The morning was spent on typing my 2nd report to be submitted by 15th April to my NTU tutor. Initially I thought I would have nothing much to write for the month of March but in the end, by lunchtime, I found that I had typed quite a lot. It was a rather easy task because I was following the format of a paper which was on a similar experiment. Lunchtime party was the same and the new trainee Laurent had fitted into the group regularly now. I found myself chatting with him most of the time since both of us were trainees and about the same age. But I prefer to talk to Jaro who was a much cooler guy. Laurent said he is from Grenoble University and now is in the final year of his engineering course. He is paid 900+ euros per month. While queuing up, there were some ladies behind us speaking constantly in English. I don’t think they were Americans or British as they do have similar accent as Jaro. They were new in IRISA because they had not got their food tickets yet and had to buy from their colleagues. When they started talking in English, Laurent kept quiet all of a sudden. I wanted to ask him more questions and he started stammering a bit. He was speaking English with much confidence when there were just 2 of us. I guess the French do have such psychological barrier.
After lunch, I went down to the city centre for the xray. I had a rough idea of where the street is and so didn’t check the address online. It was a mistake. I was supposed to go to this address “5 Rue Du Champ Jacquet” and following the signs I found the street. The number 5 is the number on the building. I couldn’t find it and in the end went into a bakery shop and asked the baker. He said the entire street is Rue Du Champ Jacquet. I wanted to know how to find that 5 but didn’t know how to ask in French. In the end I just did a search down the street again and finally saw the clinic. It was housed in a medieval timbered building with 2 stairs leading to the main entrance. It was kind of weird to have my xray done in a medieval building. But inside it was all modern of course.
It only took a short while and soon I was out of the clinic. On Thursday I would have to submit the xray film to the Office of Migration. Sian. Seldom have I walk the street of city centre on weekdays (in fact I am seldom here because weekend I am always not in Rennes). I find that there are a lot of punksters with funky hairdo wandering around. And all of them had big dogs with chains around their necks. Those German shepherds kind of dogs. And they would “bonjour monsieur” me when I walked past them. I went to the STAR office and bought 10 bus tickets which cost me 9.40 euros. This helped me to save 70 cents as each ticket costs 1.1 euros. Also I don’t have to dig out coins whenever I board the bus. But I don’t have much chance to buy the tickets because I seldom go to the city centre and I won’t take a bus to come down here just to buy the tickets. After that I went to the supermart and bought a loaf of bread and a bottle of shampoo. The shampoos here are cheap, mostly less than 2 euros.
On the bus ride back to the office, I past by a river and saw a person kayaking and another 2 rowing a boat. It made me want to canoe again. Back in the office, I went to see my sup but he was on the phone. So I went back to my office and continued typing my report. Awhile later my sup came and it had been a long long time since I last seen him. He said I looked tanner. What a funny remark because I can’t imagine myself getting a sun tan here in France. But he might be right since I had been to the coast a couple of times for the past few weekends. Maybe I am tanner. We went to the cafeteria and at the counter, I made the order in French. By now the lady boss had recognized me and was asking me some questions in French. I was struggling with the answer and my sup helped me out in the end. He was impressed that my French had improved but I felt it hasn’t. Whenever he returns from a conference, the first thing he would ask me would be how my French is. Though I feel my French still sucks, but it is satisfying to hear him telling the lady boss that I am learning fast.
When we sat down at the table, the first thing he told me was let’s not talk about work at all today. We would do that tomorrow. Great superior. But before I tell him my personal life over the past one month, I asked him how long would he be staying here this time and he said that’s a very good question. He said he would be here till Friday. This I guess meant that next week he wouldn’t be around. That’s fast. Then I told him about my trips to St Malo, to his favorite Cancale (he loves oysters and can eat 12 at a go), to Mont St Michel. He told me he had one week of great holiday in the Alps (he loves skiing) but thereafter it was workshops, conferences, seminars; work and work and work even over the weekend. Hence he really didn’t want to talk about work now. Although he went to Athen which is a place where I really want to visit, he had no time at all for sightseeing. Then Mr. Giant from another table called out to me by my Chinese name. He asked do I still need more participants and I said the more the merrier although I had met my targets. So I got myself a lady and another guy from project Dream. The advantage of going to cafeteria. And one thing; the Chinese and the Indian really are troublesome. They wanted to do the exp after work because they say they are busy. I don’t believe they can’t spare 30 min of their time. But since they are the customers, they are always right and so I will have to stay back tomorrow. But the annoying thing was I saw them at the cafeteria too. And when I left, they were still there.
Then my sup and I began talking about my tour. He gave me some ideas and said that my tour plan looks quite good. Especially the ones in France because he said I am now traveling in Brittany, and then I would visit south France, then Loire Valley which is in the middle and lastly Paris. This is a good coverage of France. But to make things perfect, I would have to explore 2 more places which are the Alps and the vineyards. But with just 3 weeks, he said it is impossible. Moreover he said it was a good choice to go Rome and London as these 2 are among the greatest cities in the world. But he said Italy is as expensive as France. I think London is worse. I told him if I can leave on the 11th, I would be able to go to Disneyland Paris. Currently I had put it aside. He said personally he feels that it is ok not to go to Disneyland because the one in Paris is not the best. You know how the French feels about the Americans right? He asked me that. He had been to Disneyland in US and he said it was great. Before we left the cafeteria, I told him about the 2nd assessment which he needs to submit to my tutor as well as my written report. He told me that I should just include the experiments in the report and leave the other 2 techniques for the last report so that I wouldn’t repeat too much. We also talked a little on the paper that I am going to write and he said on top of that, he needs me to come up with 2 pages of documentation for the program; on how to run the program, where are the files, how to compile, etc for recordkeeping and maintenance. Lastly we talked a little about the dinner that we are going to have near the end of the attachment. He said we will find some restaurants with great red wine because he feels that it is a pity if I don’t try it here where the best wine is produced.
After the coffee break, Mr. Giant came and tried out my program as he was always very interested in it. He gave me some comments and also compliments. Then he said that Laurent Etienne, the guy who did the previous code which I am currently building on was here today. He just dropped by on his way to see some other guy. What a pity I missed him because really I feel he had done a great job. But Mr. Giant said I can meet him easily because they would be playing RPG game in the cafeteria every Thursday night. I asked if it is LAN game and he said it is Paper RPG. Wow! Something like the Lonewolf book which I used to play when I was very young. Near the end of the day, I was chatting with hui and we were talking about what we are going to do back in SG. I would like to eat dim sum immediately since I would arrive at around 11am. He said he would take the MRT home as he wanted to see SG in the train. Then he said he sent a cake back to SG as it was his dad’s birthday. Super power!!! Frankly speaking, this idea has not crossed my mind at all. His filial piety is 100 times mine. I even have to ask him to remind me to call my mum on her birthday which is in June and I would probably be in Nice or Pisa then. Seriously, I think I might forget. Really is a bad son.
After lunch, I went down to the city centre for the xray. I had a rough idea of where the street is and so didn’t check the address online. It was a mistake. I was supposed to go to this address “5 Rue Du Champ Jacquet” and following the signs I found the street. The number 5 is the number on the building. I couldn’t find it and in the end went into a bakery shop and asked the baker. He said the entire street is Rue Du Champ Jacquet. I wanted to know how to find that 5 but didn’t know how to ask in French. In the end I just did a search down the street again and finally saw the clinic. It was housed in a medieval timbered building with 2 stairs leading to the main entrance. It was kind of weird to have my xray done in a medieval building. But inside it was all modern of course.
It only took a short while and soon I was out of the clinic. On Thursday I would have to submit the xray film to the Office of Migration. Sian. Seldom have I walk the street of city centre on weekdays (in fact I am seldom here because weekend I am always not in Rennes). I find that there are a lot of punksters with funky hairdo wandering around. And all of them had big dogs with chains around their necks. Those German shepherds kind of dogs. And they would “bonjour monsieur” me when I walked past them. I went to the STAR office and bought 10 bus tickets which cost me 9.40 euros. This helped me to save 70 cents as each ticket costs 1.1 euros. Also I don’t have to dig out coins whenever I board the bus. But I don’t have much chance to buy the tickets because I seldom go to the city centre and I won’t take a bus to come down here just to buy the tickets. After that I went to the supermart and bought a loaf of bread and a bottle of shampoo. The shampoos here are cheap, mostly less than 2 euros.
On the bus ride back to the office, I past by a river and saw a person kayaking and another 2 rowing a boat. It made me want to canoe again. Back in the office, I went to see my sup but he was on the phone. So I went back to my office and continued typing my report. Awhile later my sup came and it had been a long long time since I last seen him. He said I looked tanner. What a funny remark because I can’t imagine myself getting a sun tan here in France. But he might be right since I had been to the coast a couple of times for the past few weekends. Maybe I am tanner. We went to the cafeteria and at the counter, I made the order in French. By now the lady boss had recognized me and was asking me some questions in French. I was struggling with the answer and my sup helped me out in the end. He was impressed that my French had improved but I felt it hasn’t. Whenever he returns from a conference, the first thing he would ask me would be how my French is. Though I feel my French still sucks, but it is satisfying to hear him telling the lady boss that I am learning fast.
When we sat down at the table, the first thing he told me was let’s not talk about work at all today. We would do that tomorrow. Great superior. But before I tell him my personal life over the past one month, I asked him how long would he be staying here this time and he said that’s a very good question. He said he would be here till Friday. This I guess meant that next week he wouldn’t be around. That’s fast. Then I told him about my trips to St Malo, to his favorite Cancale (he loves oysters and can eat 12 at a go), to Mont St Michel. He told me he had one week of great holiday in the Alps (he loves skiing) but thereafter it was workshops, conferences, seminars; work and work and work even over the weekend. Hence he really didn’t want to talk about work now. Although he went to Athen which is a place where I really want to visit, he had no time at all for sightseeing. Then Mr. Giant from another table called out to me by my Chinese name. He asked do I still need more participants and I said the more the merrier although I had met my targets. So I got myself a lady and another guy from project Dream. The advantage of going to cafeteria. And one thing; the Chinese and the Indian really are troublesome. They wanted to do the exp after work because they say they are busy. I don’t believe they can’t spare 30 min of their time. But since they are the customers, they are always right and so I will have to stay back tomorrow. But the annoying thing was I saw them at the cafeteria too. And when I left, they were still there.
Then my sup and I began talking about my tour. He gave me some ideas and said that my tour plan looks quite good. Especially the ones in France because he said I am now traveling in Brittany, and then I would visit south France, then Loire Valley which is in the middle and lastly Paris. This is a good coverage of France. But to make things perfect, I would have to explore 2 more places which are the Alps and the vineyards. But with just 3 weeks, he said it is impossible. Moreover he said it was a good choice to go Rome and London as these 2 are among the greatest cities in the world. But he said Italy is as expensive as France. I think London is worse. I told him if I can leave on the 11th, I would be able to go to Disneyland Paris. Currently I had put it aside. He said personally he feels that it is ok not to go to Disneyland because the one in Paris is not the best. You know how the French feels about the Americans right? He asked me that. He had been to Disneyland in US and he said it was great. Before we left the cafeteria, I told him about the 2nd assessment which he needs to submit to my tutor as well as my written report. He told me that I should just include the experiments in the report and leave the other 2 techniques for the last report so that I wouldn’t repeat too much. We also talked a little on the paper that I am going to write and he said on top of that, he needs me to come up with 2 pages of documentation for the program; on how to run the program, where are the files, how to compile, etc for recordkeeping and maintenance. Lastly we talked a little about the dinner that we are going to have near the end of the attachment. He said we will find some restaurants with great red wine because he feels that it is a pity if I don’t try it here where the best wine is produced.
After the coffee break, Mr. Giant came and tried out my program as he was always very interested in it. He gave me some comments and also compliments. Then he said that Laurent Etienne, the guy who did the previous code which I am currently building on was here today. He just dropped by on his way to see some other guy. What a pity I missed him because really I feel he had done a great job. But Mr. Giant said I can meet him easily because they would be playing RPG game in the cafeteria every Thursday night. I asked if it is LAN game and he said it is Paper RPG. Wow! Something like the Lonewolf book which I used to play when I was very young. Near the end of the day, I was chatting with hui and we were talking about what we are going to do back in SG. I would like to eat dim sum immediately since I would arrive at around 11am. He said he would take the MRT home as he wanted to see SG in the train. Then he said he sent a cake back to SG as it was his dad’s birthday. Super power!!! Frankly speaking, this idea has not crossed my mind at all. His filial piety is 100 times mine. I even have to ask him to remind me to call my mum on her birthday which is in June and I would probably be in Nice or Pisa then. Seriously, I think I might forget. Really is a bad son.
It feels real good now that my sup is back as everything seems to have fallen back in place. Although we haven’t discussed anything about work, I feel that cafeteria conversation is also part of the assessment. It would be like some kind of interview although of casual nature. Through the conversation, my sup more or less would have some insights on my character. Hence I didn’t want him to read my blog as I had too much misery in the front portion. I only tell him things that he likes to hear. He is the capable type of person with lots of zeal, and hence I try to give him the impression of being an independent worker. Try to show that I am smart because he enjoys intellectual talks. But when talking to my boss in the Army, I would pretend to be not so smart because he is an old and egoistic tyrant who thinks that being the first SWO in SG is like being the first PM of SG. Always comparing himself with LKY. I always acted as if I was learning a lot from him and make him feel that he is so knowledgeable that he has a lot to teach me. Only my CSM saw through my scheme and said I was a “lao gan”. Luckily we were on the same boat as he was doing the same thing as me. It was also part of the plot to speak a little French with the lady boss in the cafeteria just to impress my sup a bit because I know he is always very concerned about my French. All these wayanging really helps to improve working relationship. But of course I am definitely not a “saka” or “chao por” or “balls carrier” type of person. It is just that I always try to tune myself to the same frequency as other people, esp. those above you like tutors, teachers, boss, army superiors, etc. Well I guess that more or less still makes me a bootlicker. Haha.
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