After a good rest on Sunday, I was all ready for work today as well as the going-to-be-very-busy days that follow. I carried on with the programming for Experiment5 all the way until lunch. Julien the English speaking French joined us for lunch which was very rare. I wanted to ask him about the cost of the dinner we had on Friday but when it comes to asking money, one always has to find a good opportunity. Hence after lunch, while walking back, he asked me did I manage to catch the bus back on Fri. Since he talked about it, I asked him how much was the dinner. Was the 20 euros that I gave enough? He said on average everyone paid 23 euros because they had like 10 more bottles of red wine after I left. Some paid just the meal hence they paid less while others paid more. I asked him so do I have to give you another 3 more euros? But of course I didn’t meant what I said. Just ask ask only. He said of course no because I drank only 3 glasses of red wine. He said in fact he should return me some money. I told him just do a rough calculation then and he said he couldn’t because he wasn’t sure the exact cost of the meal. Then he just gave me 5 euros. I took it and that ended the money issue. So I didn’t know if I had paid enough or I actually overpaid. But I don’t really care because I don’t think he would cheat my money.
Then we talked about movies and I said I just watched “Bridget Jones Diary” last night and I think he would like the movie because of the thick British accent. And we also talked about “Billy Elliot” in which the actors had thick north England kind of accent. Since we were talking about north England, Julien said he got a DVD about Scotland and would lend it to me so that I can listen to some Scottish accent. I said Mel Gibson in Braveheart tried to pick up some Scottish accent and he sounded like an Indian. Then Laurent the pest who was tagging along all the while said he watched Braveheart too and loved the show. But he said he couldn’t listen to the Scottish accent because the movie was in French. Oh just shut up. Laurent asked me about the legal age for drinking and smoking and I said I wasn’t sure; perhaps 18. He said in France, for smoking it is 12. Gnn. Don’t be an idiot lah. How can be so young? I asked him sure or not and he said probably not that young. 16 maybe. Then he said it is extremely easy to get marijuana in parties here and he was offered one on Saturday while walking on the street. This I might believe him. But overall he is a dua kang giah still. Then he said he just bought a train ticket to Geneva to see some friends and it cost him more than the flight to Hungary which he told me last time. Wu Hiah Bo. Last time you told me the flight to Hungary is over 100 euros leh, xiao eh. The train cost 200 euros meh? He said the train will take 7 hrs from Rennes to Geneva. From Rennes to Paris, it would be around 30 euros, I guess. From Paris to Grenoble maybe around 50 euros and Grenoble to Geneva another 20 perhaps. And if he has the 12-25 card, everything would be halved. Maybe he took the lightning train instead of the bullet train TGV.
I spent minimum amount of time surfing the net and moved on to fix the bug in my codes. At around 3pm, I finally finished first part of the code, which was also the trickiest and would be able to present to my sup tomorrow. My intention was to complete everything by today but thought that should be enough. More than enough things to present to him. The 2nd part of the code would be much easier and perhaps I might even finish it tomorrow morning. Hence I went to borrow a DVD and buy my food tickets. When hui told me about those titles he had at his side, I just felt that my department was not up to date. But now, I suddenly see all these good DVDs coming out, like Matrix, Minority Report, Seven, etc. They were there all the time but it was just that I used to come at a lousier timing. In the end I got myself “Monster Inc”. After that I went to see Marie-Claude but again she wasn’t around and so I asked her colleague where she was. She said Marie-Claude is on vacation until 18th April. Kao. What about my VISA issue? She asked if it is very urgent and I said yes and so she referred me to this Catherine Tannoux. I looked at the name and found it familiar. This is the woman that signed the official letter to welcome my stay here. She is the big boss of the Personnel department I guess.
I went to look for her but her secretary asked me to return at 4pm. I went back and read the list of FYPs that I have to choose by 24th April. There were a lot of them and so I only took a glance at the first 10 pages. I had a rough idea what I wanted. Or rather what I do not want. No hardware. No networking. No database. No signals. That left me with fewer choices. In the end, I chose around 10 projects which interest me; mainly on graphics and VR. Some are on artificial intelligence. And I find them all very interesting. But of course I haven’t read the remaining 250 pages and I would do that later at night. I went back to find Catherine. I knocked on her door and entered but found her talking to another guy. She asked me to return about half an hour later because she was having an appointment. I was really sorry and felt that I was a bit rude to barge in like that.
Half an hour later, I went to find her again and she was free. I apologized again for interrupting her conversation just now. Then I asked her about the resident card. She looked at my VISA and said that I need not do the card. Marie-Claude had made a mistake when she told me to get it done on my second day here. Catherine said that normally it would be those PhDs, researchers or foreigners who are getting a salary that need to do this resident card. And they would have to pay 200+ euros which would be paid in advance by IRISA. Hence for this 55 euros small little resident card, she said even if I really got it done, I won’t be able to get my money back. Luckily I asked. I wanted to actually just go down to the prefecture to get it done because Marie-Claude was not around. Glad that I hung on and persisted. Then I asked her about the London thing and she said she wasn’t sure because England is not part of Schengen. In the end it seemed like I still need to go down to the prefecture. She said I had done too much in doing my medical checkup, going to the prefecture last time. I told her at least now I knew I am healthy and had some experience with the administration. She agreed that the prefecture experience could be the worst part of any foreigner’s stay in France. She suggested that I bring along a French there if I am going down to ask about the VISA issue.
After 15 min or so when I was back in the office, Catherine came again and passed to me the temporary resident card that I had left on her desk. Really felt embarrassed to have troubled her because she is one of the big shots. But she was nice and spoke very good English. And she wasn’t very old. 40 at most. Then I began to think how long would it take for Mathilde to reach Catherine’s position. 50 years? Maybe 100 with her lousy English.
Then we talked about movies and I said I just watched “Bridget Jones Diary” last night and I think he would like the movie because of the thick British accent. And we also talked about “Billy Elliot” in which the actors had thick north England kind of accent. Since we were talking about north England, Julien said he got a DVD about Scotland and would lend it to me so that I can listen to some Scottish accent. I said Mel Gibson in Braveheart tried to pick up some Scottish accent and he sounded like an Indian. Then Laurent the pest who was tagging along all the while said he watched Braveheart too and loved the show. But he said he couldn’t listen to the Scottish accent because the movie was in French. Oh just shut up. Laurent asked me about the legal age for drinking and smoking and I said I wasn’t sure; perhaps 18. He said in France, for smoking it is 12. Gnn. Don’t be an idiot lah. How can be so young? I asked him sure or not and he said probably not that young. 16 maybe. Then he said it is extremely easy to get marijuana in parties here and he was offered one on Saturday while walking on the street. This I might believe him. But overall he is a dua kang giah still. Then he said he just bought a train ticket to Geneva to see some friends and it cost him more than the flight to Hungary which he told me last time. Wu Hiah Bo. Last time you told me the flight to Hungary is over 100 euros leh, xiao eh. The train cost 200 euros meh? He said the train will take 7 hrs from Rennes to Geneva. From Rennes to Paris, it would be around 30 euros, I guess. From Paris to Grenoble maybe around 50 euros and Grenoble to Geneva another 20 perhaps. And if he has the 12-25 card, everything would be halved. Maybe he took the lightning train instead of the bullet train TGV.
I spent minimum amount of time surfing the net and moved on to fix the bug in my codes. At around 3pm, I finally finished first part of the code, which was also the trickiest and would be able to present to my sup tomorrow. My intention was to complete everything by today but thought that should be enough. More than enough things to present to him. The 2nd part of the code would be much easier and perhaps I might even finish it tomorrow morning. Hence I went to borrow a DVD and buy my food tickets. When hui told me about those titles he had at his side, I just felt that my department was not up to date. But now, I suddenly see all these good DVDs coming out, like Matrix, Minority Report, Seven, etc. They were there all the time but it was just that I used to come at a lousier timing. In the end I got myself “Monster Inc”. After that I went to see Marie-Claude but again she wasn’t around and so I asked her colleague where she was. She said Marie-Claude is on vacation until 18th April. Kao. What about my VISA issue? She asked if it is very urgent and I said yes and so she referred me to this Catherine Tannoux. I looked at the name and found it familiar. This is the woman that signed the official letter to welcome my stay here. She is the big boss of the Personnel department I guess.
I went to look for her but her secretary asked me to return at 4pm. I went back and read the list of FYPs that I have to choose by 24th April. There were a lot of them and so I only took a glance at the first 10 pages. I had a rough idea what I wanted. Or rather what I do not want. No hardware. No networking. No database. No signals. That left me with fewer choices. In the end, I chose around 10 projects which interest me; mainly on graphics and VR. Some are on artificial intelligence. And I find them all very interesting. But of course I haven’t read the remaining 250 pages and I would do that later at night. I went back to find Catherine. I knocked on her door and entered but found her talking to another guy. She asked me to return about half an hour later because she was having an appointment. I was really sorry and felt that I was a bit rude to barge in like that.
Half an hour later, I went to find her again and she was free. I apologized again for interrupting her conversation just now. Then I asked her about the resident card. She looked at my VISA and said that I need not do the card. Marie-Claude had made a mistake when she told me to get it done on my second day here. Catherine said that normally it would be those PhDs, researchers or foreigners who are getting a salary that need to do this resident card. And they would have to pay 200+ euros which would be paid in advance by IRISA. Hence for this 55 euros small little resident card, she said even if I really got it done, I won’t be able to get my money back. Luckily I asked. I wanted to actually just go down to the prefecture to get it done because Marie-Claude was not around. Glad that I hung on and persisted. Then I asked her about the London thing and she said she wasn’t sure because England is not part of Schengen. In the end it seemed like I still need to go down to the prefecture. She said I had done too much in doing my medical checkup, going to the prefecture last time. I told her at least now I knew I am healthy and had some experience with the administration. She agreed that the prefecture experience could be the worst part of any foreigner’s stay in France. She suggested that I bring along a French there if I am going down to ask about the VISA issue.
After 15 min or so when I was back in the office, Catherine came again and passed to me the temporary resident card that I had left on her desk. Really felt embarrassed to have troubled her because she is one of the big shots. But she was nice and spoke very good English. And she wasn’t very old. 40 at most. Then I began to think how long would it take for Mathilde to reach Catherine’s position. 50 years? Maybe 100 with her lousy English.
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