Last night I watched the DVD “Sign” and realised that the production team is the same as “The Sixth Sense” with Night Shyamalan an Indian as the director. The show was a bit of a comedy because of some of the dialogues but all in all it was an average show. Mel Gibson was terrific and so was the actor who acted as his brother in the show. That actor was the guy who played the role of the prince in “Gladiator”, the one that murdered Caesar and had affection for his sister. His acting was great too. What really interests me was the bonus material in the DVD with deleted scenes and the making of the film. It gave me some insights as to why Shyamalan wanted to use certain camera views to project his ideas to the audience. I feel that he is really a talented director, scriptwriter and producer; all in one. And he did play a minor role too in the film.
This morning I showed Laurent the letter I got from OMI and it was confirmed that I had to do the medical checkup tomorrow. Sian. A while later came my participant for the exp. It had been quite awhile since I last had people coming to do the exp. This guy was very patient and did the 285 tests seriously without complain. After that I went to Mathieu’s room to use the phone. Of course he was not around in IRISA anymore. I wanted to call to this youth hostel in Tours to check the prices. The only info given from the web was the number. Julien was in the room and he must be very lonely now because he just came to IRISA a couple of weeks ago. With Mathieu gone and another guy (Frank I think whom I have never seen before) practically not in the room all the time, he had the office to himself. I called but there was just the machine speaking in French and then there was a “doo” sound to signal me to leave a message. So I told Julien I would return in the afternoon to try again. I told him I was trying to call to a youth hostel but he didn’t understand what a youth hostel is. They called it “auberge de juenness” which is the same meaning as youth hostel.
At lunch, I took some salmon which apparently looked raw; just like the Jap dish. Jaro and I were saying that too bad there isn’t any wasabe. But when we tasted it, it wasn’t exactly raw. It was slightly smoked and was a bit salty. We were a bit disappointed as we thought they serve Jap food too. Then Jaro said he went to the Forest of Broceliande (King Arthur Forest) yesterday and Mr. Giant who had been there twice, told us some stories about it. He said the Merlin’s tomb is so small that he passed by it several times before he actually found it. It was just a small little rock on which a tree grew from. Then there is the legendary golden tree which is just a tree without leaves and not much branches; but it is gold in color. Surrounding the tree are several rocks. The legend says that a fairy was there and turned into a golden tree. The rocks were gnomes protecting her and preventing people from touching her which will turn her back to her own self. But the fact is some 10 yrs ago, there was a fire in that area and all the trees were burnt to the ground. Someone took a gold paper and stick on one of the tree and that is the legendary golden tree. Though all these tales were made up, both of them agreed that the forest is a very beautiful place to visit. Initially Jaro thought it was nothing. Trees are still trees, rocks are still rocks, nothing special. But when he reached there, it was more beautiful than he expected. It really made me feel like going there and hope when Mr. Giant and Nicolas are planning the trip, they wouldn’t forget to include me in their plan.
Somehow the conversation led to the history of Singapore and then to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. And I told them the little encounter that I had with the granddaughter of this great man of Singapore. I shall not elaborate here on the incident. Those who were with me in HJC would probably know the tale. After the lunch, I kapo a banana back to the office. At 2pm, another participant came and after 20min or so, I had finally finished all 30 people for the 3 exp!!! And on top of that, I still had 3 more extra people scheduled this week. This really made me put down the rock in my heart (Chinese saying). I was also glad to receive replies from both my sup and NTU tutor saying that they were satisfied with the informal email report that I sent them last Friday. When one has nothing much accomplished in work, one must learn to wayang. And that was what I did. But my NTU tutor also said that I am to submit my 2nd formal report by mid April.
Then I went to borrow a new DVD and found that there were some titles on the shelves that I had not seen before. I normally borrow DVD on Monday morning. I found that there are more titles in the afternoon and decided to come at this time from now on. I chose “Bridget Jones Diary I”. Decided on something light after watching blockbusters for a few weeks. After that I went to Julien’s office to call the youth hostel again but it was the same machine voice. Before that I told Julien to help me ask my questions if the receptionist is not able to speak English. I asked him to listen to the machine and he said that there is some problem with the number. The number is no longer in use for the youth hostel and has been used as a residence number. So the machine was telling callers to stop calling here as this is no longer a youth hostel. Instead we should find out the actual number using the service that finds phone numbers; like our 100 or 7777777 in SG. Julien asked me to go back and check the website again and if I need him to help me find the number, I can approach him anytime. Wow. I just found a replacement for Mathieu. In the past, I always ask Mathieu for helps. Now I know who to turn to.
This journal is so long now that MS Words has decided to stop the spell check function altogether. It prompted me that as there are too many spelling errors (those Chinese words, French words, etc), the function has terminated. Hope the document wouldn’t crash. After the call, I went back and discussed with hui the problem and we realised that Loire Valley is really quite inaccessible. We need more time to figure out how to get to there. I also told him that I hope there will be some events going on in Vatican City in Rome when we are there in June since the Pope John Paul II just passed away a couple of days ago. Near the end of the day, I began to start typing my report. Better to start early now since my sup will be back tomorrow noon and most probably I wouldn’t have as much free time as now. Then xiaomei asked how’s my life so far here and something about the Catholics here. Really I feel that French are not very religious. I didn’t see any events going on for the past 2 days regarding the death of the Pope. Maybe I would ask my colleagues about this. On second thought, better not, as religion is always a touchy issue. And can anyone tell me what is the difference between Catholic and Christian? Only Christians say prayers before the meal? Catholics don’t?
This morning I showed Laurent the letter I got from OMI and it was confirmed that I had to do the medical checkup tomorrow. Sian. A while later came my participant for the exp. It had been quite awhile since I last had people coming to do the exp. This guy was very patient and did the 285 tests seriously without complain. After that I went to Mathieu’s room to use the phone. Of course he was not around in IRISA anymore. I wanted to call to this youth hostel in Tours to check the prices. The only info given from the web was the number. Julien was in the room and he must be very lonely now because he just came to IRISA a couple of weeks ago. With Mathieu gone and another guy (Frank I think whom I have never seen before) practically not in the room all the time, he had the office to himself. I called but there was just the machine speaking in French and then there was a “doo” sound to signal me to leave a message. So I told Julien I would return in the afternoon to try again. I told him I was trying to call to a youth hostel but he didn’t understand what a youth hostel is. They called it “auberge de juenness” which is the same meaning as youth hostel.
At lunch, I took some salmon which apparently looked raw; just like the Jap dish. Jaro and I were saying that too bad there isn’t any wasabe. But when we tasted it, it wasn’t exactly raw. It was slightly smoked and was a bit salty. We were a bit disappointed as we thought they serve Jap food too. Then Jaro said he went to the Forest of Broceliande (King Arthur Forest) yesterday and Mr. Giant who had been there twice, told us some stories about it. He said the Merlin’s tomb is so small that he passed by it several times before he actually found it. It was just a small little rock on which a tree grew from. Then there is the legendary golden tree which is just a tree without leaves and not much branches; but it is gold in color. Surrounding the tree are several rocks. The legend says that a fairy was there and turned into a golden tree. The rocks were gnomes protecting her and preventing people from touching her which will turn her back to her own self. But the fact is some 10 yrs ago, there was a fire in that area and all the trees were burnt to the ground. Someone took a gold paper and stick on one of the tree and that is the legendary golden tree. Though all these tales were made up, both of them agreed that the forest is a very beautiful place to visit. Initially Jaro thought it was nothing. Trees are still trees, rocks are still rocks, nothing special. But when he reached there, it was more beautiful than he expected. It really made me feel like going there and hope when Mr. Giant and Nicolas are planning the trip, they wouldn’t forget to include me in their plan.
Somehow the conversation led to the history of Singapore and then to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. And I told them the little encounter that I had with the granddaughter of this great man of Singapore. I shall not elaborate here on the incident. Those who were with me in HJC would probably know the tale. After the lunch, I kapo a banana back to the office. At 2pm, another participant came and after 20min or so, I had finally finished all 30 people for the 3 exp!!! And on top of that, I still had 3 more extra people scheduled this week. This really made me put down the rock in my heart (Chinese saying). I was also glad to receive replies from both my sup and NTU tutor saying that they were satisfied with the informal email report that I sent them last Friday. When one has nothing much accomplished in work, one must learn to wayang. And that was what I did. But my NTU tutor also said that I am to submit my 2nd formal report by mid April.
Then I went to borrow a new DVD and found that there were some titles on the shelves that I had not seen before. I normally borrow DVD on Monday morning. I found that there are more titles in the afternoon and decided to come at this time from now on. I chose “Bridget Jones Diary I”. Decided on something light after watching blockbusters for a few weeks. After that I went to Julien’s office to call the youth hostel again but it was the same machine voice. Before that I told Julien to help me ask my questions if the receptionist is not able to speak English. I asked him to listen to the machine and he said that there is some problem with the number. The number is no longer in use for the youth hostel and has been used as a residence number. So the machine was telling callers to stop calling here as this is no longer a youth hostel. Instead we should find out the actual number using the service that finds phone numbers; like our 100 or 7777777 in SG. Julien asked me to go back and check the website again and if I need him to help me find the number, I can approach him anytime. Wow. I just found a replacement for Mathieu. In the past, I always ask Mathieu for helps. Now I know who to turn to.
This journal is so long now that MS Words has decided to stop the spell check function altogether. It prompted me that as there are too many spelling errors (those Chinese words, French words, etc), the function has terminated. Hope the document wouldn’t crash. After the call, I went back and discussed with hui the problem and we realised that Loire Valley is really quite inaccessible. We need more time to figure out how to get to there. I also told him that I hope there will be some events going on in Vatican City in Rome when we are there in June since the Pope John Paul II just passed away a couple of days ago. Near the end of the day, I began to start typing my report. Better to start early now since my sup will be back tomorrow noon and most probably I wouldn’t have as much free time as now. Then xiaomei asked how’s my life so far here and something about the Catholics here. Really I feel that French are not very religious. I didn’t see any events going on for the past 2 days regarding the death of the Pope. Maybe I would ask my colleagues about this. On second thought, better not, as religion is always a touchy issue. And can anyone tell me what is the difference between Catholic and Christian? Only Christians say prayers before the meal? Catholics don’t?
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