It seemed like I had finally settled down here. The truth is that life was becoming more unsettling. First it was the weather. When I first arrived at Paris, even though it was freezing cold, it was a new feeling and fascinating to see smoke coming out from our mouths. When I arrived at Rennes, the weather was just as cold and there was perpetual rain here. Yes, it rained 24/7 here. I had always been notorious back in Singapore to avoid the rain. I would bring an umbrella wherever I go, would rather walk the longer path as long as there is shelter. Many of my friends said that I was being “agua” but the truth is I would fall sick easily if caught in the rain. Now it seemed like it is hard not to be caught in a rain. Most of the walk ways had no shelter probably because the people here are so used to the rain. Even children walked around drenched in the rain. Suddenly I missed the sun back in Singapore.
Today was my first day of work. Anatole said that I could report at 10am, in fact he said that there was no fixed working hours, as long as I finished my work. However, it would be better if I come to work early for today because he would be away for the next 10 days and had to brief me on my work. So I left my room at 930am, thinking that I would be able to reach IRISA by 10am as I was told it would only be 10min on foot. In the end, I reached at 1020hrs instead.
With the map in my hand, I had to navigate around the campus to find IRISA. Being not very street-wise, I got disoriented a few times and had to ask for directions from a few people. Eventually I arrived at IRISA and I took another 10mins to find Anatole’s office. Before I talk about my job scope, let me briefly explain what kind of organization IRISA is. IRISA is a laboratory-based organization which consists of research scientists, PHD students and professors from INRIA, the national research centre, University of Rennes, and INSA, the engineering school in Rennes. Within IRISA, there are a few ongoing projects and I am in 1 of them called Project SIAMES.
In my team, there were about 30 people; each was specialized in a particular field. There was the computer graphics expert, the VR expert, the avatar expert, and of course the pseudo-haptic expert, Anatole Lecuyer. He came up with the idea of feeling different textures by using just the mouse, which is a passive input device. So when the cursor goes over a hole, it will accelerate and decelerates when running over a bump. A code had already been written on C++ by someone else and I am supposed to enhance this technique. It was really a mammoth task because the predecessor was a PHD student while I was just an undergrad. Moreover, his codes were written in French. All these were to be done in Linux environment.
After he had introduced me to almost everyone in the team, we had lunch together. Lunch time was my happiest moment because I get to eat some food. Back in my room, I had to ration my bread and biscuit. Here in IRISA, I paid only 2 euro per lunch (about $4 plus) and this was what I got for each meal: 1 staple food (rice or grain), 1 meat and 1 vege, 1 French loaf, some appetizer, fruits and yogurt. And of course plain water which was a luxury because people here don’t drink from the tap. They buy lots and lots of Evians for drinking. I can’t afford such money so I drank from the tap. During lunch, we discussed a bit on soccer and our cultural differences. Before I forgot, I had to use food ticket to buy my lunch and I bought 20 of them from the admin office. In that office, I could also borrow DVD to watch and top up credit into my access card. This card is used to access the IRISA building and also to buy food at the cafeteria. The place where I had my lunch is called a restaurant. Restaurants are similar to food courts in Singapore.
After lunch, Anatole asked if I would like to have coffee with him because he said that normally people here would go to the cafeteria after lunch. I said I would like to go back and send some emails. Actually, I did not want to spend that kind of money. So that was almost all about my work. I just hope that within the 10 days, I would be able to grasp all the concepts and understand my job scope fully so that when Anatole returned, I had some results to show. And I forgot to mention about Mathilde! I saw her again and still as lovely as yesterday. I was not sure about her figure because here everyone wore thick sweater in the office. But still her boobs were quite visible and her angel-like face really brightened up my face. Her English wasn’t good so whenever she had to speak to me, she would flush when she got stuck with her words. She was damn cute. And hot.
In my hostel, we had both guys and girls staying along the same corridor. Big deal you might say. Well we shared the same toilet and bathroom facilities! So what perhaps. But this morning I saw a man with only his brief walking out of the bathing area. Wow! A few moment later, I saw a woman clutching her wet towel and said “Bon jour!” to me! This is ridiculous! Ridiculously good I meant. I had not made any friends yet and I doubt I would make one because all of them speak French only. Except for a French girl called Amelie staying adjacent to my room. She spoke English pretty well as she studied in UK before. But I seldom see her. In fact I seldom see anyone along my corridor. Anyway I was damn tired that day and slept at 8pm till the morning. Jetlag.
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