«  Sun.12.17.2000  » 6:40 pm EST        15°F (-9°C) in Ann Arbor Calendar of Updates Il y a longtemps que je parlais français régulièrement, donc j'ai voulu faire une partie de cette mise à jour en français. Je sais que la plupart de mes assistances ne sont pas francophones, mais j'ai un visiteur régulier qui parle français, et c'est une langue très facile à comprendre. Je suis sûr que je ferai beaucoup d'erreurs grammatiques, mais il faut se souvenir que je ne prenais pas de cours de français il y a plus de deux ans. Je veux ne blesser personne plus que je les ai déjà blessés, mais il faut que je ne dépende de personne. C'est une leçon difficile, mais il est nécessaire que je l'apprende bientôt. Ma vie sera meilleur dans l'analyse finale si je me souviens ce fait. Ah, j'ai oublié trop de ma connaissance de la langue française. C'est difficile à écrire ici totalement en français, sûrtout les accents. Pour inscrire un é (e avec un accent aigu) dans la page, il faut taper é (d'autres mots, il est nécessaire à appuyer six clés pour produire une lettre) parce que mon clavier n'a pas de clés européennes. Ah, nous Américains arrogants, nous croyons que nous possédons le monde quelquefois. Il neige ici; il y a déjà dix-huit pouces de neige partout, mais il neige encore. La ville d'Ann Arbor ressemble les petits villages dans "da U.P.," comme les résidants locaux aiment dire. I think I've used enough French in this update; I shall now switch languages. But in any case, it was fun going back to the days of French 235 here at U-M, and three years of French in high school before that. Oh, by the way, if I left you completely clueless, use Altavista's online translations to figure it out. (Be warned, though, that Altavista's translated product is downright terrible; it even goes so far as to screw up the meanings of some of those sentences. Use it at your own risk.) I know I really shouldn't be having these feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, but given what's happening tonight, I can't help them. Take my friends Nym and Scott and group them with me, and ask yourself which one wasn't getting any tonight. Granted, both of them are straight and I'm gay, but that fact alone shouldn't have anything to do with my "success rate" — it's all a matter of confidence, which is something I sorely lack right now. As I've said here before, I am going to see a professional over the holidays, and through (I'm guessing) a combination of counseling sessions and some kind of antidepressant medication, I should begin to recover from this. I'm not crazy or deranged, and I don't need to spend my whole life in some asylum; what I have is an illness that can be treated. I know a lot of other people out there have suffered from depression in the past, so I am by no means alone. (Short side note: Given a pair of comments I've received regarding personal details I've mentioned on the site, I feel compelled to say this. Don't judge me based on one or two situations, or conditions, etc., that I find myself in. If you're going to judge me as a person, you'd better know the entire story, or a large majority thereof.) On a different note, I am considering a change in web hosting companies. My current company, TheHostPros.com, has been very unreliable for much of the past five days. The primary advantage to remaining a TheHostPros.com customer would be the fact that I've had essentially free hosting for seven months at this point; they have never billed me for the almost $40 that I owe them to this point. However, it has been my experience that the customer service really sucks — it always takes two days to even receive a response to my queries, and the reliability leaves something to be desired. So, I'm not sure what I'll end up doing, but never fear, Larry's Phat Page will continue to be an Internet fixture.