I must say yesterday I was indeed in a foul mood and said things that were unfair to Laurent. He isn’t really that irritating. A bit weird, different frequency, that’s all. In fact he is a very nice person. I need to correct myself here because I didn’t want to find myself reading this part many years later and think that I had been hanging out with an idiot with bad character. He is one with a good character. Anatole came around 11 and first thing he asked was how am I feeling right now. I said good and asked him did I sound that bad yesterday evening? He said yes. He can feel my tiredness. I told him I have made the adjustments to the code and showed him the results. He said good and told me to carry on with the fine-tuning. Lunch came very fast.
Now I no longer make my orders by pointing. I would make the effort to say in French despite how horrible my pronunciation is. And today we had a food that is the hardest to pronounce for me. “Carrot” because of the “r”. I had somewhat overcome the word “frites” after having so much fries for the past 2 months. At the table, they were talking about tomorrow night’s soccer and we are short of players. Anatole asked if I understood the conversation and I said little. They were saying Vincent seemed to be permanently out of action because of his injury. But he still dances Salsa at times. But I told him I couldn’t understand the part about “castles” and “Dinan” and that started the war between Paris and Brittany at the table.
Jean-Marie a.k.a. Jim Carrey is from Dinan, a little town north of Rennes. He was comparing the Castle of Dinan with the Castle of Versailles. I have been to Dinan and the Castle although is very old, cannot be compared with the one in Versailles which is so famous worldwide because of its grandeur. But he said the one in Dinan had knights last time while the one in Versailles was built after the Middle Age. And then he said the famous warrior Du Guesclin was from Dinan (for story of Du Guesclin, refer to the entry about Dinan trip). I told him I had a picture of his statue at this Place dunno what. He said yes that is a square commonly used as a meeting place. Frankly speaking, Jean-Marie’s English is rather poor but his “gao xiao gong li” wasn’t handicapped in any way. He wanted to say “everyone knew everyone else in Dinan” but he just lost his words and mumbled “you know, blop uh blop blop blop uh blop blop”. Anatole seized the opportunity to “suan” him by asking “what the hell is blop blop uh blop blop?” Jean-Marie then said, “what the fuck is your problem Parisian?” And then they were saying that there is a strong stereotyping of Parisian among the French in other areas. They feel that Parisians are snobbish, self-centred, etc. Jean-Marie said this is esp. obvious in the national TV and radio where all they talked about is how good Paris is, blah blah blah. He said the people in Brittany (who are called Bretons) have the strongest resentment because Brittany wasn’t part of France until after the Middle Age. They have their own language, culture, history, etc. The people leaving in St Malo which I had also been to, (refer to entry on St Malo to know the history) called themselves Malauist instead of French. When I asked if Brittany was unified with France after the Revolution, Jean-Marie immediately said it wasn’t unified; it was invaded.
Then they carried on saying that those Parisian cars that entered Brittany would be horned. They are easily identified because the last 2 digits on the number plate are 75 which is the department number of Paris. The worst would be those cars with number 92, which is the number for the rich suburban area near Paris. Jean-Marie was really hot on this topic because he and I seldom talk due to his not so good command of English. He said that Bretons would have continued to speak their own language if not for the law passed by the central government in Paris to forbid the speaking of Breton. He said the west part of Brittany (Finistere is the name for the sub-region) had the strongest attachment to Brittany. His wife is from that area. Even when the rest of the guys were preparing to leave, Jean-Marie still wanted to get the message across to me and said that the Paris meteorological forecast always says that Brittany rains everyday. He said that is unfair because there are sunny days too.
I went with them to the cafeteria although I had lots of work to do. But since I am already in the conversation, I shouldn’t just break away like this. Mr. Giant asked “why is my name Zhixian translated into Chee Hian?” and I told him the translation follows the dialect group of that individual. I then showed them my IC which has my dialect name, hanyu pingyin and Chinese character name. They were surprised that on the IC I have an attribute for race: Chinese. Because to the French, there is no notion of race at all. Only one human race. No skin color difference. If you are born in France, you are a French. This I was told by my French tutor last time. Then I roughly told them that in Mandarin we had 4 intonations to a word and I proudly demonstrated to them. Mr. Giant and Anatole got the idea. But Jean-Marie, the forever funny guy said that isn’t unique at all. For English or French it is the same. We were astonished by his new finding. He said the Irish, British, Scottish all speak English differently. Then we told him it is not the accent I was talking about. 4 different intonations all have different meanings but he still can’t get it. Then Anatole purposely pronounced the word “café” in two different ways (café and cafeee) and asked Jean-Marie does it mean that “café” means coffee and “cafeee” means “fromage” (cheese)? And then Jean-Marie said “oooh…I got it”. I told them Cantonese probably had more intonations. And Jean-Marie said it would be easier to learn Cantonese if one has a cold. “If you want to learn Cantonese, go get yourself sick”. He invented a slogan for that. During the conversation, I found out that Mr. Giant is from Lebanon. I know he isn’t from France but I didn’t know he is from the Middle East. Lebanon is a small country above Israel, in between Syria and Israel in fact. I find that in the past, I always found myself excluded in the conversation because they were all speaking French. But I realised that the problem lies with me because I would always look down and quietly eat my food. But if I lean forward and try to pay attention, I could catch something. Moreover, people would see that I am interested and most of the time someone would explain to me. Only about 2 months left now. Really have to make use of this little time to improve my French.
In the afternoon, Franck came with a pretty girl and said she is one of the students from University Rennes 2 and would like to help to do my exp. Wow great. An angel-looking participant just dropped from the sky. Franck said he could get for me about 5 or 6 more but if I really need some more, he can dig out for me. I really was grateful to him because this is only the 2nd time I had seen him in IRISA. But now I had a big problem. Anatole wanted me to change something to my program and that resulted in a bug which I still can’t fix till now. And I had about 10 participants ready to do the exp. Previously I had the exp ready but no one to do it. Now it is the other way round. I had to email to the participants that the exp had been put on hold and would contact them next week. Just when my mood was brightened up by Jean-Marie’s jokes, I now met an obstacle in my work. I worked till 630pm and thought I should stop work for the day and surf the net. After surfing for 2 minutes, I still can’t get the bug out of my mind and went back to work until 730pm. In the end I gave up and thought I should go back and rest. Tomorrow I would come early to try and solve the bug. I could have just relaxed and do at my own pace. But I didn’t want to keep the participants waiting. Moreover, as I mentioned, I hope to finish all the exp by May so that I can be in time to write the paper.
Back in INSA, I still couldn’t get the work off my mind and even thought of going back to the lab to fix the bug after I had my dinner. But I told myself I really shouldn’t push too hard. I had to tell myself that the delay in work isn’t because of my fault. It is my sup who kept changing things and coming up with more exp. I have already done my best. I no longer come to work at 10am, I came at 9am. I didn’t even have time to surf the net. And I worked till past 7pm. Although some of the guys do work at night in the lab, I just can’t compare myself to them because they are doing that for a living or are rushing their thesis. I am supposed to learn in the attachment. Not to work for the organization. Hence, with this change of mindset, I had a lighter mood now and after listening to lots of SYZ songs (thanks to hui who has been sending them to me thru gmail), I felt more relaxed. Tomorrow I will kill the bug. But for tonight, I am going to enjoy some animes.
PS: When I entered the kitchen, I almost slipped and fell. Luckily I was agile and regained my balance. But had my arm scratched against the wall and had some cuts. Some idiot had spilled oil onto the floor as well as the stove. I was carrying my rice and egg in a plastic bag and if I were to fall, that goes my food. After cursing and swearing at whoever that bastard was, I took the cloth and wiped the floor. Guess I am a still a good guy after all.
Now I no longer make my orders by pointing. I would make the effort to say in French despite how horrible my pronunciation is. And today we had a food that is the hardest to pronounce for me. “Carrot” because of the “r”. I had somewhat overcome the word “frites” after having so much fries for the past 2 months. At the table, they were talking about tomorrow night’s soccer and we are short of players. Anatole asked if I understood the conversation and I said little. They were saying Vincent seemed to be permanently out of action because of his injury. But he still dances Salsa at times. But I told him I couldn’t understand the part about “castles” and “Dinan” and that started the war between Paris and Brittany at the table.
Jean-Marie a.k.a. Jim Carrey is from Dinan, a little town north of Rennes. He was comparing the Castle of Dinan with the Castle of Versailles. I have been to Dinan and the Castle although is very old, cannot be compared with the one in Versailles which is so famous worldwide because of its grandeur. But he said the one in Dinan had knights last time while the one in Versailles was built after the Middle Age. And then he said the famous warrior Du Guesclin was from Dinan (for story of Du Guesclin, refer to the entry about Dinan trip). I told him I had a picture of his statue at this Place dunno what. He said yes that is a square commonly used as a meeting place. Frankly speaking, Jean-Marie’s English is rather poor but his “gao xiao gong li” wasn’t handicapped in any way. He wanted to say “everyone knew everyone else in Dinan” but he just lost his words and mumbled “you know, blop uh blop blop blop uh blop blop”. Anatole seized the opportunity to “suan” him by asking “what the hell is blop blop uh blop blop?” Jean-Marie then said, “what the fuck is your problem Parisian?” And then they were saying that there is a strong stereotyping of Parisian among the French in other areas. They feel that Parisians are snobbish, self-centred, etc. Jean-Marie said this is esp. obvious in the national TV and radio where all they talked about is how good Paris is, blah blah blah. He said the people in Brittany (who are called Bretons) have the strongest resentment because Brittany wasn’t part of France until after the Middle Age. They have their own language, culture, history, etc. The people leaving in St Malo which I had also been to, (refer to entry on St Malo to know the history) called themselves Malauist instead of French. When I asked if Brittany was unified with France after the Revolution, Jean-Marie immediately said it wasn’t unified; it was invaded.
Then they carried on saying that those Parisian cars that entered Brittany would be horned. They are easily identified because the last 2 digits on the number plate are 75 which is the department number of Paris. The worst would be those cars with number 92, which is the number for the rich suburban area near Paris. Jean-Marie was really hot on this topic because he and I seldom talk due to his not so good command of English. He said that Bretons would have continued to speak their own language if not for the law passed by the central government in Paris to forbid the speaking of Breton. He said the west part of Brittany (Finistere is the name for the sub-region) had the strongest attachment to Brittany. His wife is from that area. Even when the rest of the guys were preparing to leave, Jean-Marie still wanted to get the message across to me and said that the Paris meteorological forecast always says that Brittany rains everyday. He said that is unfair because there are sunny days too.
I went with them to the cafeteria although I had lots of work to do. But since I am already in the conversation, I shouldn’t just break away like this. Mr. Giant asked “why is my name Zhixian translated into Chee Hian?” and I told him the translation follows the dialect group of that individual. I then showed them my IC which has my dialect name, hanyu pingyin and Chinese character name. They were surprised that on the IC I have an attribute for race: Chinese. Because to the French, there is no notion of race at all. Only one human race. No skin color difference. If you are born in France, you are a French. This I was told by my French tutor last time. Then I roughly told them that in Mandarin we had 4 intonations to a word and I proudly demonstrated to them. Mr. Giant and Anatole got the idea. But Jean-Marie, the forever funny guy said that isn’t unique at all. For English or French it is the same. We were astonished by his new finding. He said the Irish, British, Scottish all speak English differently. Then we told him it is not the accent I was talking about. 4 different intonations all have different meanings but he still can’t get it. Then Anatole purposely pronounced the word “café” in two different ways (café and cafeee) and asked Jean-Marie does it mean that “café” means coffee and “cafeee” means “fromage” (cheese)? And then Jean-Marie said “oooh…I got it”. I told them Cantonese probably had more intonations. And Jean-Marie said it would be easier to learn Cantonese if one has a cold. “If you want to learn Cantonese, go get yourself sick”. He invented a slogan for that. During the conversation, I found out that Mr. Giant is from Lebanon. I know he isn’t from France but I didn’t know he is from the Middle East. Lebanon is a small country above Israel, in between Syria and Israel in fact. I find that in the past, I always found myself excluded in the conversation because they were all speaking French. But I realised that the problem lies with me because I would always look down and quietly eat my food. But if I lean forward and try to pay attention, I could catch something. Moreover, people would see that I am interested and most of the time someone would explain to me. Only about 2 months left now. Really have to make use of this little time to improve my French.
In the afternoon, Franck came with a pretty girl and said she is one of the students from University Rennes 2 and would like to help to do my exp. Wow great. An angel-looking participant just dropped from the sky. Franck said he could get for me about 5 or 6 more but if I really need some more, he can dig out for me. I really was grateful to him because this is only the 2nd time I had seen him in IRISA. But now I had a big problem. Anatole wanted me to change something to my program and that resulted in a bug which I still can’t fix till now. And I had about 10 participants ready to do the exp. Previously I had the exp ready but no one to do it. Now it is the other way round. I had to email to the participants that the exp had been put on hold and would contact them next week. Just when my mood was brightened up by Jean-Marie’s jokes, I now met an obstacle in my work. I worked till 630pm and thought I should stop work for the day and surf the net. After surfing for 2 minutes, I still can’t get the bug out of my mind and went back to work until 730pm. In the end I gave up and thought I should go back and rest. Tomorrow I would come early to try and solve the bug. I could have just relaxed and do at my own pace. But I didn’t want to keep the participants waiting. Moreover, as I mentioned, I hope to finish all the exp by May so that I can be in time to write the paper.
Back in INSA, I still couldn’t get the work off my mind and even thought of going back to the lab to fix the bug after I had my dinner. But I told myself I really shouldn’t push too hard. I had to tell myself that the delay in work isn’t because of my fault. It is my sup who kept changing things and coming up with more exp. I have already done my best. I no longer come to work at 10am, I came at 9am. I didn’t even have time to surf the net. And I worked till past 7pm. Although some of the guys do work at night in the lab, I just can’t compare myself to them because they are doing that for a living or are rushing their thesis. I am supposed to learn in the attachment. Not to work for the organization. Hence, with this change of mindset, I had a lighter mood now and after listening to lots of SYZ songs (thanks to hui who has been sending them to me thru gmail), I felt more relaxed. Tomorrow I will kill the bug. But for tonight, I am going to enjoy some animes.
PS: When I entered the kitchen, I almost slipped and fell. Luckily I was agile and regained my balance. But had my arm scratched against the wall and had some cuts. Some idiot had spilled oil onto the floor as well as the stove. I was carrying my rice and egg in a plastic bag and if I were to fall, that goes my food. After cursing and swearing at whoever that bastard was, I took the cloth and wiped the floor. Guess I am a still a good guy after all.
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