Today I woke up half an hour earlier than normal so that I would be in office earlier. I foresee that I would have a lot of work to do today. Now the residents have all returned to INSA after the holiday and so I have no luxury of having the bathing area, the toilets and the kitchen to myself. The bathing part is still ok, but the toilet is really a problem because these people’s shit here really smells like shit. Mine of course is not odourless but the smell is less strong. This reminds me of the time when I was in Hall 2 and I would always “kaobei” Gary’s shit really stinks. Sound like as if I miss his shit smell, haha. Before going to my office, I went to the admin department to return my DVD. It was opened again after one week’s break. I then looked for another DVD to borrow and just when I was about to borrow MI2, I saw Toy Story 2 and took that instead. Then I saw there are Harry Potter series too. I can’t remember if I had watched Toy Story 2 before because I don’t particularly have a good memory. I have to rely a lot on my little notepad here to keep record of stuffs.
In the office, for the first time I didn’t log on to msn or do my personal stuffs. I went straight into work hoping that I could solve most of the problems by lunch time. At around 11am, I had not completed all that I had to do, but felt it was enough for me to take a break. I uploaded my pictures and journal and chatted over the msn. It was the first time here that I had 5 people chatting with me on msn concurrently; there was hui, jeryl, gary, alsa, and zhenhao who is in Beijing for his GIP. Zhenhao is really a rare guest for I seldom talk to him over msn. He said he just got his assignment recently which seemed a bit late. He asked if my IA here involves “real” work or not. I guess those who went for GIP is really getting a new experience rather than actually working. It is more of a learning experience. Jeryl said that he read my blog and said his life in Shanghai couldn’t be compared to what I am experiencing here. He also said that I am very discipline to keep writing journals everyday, but actually with nothing to do at night, I am glad that I still can write something to keep me occupied.
Gary asked why my name has become Alex and what happened to Arnou which was given by my godmother and I explained to him the reason. Will have to explain to “gan ma” also when I get back to Singapore. Alsa asked if I received her email in which she said that those pics I took are very nice and she is keeping some as wallpapers. Seriously I can’t remember if I had read her mail. I really wasn’t sure because again, of my poor memory. But I do remember one incident in which my memory failed me. (contradicting right?) I asked Alsa if she wants to buy mooncakes from me one night. The following night, I asked her again and she said I asked her before. I thought she was joking and Gary said that yes I had asked her the same question last night. Another incident involved either Zhenhao or Weiqiang (can’t remember again). We were walking along the corridor and I was complaining about how lousy a tutor called Nenad was. And he said that’s the supervisor for our project last sem. I gave him a puzzle look and asked, “Are we in the same project group?” He looked even more amused because we were doing the project together for an entire semester and I could just ask him that kind of question. But it seems like my memory is not that bad either because I could remember these 2 incidents pretty vividly.
After chatting for an hour, I went for lunch with Mr. Giant and Nicolas. I actually went to ask Vincent first but he said he couldn’t make it today. So was Mathieu because he wanted to stay in office to play cards. Then I asked Vincent is there a Leader Price supermart in Rennes and he said it is in Republique and is pretty easy to find. Yes! I can go into town this Saturday! And I would save money on my grocery since that mart is much cheaper. But the best thing is I have something to do coming Saturday as I can’t travel anymore this month due to tight budget. I wouldn’t go into town if there is no purpose. Don’t really like to walk around aimlessly. I would rather stay in the room and talk to myself. Yes, a bit psycho but it is my way of doing self-reflections. It makes me think about life, about my past, about my future, about events and people, etc. I don’t feel it is very lonely to do “thinking” in the room. Because walking around in the town alone is no better either, even though there are a lot of people passing by you. You will feel just as lonely.
But going sightseeing is different, especially going to another city or town. Somehow, I would transform into a tourist and enjoy myself more. But of course it would be perfect if I got some companies. For lunch, we went back to the previous restaurant that we used to go because it is open again. Food was just as great. The weather was cold today at -5 degrees but the sun was shining so brightly that I had to use my hand to shield my eyes. Mr. Giant despite his built was shivering and he too hated the cold just like me. I must take a picture with him standing side by side. It would be Frodo and a troll.
After lunch, hui told me how I could apply for the CAF grant. He had heard about that before but was too busy to find out about it. So I went online to fill up the questionnaire but it was in French and I had some problems filling it so I thought maybe I should ask Anatole about it tomorrow. Then Marie-Claude replied my email and said that I am not eligible to apply for the grant because it is for students staying more than 6 months here; same as what hui’s sup told him. But still I would want to give it a try. Then I looked at hui’s pictures online on his snow sledging trip yesterday. It must be lots of fun to slide down the slope. Back in NTU, there is a slope facing the corridor of our labs and I always imagine myself taking a cardboard and sliding down from it. But guess snow sledging would be a lot more fun. He said he had captured the process of him coming down the slope on video. I would definitely want to see that when we meet in June. After all these personal matters were settled, I did some final touch up on my code and was ready for the experiments. The first victim I caught was Mathieu because I was on closer terms with him. He came and completed the 285 tests within 23 minutes. I was really quite embarrassed to ask him for the favour because it was really a lot of tests to run through. After that I told him about my trip to Carnac and also told him that I would join him for soccer this week.
Then I had to catch another guy to do experiment 2, which was much shorter, 180 tests but more complicating. So I went to get Nicolas and he too came without hesitation. One good thing about the people here is they are always ready to help. I would ask them when would they be free, I could make an appointment first and so on. But they would just stop whatever they were doing and said now, why not. Nicolas finished the experiment within 15 min and I thanked him for his time. For rest of the afternoon, I was analyzing the results from the 2 experiments and it was a lot of work. But since I wasn’t running simulations, I put my msn status as available and chatted with some friends while analyzing the results. First it was Hong Guo and he is now working in Computer Associate (CA) for his IA. This was where I was supposed to work if I had not come to France. And there was a “lao chio” working there for her IA too. I was really hoping I can know her but too bad I had to come here. Hong Guo got that chance and he is now having lunch with her everyday. He thinks she is older than us, around 2x (wah, not so good to disclose age online, x = my_birthdate * 2 + 1), but I really fancy girls older than me. Maybe because I am too childish and would like to have a “jie jie” to look after me. Or maybe because when I was in dance last time, I felt that the senior girls really took good care of me then. A lot of guys are more mature than me but they prefer those sweet, cute girls. But I just find mature women extremely sexy. Hong guo said I was being fetish. Haha, I really don’t know why.
I chatted awhile with hui also and he said that he would be meeting the few Singaporeans later in the evening. I was really envious of him. Why couldn’t they just send 1 of those few Singaporeans up here to Rennes to keep me company? (Preferably a girl. I heard 4 girls and 1 guy was in that group.) Hui said I now have international friends, a Mexican and a Spanish. But the point is I can’t speak Singlish with them! It has been a long time since I speak Singlish and I really miss that. I always type in Singlish in msn but that is just not shiok enough! When hui and hong guo typed in French through msn, I would tell them to stop please because I have enough of that. French speaks French naturally, that is what my tutor Michel said. And I say Singaporean speaks Singlish naturally. It is definitely not considered low-class to speak Singlish and I say we should have a campaign to promote that. Singlish is just much too efficient than English. You would agree with me if you think about how much info can be transmitted using Singlish via the sms. That is the reason why I never use the dictionary from the handphone because I can never find words like “makan”, “lah” “lor”, “dunno”, etc. And of course other words like “cb”, “gnn”, “wtf”, “stfu”, ‘tmd”, etc.
In the office, for the first time I didn’t log on to msn or do my personal stuffs. I went straight into work hoping that I could solve most of the problems by lunch time. At around 11am, I had not completed all that I had to do, but felt it was enough for me to take a break. I uploaded my pictures and journal and chatted over the msn. It was the first time here that I had 5 people chatting with me on msn concurrently; there was hui, jeryl, gary, alsa, and zhenhao who is in Beijing for his GIP. Zhenhao is really a rare guest for I seldom talk to him over msn. He said he just got his assignment recently which seemed a bit late. He asked if my IA here involves “real” work or not. I guess those who went for GIP is really getting a new experience rather than actually working. It is more of a learning experience. Jeryl said that he read my blog and said his life in Shanghai couldn’t be compared to what I am experiencing here. He also said that I am very discipline to keep writing journals everyday, but actually with nothing to do at night, I am glad that I still can write something to keep me occupied.
Gary asked why my name has become Alex and what happened to Arnou which was given by my godmother and I explained to him the reason. Will have to explain to “gan ma” also when I get back to Singapore. Alsa asked if I received her email in which she said that those pics I took are very nice and she is keeping some as wallpapers. Seriously I can’t remember if I had read her mail. I really wasn’t sure because again, of my poor memory. But I do remember one incident in which my memory failed me. (contradicting right?) I asked Alsa if she wants to buy mooncakes from me one night. The following night, I asked her again and she said I asked her before. I thought she was joking and Gary said that yes I had asked her the same question last night. Another incident involved either Zhenhao or Weiqiang (can’t remember again). We were walking along the corridor and I was complaining about how lousy a tutor called Nenad was. And he said that’s the supervisor for our project last sem. I gave him a puzzle look and asked, “Are we in the same project group?” He looked even more amused because we were doing the project together for an entire semester and I could just ask him that kind of question. But it seems like my memory is not that bad either because I could remember these 2 incidents pretty vividly.
After chatting for an hour, I went for lunch with Mr. Giant and Nicolas. I actually went to ask Vincent first but he said he couldn’t make it today. So was Mathieu because he wanted to stay in office to play cards. Then I asked Vincent is there a Leader Price supermart in Rennes and he said it is in Republique and is pretty easy to find. Yes! I can go into town this Saturday! And I would save money on my grocery since that mart is much cheaper. But the best thing is I have something to do coming Saturday as I can’t travel anymore this month due to tight budget. I wouldn’t go into town if there is no purpose. Don’t really like to walk around aimlessly. I would rather stay in the room and talk to myself. Yes, a bit psycho but it is my way of doing self-reflections. It makes me think about life, about my past, about my future, about events and people, etc. I don’t feel it is very lonely to do “thinking” in the room. Because walking around in the town alone is no better either, even though there are a lot of people passing by you. You will feel just as lonely.
But going sightseeing is different, especially going to another city or town. Somehow, I would transform into a tourist and enjoy myself more. But of course it would be perfect if I got some companies. For lunch, we went back to the previous restaurant that we used to go because it is open again. Food was just as great. The weather was cold today at -5 degrees but the sun was shining so brightly that I had to use my hand to shield my eyes. Mr. Giant despite his built was shivering and he too hated the cold just like me. I must take a picture with him standing side by side. It would be Frodo and a troll.
After lunch, hui told me how I could apply for the CAF grant. He had heard about that before but was too busy to find out about it. So I went online to fill up the questionnaire but it was in French and I had some problems filling it so I thought maybe I should ask Anatole about it tomorrow. Then Marie-Claude replied my email and said that I am not eligible to apply for the grant because it is for students staying more than 6 months here; same as what hui’s sup told him. But still I would want to give it a try. Then I looked at hui’s pictures online on his snow sledging trip yesterday. It must be lots of fun to slide down the slope. Back in NTU, there is a slope facing the corridor of our labs and I always imagine myself taking a cardboard and sliding down from it. But guess snow sledging would be a lot more fun. He said he had captured the process of him coming down the slope on video. I would definitely want to see that when we meet in June. After all these personal matters were settled, I did some final touch up on my code and was ready for the experiments. The first victim I caught was Mathieu because I was on closer terms with him. He came and completed the 285 tests within 23 minutes. I was really quite embarrassed to ask him for the favour because it was really a lot of tests to run through. After that I told him about my trip to Carnac and also told him that I would join him for soccer this week.
Then I had to catch another guy to do experiment 2, which was much shorter, 180 tests but more complicating. So I went to get Nicolas and he too came without hesitation. One good thing about the people here is they are always ready to help. I would ask them when would they be free, I could make an appointment first and so on. But they would just stop whatever they were doing and said now, why not. Nicolas finished the experiment within 15 min and I thanked him for his time. For rest of the afternoon, I was analyzing the results from the 2 experiments and it was a lot of work. But since I wasn’t running simulations, I put my msn status as available and chatted with some friends while analyzing the results. First it was Hong Guo and he is now working in Computer Associate (CA) for his IA. This was where I was supposed to work if I had not come to France. And there was a “lao chio” working there for her IA too. I was really hoping I can know her but too bad I had to come here. Hong Guo got that chance and he is now having lunch with her everyday. He thinks she is older than us, around 2x (wah, not so good to disclose age online, x = my_birthdate * 2 + 1), but I really fancy girls older than me. Maybe because I am too childish and would like to have a “jie jie” to look after me. Or maybe because when I was in dance last time, I felt that the senior girls really took good care of me then. A lot of guys are more mature than me but they prefer those sweet, cute girls. But I just find mature women extremely sexy. Hong guo said I was being fetish. Haha, I really don’t know why.
I chatted awhile with hui also and he said that he would be meeting the few Singaporeans later in the evening. I was really envious of him. Why couldn’t they just send 1 of those few Singaporeans up here to Rennes to keep me company? (Preferably a girl. I heard 4 girls and 1 guy was in that group.) Hui said I now have international friends, a Mexican and a Spanish. But the point is I can’t speak Singlish with them! It has been a long time since I speak Singlish and I really miss that. I always type in Singlish in msn but that is just not shiok enough! When hui and hong guo typed in French through msn, I would tell them to stop please because I have enough of that. French speaks French naturally, that is what my tutor Michel said. And I say Singaporean speaks Singlish naturally. It is definitely not considered low-class to speak Singlish and I say we should have a campaign to promote that. Singlish is just much too efficient than English. You would agree with me if you think about how much info can be transmitted using Singlish via the sms. That is the reason why I never use the dictionary from the handphone because I can never find words like “makan”, “lah” “lor”, “dunno”, etc. And of course other words like “cb”, “gnn”, “wtf”, “stfu”, ‘tmd”, etc.
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