Today marks the start of spring in Rennes because it was really quite warm. I shall talk more about the weather later. My first customer for the day was half an hour late and came at 1030am. He was also a friend of Jeremy. Although he was late, I found him quite patient as he finished the 285 trials without complain. Now my office is getting more and more crowded. Initially there were just me, Ahad and Jeremy. Sometimes Ahad would bring a guest or two to come and look at his works, just like today. Then came another student, friend of Jeremy also, using a free PC. I recognized that he did my experiment before and was that mousy, grumpy guy. He really looked like a mouse with a pointed nose and mouth. It was lunchtime, and Jaroslav came and “jio” me. I really like this new friend because he speaks very good English and is funny. And his voice is deep and has a bassy laugh. Sounds a lot like Yicheng, my superman friend. He said that I should ask Kadi (a lao jiao in the team) about getting French lessons in Rennes because he heard that IRISA actually pays for PhD students for such courses. And he said that not only can I learn French for free and break the monotonous cycle of just coming to work, I can also meet other foreigners too. I didn’t feel like going for the course because after almost 2 months now, I am beginning to feel that the end of the IA is coming soon, esp. when I am already planning the tour. In the end, I still went to find out about the course and learnt that IRISA only pays for foreign PhD students or researchers and not trainees like me.
During lunch, we were talking about Japan because both Jaroslav and Mathieu had been there before. And we were talking about their cultures and Mathieu was more familiar with Japan than I do because he had been there for a 2-month training and also went there on another occasion to visit his cousin. Until now, I still can’t believe that his cousin is acting in Japanese drama. We were still talking about Japan after lunch and we decided to continue our conversation in the cafeteria. This was the first time I have been to the cafeteria. I told Mathieu that my access card has no credit and he said it’s ok, his card has. I said I would pay him back and he looked surprised and said no no. In the end, it was Jaroslav who paid for all 3 coffee. Jaroslav and Mathieu were talking about their adventures when climbing Mt Fuji, going to the hot spring, etc and it really made me want to go Japan. There are so many places I want to go now ever since I came here. I wanted to go Greece, Mexico after meeting Rodrigo, and now Japan. Also, if possible, I would like to go Prague, because everyone says that it is a must-go if you are going to Europe. Furthermore, I found out today that Jaroslav is from Czech Republic. That explains his name as well as his good English. He had studied French for 4 years before coming to France and that’s why he speaks fluent French too. He said that he had been to all of Brittainy but nowhere else outside ever since he came to France. Then our conversation went back to Japan, and Jaroslav said that he was lost in Northern Japan and no one speaks English at all. He said in Tokyo it was alright as people can speak English. In northern Japan, he was completely helpless when trying to find the youth hostel. Luckily, he met a Japanese man who can speak English and drove him there. I told him you always meet good people when you are lost. I experienced the same thing in Carnac.
Jaroslav said he couldn’t agree less with me; “you always meet good people when you are lost”. At 130pm, we all think it was time for work and left the cafeteria. First thing tomorrow morning would be to go to the admin office and credit my access card. I think I would visit the cafeteria in future. But I would only do so if the lunchtime party is small, so that I would be more involved in the conversation. As we walked back to the corridor, we were still chatting in English. Kadi saw us and asked Mathieu why is he speaking in English and not French in a stern but joking tone. I laughed and he turned and said to me that I must speak French in one month time if not I would be fired. I told Jaro and Mat that they must help me from now on. I think my French has somewhat improved a little bit but still considered very poor. Really have to buck up from now on but not much time left either.
At 2pm, my pretty customer Marie came. She had freckles all over her face and couldn’t speak English well. I find that the girls do not speak English as well as the guys, but they are the cutest when they are looking up at the ceiling, constructing the sentences in their minds. I would always look at them and although I roughly knew what they are going to say, I refuse to help them until they give up thinking and look back at me helplessly. While filling up the questionnaire, there is a question asking the participant if they have problems in their perceptions. Marie wrote “problem visualizing 3D” and told me that is the problem of every girl. I couldn’t help but laugh at her because she sounded as if it is the same problem as PMS. Haha. But she didn’t know what I was laughing about and laughed with me, thinking that she had told me a good joke. Throughout the experiment, Mr. Mouse was looking at her and I was afraid that she might be distracted. I mean, you would tend to be nervous when someone is staring at what you were doing. And this Mr. Mouse obviously wasn’t really interested on what the experiment was about since he already gone through the same thing. After the experiment, as usual I needed some feedback from the participant, although this time I took a little bit longer talking with her. Mr. Mouse then began to talk loudly on his cellphone and he wasn’t speaking in French I guess; think he is an Arabian. His voice was so distracting that poor Marie, who already had a hard time speaking in English, almost broke down. In the end, I invited her out of the room and we chatted at the corridor. Mr. Mouse is a nuisance.
My next participant who was another friend of Jeremy, was supposed to come at 3pm. At 330pm, I went to find him and he said he would be going for coffee break now and would come back and do the exp later. At 4pm, my last participant who was the buddy of the 3pm guy, came and I told him sorry I have to conduct the exp for him tomorrow because his dear friend is still having his coffee break. I simply cannot tolerate such irresponsibility. Doesn’t he know that his action would disrupt my time schedule for the day? Sometimes, people say I am being too particular and “geh gao” but I don’t think so. I just feel that everyone should have some sort of self-discipline. Later I heard that this batch of masters students (Jeremy and gang) just got their results today and perhaps that was why the guy was late because he was too excited. Still it was no excuse for me.
Tomorrow, I would have 2 more participants and I would need just 3 more people to complete the entire task. However, I don’t intend to dig out that last 3 because I am left with just one exp for them which is the most meaningless one among the 3 exp that I have. I really feel that this exp is redundant or needed more modifications. So if these 3 people suddenly drop from the sky, I would go ahead and run the exp. If not, I shall leave it as it is and explain to Anatole that it is pointless to carry on that particular exp. I decided to call it a day as it was passed 5pm and I had to do my grocery today. Also because it was hot in the office now. The office has no aircon but only heater and at 18 degrees (record high), some of the guys are removing their sweaters and wearing just their t-shirts. Outside the building, the weather was cooling and not cold. I went to the multimedia centre first to upload my blog and I saw a girl wearing sleeveless. After I had uploaded my blog, I decided not to put on my coat and walked out of the building. With just my sweater, I wasn’t feeling cold at all! I felt great and thought I was being “heroic” by just wearing the sweater. Then I saw a man wearing just his t-shirt!
I had to walk for 3km to reach Leader Price but it wasn’t tiring because I left my coat in my room. Without the coat, my body felt much lighter; almost like Wukong and Kelin when they took off their turtle shells in Dragonball. At Leader Price, I bought a lot of stuffs and exceeded my budget of 10 euros. But I felt quite shiok as these things would last me 2 to 4 weeks, like the 1kg spaghetti, 1kg of rice, gigantic cereal, eggs, canned food, bread, soup and biscuits. But what made me happiest was the 5 bars of soap that I bought. A sink without a bar of soap just doesn’t seem right. As I walked back with that 10kg worth of goods, I perspired a bit and thought that a good time to go to St Malo would be this week. I think I would observe the weather for the coming few days and if it remains like today, then St Malo it would be for this Sat trip.
During lunch, we were talking about Japan because both Jaroslav and Mathieu had been there before. And we were talking about their cultures and Mathieu was more familiar with Japan than I do because he had been there for a 2-month training and also went there on another occasion to visit his cousin. Until now, I still can’t believe that his cousin is acting in Japanese drama. We were still talking about Japan after lunch and we decided to continue our conversation in the cafeteria. This was the first time I have been to the cafeteria. I told Mathieu that my access card has no credit and he said it’s ok, his card has. I said I would pay him back and he looked surprised and said no no. In the end, it was Jaroslav who paid for all 3 coffee. Jaroslav and Mathieu were talking about their adventures when climbing Mt Fuji, going to the hot spring, etc and it really made me want to go Japan. There are so many places I want to go now ever since I came here. I wanted to go Greece, Mexico after meeting Rodrigo, and now Japan. Also, if possible, I would like to go Prague, because everyone says that it is a must-go if you are going to Europe. Furthermore, I found out today that Jaroslav is from Czech Republic. That explains his name as well as his good English. He had studied French for 4 years before coming to France and that’s why he speaks fluent French too. He said that he had been to all of Brittainy but nowhere else outside ever since he came to France. Then our conversation went back to Japan, and Jaroslav said that he was lost in Northern Japan and no one speaks English at all. He said in Tokyo it was alright as people can speak English. In northern Japan, he was completely helpless when trying to find the youth hostel. Luckily, he met a Japanese man who can speak English and drove him there. I told him you always meet good people when you are lost. I experienced the same thing in Carnac.
Jaroslav said he couldn’t agree less with me; “you always meet good people when you are lost”. At 130pm, we all think it was time for work and left the cafeteria. First thing tomorrow morning would be to go to the admin office and credit my access card. I think I would visit the cafeteria in future. But I would only do so if the lunchtime party is small, so that I would be more involved in the conversation. As we walked back to the corridor, we were still chatting in English. Kadi saw us and asked Mathieu why is he speaking in English and not French in a stern but joking tone. I laughed and he turned and said to me that I must speak French in one month time if not I would be fired. I told Jaro and Mat that they must help me from now on. I think my French has somewhat improved a little bit but still considered very poor. Really have to buck up from now on but not much time left either.
At 2pm, my pretty customer Marie came. She had freckles all over her face and couldn’t speak English well. I find that the girls do not speak English as well as the guys, but they are the cutest when they are looking up at the ceiling, constructing the sentences in their minds. I would always look at them and although I roughly knew what they are going to say, I refuse to help them until they give up thinking and look back at me helplessly. While filling up the questionnaire, there is a question asking the participant if they have problems in their perceptions. Marie wrote “problem visualizing 3D” and told me that is the problem of every girl. I couldn’t help but laugh at her because she sounded as if it is the same problem as PMS. Haha. But she didn’t know what I was laughing about and laughed with me, thinking that she had told me a good joke. Throughout the experiment, Mr. Mouse was looking at her and I was afraid that she might be distracted. I mean, you would tend to be nervous when someone is staring at what you were doing. And this Mr. Mouse obviously wasn’t really interested on what the experiment was about since he already gone through the same thing. After the experiment, as usual I needed some feedback from the participant, although this time I took a little bit longer talking with her. Mr. Mouse then began to talk loudly on his cellphone and he wasn’t speaking in French I guess; think he is an Arabian. His voice was so distracting that poor Marie, who already had a hard time speaking in English, almost broke down. In the end, I invited her out of the room and we chatted at the corridor. Mr. Mouse is a nuisance.
My next participant who was another friend of Jeremy, was supposed to come at 3pm. At 330pm, I went to find him and he said he would be going for coffee break now and would come back and do the exp later. At 4pm, my last participant who was the buddy of the 3pm guy, came and I told him sorry I have to conduct the exp for him tomorrow because his dear friend is still having his coffee break. I simply cannot tolerate such irresponsibility. Doesn’t he know that his action would disrupt my time schedule for the day? Sometimes, people say I am being too particular and “geh gao” but I don’t think so. I just feel that everyone should have some sort of self-discipline. Later I heard that this batch of masters students (Jeremy and gang) just got their results today and perhaps that was why the guy was late because he was too excited. Still it was no excuse for me.
Tomorrow, I would have 2 more participants and I would need just 3 more people to complete the entire task. However, I don’t intend to dig out that last 3 because I am left with just one exp for them which is the most meaningless one among the 3 exp that I have. I really feel that this exp is redundant or needed more modifications. So if these 3 people suddenly drop from the sky, I would go ahead and run the exp. If not, I shall leave it as it is and explain to Anatole that it is pointless to carry on that particular exp. I decided to call it a day as it was passed 5pm and I had to do my grocery today. Also because it was hot in the office now. The office has no aircon but only heater and at 18 degrees (record high), some of the guys are removing their sweaters and wearing just their t-shirts. Outside the building, the weather was cooling and not cold. I went to the multimedia centre first to upload my blog and I saw a girl wearing sleeveless. After I had uploaded my blog, I decided not to put on my coat and walked out of the building. With just my sweater, I wasn’t feeling cold at all! I felt great and thought I was being “heroic” by just wearing the sweater. Then I saw a man wearing just his t-shirt!
I had to walk for 3km to reach Leader Price but it wasn’t tiring because I left my coat in my room. Without the coat, my body felt much lighter; almost like Wukong and Kelin when they took off their turtle shells in Dragonball. At Leader Price, I bought a lot of stuffs and exceeded my budget of 10 euros. But I felt quite shiok as these things would last me 2 to 4 weeks, like the 1kg spaghetti, 1kg of rice, gigantic cereal, eggs, canned food, bread, soup and biscuits. But what made me happiest was the 5 bars of soap that I bought. A sink without a bar of soap just doesn’t seem right. As I walked back with that 10kg worth of goods, I perspired a bit and thought that a good time to go to St Malo would be this week. I think I would observe the weather for the coming few days and if it remains like today, then St Malo it would be for this Sat trip.
PS: Although the weather is improving, apparently people are getting sick and coughing in INSA as well as in the office. This morning, poor Amelie was coughing while bathing and she is still coughing now outside the corridor.
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