Le carnaval de Toulouse

The annual Carneval of Toulouse took place yesterday. I met Aroa, Chiara and Nicole on the bus and we then took the metro to the city centre to meet with Andrea. We stopped for coffe, since we were all more or less tired and then we went to the park near Pont Neuf to meat with more people. We hung out in the park until the carneval started. It was really nice and super long and everyone was throwing confetti everywhere. 

Andrea, Chiara, Eduardo, me, Aroa, Nicole and Casi.

Family picture!

After the carnival we went for some french crêpes and wine at a nice place near Capitole. There was quite a mixture of languages during the entire night and a lot expression explainations. Luckily, more or less everyone speak english and french, and one half of us speaks spanish and the other half italian, so we had no trouble communicating at least :). After dinner we went to an Irish bar before the lovely Eduardo drove all of us girls all the way home.    

Next week, the italians are going on an erasmus organized trip to visit the basque country. I have asked the people if there are any tickets left. In that case, I'll definately go. I'm crossing my fingers and toes! ALso, I'm very proud that I managed to work out both saturday and today despite the great evenings :). Thumbs up! 

3 weeks left!

The past week it has been the "Movidays" at Movida where I work out, which basically meant that they were releasing new songs and choreographies for the next three months. This they celebrated with what they called "Movida Games" where the original classes were changed into challenging games where one for example was supposed to do the maximum reps of squats in BodyPump, punches with weights in both hands in BodyCombat or freeze standing on the elbows and toes for 5 minutes. Fun!

It all ended on thursday with a party with the theme USA. I was chocked when I got up to the reception after my shower and found it had been changed into a club with lights, smoke machines, a DJ, loud music, and all the people that work in the reception were now bartenders. I hesitated when I got to the bar and was handed a glass of punch, "can it be? are these super natural people who are always working out drinking alcohol?" I took a sip from my glass. "Yep!". At that moment, my favorite instructor (in the picture it's the girl standing with the guy when they hand out prizes from the Games) goes past me with a big chunk of pizza end a beer in the hand "Whaddare ya drinking?", I told her and we said cheers and she mingled on. After a while I also felt for a beer (haha) and went to the bar. "How much is a beer?", the girl opened a beer and smiled "but dear darling, everything is free! Enjoy!". My, apparently very Swedish, way of seeing work out clubs drastically changed, and I liked it. These people are actual people, that enjoy real life, fat food, alcohol and donuts. So there is hope for me! haha. I had such a great time. It was a really cool party, all ages, types of people, instructors and not, and everybody had such a good time together.

Me, Aroa and Chiara :)

Yesterday, I went town with Aroa and Chiara from Italy to have some drinks and meet with their friends. Super cool evening that sadly ended a bit early because of the buses as usual. But I don't mind because in that way I could go to my CAF and BodyPump this morning at 9.30. So I was happy haha! Tonight there's a carneval in town which we are going to, maybe we'll grab a cab today since there will be four of us and we don't want to leave at 00.30 again. 

This is where I usually hang in the evenings. I always feel ashamed when I want to take a picture of it, so I sneeked down during the party and took one super fast haha! 

When I got home from Bléré, this little cat girl, Baly, was waiting for me when I opened the door to my appartment. Really cute and cuddly little cat, and I'm happy to have a cat again for a little while :)

Bléré!

Last weekend I went to visit my family in Bléré. It was super nice and I had so much fun! My cousins' daughter Olivia turned 12 so we were all gathered there to celebrate it. My cousin Gregory, his wife Julia and their wounderful son Abel, which you can see in the picture above when we were out on an afternoon walk. Beside them is my other cousins' daughter Eva and her baby :).

We ate so much good food and we had such a great time! On saturday we went to Tours and walked around in the old town, on the market, we had some drinks and we saw a giant dead elephant. Then we went home again and had a lovely meal prepared by my lovely cousin Mélanie. I love my family so much!

       

Now, a new week has started however. The first week of the last month of my stay in France. Time flies and I feel like I'm slowly getting my results sorted out. In the left picture, there's a kit, which you recognize from before of course. Cute and lovely as always. In the right picture, you can see the scale that I use to rate one of the rabbits' maternal behaviours; fur plucking. Rabbits pluck their fur to build a so called maternal nest for their nude kits, so as to keep them warm, and how much does do this, varies a lot. The fur grows back quite quickly, but for rabbits in intensive production (as this is) the fur may not recover fully between the births of the kits. This obviously gives a horrible look to the does. Moreover, my rabbits have suffered from disease lately, which has not ameliorated their fur recovery rate. The one in the upper left corner has given milk to her kits already, and is now laying down, "chilling" (the backpaw was put up when I approached with the camera however, one can never be too sure, being a rabbit). The one beside her, to the right, has not given her milk, and is completely full. She looks like the one to the right after a few minutes, which is very impressing. She has a scared look in her eyes because she didn't expect me to barge in with my camera when she was expecting to gain access to her kits. The one in the lower left corner has plucked her fur, but quite evenly over her body, and she even might have regained some already, she has also given her milk already. The lower right one does not have any kits this round, which is why her fur has fully recovered, and she has gained so much weight comparing to the other ones (since she eats the same feed as the other does which give milk and need huge amounts of energy every day). 

So, I agree it doesn't look nice, but I can assure you, (most of) the does are in really good shape (they have of course suffered from disease and have not all entirely been cured). Nonetheless, this is not how I personally would have carried out animal production. It works, but is it nice? That's another question. 

Tomorrow is AI (Artificial Inseination) time. Performing AI on a nice looking rabbit (lower right picture) seems fair to me, on a bad looking one however, I'm not so sure. So tomorrow I will go to the farm with mixed feelings. As previously mentioned; "When in France..."

Hope you have a good week!

Regular weekend

My weekend was calm and nice. Except for the loud trance music during the LesMills classes...

The weather was quite bad this weekend so I mostly stayed at home watching series and movies and ate popcorn. Saturday started with a morning CAF however, and was followed by a BodyPump class. Later that evening, I had dinner with my tennant, her daughter and her boyfriend which came over before leaving for a month at La Réunion and it was really nice. On Sunday morning at 9.30 it was time for the BodySculpt class, followed by an hour BodyCombat and an hour of stretch class. I really love this kind of work out and I especially love it because you get results from it very fast. 

I'm really having cat cravings right now. I need something flyffy to hug and kiss in my life or else I'm not happy. It's good I'm going to Bléré for the weekend to visit my dear family, even though Tigrou isn't the cuddliest cat. Oh well, I will have to settle for human hugs ;). I at least get to skype with my two fluffy loved ones. Which they obviously like alot. 

Yes so I told you it was raining this weekend. And in Castanet you are obviously not very used to massive amounts of rain. So I swam across the garage with the superbike in order to go to the gym. That's about the most action there has ever been during my stay in this building. I live a peaceful life in other words. 

So, that was the weekend. What happens now? Today was the first day of the intense kit week. The new batch of rabbit kits were born this weekend so there is a lot to do during the week (weighing, identifying, adoptions, and so on). So that is fun! Except for the early mornings... Other than that I am now (I think) getting the hang of the statistical analysis program R, which is quite cool, because it's confusing and hard, but quite nice when you get the hang of it. As... basically everything else in life I suppose. 

After my whole day of getting the hang of (fighting with) R, I went to my CAF and BodyCombat class, which was fun but, as usual, the floor around me looked a little like the garage of my building above. I also got starstruck after the class when my favorite instructor came up to me and asked me my name. We talked a little, I told her how cool she was (yes I'm 12 years old) and she told me she was happy I went to her classes and that it's people like me that makes it worth to be an instructor (because she thinks I'm good, wow). Haha. 

So all happy after the chat with my idol, I forgot to put the music on play on my iPhone before biking away. So there I go, downhill, it's raining, and I think "mwell, I have the time pushing play AND skipping to the song I feel like listening to before the downhill goes to steep". I start to brake (hand brakes of course, since it's montain bike land, as previously explained), with the left hand brake. Before I have the time to think "front wheel brake in downhill with iPhone in one hand, computer bag on the back and rain" I, very graciously of course, start my slow motion fall, with all of these things in mind. Ringt foot on the ground, right hand lifted up in the sky (to protect iPhone of course, you have to have your priorities right...), left hand straight into someones garden bushes (helplessly grasping for anything to hold on to), left foot put down on the ground, recieving all of the bike on my fore leg, which pushes me forward, I (graciously) jump over the bike and leave it to it's destiny, catch my computer bag, iPhone still safe in right hand, part of the bush in the other, and I land. iPhone okay, computer okay, I'm okay (except for the 3-4 bruises my legs are goint to get and the huge bump on my foreleg), and bike is on the ground, wheels are spinning and everything, the chain got lost, and some electric thing that was on it had to be clicked back on. ACTION at it's best might I say. It didn't improve things when I laughed by myself like a crazy person the whole way home...  

Anyway, on Thursday I'll go to the farm to make my observations (together with Laurianne this time) and I will then go home a bit early, catch a bus at 4 and after 2 metros, 2 trains and a car ride I will finally be in the splendid company of my wounderful family! I. Am. So. Excited.

Now, some Sopranos, then sleep.

Time flies!

First of all, my rabbit kits have grown. They have grown so big that they are now weaned from their mothers. They are now transfered into cages with same sex siblings and they will stay there for about three to four months until they gain their adult weight. They are very vivid and play alot with each other. They also like to play with the staff of the farm since they learn pretty quickly how to jump out of the nest and down to the floor when the staff is handling them or their mother. It gives me a good laugh to see one baby rabbit create so much action in the, otherwise very quiet, rabbit fam. A rabbit is quick, and a baby rabbit is small. This is a bad combinaton for the staff, but a good combination for me. They also learn very quickly how to drink and from their mothers water dispenser, which is situated a little bit too high up in the cage for the kits. All you have to do is use a fellow kit, put him/her in the right spot, climb up, and reach the water. 

    

Cute ones right? Love to spend time with their mothers. 

I celebrated my half time through my stay here by bringing over my dear and beloved boyfriend. It was so nice and I finally got to experience Toulouse. I haven't had so much fun and good time in a very long time. It was warm outside, 25 degrees at times, and sunny most of the time. I was very happy! 

  

Then it was monday again. A bit sad of course, since Jocke had gone, but also nice to restart my work with nice new energy so that I can finish in time and get my degree. When it was time for lunch, my supervisor told me there would be a "pot" meaning drinks with the department. I had completely missed that it was St Patricks day and that the department decided to have their monthly lunch together this day. People brought drinks and foods (I love France for not caring about drinking alkohol in the midle of the day), everyone had a a nice time, and the hot summer was of course there to join us. 

In the down corner at the right is my friend Aroa, a newly arrived 

spanish girl that will stay at INRA for three months as me!

Sorry I had a gap in my writing, it wont happen again :)

SUN!

So, the weather is quite nice. The report writing is quite nice. I'm writing my material and methods part right now, which should be finished by the week-end. During the weekend you'll find me on my terrace, pondering on what questions can be answered with all of my data, and what analyses to do next week. 

In the evening, I'll finish my Harry Potter movies and maybe, just maybe, buy myself a half bottle of wine, tucs, cheese and stream the melodifestival from SVTplay. Which you can actuall do from France! Go Alcazar! Haha! But I don't know if I have reached that forever alone stage just yet. Time will tell. 

Jockes arrival is approaching! Which is why I took a look at the weather forecast. I think we'll find some things to do in the sun :)

1 month!

Today is my one month day here in Castanet. It's incredible how fast time goes by. I celebrated this day with a Body Sculpt, a Body Combat, and a Stretch class witch took the whole morning. On my way back, I discovered that spring has come to Castanet! Flowers everywhere, sun, and lots of people outside. Really nice to see actually! 

Yesterday I went to my CAF and Body Pump class in the morning, wrote on the litterature review in the project in the afternoon, and ended the evening with Harry Potter and the goblet of fire and kinder maxis. I cried so hard in the end, I actually was a bit ashamed of myself. Fortunately my tennant wasn't at home, I think she would have wondered what was going on with me. Tonight I'm going to try the order of phoenix, hope it doesn't end as bad as the previous one... 

Anyway! next week I'll be going to count the rabbits (that go out from the nest) for the last time on monday, and on wednesday we're going to weight all the does and I'm going to observe the does' behaviours. The rest of the week I will write the material and methods part of the project report and maybe start analyzing some of my results. I am progressing in other words! Which feels very good. In 10 days from now, Jocke will come visit me, and I'm so excited! After that, almost all of my weekends are booked with everything from Bléré to Alex firend Nico. Time is going to fly in other words. 

Flowers and sun everywhere!

The view from my balcony.

This is my best sign when biking to INRA. 

At SLU we love abbreviations, a passion that apparently also is shared with INRA.

And with these pictures I wish you a good afternoon! 

About meat.

Today I woke up to a nice sunrise. I thought this was going to be a good day. It was, partly, but I felt very tired and low today, for some reason. Some days are just like that I guess, you need to have rain to appreciate the sunshine as I say. And surely many others. 

I biked to my lovely rabbit kits, observed how many in each litter that had left their nests, discussed a little with Claude, and biked back. My supervisor is very stressed right now, she has an article for a conference with the deadline tomorrow, so she hasn't been able to spend so much time with me, although she's just 1.5m across the desk. When I told her that on Sunday, I have been here for a month, she put her hand against her forehead, and gave me french surprised eyebrow look. 

There has been some reactions to my project work, which I am very happy about. People write to, talk to, and ask me why on earth I work with killing rabbits. I do. In a way. Since these rabbits are production animals such as pigs, sheep or cows. Some people, especially in Sweden I might add (where we are not used to eating rabbit except for maybe in nice restaurants at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm), find it very hard to understand how one can eat a rabbit, as it would be for them to eat a dog or a cat. 

In France there is quite a different culinary culture from the one in Sweden (for one, food actually tastes something here, and people appreciate good products more than most parts of Sweden). Also, rabbit is a very cheap and green source of meat (green not being the colour of the meat, rather the low environmental impact). Because rabbits are forage converters that do not burp massive methane amounts, their droppings make little impact (especially since they eat half of it), they are easy to house, and they reproduce (very) quickly (even in nature). 

So what is the problem? The problem that remains is the cuteness of this animal. That is the disturbing part for people. But the thing is, people can relate more to the cuteness of a rabbit than the cuteness of a calf, piglet or kid (sheep offspring, that is). What I can assure you however, is that if you would pick up any of those animals in the age that my rabbits are now, they would be equally beautiful and cute. 

I love animals. All animals. And I wish what is best for them. Obviously, the best for the animals would be for them to remain alive. We can all agree on that. However, this is not the case, because these animals are bred because of the demand of meat in the stores, on the tables, in the burgers and in the dog and cat food. With the technologies, the massive imports and exports over the borders across the world and with all different economies, the human being could more than well satisfy its daily protein need from other sources than meat protein. But, we encounter a lot of arguments on this. 

"I almost never eat meat anyway, at least I only eat one kind of meat" 

So usually, this means either "only fish", "only chicken", or "only red meat"/"only light meat". This, I can't help finding a little amusing. This basically means that one kind of meat is supposed to be better than another. Especially red and light one? Anyway, we all agree on that everyone makes their own choices. What annoys me anyway, is that (from what I understand) these kinds of people find themselves to be "a little bit better" than others because of their active choice. I, at least, am sure that these are the kinds of people that stand in the store choosing between danish crown super cheap pork filet and swedish expensive pork filet, and the danish one ends up being the chosen one. "But I never eat this meat anyway so this time it doesn't make any difference".

" I never eat meat, why do you eat meat, you're a murderer, torturer, and a rapist"

Congratulations, you're a vegan. I actually pay a lot of respect to vegans. Because they have actually made an active choice that matters, and stand for their oppinion. However, too many vegans share too little information about meat production, and fail to deliver their thoughts in convincing, educating, and respectful ways. Sometimes, there are even lies, dramatic movies and misunderstandings thrown at people. This, I do not approve of.   

"Meat is good, I love meat, give me meat."

There are two categories in this argument group. 1) The same person that just said the above, will close its eyes very hard and cover its ears when being showed pictures of an abattoir, foie gras farm and/or a picture of the baby calf that is now a steak on its plate. 2) Will probably be a hunter, an agronomist, a farmer, a chef, or someone else that knows the "ugliness" behind the meat industry, and that will appreciate a good piece of meat that has been housed properly, fed properly, slaughtered properly, cut properly, and finally cooked properly.

I hope no one is surprised by which category I identify myself with. I love meat, but not all meat. Not in the way that the first argument puts it though. I love meat that has been housed properly, fed properly, slaughtered properly, cut properly and cooked properly. No. Other. Meat. The price doesn't matter. I can live happily as a vegan for 6 days a week, saving the money I would have spent on cheap meat products, in order to spend it all on a really nice, fair, and good piece of meat one day per week. 

So, to come back to the fact that I love animals, I love them so much that in their production life, they should be as happy and healthy as any cat or dog living in you homes. I think that, just because animals are production animals, they should not be valued differently from any pet. And that is why I do what I do today. I work with increasing animal welfare for production animals, so that they can have a peaceful, healthy and unstressful living, until it's time for them to get chosen from the À la carte or the store. 

It is equally hard for a farmer working with either of the production animals to let the animals go to the abattoir. I promise you, that all farmers love their animals and want what is best for them. I cannot speak for farmers that do not fulfil their jobs and thus are bad farmers, as I could never speak for a good person doing something wrong.

Pictures of happy rabbits. 

This one above fell asleep when I scratched it behind its ears. 

Bye for now!

P.s. I love my education. 

Chill Weekend

On friday I felt I had a bit of a soar throat. So I only went swimming a little bit and finished off in the Jacuzzi to celebrate it was friday at Movida. Because I felt sorry for myself I went to Intermarché and bought vegetable crisps, nachos and a dip sauce which I ate for dinner while I watched Homeland. After Homeland (and a lot of nachos) my stomach hurt so I moved to the bed to watch the movie Monica Z (very nice!) and ate yoghurt. Good chillaxin' so to say.

On saturday, the soar throat was not very soar anymore, but I didn't go work out despite the massive nacho intake from the day before anyway. I did however write a lot on my thesis, I guess that's good too. When I got tired of writing, I watched another episode of homeland and ate the rest of the nachos. Fail. Oh well, I spent the rest of the evening talking to Björno, Jownes and Grahwn on skype. Which was a lot of fun! I'm kind of forever alone in my french room. And everyone knows I'm not a good solo person. I get crazy. Fast. So I was very happy that I could "spend some time" with my friends. Haha. 

Today! Came the great nacho comeback. I went to 45mins of BodySculpt at 9.30 this morning. I then stayed for an hour of BodyCombat. And then 45mins of strech class. Okay, I admit the stretch part was not very tireing, but anyway. 2,5h of gym a sunday, not bad eh? Then I came home and watched the miserable Hockey game (not that I care) and bought myself my PROM DRESS! whah! Here it is! 

Very simple, and very nice. Here are some Better pictures.

This little big guy I miss today. Murmelito. Mommelmann, limpan.

Now, some writing again! Bye bye! 

Good thursday!

Woke up to the good news that an apartment will be waiting for me when I come home! It will be 67m2, have 3 rooms and my two wonderful boys will be living there with me. So all I feel now is:

Then, work time. wrote a little more on the introduction (the rabbit part by now) and then it was time for lunch with GenPhySE (right spelling and abbreviation this time). Everyone brought something and my pie got god reviews :) 

After all the wonderful entrés, main courses, cheeses, deserts and so on, it was time for me to continue writing a little before it was time for todays workout. CAF (cuisses, abdos, fessiers) (thighs, abs and ass) first and then BodyJam. Nice to dance again actually. Mom was right, I did like it. Alot :)

Kits!

Incredibly tired today. I spent a whole day at the farm yesterday because I weighted ~850 kits individually and today because of the AI (artificial insemination) of the does. It was very educating to be with the staff during the entire day today. I weighted the does after they had given todays milk portion to their, around one and a half week old, kits. They're all white and soft now, some have begun to open their eyes already. By my next visit on monday, they will all have opened their eyes. And they will be, if possible, even cuter. 

After my day with the rabbits I quickly went to shop for food to make a pie for tomorrows lunch get together with all the "youngsters" of GenePhyse at INRA. I then biked even quicker to get in time for my 45mins of BodySculpt and the following hour of BodyAttack. When biking home (slower than an old lady walks, this time) I almost got hit by a (super fast dangerous toulouse persons) car, but was too tired to care. 

I stumbled up the stairs, into the shower, out of the shower, made the friggin' pie, and ate (way too late). 

Now I'm here. An episode of Homeland is awaiting me and then sleep. so much sleep.  

Now some kits!

Montpellier

It was a sad Valentines day last friday. I, and 10 others, went to the BodyPump class, knowing we were all sad and alone people. It felt comforting in a way. I then sat in my room, drank wine and ate cheeze (you do have to take advantage of being in France) and spoke for a long time with the B on skype. 

Saturday, I got up to my BodyPump, all in order, I then went to get my hair cut and then I went to Montpellier to celebrate my cousin Maliks 30th birthday. It was a surprise party very well organised by Nadjet and he had no clue. He cried, I cried, everybody cried as he entered the room and turned the lights on. Very successful might I say. 

It was a nice party in Maliks cousins house which had a huge balcony surrounding the entire appartment basically. We ate and we drank and we danced and we sang until it was 05.00 in the morning and Anna told me that it was time for us to go home. A really fun night in other words. So much fun seeing the family again :).

What happens now however, is taking the computer to the bed to whatch series. And not move one bit. A new week starts tomorrow and I have decided to finish my introduction in the thesis this week. We'll see how that turns out. 

Ciao

Malik in the surprise moment! 

Maliks uncle Bouaza with a pimped Joaquim. Me and Tristan,
Anna and Paul-Marie, and people playing on the huge balcony. 

This week so far

Basically my days this week start with my morning bike ride to the rabbit farm. I start at 7.30 or 8.00 so I have to be careful not to be hit by a car while sleeping on the bike. The picture beneath is taken when the sun goes up at Langlade, the rabbit farm. And under that is what I have been doing, weighing kits and looking at does. So I'm quite happy with that! 

When I'm done at the rabbit farm I bike back home to change, and then to my office at INRA. After that I usually go work out. Today was a bit overwhelming. First "Bodysculpt", some kind of massacre for the legs. And after, my favorite "Bodyattack", which however was not my favorite after the "Bodysculpt". 

This weekend I'm finally going to cut my hair and then I'm going to a secret place, which you will know more about later. 

Have to go to bed now! Rabbits are waiting for me in the morning.

Good night!

Morning sun over Pompertuzat

Little baby rabbits

And this is to explain my comparison between baby 

rabbits and aliens, which I have made to some.