This actually happened last night in the multimedia centre. I was surfing the net and then I saw some students watching live telecast of Chelsea vs. Bayern Munich of the Champions League. There were about 10 TV sets in the centre. I was surfing and watching the TV at the same time. The score was 1-0 then, scored by Joe Cole who was in form for the past few weeks. After halftime break, I decided to stop surfing the net and went to one of the TVs. However, I didn’t know how to set the channel and tried almost every available TV. I almost wanted to give up and return to my room when I found one TV that already had the channel set. So I watched the 2nd half which had Lampard scored 2x and Drogba once. In the end Chelsea won 4-2. Great game. That was when I saw on the table there was a notice with instructions on how to set the channel. After figuring out how to change the channels, I was preparing to leave. That was when the horrible incident happened.
A middle age guy who looked like some sort of security guard came up to me and spoke in French. I guess he was asking for my identification and I told him I don’t understand French. He asked whether I am a student of INSA. I waited for 2sec. I was thinking should I lie or tell the truth. In the end, I said I wasn’t. I can’t possibly lie as he would ask me to present my card which belongs to Mr. Giant. He asked me to get out and I just said “desolee” and left. By then, everyone was looking at me. Felt humiliated. When I went back to my room, I must have said FUCK for 20 times before stopping. If I had left the place earlier, nothing would have happened. I was still feeling happy to be able to watch soccer match here and thought of coming down whenever there is a match. Then I began to feel puzzled on why did the security ask me for my identity? I left in a hurry and hence didn’t notice if he went around asking other people. I did at the corner of my eye saw him approached another guy who was using the PC to watch movie. That guy was a Vietnamese. Was he targeting Asians? Or did someone “bao dou” me to the security? I did attract some attention when I was trying every TV to watch the match. Maybe that caused suspicion to other as those rightful users of the centre would probably know how to use the TV there. Maybe there were some students who saw me at the centre all the time but never seen me in school before. Whatever it was, I was kicked out of the centre for sure.
How can I be so unlucky? If I had not watched the match, I wouldn’t have been caught. Then again, if I wasn’t watching TV, I would most probably be surfing the net. And if I were to be caught at that moment, the security would definitely ask me whose account am I using. That would put the guy who lend me his account in trouble. No matter how I think of it, it is of no importance now. I can’t possibly go back to the centre. I can perhaps try again a few more nights later, when the “wind sound is not so tight”, but I wouldn’t want to have one eye surfing the net and the other watching behind my back looking out for the security. After enjoying one month of internet luxury, it was back to the bad old days again. Maybe I would still try my luck on Sundays. But I would limit myself to just uploading my pictures and blog and downloading any stuffs that my friends send me. Right now I need to solve the problem of nightly usage of internet. A possibility is to stay back in the office after 6pm. The PC that I am using now in the office is Linux and I have no permission to mount my thumbdrive. But there is a new PC in my office with Windows platform but it is used by Laurent the new trainee. Luckily he normally leaves the office at 5+ so I can use his PC once he has left. That would be the plan. Every night stay back for an hour more to use that PC. On Sundays, try to have a quicky surf (within an hour) in the multimedia centre. I can’t imagine what would happen if I were to be caught again. Can’t even open my mouth to defend myself. Can’t even explain my situation. Can’t even call for help.
I can’t blame that security because he was doing his job. I can possibly blame the guy who complained about me if such a person existed in the first place. But I don’t think I deserved this because I am sure my presence created no disturbance to the students at all. There were so many of them watching movies and worse still, playing LAN games. I was just planning for my end tour. I always kept a low profile in the centre. Moreover, I even gave up my PC once and let another student have it. And sometimes, some students had problem entering the centre because the access system was faulty and I would walk out and open the main door for them. Really this world is “hao xin mei hao bao”. The person that deserved to be blamed the most would be the authority of INSA. Why did he set the rule of prohibiting internet access in the rooms of foreigners? He probably was once a foreigner in another country and was ostracized badly and hence wanted to take revenge and make other foreigners feel miserable. Perverted pathetic bastard. The last person to be blamed perhaps would be me for choosing to come here. I wanted to console myself by thinking that I didn’t have internet access to begin with and hence didn’t lose anything. But fucking hell that sounded like deceiving myself. Just hope that this incident does not kick start a series of unlucky events. But you never know about luck. “Hao Shi Cheng Shuang”, “Huai Shi Yi Luo Kuang” (Good things come in pair. Bad things come in a basket). Maybe tomorrow I would be caught cooking in the kitchen which is against the rule as we are expected to eat in the restaurant and can only cook on the weekend.
In the office this morning, I was still unhappy about the incident last night. I worked a bit on my report and after that went to Julien’s room to make a call to 2 youth hotels; one in Marseille and one in Tours. Once everything is finalized, I would have to ask Julien to help me book the hostels as both the receptionists do not speak English. I went back to do my report and then Jaro popped in and asked if I am free tomorrow night. He will be throwing a farewell party for himself and is inviting some colleagues in Siames (our project team) and his other friends. He said he didn’t invite everybody in the team; just those he is closer with. I was glad to hear that because I had known him for just 2 weeks. He gave me the address of the restaurant and I said I would be there. One friend leaving again. I hope that all these foreign friends that I had made over the past 2.5 months, I can still remain in contact with them when I return to SG. But I guess it is not easy.
Then I left IRISA to go to the OMI. When I reached there, I asked the lady about my VISA. At first she said I am allowed to go to England because I have the Schengen approval on the VISA. Then a young lady came and told her that England is not one of the 15 countries in Schengen. I told them I can enter France or any EU countries without a VISA for 90 days just with my SG passport. The young lady said yes you can but you will not be allowed to come back to France. However, with the resident card that I am going to get, I can go to any other country and return to France, as if I am a resident of France. Later I went to do my medical checkup and the doctor was a lady in her 30s. Not chio but not bad also. I was afraid she might have to check something private of me but luckily no. She took my weight and I was shock when I looked at the scale. 50kg!!! I had lost 8kg within 2.5 months. She asked is it because I didn’t like French food. Then she asked if I felt ill or have any sickness. I told her I play soccer every week here. She said that’s good. As long as I feel healthy and exercise regularly, I don’t have to worry too much. But perhaps I should think of a way to increase my weight to 55kg. It is not that I am not eating enough. I am no longer eating bread for dinner now. I am eating rice and spaghetti. Hui said maybe my muscles had turned into fats. But seriously I would be happy to have some fats on my body to protect me from the occasional chilly wind.
After the checkup, I was certified healthy as ever and was happy to know that my eyesight remains perfect. I went back to the first lady and she gave me a letter saying that I had to present this to the prefecture. NOT the prefecture!!! I tried so hard to “siam” it but still I had to go. After giving them the letter, within 10 days I would get my resident card and a sticker like the VISA on my passport. She asked when would I be going to England and I said in June. She said good because by then I would definitely have the card. But the price is I have to pay 55 euros!!! Kao. Why are there more and more admin to do now? I will ask Marie-Claude about this issue and hope that IRISA would reimburse me that 55 euros. Before going back to IRISA, I went to buy another 10 more bus tickets since I would be traveling to the city centre the following few days. On the way I encountered some salesgirls and one of them approached me. I said I don’t speak French and she smiled and said good day to me. Very polite girl. Then I met this man distributing some sort of newsletter. I didn’t want to take. He then asked me questions and again I said I don’t speak French. He then said in simple English that he had no house, no money to eat, etc. Kao. I said no sorry I can’t help him and he smiled and said that is ok. A polite beggar.
Back at IRISA, I was late for lunch but luckily Jaro was still eating and he waited for me. He then told me that with the resident card, I could try to apply for CAF because he did it last time. He said it is definitely worth the trouble as they subsidized quite substantially for my rent. So I would do that after I had gone down to the prefecture or after I had got my resident card. Maybe when I had got my card. After lunch, I went back to INSA to get my bedsheets changed. That was when I met the security guard who caught me last night. And he greeted me with a smile! Most likely he had forgotten me. For the whole afternoon, I was feeling tired because of the medical checkup in the morning. It is always tiring to travel here and there and still have to come to work. And I have a soccer game at 9pm later. My sup didn’t have time to see me at all and I just felt neglected; as if my work is of no importance. Then I met him at the corridor and he said he had just spoken with the statistician and they came out with another interesting experiment for me to do. Not again!!! I am sick of it liao. Why can’t I just start to type my paper??? I suddenly felt a sense of tiredness in my heart. I needed to relax. So I told myself I would self-declare one Friday off; a long weekend to spend a night on the Island that I was planning to go.
At 5pm, Elisa, a participant came and did the experiment. She was funny and jovial. After that I said I would treat her coffee at the cafeteria sometime since that was where I met her. While waiting for the Indian Ravi to come for the experiment at 6pm, I really feel like bang seh him and go back to my room to sleep. My fatigue level was damn high now and later the soccer game would surely be a mess given my state of mind. Finally he came and after the exp, we chatted a bit. I asked if he can speak French and he said no. Although he was offered French classes for free because he is a researcher, he dropped halfway because he felt that it is not worth the effort to learn another language if he is staying for less than a year. He said that the brain can only store a certain amount of info and he would better use the space to store science. That is his brain. Definitely not mine. I wanted so much to have French lessons here if IRISA would pay for me. Then I found out that he is staying in the same block as me in INSA and he has internet access in the room because his neighbour gave him the port. His neighbour doesn’t have a laptop. So he said I can go and find him anytime to use his internet connection. Maybe this weekend he said.
At about 7pm, I tried on the new machine that has WindowXP and decided that I would stay back and use this PC from now on. This is because the speed is fast and the connection is much faster than in the multimedia centre. I went back to my room, ate something light and left for Nicolas house. I was early and hence he showed me around his apartment which had 4 bedrooms but no living rooms. It was just corridor with rooms. And he got lots of DVDs!!! Hence I borrowed one powerful one. South Parks and it is 43 episodes. Now I had too many things to watch. Anatole came in his car awhile later and we all left for the game. The game tonight was quite boring because we had 11 players. Someone came uninvited or maybe there were some miscommunications. My team which was weaker had 6 players. I scored a goal but nothing spectacular after that. My sup was the star tonight. He wasn’t running around like Vincent. But he was fast and dribbled very well. Then I found out later that he played soccer on the field, 11 vs. 11 every Monday. For years he had been playing that. That also explained why he played so roughly when tackling the attackers of the opposite team. Everyone in the opposite team had been fouled or brought down by him. Lucky we were on the same side. He was the top scorer in my team. And he was the leader too. Now I knew why he always had the chance to go for conferences because I think he likes to wayang a bit too. Whenever I made a good pass or had a good chance, he would shout “Bien jouer Chee Hian!”. Same for other players. You can constantly hear him encouraging the team. He reminded me of that kind of recruits in Army who always cheer his comrades because he wanted to go into OCS. But still it did have some effect in the team and we were becoming stronger.
After the game, it was pay up time. This time each of us had to pay just 3.50 euros! Yes. Because recently IRISA had a contract with the Soccer company and it is cheaper now. 6 euros is really a lot for me in the past. My sup drove me all the way back to my doorstep after the game. Before coming, he said he would discuss about work in the car on the way back. When we were in the car, I asked him does he have time to discuss about work tomorrow because I really don’t feel like talking about work now. He said he was joking of course. No way would he want to talk about work after a game. He asked how to pronounce my Chinese name because he heard other colleagues calling me by my Chinese name now. Then he said he wanted to learn some Chinese and I taught him how to say “I love you”. Soon we found ourselves saying “Wo Ai Ni” in the car and it was really weird to have 2 men repeating that 3 words. And the worst thing was when we were repeating the words to get his pronunciation right, I picked up his Ang Moh accent. I had to ask him to stop and cleared my head for awhile before getting the correct pronunciation back. He then said again that he was amazed by the improvement in my French. I seriously think it was still quite the same as before. I told him about the incident of me being kicked out of the multimedia centre. I said I can’t go back now. Then he told me, “you will still go back and use the facilities. And when you are caught again. You will say you don’t know anything and act blur. Then you will say sorry and say you are leaving now. And the next day you will go back again.” He is the lao gan type of person. I hope that he would play often with us because he would surely send me back to INSA. And also I would have more time to chat with him and improve relationship further. But I guess he won’t be a regular player given his busy schedule.
A middle age guy who looked like some sort of security guard came up to me and spoke in French. I guess he was asking for my identification and I told him I don’t understand French. He asked whether I am a student of INSA. I waited for 2sec. I was thinking should I lie or tell the truth. In the end, I said I wasn’t. I can’t possibly lie as he would ask me to present my card which belongs to Mr. Giant. He asked me to get out and I just said “desolee” and left. By then, everyone was looking at me. Felt humiliated. When I went back to my room, I must have said FUCK for 20 times before stopping. If I had left the place earlier, nothing would have happened. I was still feeling happy to be able to watch soccer match here and thought of coming down whenever there is a match. Then I began to feel puzzled on why did the security ask me for my identity? I left in a hurry and hence didn’t notice if he went around asking other people. I did at the corner of my eye saw him approached another guy who was using the PC to watch movie. That guy was a Vietnamese. Was he targeting Asians? Or did someone “bao dou” me to the security? I did attract some attention when I was trying every TV to watch the match. Maybe that caused suspicion to other as those rightful users of the centre would probably know how to use the TV there. Maybe there were some students who saw me at the centre all the time but never seen me in school before. Whatever it was, I was kicked out of the centre for sure.
How can I be so unlucky? If I had not watched the match, I wouldn’t have been caught. Then again, if I wasn’t watching TV, I would most probably be surfing the net. And if I were to be caught at that moment, the security would definitely ask me whose account am I using. That would put the guy who lend me his account in trouble. No matter how I think of it, it is of no importance now. I can’t possibly go back to the centre. I can perhaps try again a few more nights later, when the “wind sound is not so tight”, but I wouldn’t want to have one eye surfing the net and the other watching behind my back looking out for the security. After enjoying one month of internet luxury, it was back to the bad old days again. Maybe I would still try my luck on Sundays. But I would limit myself to just uploading my pictures and blog and downloading any stuffs that my friends send me. Right now I need to solve the problem of nightly usage of internet. A possibility is to stay back in the office after 6pm. The PC that I am using now in the office is Linux and I have no permission to mount my thumbdrive. But there is a new PC in my office with Windows platform but it is used by Laurent the new trainee. Luckily he normally leaves the office at 5+ so I can use his PC once he has left. That would be the plan. Every night stay back for an hour more to use that PC. On Sundays, try to have a quicky surf (within an hour) in the multimedia centre. I can’t imagine what would happen if I were to be caught again. Can’t even open my mouth to defend myself. Can’t even explain my situation. Can’t even call for help.
I can’t blame that security because he was doing his job. I can possibly blame the guy who complained about me if such a person existed in the first place. But I don’t think I deserved this because I am sure my presence created no disturbance to the students at all. There were so many of them watching movies and worse still, playing LAN games. I was just planning for my end tour. I always kept a low profile in the centre. Moreover, I even gave up my PC once and let another student have it. And sometimes, some students had problem entering the centre because the access system was faulty and I would walk out and open the main door for them. Really this world is “hao xin mei hao bao”. The person that deserved to be blamed the most would be the authority of INSA. Why did he set the rule of prohibiting internet access in the rooms of foreigners? He probably was once a foreigner in another country and was ostracized badly and hence wanted to take revenge and make other foreigners feel miserable. Perverted pathetic bastard. The last person to be blamed perhaps would be me for choosing to come here. I wanted to console myself by thinking that I didn’t have internet access to begin with and hence didn’t lose anything. But fucking hell that sounded like deceiving myself. Just hope that this incident does not kick start a series of unlucky events. But you never know about luck. “Hao Shi Cheng Shuang”, “Huai Shi Yi Luo Kuang” (Good things come in pair. Bad things come in a basket). Maybe tomorrow I would be caught cooking in the kitchen which is against the rule as we are expected to eat in the restaurant and can only cook on the weekend.
In the office this morning, I was still unhappy about the incident last night. I worked a bit on my report and after that went to Julien’s room to make a call to 2 youth hotels; one in Marseille and one in Tours. Once everything is finalized, I would have to ask Julien to help me book the hostels as both the receptionists do not speak English. I went back to do my report and then Jaro popped in and asked if I am free tomorrow night. He will be throwing a farewell party for himself and is inviting some colleagues in Siames (our project team) and his other friends. He said he didn’t invite everybody in the team; just those he is closer with. I was glad to hear that because I had known him for just 2 weeks. He gave me the address of the restaurant and I said I would be there. One friend leaving again. I hope that all these foreign friends that I had made over the past 2.5 months, I can still remain in contact with them when I return to SG. But I guess it is not easy.
Then I left IRISA to go to the OMI. When I reached there, I asked the lady about my VISA. At first she said I am allowed to go to England because I have the Schengen approval on the VISA. Then a young lady came and told her that England is not one of the 15 countries in Schengen. I told them I can enter France or any EU countries without a VISA for 90 days just with my SG passport. The young lady said yes you can but you will not be allowed to come back to France. However, with the resident card that I am going to get, I can go to any other country and return to France, as if I am a resident of France. Later I went to do my medical checkup and the doctor was a lady in her 30s. Not chio but not bad also. I was afraid she might have to check something private of me but luckily no. She took my weight and I was shock when I looked at the scale. 50kg!!! I had lost 8kg within 2.5 months. She asked is it because I didn’t like French food. Then she asked if I felt ill or have any sickness. I told her I play soccer every week here. She said that’s good. As long as I feel healthy and exercise regularly, I don’t have to worry too much. But perhaps I should think of a way to increase my weight to 55kg. It is not that I am not eating enough. I am no longer eating bread for dinner now. I am eating rice and spaghetti. Hui said maybe my muscles had turned into fats. But seriously I would be happy to have some fats on my body to protect me from the occasional chilly wind.
After the checkup, I was certified healthy as ever and was happy to know that my eyesight remains perfect. I went back to the first lady and she gave me a letter saying that I had to present this to the prefecture. NOT the prefecture!!! I tried so hard to “siam” it but still I had to go. After giving them the letter, within 10 days I would get my resident card and a sticker like the VISA on my passport. She asked when would I be going to England and I said in June. She said good because by then I would definitely have the card. But the price is I have to pay 55 euros!!! Kao. Why are there more and more admin to do now? I will ask Marie-Claude about this issue and hope that IRISA would reimburse me that 55 euros. Before going back to IRISA, I went to buy another 10 more bus tickets since I would be traveling to the city centre the following few days. On the way I encountered some salesgirls and one of them approached me. I said I don’t speak French and she smiled and said good day to me. Very polite girl. Then I met this man distributing some sort of newsletter. I didn’t want to take. He then asked me questions and again I said I don’t speak French. He then said in simple English that he had no house, no money to eat, etc. Kao. I said no sorry I can’t help him and he smiled and said that is ok. A polite beggar.
Back at IRISA, I was late for lunch but luckily Jaro was still eating and he waited for me. He then told me that with the resident card, I could try to apply for CAF because he did it last time. He said it is definitely worth the trouble as they subsidized quite substantially for my rent. So I would do that after I had gone down to the prefecture or after I had got my resident card. Maybe when I had got my card. After lunch, I went back to INSA to get my bedsheets changed. That was when I met the security guard who caught me last night. And he greeted me with a smile! Most likely he had forgotten me. For the whole afternoon, I was feeling tired because of the medical checkup in the morning. It is always tiring to travel here and there and still have to come to work. And I have a soccer game at 9pm later. My sup didn’t have time to see me at all and I just felt neglected; as if my work is of no importance. Then I met him at the corridor and he said he had just spoken with the statistician and they came out with another interesting experiment for me to do. Not again!!! I am sick of it liao. Why can’t I just start to type my paper??? I suddenly felt a sense of tiredness in my heart. I needed to relax. So I told myself I would self-declare one Friday off; a long weekend to spend a night on the Island that I was planning to go.
At 5pm, Elisa, a participant came and did the experiment. She was funny and jovial. After that I said I would treat her coffee at the cafeteria sometime since that was where I met her. While waiting for the Indian Ravi to come for the experiment at 6pm, I really feel like bang seh him and go back to my room to sleep. My fatigue level was damn high now and later the soccer game would surely be a mess given my state of mind. Finally he came and after the exp, we chatted a bit. I asked if he can speak French and he said no. Although he was offered French classes for free because he is a researcher, he dropped halfway because he felt that it is not worth the effort to learn another language if he is staying for less than a year. He said that the brain can only store a certain amount of info and he would better use the space to store science. That is his brain. Definitely not mine. I wanted so much to have French lessons here if IRISA would pay for me. Then I found out that he is staying in the same block as me in INSA and he has internet access in the room because his neighbour gave him the port. His neighbour doesn’t have a laptop. So he said I can go and find him anytime to use his internet connection. Maybe this weekend he said.
At about 7pm, I tried on the new machine that has WindowXP and decided that I would stay back and use this PC from now on. This is because the speed is fast and the connection is much faster than in the multimedia centre. I went back to my room, ate something light and left for Nicolas house. I was early and hence he showed me around his apartment which had 4 bedrooms but no living rooms. It was just corridor with rooms. And he got lots of DVDs!!! Hence I borrowed one powerful one. South Parks and it is 43 episodes. Now I had too many things to watch. Anatole came in his car awhile later and we all left for the game. The game tonight was quite boring because we had 11 players. Someone came uninvited or maybe there were some miscommunications. My team which was weaker had 6 players. I scored a goal but nothing spectacular after that. My sup was the star tonight. He wasn’t running around like Vincent. But he was fast and dribbled very well. Then I found out later that he played soccer on the field, 11 vs. 11 every Monday. For years he had been playing that. That also explained why he played so roughly when tackling the attackers of the opposite team. Everyone in the opposite team had been fouled or brought down by him. Lucky we were on the same side. He was the top scorer in my team. And he was the leader too. Now I knew why he always had the chance to go for conferences because I think he likes to wayang a bit too. Whenever I made a good pass or had a good chance, he would shout “Bien jouer Chee Hian!”. Same for other players. You can constantly hear him encouraging the team. He reminded me of that kind of recruits in Army who always cheer his comrades because he wanted to go into OCS. But still it did have some effect in the team and we were becoming stronger.
After the game, it was pay up time. This time each of us had to pay just 3.50 euros! Yes. Because recently IRISA had a contract with the Soccer company and it is cheaper now. 6 euros is really a lot for me in the past. My sup drove me all the way back to my doorstep after the game. Before coming, he said he would discuss about work in the car on the way back. When we were in the car, I asked him does he have time to discuss about work tomorrow because I really don’t feel like talking about work now. He said he was joking of course. No way would he want to talk about work after a game. He asked how to pronounce my Chinese name because he heard other colleagues calling me by my Chinese name now. Then he said he wanted to learn some Chinese and I taught him how to say “I love you”. Soon we found ourselves saying “Wo Ai Ni” in the car and it was really weird to have 2 men repeating that 3 words. And the worst thing was when we were repeating the words to get his pronunciation right, I picked up his Ang Moh accent. I had to ask him to stop and cleared my head for awhile before getting the correct pronunciation back. He then said again that he was amazed by the improvement in my French. I seriously think it was still quite the same as before. I told him about the incident of me being kicked out of the multimedia centre. I said I can’t go back now. Then he told me, “you will still go back and use the facilities. And when you are caught again. You will say you don’t know anything and act blur. Then you will say sorry and say you are leaving now. And the next day you will go back again.” He is the lao gan type of person. I hope that he would play often with us because he would surely send me back to INSA. And also I would have more time to chat with him and improve relationship further. But I guess he won’t be a regular player given his busy schedule.
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