This morning although there was no snow, the grass was coated with snow. It is not exactly snow actually. It seemed more like it had rained last night. And this morning, the rain drops on the grass all frozen into snow. It is like those doughnut coated with fine sugar. Or those kuay (cake) that have a layer of coconut on them. The roads were clean but everywhere else that was green had this kind of white coating on it. It was beautiful. I received an email from HX and she said that she found my blog interesting. I am happy that people are reading my blog now and then and it somehow makes me feel that I am not going through all these alone. Hui would definitely be reading my blog and I would read his too. Besides that, I think the only people reading it are my Hall 2 friends (and Carol of course). Thanks guys.
A while later, Mr. Giant came in and brought me his anime. But he said the last 2 episodes were missing and I was disappointed but didn’t show it. I don’t like to watch shows halfway without knowing the ending. Same for doing things. I don’t like to start something and not see it to the end. I would probably have “gan” him if he were my Singaporean friend. I sometimes have quite bad attitudes towards my friends. People lend me their things and yet I still want to “gan” them. Must change. Mr. Giant passed to me one extra DVD which is the movie. I think perhaps he felt “paiseh” also. At lunch, Jeremy left with his friend without asking me to go with him. He seemed to be more and more unfriendly recently. Don’t know why. Anyway, most of the guys were not around so I went for lunch alone. The restaurant was quite empty again. I had a quarter of a chicken and lots and lots of vege. The only vege they cook here is those soft leafy vege and is extremely slimy. But it is tasty as I only like to eat the leaves of the vege.
Back in office, I was surfing the net on info for my trip to St Malo this coming weekend. It seemed like the weather isn’t good but anyway I would still go. Anatole was finally back and came in to see me for awhile. He said he only had time to discuss with me in the late afternoon. So I spent the next 2 hrs amending my report and surfing the net. At 530pm, I decided to look for him and he said to give him 2 min as he was almost done with whatever he was doing. As an apology, he treated me to his chocolate mush mallow. When he finally came, I briefed him on all the things that I have done from last week till now. He was impressed that I had completed so much work within just a week. Moreover, he shot an arrow at me just last Friday and didn’t expect me to have some results on that. “Great work!” he said. At 630pm, he began to see all the demos of my simulations.
After that, came the bad news. He set out tasks for me all the way until 5th of April. Why is there a deadline? Because he would be on holiday from 5th March till 5th April!!! I would be on my own again! I tried not to show my surprise when he told me that he would not be around for a month. Ever since I came here, I have only seen him like 4 or 5 times. Anyway, no point grumbling and I have to learn to work independently. He laid out some options for me to choose. One: He would be around for another 2 more weeks before his vacation. So within the 2 weeks, both of us can fine-tune everything together and clear all the bugs, solve all the problems, etc. Then I would have to conduct 2 full experiments with 20 participants each. I have to do this on my own; getting people from IRISA, scheduling the experiments, brief them on the procedures, etc. Option Two: Both of us would solve part of the bugs, enough to do the first experiment. Then we would conduct one full experiment together with the 20 participants. And while during that month when he is away, I would solve the rest of the problems and conduct experiment 2 on my own. After I have done that, I should analyse the results and move on to implement some new ideas which he just briefed me. Lastly, if I have the time, I should begin think about how to write my paper. As it was already 7pm, he said we could discuss this tomorrow again. He was hoping that for the next few days we could finish with the fine-tuning and conduct the experiment next week. Then he changed his sentence “next few days” to “next day”, giving me a wicked smile.
I left the office slightly after 7pm with heavy burden suddenly piled on my shoulders. With great power comes great responsibilities. Haha, I must be thinking of the Spiderwoman I met on Sunday. With my supervisor on a long vacation, there would be no one to ask for help if I encounter problems because I think only he knows what I am doing. And since he is on holiday (going around Europe), I don’t think I can reach him via email. As I was thinking about this, something flew into my nose. Then my eyelashes caught something too. As I blinked away that something, I realized it was snowing! It was moderate snow but it was the heaviest so far. Normally there would just be snow showers, very tiny little flakes. The snow has really come too late when it should be here in January. And it came at a very wrong timing because now that I have begun traveling around in Bretagne, I don’t want to be caught in a snow. My mum said that it is super hot back in Singapore, with no rain for a long time. Spring is supposed to be here around 20 March. But it seemed like as we approach March, the weather is getting colder. Must be greenhouse effect.
Even though it was already quite late, I still decided to go to the mart because hui just gave me some idea to make simple dinners. The first thing I did in the mart was to look for pasta. There were some pasta but they come in ready made packets that had sauce added inside. Hence, they were very expensive. I didn’t see any pasta around besides that. All I could see are macaroni and spaghetti and some other French name products belonging to the same type of food. In the end, I bought a packet of pasta-looking thing called linguin but don’t know what it is. I also don’t know which are the pasta sauce because I couldn’t find the word “pasta” on them. In the end I bought a bottle of ketchup. Anyway, I love ketchup when I was a kid and even now. During lunch here, whenever I have fries, I would take ketchup while most of the people here take mayonnaise. Then I went to the wine section and looked for the cheapest wine. I really needed some alcohol to warm up my body as I always shiver out of bed in the middle of the night since last week. The cheapest was 1.85 euros for a 750ml 12% red wine. That is just about S$5. Hui said that at the Carrefour at his place, the cheapest was 0.47 euro.
On my way back, I realized I had forgotten to buy bread! But I was too tired to walk back and my hands were numbed due to the cold and the groceries were pretty heavy. Maybe I would come again tomorrow just to buy a loaf of bread. Back in INSA, there was a notice on the door of my residential building but I couldn’t understand it. There was a date written on it (tomorrow’s date in fact) and it was highlighted. It really is very inconvenient to live in France if you don’t know French language. These notices might be important and you might just miss them. And all my neighbours were gone this week. I really don’t know what is going on. Tomorrow I would go to the office and ask the lady about the notice as well as where are all the residents. From the dictionary, the notice seemed to say that there would be no water tomorrow in the morning and the afternoon but I wasn’t too sure about that because the dictionary isn’t very powerful. Some words couldn’t be found. But at least I know it is not a notice saying I must move out tomorrow. I had the kitchen all to myself as there was no one around. All the dustbins were empty and overturned, the chairs on the table, the pots and pans washed and are on the shelf. I really have to ask clearly tomorrow what is going on here.
A while later, Mr. Giant came in and brought me his anime. But he said the last 2 episodes were missing and I was disappointed but didn’t show it. I don’t like to watch shows halfway without knowing the ending. Same for doing things. I don’t like to start something and not see it to the end. I would probably have “gan” him if he were my Singaporean friend. I sometimes have quite bad attitudes towards my friends. People lend me their things and yet I still want to “gan” them. Must change. Mr. Giant passed to me one extra DVD which is the movie. I think perhaps he felt “paiseh” also. At lunch, Jeremy left with his friend without asking me to go with him. He seemed to be more and more unfriendly recently. Don’t know why. Anyway, most of the guys were not around so I went for lunch alone. The restaurant was quite empty again. I had a quarter of a chicken and lots and lots of vege. The only vege they cook here is those soft leafy vege and is extremely slimy. But it is tasty as I only like to eat the leaves of the vege.
Back in office, I was surfing the net on info for my trip to St Malo this coming weekend. It seemed like the weather isn’t good but anyway I would still go. Anatole was finally back and came in to see me for awhile. He said he only had time to discuss with me in the late afternoon. So I spent the next 2 hrs amending my report and surfing the net. At 530pm, I decided to look for him and he said to give him 2 min as he was almost done with whatever he was doing. As an apology, he treated me to his chocolate mush mallow. When he finally came, I briefed him on all the things that I have done from last week till now. He was impressed that I had completed so much work within just a week. Moreover, he shot an arrow at me just last Friday and didn’t expect me to have some results on that. “Great work!” he said. At 630pm, he began to see all the demos of my simulations.
After that, came the bad news. He set out tasks for me all the way until 5th of April. Why is there a deadline? Because he would be on holiday from 5th March till 5th April!!! I would be on my own again! I tried not to show my surprise when he told me that he would not be around for a month. Ever since I came here, I have only seen him like 4 or 5 times. Anyway, no point grumbling and I have to learn to work independently. He laid out some options for me to choose. One: He would be around for another 2 more weeks before his vacation. So within the 2 weeks, both of us can fine-tune everything together and clear all the bugs, solve all the problems, etc. Then I would have to conduct 2 full experiments with 20 participants each. I have to do this on my own; getting people from IRISA, scheduling the experiments, brief them on the procedures, etc. Option Two: Both of us would solve part of the bugs, enough to do the first experiment. Then we would conduct one full experiment together with the 20 participants. And while during that month when he is away, I would solve the rest of the problems and conduct experiment 2 on my own. After I have done that, I should analyse the results and move on to implement some new ideas which he just briefed me. Lastly, if I have the time, I should begin think about how to write my paper. As it was already 7pm, he said we could discuss this tomorrow again. He was hoping that for the next few days we could finish with the fine-tuning and conduct the experiment next week. Then he changed his sentence “next few days” to “next day”, giving me a wicked smile.
I left the office slightly after 7pm with heavy burden suddenly piled on my shoulders. With great power comes great responsibilities. Haha, I must be thinking of the Spiderwoman I met on Sunday. With my supervisor on a long vacation, there would be no one to ask for help if I encounter problems because I think only he knows what I am doing. And since he is on holiday (going around Europe), I don’t think I can reach him via email. As I was thinking about this, something flew into my nose. Then my eyelashes caught something too. As I blinked away that something, I realized it was snowing! It was moderate snow but it was the heaviest so far. Normally there would just be snow showers, very tiny little flakes. The snow has really come too late when it should be here in January. And it came at a very wrong timing because now that I have begun traveling around in Bretagne, I don’t want to be caught in a snow. My mum said that it is super hot back in Singapore, with no rain for a long time. Spring is supposed to be here around 20 March. But it seemed like as we approach March, the weather is getting colder. Must be greenhouse effect.
Even though it was already quite late, I still decided to go to the mart because hui just gave me some idea to make simple dinners. The first thing I did in the mart was to look for pasta. There were some pasta but they come in ready made packets that had sauce added inside. Hence, they were very expensive. I didn’t see any pasta around besides that. All I could see are macaroni and spaghetti and some other French name products belonging to the same type of food. In the end, I bought a packet of pasta-looking thing called linguin but don’t know what it is. I also don’t know which are the pasta sauce because I couldn’t find the word “pasta” on them. In the end I bought a bottle of ketchup. Anyway, I love ketchup when I was a kid and even now. During lunch here, whenever I have fries, I would take ketchup while most of the people here take mayonnaise. Then I went to the wine section and looked for the cheapest wine. I really needed some alcohol to warm up my body as I always shiver out of bed in the middle of the night since last week. The cheapest was 1.85 euros for a 750ml 12% red wine. That is just about S$5. Hui said that at the Carrefour at his place, the cheapest was 0.47 euro.
On my way back, I realized I had forgotten to buy bread! But I was too tired to walk back and my hands were numbed due to the cold and the groceries were pretty heavy. Maybe I would come again tomorrow just to buy a loaf of bread. Back in INSA, there was a notice on the door of my residential building but I couldn’t understand it. There was a date written on it (tomorrow’s date in fact) and it was highlighted. It really is very inconvenient to live in France if you don’t know French language. These notices might be important and you might just miss them. And all my neighbours were gone this week. I really don’t know what is going on. Tomorrow I would go to the office and ask the lady about the notice as well as where are all the residents. From the dictionary, the notice seemed to say that there would be no water tomorrow in the morning and the afternoon but I wasn’t too sure about that because the dictionary isn’t very powerful. Some words couldn’t be found. But at least I know it is not a notice saying I must move out tomorrow. I had the kitchen all to myself as there was no one around. All the dustbins were empty and overturned, the chairs on the table, the pots and pans washed and are on the shelf. I really have to ask clearly tomorrow what is going on here.
No comments:
Post a Comment