time I wrote here)

I have only three days left in Australia :’(boohoohoo :’) 😀 :/ ? (what do you think of my representation the concept of “mixed feelings” in emoji language?!) so, for the occasion I decided that I would publish one post per day (so three posts if my maths are good).

But I warn you: I am going to write all of them now, while we are in food coma after the coolest tea party of my life. My housemate made a crazy icing (I shouldn’t have looked at what she put inside though) on a crazy cake that another housemate had done yesterday at night instead of working on her thesis (I am kidding of course ♥). Just by looking at the cake and especially by tasting it you can say that they put their heart into it. By the way, this masterpiece will require a post in itself (as well as your scones Rebecca. I am fan of you. You rock.)

So we had a cake that weighted two stones. Besides, I have been quite enthusiastic at the cheese shop and… Anyway, now it is 8p.m and we are all dying on a couch watching Wall-E and waiting for the inevitable sugar hangover to hit us and finish us off.

What a wild Friday night!” woohoo 😀

All that to say that after these three last posts in Australia I am taking a break of this blog for three weeks because… I am going to Japan before coming home!!!

It is going to be amaaaazing because those who know me well know that it has always been my dream because I don’t know.. I have always felt a connection with this country. It must be :

  • Because of all these mangas (shit yeah) that I read throughout my childhood, teenagehood and early adulthood (because I AM an adult now! Dit-elle, avec détermination et puis un fort accent français)
  • Because of the Spirited Away and all Miyazaki’s movies
  • Because of my passion for origami, for sakura and cherry blossoms, for Haïkus, for kimonos, for kawaï shits (you know what I mean vilaine soeurs), or the idea that I have of Japenese garden… etc etc.

I AM SO EXCITED!

Also, it is going to be amazing because I am going with the coolest people ever (comment je fayote! :D)

Bref.

In the meantime, I would like to share my drawing-birds-obsession. There we go:

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(trop stylé! Par contre, en vrai, il a toujours l’air de mauvaise humeur..)

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Introducing the Red-winged Fairywren. This one is the cuttest thing I have ever seen ♥

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Peacock – although it is not specific to Australia. Oh well ♪♫

To finish:

Remember my game design class? Of course you remember, I can talk about nothing else but this unit…

Well, for the last assignment, we (my teammate and I) managed to imagine, design and to implement a video game with an environmental scope (Nana, are you proud of me?). How do you like that! It is called:

“Silent Spring”

(againn??!)

Here is the high concept:

 You are a bird, a plump yellow canary that is singing and flying around a big apple tree. Apples are growing on the tree and you have to eat them before they become overripe and fall off the tree onto the ground. At the same time, a naughty kid is trying to stop you: he is trying to stop you from singing, stop you from eating the fruit on the tree and stop you from flying. He gets his slingshot out, and tried to hit you with projectiles.

Once you die, the game goes silent, with only falling fruit to be heard.

This is a game with environmentalist scope behind to heighten awareness to the people about the damage that they cause to the earth and nature. Eventually, this is a tribute to Rachel Carson, one of the first environmentalist activist, who published in 1962 “Silent Spring” in which she denounced if conditions do not improve, species would die and we would witness a silent spring.

I was in charge of the tree, the growing/ripping/falling apples and the flying bird. I think that it is the first animation I have ever made so I am quite happy with the result (see below). And overall I think that we made a good job. Well done partner if you read this post! (no comment on your last minute style that caused my heart attack though)

Bon. On a un peu, voir carrément exagéré dans le cahier des charges surtout quand il a s’agit de justifier nos choix de design… J’ose même pas le relire en vrai haha

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“Cui-cui” in French and “tweet tweet” in English

 

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“I can fly”

More Quality Time, More Gum Trees and More Sunsets

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Oh my god, I cannot believe there are only two weeks left before the big departure!! I am not ready! “That’s because you have so many shits to pack….”

Very true. (that’s a shame..)

But also, I had not realized how many important people were out there until I started to organize my farewell events. Actually, I really want to take the time to say properly goodbye to each of them (through tea-time and scones orgies, Mexican night(s), picnic and strolls, lunchs, diners, exhibitions (especially Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the NSW Gallery) coffees, coreen BBQ, brunch etc and why not a glass of wine at the Opera House but I cannot guarantee the Argyle afterwards haha). Bref, the next two weeks are packed, packed, packed with -I hope- lots of quality time in perspective.

I also want to see as many Gumtrees and Sunset as possible. I could never get enough of these.. and it definitely something that I will be missing.

I know that we do have sunsets in Europe as well but… it is not the same.

The last couple of weeks have been quite intense. Uluru was just an amazing experience; we slept outside under the milky way (♥.♥) and around a campfire. It has reminded memories from all my scout camps. I also met great people, I laughed, I really tried to be mindful during the entire journey so that I could enjoy to the fullest. That is a difficult exercise, but when you manage to be in present moment, you get to deeply connect with the place and as he said “something magical happens”.

I feel like I made the most of this trip to the northern territory. 🙂

Actually, I feel like I made the most of this exchange.

and I am so excited of seeing you soon.