Today really is all about work and it would be as such for the whole of next week. Yesterday, I dropped an email to my supervisor telling him the problems that I encountered. This morning I received his mail and in just one line, he solved 50% of it! Although he did mentioned that the problems are tricky, I still felt bad about not solving them myself. I told hui that I don’t deserve the 858 euros that I am getting here per month because I couldn’t solve the problem and he said that don’t worry; my sup probably is getting many times more than me and he might have seen that sort of problem before. We are too inexperienced as compared to them. Still I felt that I blew a chance of impressing my superior because although the problem was difficult, the solution wasn’t. And I should have thought harder before asking him. Instead, my thoughts went the other way. Never mind, I would have the whole of next week to prove my worth here.
I spent the entire morning implementing the code with Anatole’s new solution and when it was lunch, I went to look for him. Too bad, he can’t have lunch with me because he needed to discuss some things with Stephen. So I went on to “jio” the same company again. It is always better to eat with my sup because: firstly, I can constantly talk in English; secondly, I can eat my food slowly, thirdly, with more communication, he would understand me more. So when it comes to assessment in the end, my work would not be the only factor to be taken into consideration. So would be my personality. But glad that so far, I have been leaving quite a good impression; err… I guessed. And I really try to speak good English here without any elements of Singlish like lah, leh, lor. I do this so that I can communicate more effectively which is vital because the time I spent here with the guys is really too short for them to judge my character. So whenever I am given the opportunity to speak and talk about myself, I seek to put up my best performance. Of course I wasn’t trying to “sell” or promote myself, but I just wanted to project the best image of me to them.
The auntie (or madame as used in France) serving me the food is a very nice lady. By now she would have recognized me because I am the only one who points at the food rather then calling their names when making order. She would every time reconfirm my food by saying its name and I would repeat after her. So today I learnt that salmon is called saumon and I had a large piece of that. Yummy. But the vege was yucky because it was long beans and I hated that. But still I chose it instead of fries which now I am getting quite sick of. We were talking a bit about tomorrow’s game and we guessed it would be cancelled because according to Mr. Weatherman, it would be rainy these few days. Sigh, guess I would have to find other programs tomorrow. But I really hope next week would be super sunny because I really couldn’t wait any longer and am very eager to go to St Malo. Nicholas would be going to Venice with his gf tomorrow and they were talking about rowing the boat on the river and meeting Italian mafias. So romantic! I guessed that is his plan for V Day which falls on next Monday. And I managed to take a glimpse of that poem and this is the new line I memorized: “Ils n’ont pas le destin des pierres.” “They do not have the destinies of the stones.”
In the afternoon, Jeremy came for a short while and I chatted a bit with him. He said going to Mont St Michel is a bit more troublesome because from the train station, I still have to take a bus to reach there. He wasn’t too sure on how to get there by public transport because he drove. He said going to St Malo is much easier. Then I asked how old he is (in French… but was later corrected by him) and he said 24. My first impression was he must be damn smart to be doing his masters at age of 24. But he said he took his time and the average age is 22. So I felt inferior because I am already 23 but am just an undergrad. Then I realized that the systems are different. We have to serve 2.5 yrs of National Service while they just serve 1 day. But from what I know, most Singaporean would not continue to do masters after getting their honors but would rather go out and work first. Here, it seemed like those who finish their university studies would definitely continue on with their masters. I do hear that our honors are equivalent to masters in some overseas universities. Whether I am right or wrong, it doesn’t really matter for the time being.
At around 3pm, Anatole came to see my demo and to discuss with me my work next week. But he had only 20 min to spare. He tried the simulation and was pretty excited and said it was excellent. However, the more he tried, the more perturbed he became. It wasn’t the technique that he was unhappy about. The technique was correct and it just needed some fine-tuning. What he was worrying about was that the entire experiment might not be very useful. The simulation technique although is right, it might not serve the purpose of the experiment he had in mind. Nonetheless, he said I should proceed on but he needed a longer discussion with me. This might mean that my entire job scope would have to be changed. I am ok with that as long as I am given the full picture of what I am supposed to do. Before he left, he set out some tasks to keep me occupied next week (for he wouldn’t be around). I have to fine-tune the code. I have to get someone (probably Sebestian because he knows my work) to try out the simulation and give me some comments. Then I would have to find someone along the corridor (probably Sebestian again or Mathieu) to run the entire experiment which would be test running the simulation 285 times. In the end, I would look at the results and draw some conclusions. If I have time left (which my sup think I should have), I would have to explore other techniques besides the one that I am doing. So… next week would be fully dedicated to work I guessed but I would still take some time off for personal stuff like surfing the net to find out more about the places of interest. Well, I don’t mind the hard work as long as next Sunday doesn’t rain. Please give me lots and lots of sunshine!
I spent the entire morning implementing the code with Anatole’s new solution and when it was lunch, I went to look for him. Too bad, he can’t have lunch with me because he needed to discuss some things with Stephen. So I went on to “jio” the same company again. It is always better to eat with my sup because: firstly, I can constantly talk in English; secondly, I can eat my food slowly, thirdly, with more communication, he would understand me more. So when it comes to assessment in the end, my work would not be the only factor to be taken into consideration. So would be my personality. But glad that so far, I have been leaving quite a good impression; err… I guessed. And I really try to speak good English here without any elements of Singlish like lah, leh, lor. I do this so that I can communicate more effectively which is vital because the time I spent here with the guys is really too short for them to judge my character. So whenever I am given the opportunity to speak and talk about myself, I seek to put up my best performance. Of course I wasn’t trying to “sell” or promote myself, but I just wanted to project the best image of me to them.
The auntie (or madame as used in France) serving me the food is a very nice lady. By now she would have recognized me because I am the only one who points at the food rather then calling their names when making order. She would every time reconfirm my food by saying its name and I would repeat after her. So today I learnt that salmon is called saumon and I had a large piece of that. Yummy. But the vege was yucky because it was long beans and I hated that. But still I chose it instead of fries which now I am getting quite sick of. We were talking a bit about tomorrow’s game and we guessed it would be cancelled because according to Mr. Weatherman, it would be rainy these few days. Sigh, guess I would have to find other programs tomorrow. But I really hope next week would be super sunny because I really couldn’t wait any longer and am very eager to go to St Malo. Nicholas would be going to Venice with his gf tomorrow and they were talking about rowing the boat on the river and meeting Italian mafias. So romantic! I guessed that is his plan for V Day which falls on next Monday. And I managed to take a glimpse of that poem and this is the new line I memorized: “Ils n’ont pas le destin des pierres.” “They do not have the destinies of the stones.”
In the afternoon, Jeremy came for a short while and I chatted a bit with him. He said going to Mont St Michel is a bit more troublesome because from the train station, I still have to take a bus to reach there. He wasn’t too sure on how to get there by public transport because he drove. He said going to St Malo is much easier. Then I asked how old he is (in French… but was later corrected by him) and he said 24. My first impression was he must be damn smart to be doing his masters at age of 24. But he said he took his time and the average age is 22. So I felt inferior because I am already 23 but am just an undergrad. Then I realized that the systems are different. We have to serve 2.5 yrs of National Service while they just serve 1 day. But from what I know, most Singaporean would not continue to do masters after getting their honors but would rather go out and work first. Here, it seemed like those who finish their university studies would definitely continue on with their masters. I do hear that our honors are equivalent to masters in some overseas universities. Whether I am right or wrong, it doesn’t really matter for the time being.
At around 3pm, Anatole came to see my demo and to discuss with me my work next week. But he had only 20 min to spare. He tried the simulation and was pretty excited and said it was excellent. However, the more he tried, the more perturbed he became. It wasn’t the technique that he was unhappy about. The technique was correct and it just needed some fine-tuning. What he was worrying about was that the entire experiment might not be very useful. The simulation technique although is right, it might not serve the purpose of the experiment he had in mind. Nonetheless, he said I should proceed on but he needed a longer discussion with me. This might mean that my entire job scope would have to be changed. I am ok with that as long as I am given the full picture of what I am supposed to do. Before he left, he set out some tasks to keep me occupied next week (for he wouldn’t be around). I have to fine-tune the code. I have to get someone (probably Sebestian because he knows my work) to try out the simulation and give me some comments. Then I would have to find someone along the corridor (probably Sebestian again or Mathieu) to run the entire experiment which would be test running the simulation 285 times. In the end, I would look at the results and draw some conclusions. If I have time left (which my sup think I should have), I would have to explore other techniques besides the one that I am doing. So… next week would be fully dedicated to work I guessed but I would still take some time off for personal stuff like surfing the net to find out more about the places of interest. Well, I don’t mind the hard work as long as next Sunday doesn’t rain. Please give me lots and lots of sunshine!
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