It's the last day of the year! Tomorrow comes the new currency. The day after comes the new job. Will we have a new president in April? Sometimes it's good to change. 2002 looks like a kind of spring for me.

I've got a big headache. Yes like that... in the middle of the night. It also happened yesterday morning when going out from the bath. Half an hour after everything is OK again. Stupid isn't it?
One reason could be the end of the year and all the rubbish we hear everywhere. Did you have your horoscope for 2002? I wonder how people could believe in this after September 11th. Grrr...

There was a good TV report yesterday evening about Maurice and Katia Kraft who where famous with their films and pictures about volcanoes. All my childhood came back. I was really impressed by all this fire coming from the center of the Earth. May be is it still the case.
An other reason for these headaches could be the great conflict between the child I was and the one I'm waiting. Of course I'm still a child. A different one that's all. May be will I prefer to play with dolls than with rockets, extraterrestrials and antennas? That's not sure. I want to see myself as a mother but a very active mother as if it would be possible to run around the world to look for volcanoes with a baby in my arms.

I'm just waking up. Why did I sleep like that in the middle of the afternoon? That use to happen during the first three months.

Before going to rest, I published two translations of SETI League press releases. The previous time I updated my website was in September. It's good to have normal activities again! The first release is about a new book from Paul, the other about the banquet speaker for the SETICon02.

May be is it the reason why I was tired?

I'm back from Frangy-en-Bresse. There's snow everywhere and sun in my mailbox.

Good article from Doug Vakoch on space.com:
Decoding E.T.: In Search of a Cosmic Rosetta Stone.

A new SETI@HOME unit has just been completed!
The new one I received has been recorded on Tue May 15 20:37:31 2001 GMT. Just one year before the birth? Let's wait and see.

4 months!

It was Christmass at the Computing Center. A good thing to say bye bye to everybody without tears.

Yesterday, I found this picture in my computer:



Yes that was me some 30 years ago!

Do I have a new sensibility? Can I use it to appreciate art?
I finished the comics Suivez le Bébé this week-end. Snif... It was so funny!

I opened the other book offered last monday L'art d'être mère from Susan Bracaglia. The first chapter is about portraits of pregnant women. I recognize myself in one of them: Margaret Evans pregnant. The author is Alice Neel. She painted 7 portraits of pregnant women. Will I find all of them?

Margaret Evans pregnant.

Pregnant Maria.

Pregnant woman.

Surfing on Alice Neel web site, I found also this painting:
Carmen and Judy.

Holidays!
I spent the morning in bed and then in the bathroom. The afternoon was full of sport (1 hour walking and some purchase for Christmas).
I found some news from Pioneer 10 and Voyager in my mailbox.
I had a dream of a beautiful flat with a garden in the center of the building. There were people reading and other just looking at the flowers. I have to find a solution this week for my housing in Orsay during the next months.

Bi a fo, bi a, bi a mi, bi a ba... loon Yémalé !!!... Dombeni a m'a tamu; waa Nasoba a panmu! lee yaro yè a sié wi yii ? Dombeni a gna wa Nasoba firo ; wa nu yakaa a ba Nosoba taa. Bi a ba niviè a yi biniè yi laara yi, bum le bi a wo. Le bum, a zaa na be te a yeni a tyié na : bi a ba loon a Yémalé.

I've read 3 chapters from Visa pour une autre Terre. After that my first idea was to open The demon-haunted world from Carl Sagan. There's nothing in the index about warp drives, parallel universe, disappearance or doors between worlds. There's just few lines about the Bermuda Triangle and the big quantity of TV programs about it whereas there's nothing about oceans.

And what about Internet? When searching Portes induites with Google I just found one website with an extract from the book..

Jacques Bergier - Visa pour une autre terre (I).

I received the book yesterday. My first impressions are rather negative. If I had seen the cover before I would have refused to write the forewords Villes inconnues, continents invisiables, les immortels parmi nous, sactuaires, contre le déluge atomique. Beurk!!!!

With some courage (or is it masochism?) I read the first chapter Le pudding magique. Is science like a pudding with fruits representing the unknown? You can't have the unknown out of science as you can't take the fruit out of the cake.
Hum. Some astronomers use the pudding with fruits to explain the big-bang and the universe in expansion. Fruits are stars and their distance grows when the cake is in the oven. This picture is completely different. I wonder if those astronomers knew this book?

Bergier quotes J.B.S Haldane: L'univers est non seulement plus bizarre que nous ne l'avons imaginé, il est également plus bizarre que tout ce que nous pouvons imaginer.
I agree of course. No, I wouldn't have used "bizarre". The universe isn't strange. It has lows and it's the result of the lows that produces things that we can't imagine. For example, we discovered giant planets near their sun and it was difficult to explain why they didn't collide with their star. It's not strange. It was only a lack of imagination. Once we saw these star, we found a theory.
There's more diversity in the Universe than we can imagine. That's all.

He also quotes Arthur C. Clarke: Une science supérieure à la nôtre doit nécéssairement nous apparaître comme une magie. That reminds me a conversation with friends. To day science is like a magical thing for a lot of people. They don't understand how their own world works. It's to complicate for them. They just accept things as they accept to see a white rabbit in the hat of a magician. They know there's an explanation but don't look for it.

A positive point for Bergier. He likes strange subjects like the existence of immortal people or multi-dimensional secret only because he finds it funny and hopes it will make reader dream. Ouf!

The several examples he gives are from 1972. I was one year old! The book was published in 1974. Bergier writes: En l'an 2000, 80% du chiffre d'affaire de l'industrie se fera autour de produits et de services qui n'existent qu'en petits laboratoires et dont les noms sont totalement inconnus. Right ot not? May be is it possible to find such statistics. On the other hand can we imagine the industry today without personal computers? Bergier thinks about tachyons and special diodes not about network, chip or so. Computers were known in 1972. They were big machines but they already existed. Any one could understand the concept of personal computer. What about network? ARPANET started in the mid 70's. We can say that the concept of networking was known only in small laboratories. But can we say that 80% of our industry turns around network? It's hard. Industry is not the same but it still produces cars, planes or food.

What will be our industry when my first child will be 30 years old? It's fun to think about such things. Let say it will be different but not in the way we could imagine.

A very useful document for me in the future (and now): Petit Manuel anti-dépression à l'usage des administrateurs systèmes et réseaux.

There was a lot af people laughing when listening to this lecture yesterday. That's so real...

San Marino or not San Marino?

Claudio sent me an invitation yesterday for EUROSETI 1, the first European conference about SETI, Teatro Turismo, San Marino (Italy), March 8-9,2002. The program contains a list of names. There are some good friends that I would enjoy to see again. There are also some famous SETI people I would like to meet.

I answered him straight away that I will do my possible to be there but that there were some big changes in my life. I will be near 7 months pregnant and may be I won't be able to travel or to speak.

The other question is: on what topic could I make a presentation?
Claudio suggests SETI in France. Why not? I could also make something funny about Waiting for life versus Looking for life.

In the evening, I phoned mum who don't tell me not to go to San Marino. Honoré finds it a bit dangerous. Let's wait and see. It's seems to be the only solution.

Euphoria...
I invited friends and colleague to eat and drink yesterday. Wow! What a great moment! I'm so happy. Once again, how could I translate this into words?

Some picture will stay in my memory. Friends offered me two books "Suivez le bébé" from Dodo & Ben Radis and "L'art d'être mère" de Susan Bracaglia Tobey. I still see Honoré's reaction :-) He took the books afraid that the-ones-who-don't-know learn the great news.

I read the first pages from "Suivez le bébé" in my bed. That's better than this weblog! So real...

So let's finish the tea and prepare for an other great day. I should take a Calvin&Hobbes book for Domi.

C'est Kafka à la maternité ton truc ? wrote Yvonne in an e-mail she sent me yesterday.
And if one morning I woke up like Gregor Samsa? Lying on my back with a big belly and 8 legs moving (my 2 arms, 2 foot and the ones of the baby). Funny! It's the first time I see my metamorphosis this way. Why not?

Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Traumen erwartet...

Ah consciousness... It's hard when it happen's at 3 in the morning. I just realize that my grand father is dead, that my nerves are completely out, that I can't sleep, that I need to be alone, that I don't want to leave Lyon, that I'm probably sick and that there's nothing better than the sonata "A Kreuzer" from Beethoven.

There was two amazing words in my mailbox today : decrypthon and exotheologie.

The decrypthon seems to be something like SETI@HOME. We can find the words Grid computing in the main page. OK, it's only words. You must register to get more details. Why do they close all the doors like that? I have nothing against medical research but I don't really understand why I should help them when you see all the benefits made by great pharmaceutical companies.

The word exotheologie has been created by a fool named David Dubois who once heard the word exobiologie. The e-mail I received today was just an advert for his book God and the extraterrestrials.

Dreams... Some words hidden in a quiver for Honoré. A small red car following my mother. A baby (boys or girl?) for my youngest sister. There's still some picture in my mind. How to convert them into words?

We went to council to recognize our child before the birth. There was a wedding at the entrance. Everything was OK for us and we get the paper to give to the hospital the D-Day.

It's December 8th. There are some strange lights outside but it's to cold to go out. May be later?

Le 8 décembre, c'est comme la fête de la musique sauf qu'il fait froid et qu'il y a des bougies aux fenêtres.
AFR

Honoré rescued me! He achieved to join the maternity hospital and to find time and date for a meeting and a scan. Ouf!

Brazil... This seems impossible, but it happened this morning.
My objective were
1) To get a place in the maternity hospital of Orsay.
2) To get the list of the doctors by whom I could have the 5th month scan.

After 15 minutes of phone calls I've got none of them. I HATE SECRETARY. They are so incompetent. Let's say it the same in Lyon. The secretary of my gynecologist lost my files one weeks ago. This morning, I phone to the hospital and asked the maternity. There was none to answer (or may be the secretary of the hospital did a bad number. I don't know).
Then I tried to phone to a first gynecologist cabinet (Daley-Sombardier Emmanuelle & Pichard Christine 01 69 07 70 72). I heard Please call our secretary office 01 60 82 57 07 or try to join the doctors between 14h30 and 16h30. I tried the first and I had a nice music Please wait ! As if I had nothing else to do....
I tried an other gynecologist (Maryvonne Scarabin : 01 60 10 06 66) and get also two other numbers Please call our secretary office 01 49 9 35 50 or try to join the doctors between 18h30 and 19h. I called the secretary and get the most stupid woman I've nether heard :
"Oh ! I don't know if the doctor Scarabin can do scans
- Can you give me a list of doctors who can do this
- I don't know. Please phone to the hospital.
- I did it. There was nobody in the maternity.
- Then call the emergency"


How could things be so complicated. It's impossible... I'd better go back to bed and sleep. Honoré tried to make me quiet. I'm so angry !

Let's drink a tea.

I'm having my breakfast slowly. An apple. A piece of cake. Some words for this weblog. Some hot milk with Banania (cacao 25%). I received yesterday a strange e-mail about Cosmic Ancestry
and Tracing Human
Cosmic Genealogy (THCG).
May be will I read this one day? May be will I need these rubbish to write the forewords of Visa pour une autre Terre as I've been asked few days ago? Hum... I still wonder why I didn't refuse straight away. The author Jacques Bergier was someone important for the french science-fiction at least. May be was he also a great scientist? I don't know.
Let's take some cheese (Kiri) for breakfast and may be orange juice.

I should be sleeping. Sorry. I'll do it later.
Whaou... All the nice surprises of yesterday!
The first one was the scan I have. I saw the baby moving, swimming... Honoré was there. It seems to have been also a great moment for him.

An other present was to receive news from Kiev. I spent one day with Natasha and Tania in Toulouse during the IAF congress last October. They took some photos which are now on the web.
I was one month pregnant (a little bit more) and I had digestive problems but these days in Toulouse were wonderful. I was already on a pink cloud.

I should calculate the number of hours by day I spend looking at my navel or having my hand on my belly.
I don't think it's the center of the world. It just looks like an insight of the Future...

I've sent my 60th SETI@HOME data unit.
I think I wasn't pregnant when I sent the 59th. That means that I need more than 3 months for 40 hours of screen saver use.
My computer did also sleep during the 3 last months! But now, life goes on.

My grand-father René has been found dead today at noon near his home. I worry about my mother. I'm also sad, of course. He was a countryman who loved his farm and his land. I think he was 78 years old but I'm not sure. He didn't speak often and he had always the same questions for the children we were. "And what about school?" became later "And what about your job?" or "Are you still in Lyon?".

I can't remember the last time I saw him. It was in April or May. He had some big memory troubles last two years. My mother told me by phone this week that he asked her aboout me. Was I married? Did I have children?

Les morts ne sont jamais vraiment morts, wrote Honoré on the card I'll give tomorrow to my mother. These words are from Léopold Senghor. I should add that life is always stronger. It must go on. May be it's selfish but my baby gives me hope and make me feel as if I just heard a sad news today but nothing more.

The week-end is back! We were so tired yesterday evening that we went to bed very early. And now I'm here, still tired but awoken. I'm sure I'll spent the week-end in an off-mode, sleeping all the time. It's not really efficient but let's say it's good for my nerves.
Today, it's the beginning of the 16th week. Whaou! My baby has already 10 billions neurons according to this web site! I'm really waiting for the scan I will have next Tuesday. I hope Honoré will be there and that the secretary of my doctor will have found my files. She phoned me yesterday to know if I could have been married because she found nothing with my name.

What's up on the SETI League website this week? It's updated every saturday so I try to have a look at it each week. The new web site of the month comes from the Irish Republic. I still have a press release to translate about Paul's new book.