The weather now was getting colder and I had to wear socks when I go to bed. I woke up with a blocked nose, something that I feared most. Normally I don’t wake up so early at 730am but today I had to go to the prefecture to do my resident permit. Despite the cold, I still took a bath in the morning. Although I didn’t sweat much here, I think it is still very unhygienic if I don’t bathe everyday. Apparently the people did not bathe or go to the toilet because my room was just next to the toilets and seldom there were people walking by. Shitting in the morning was also quite difficult. Not that I had constipation, but the seat was icy cold. Poor bum!
I boarded the bus at 830am sharp. One thing I needed to compliment here was the bus system called STAR. It was very efficient and punctual. Remembered I mentioned that when I first boarded the STAR, I did not punch my tickets? Today I took the ticket out and reused them so I had free rides today. Normally the peak hours of the traffic were in the morning and it was as such here. Although there were more cars on the road and more commuters, it was not considered crowded. I guessed with a population of just 350,000 and a third of them students, the city was rather quiet. As I mentioned before, most cars here were European-made but I did saw a Nissan today. Quite a surprise.
Half an hour later, I arrived at the Prefecture and had I not been warned before hand by Madam Marie-Claude (I finally got her name right, the Nice Woman), I would be shocked by the queues. I didn’t know which queue to go to, and asked for direction from the counter and as usual, no one understood me. So I just took a ticket and went to queue at the “Etranger” section which meant “foreigner”. Thinking that all my previous “missions” had been completed without much problem, I thought this would be no exception. I was wrong. Firstly, I did not know if I was in the correct queue. Secondly, I wasn’t sure if the documents that I prepared were sufficient. Thirdly, I was afraid that the lady at the counter could not speak English. I began to feel frighten.
Then I saw some people photocopying their documents and I decided to do likewise. It cost 0.15 cent euro per piece. After waiting for a while, I was feeling more and more uneasy and asked some young people for help. Now whenever I had to ask for help in English, I would approach young people because chances are, they would be able to speak a little bit. So they told me that what I had been doing was correct and I waited there happily. After what seemed like 2 hrs or so, it still wasn’t my turn.
My ticket number was 009 and there was a Muslim lady with number 006 and she was not attended to also. There were other people holding another kind of blue ticket and were given priority over us. I could do nothing but only wait. I would wait for the Muslim lady to be served first then decide what to do if it still wasn’t my turn. Here in France, it doesn’t matter what your ethnic or skin color is. As long as you speak French, you will be treated different. Or should I say as long as you don’t speak French, you will be treated differently. When my patience was running out, a tall elegant French lady came and sat beside me. Tres beau! (Very beautiful)
It was finally my turn and the first thing I said to the lady at the counter was, “Sorry I can’t speak French.” I almost felt apologetic for not speaking their language. But it wasn’t my fault. Still I had to be like that because if I demand them to speak English, I must be looking for trouble. Anyway, she answered “D’accord,” (okay) and I thought well that meant she speaks English. In the end, she still spoke French and I spoke English. I presented my papers to her and she said that it was insufficient. She needed my birth certificate and the IRISA letter was no good. I guessed she felt that it was not enough because the letter was in English.
In the end, I told her to write down all the needed documents and I would go back and ask Mathilde. This meant that I had to return to the prefecture again when I had all the required papers. Damn it! So I took the bus back to office and it was near lunch now. In my office, there were just me and another Iranian guy whom I had never seen since day 1. He was in his 50s I guessed and very friendly. He spoke very lousy English but good French. By the way his name was Ahad Yaridad. It felt good to have someone in the room to talk to even though we had language barrier. He was like an elder to me, telling me that it was good that I come to gain experience and shared with me his own experiences when he first came. I guessed he must have a more difficult time then I do because he can’t even speak English. He had been here for 3 years.
It was lunch soon and some of the colleagues asked me to join them. Hooray, finally I saw some acceptance here! But I was puzzled why they never “jio” Ahad. Throughout the lunch, I could not understand a single thing (wanted to say a single shit but better not. Must show some respect to the French) of what they were talking. I thought of Dora again and she mentioned that during lunch, she would just sit there and smile dumbly. That was what I was doing. But I didn’t mind because if I eat with them everyday, soon they would start talking to me or maybe I could pick up their language faster. Lunch was most filling today because I had lots of rice and am still belching now. I used to hate eating rice especially hard ones but now, things had changed. While they chit chatted, I also observed how they eat their food like cutting the French loaf and spreading it with butter and so on. I was afraid they might stop “jioing” me for lunch because I was a bit uneasy at the table.
On our way back to the office, I chatted a while with Matthieu and he was a nice guy too. In fact everyone here seemed to be pretty nice. Then they went to the cafeteria but I didn’t want to join them. Back in the office, Ahad chatted with me and asked if I would like to help another guy defend his doctorate. I declined because my first and foremost commitment should be to my supervisor. Also I don’t think I can cope with that much of work. I was very thankful that Ahad offered to help improve my French but I was also wary of him. It seemed like he did not have many friends here and was not close with the guys here. Better to be on my guard.
In the afternoon I went to look for Mathilde to tell her my adventure at the Prefecture. She said that she would help me with some of the required documents and gave me the fax number to which my brother can fax my birth certificate over. I was hoping she would offer to go with me to the Prefecture. Fat dream. Even though she spoke poor English, it was always good to be with her. However, she doesn’t have that kind of fragrant that girls in Singapore have when I am near them. The French girls on the bus had no smell on them too. Hence I think my speculation of French do not bathe frequently was correct.
At 430pm I left the office because I needed to call home and ask my brother to fax me my birth cert. whenever, I needed to call home, I had to take into consideration the 7 hours of time lag. It was the first time I spoke to him since I arrived here and he still sounded as hostile as before. Bad brother! By the way, I get to leave the office at anytime I wanted according to Anatole, unlike Hui who could only go at 6pm. But I guessed when Anatole returned, I would “wanyang” abit and stay until 530pm. I guessed Hui was having a harder time than I do because apparently his current living environment was not very conducive. He said he had to carry his laptop, mp3 player, camera and 500 euro cash to work everyday because the door to his room could be broken into with just one kick. Even his supervisor said that he would find him another place after he saw the condition there. But I guessed he should not be too lonely at work because another of his supervisor was a Singaporean who graduated from NTU also. However, till to date, I had not heard Hui mentioning about him. Perhaps I would ask him tomorrow.
I boarded the bus at 830am sharp. One thing I needed to compliment here was the bus system called STAR. It was very efficient and punctual. Remembered I mentioned that when I first boarded the STAR, I did not punch my tickets? Today I took the ticket out and reused them so I had free rides today. Normally the peak hours of the traffic were in the morning and it was as such here. Although there were more cars on the road and more commuters, it was not considered crowded. I guessed with a population of just 350,000 and a third of them students, the city was rather quiet. As I mentioned before, most cars here were European-made but I did saw a Nissan today. Quite a surprise.
Half an hour later, I arrived at the Prefecture and had I not been warned before hand by Madam Marie-Claude (I finally got her name right, the Nice Woman), I would be shocked by the queues. I didn’t know which queue to go to, and asked for direction from the counter and as usual, no one understood me. So I just took a ticket and went to queue at the “Etranger” section which meant “foreigner”. Thinking that all my previous “missions” had been completed without much problem, I thought this would be no exception. I was wrong. Firstly, I did not know if I was in the correct queue. Secondly, I wasn’t sure if the documents that I prepared were sufficient. Thirdly, I was afraid that the lady at the counter could not speak English. I began to feel frighten.
Then I saw some people photocopying their documents and I decided to do likewise. It cost 0.15 cent euro per piece. After waiting for a while, I was feeling more and more uneasy and asked some young people for help. Now whenever I had to ask for help in English, I would approach young people because chances are, they would be able to speak a little bit. So they told me that what I had been doing was correct and I waited there happily. After what seemed like 2 hrs or so, it still wasn’t my turn.
My ticket number was 009 and there was a Muslim lady with number 006 and she was not attended to also. There were other people holding another kind of blue ticket and were given priority over us. I could do nothing but only wait. I would wait for the Muslim lady to be served first then decide what to do if it still wasn’t my turn. Here in France, it doesn’t matter what your ethnic or skin color is. As long as you speak French, you will be treated different. Or should I say as long as you don’t speak French, you will be treated differently. When my patience was running out, a tall elegant French lady came and sat beside me. Tres beau! (Very beautiful)
It was finally my turn and the first thing I said to the lady at the counter was, “Sorry I can’t speak French.” I almost felt apologetic for not speaking their language. But it wasn’t my fault. Still I had to be like that because if I demand them to speak English, I must be looking for trouble. Anyway, she answered “D’accord,” (okay) and I thought well that meant she speaks English. In the end, she still spoke French and I spoke English. I presented my papers to her and she said that it was insufficient. She needed my birth certificate and the IRISA letter was no good. I guessed she felt that it was not enough because the letter was in English.
In the end, I told her to write down all the needed documents and I would go back and ask Mathilde. This meant that I had to return to the prefecture again when I had all the required papers. Damn it! So I took the bus back to office and it was near lunch now. In my office, there were just me and another Iranian guy whom I had never seen since day 1. He was in his 50s I guessed and very friendly. He spoke very lousy English but good French. By the way his name was Ahad Yaridad. It felt good to have someone in the room to talk to even though we had language barrier. He was like an elder to me, telling me that it was good that I come to gain experience and shared with me his own experiences when he first came. I guessed he must have a more difficult time then I do because he can’t even speak English. He had been here for 3 years.
It was lunch soon and some of the colleagues asked me to join them. Hooray, finally I saw some acceptance here! But I was puzzled why they never “jio” Ahad. Throughout the lunch, I could not understand a single thing (wanted to say a single shit but better not. Must show some respect to the French) of what they were talking. I thought of Dora again and she mentioned that during lunch, she would just sit there and smile dumbly. That was what I was doing. But I didn’t mind because if I eat with them everyday, soon they would start talking to me or maybe I could pick up their language faster. Lunch was most filling today because I had lots of rice and am still belching now. I used to hate eating rice especially hard ones but now, things had changed. While they chit chatted, I also observed how they eat their food like cutting the French loaf and spreading it with butter and so on. I was afraid they might stop “jioing” me for lunch because I was a bit uneasy at the table.
On our way back to the office, I chatted a while with Matthieu and he was a nice guy too. In fact everyone here seemed to be pretty nice. Then they went to the cafeteria but I didn’t want to join them. Back in the office, Ahad chatted with me and asked if I would like to help another guy defend his doctorate. I declined because my first and foremost commitment should be to my supervisor. Also I don’t think I can cope with that much of work. I was very thankful that Ahad offered to help improve my French but I was also wary of him. It seemed like he did not have many friends here and was not close with the guys here. Better to be on my guard.
In the afternoon I went to look for Mathilde to tell her my adventure at the Prefecture. She said that she would help me with some of the required documents and gave me the fax number to which my brother can fax my birth certificate over. I was hoping she would offer to go with me to the Prefecture. Fat dream. Even though she spoke poor English, it was always good to be with her. However, she doesn’t have that kind of fragrant that girls in Singapore have when I am near them. The French girls on the bus had no smell on them too. Hence I think my speculation of French do not bathe frequently was correct.
At 430pm I left the office because I needed to call home and ask my brother to fax me my birth cert. whenever, I needed to call home, I had to take into consideration the 7 hours of time lag. It was the first time I spoke to him since I arrived here and he still sounded as hostile as before. Bad brother! By the way, I get to leave the office at anytime I wanted according to Anatole, unlike Hui who could only go at 6pm. But I guessed when Anatole returned, I would “wanyang” abit and stay until 530pm. I guessed Hui was having a harder time than I do because apparently his current living environment was not very conducive. He said he had to carry his laptop, mp3 player, camera and 500 euro cash to work everyday because the door to his room could be broken into with just one kick. Even his supervisor said that he would find him another place after he saw the condition there. But I guessed he should not be too lonely at work because another of his supervisor was a Singaporean who graduated from NTU also. However, till to date, I had not heard Hui mentioning about him. Perhaps I would ask him tomorrow.
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