So my client site is a company that produces and distributes paper.
That's right I work in an environment reconstructed by a comedy to parody the ridiculous mundaneness of office life.
Oh and the name of the manager in my office?
Wait for it...
Mickael.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
en face du client
So they sat me in front smack dab in front of the client which means I have to concentrate on doing things like sitting properly. I seek refuge in the building's rooftop terrance:
Monday, September 21, 2009
montmartre art attack
So this weekend I finally had the chance to do some exploring in Paris. Armed with my newly acquired and a way too expensive lonely planet's paris city guide, I headed to Montmarte for a walking tour L.P. dubbed the "Montmarte Art Attack". Below are the highlights in picture form.
Moulin Rouge (starting point)
Van Gogh's house
Detour for two hours at a cafe overlooking Rue Thoroze
Passe-muraille statue
Cabaret au lapin agile
Eric Satie's house
Basilique du sacre coeur
Guy doing crazy soccer moves
Enjoying live music and the view
Bateau lavoir (housed Kees Van Dongen, Max Jacob, Amedeo Modigliani, and Picasso)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
iTime Capsule
So it takes me about 45 minutes to get to work every day and it was suggested by my co workers that I should import french learning tools into my ipod. I thought this a great idea.
Nevermind that I had long ago lost the ipod/laptop connector nor did I have itunes installed on my laptop. Fortunately these things could be remedied and after waiting a week I egarly plugged my ipod into my laptop only to find a message that said something like "Sorry, your ipod is formatted for macs and is not compatible with windows. Would you like to reformat your ipod?"
I would have clicked "Yes" had there not been in parathesis afterwords, a message casually stating that formatting would effectively wipe my ipod of all data (Which makes me wonder: had I switched from a pc to a mac would I have gotten an alternative message like "Thank you for switching to a Mac. Don't worry, all your music is safe and sound. And here is 100 dollars).
Torn, my mind flashed to my old mac that was sitting back in the States basically on life support. There was a very good chance that if I lost the music on my ipod it would be lost forever.
Not like that was a bad thing mind you. The last time I was able to put anything on this ipod was in 2005, the year I left Japan. Everything on it is old and outdated, and kind of random. And since the music was downloaded from limewire the ipod is terribly organized due to all shorts of weird mispellings of song titles and artist names. The only good way to listen to it is to put it on random but then songs like B.I.N.G.O (as in, there was a farmer who had a dog - I used it one day in one of my classes in Japan) come on after Jay Z's Big Pimpin'.
It's a bit of a hot mess. And perhaps this was an opportunity to change that. To start over. With a click of a button I could effectively erase my "OC" phase or my secret penchant for Britney Spear's music (What? It's catchy!).
And most importantly I could learn French on the metro. If I clicked no however, that would be it. I didn't have access to any Macs so that would mean I would not be able to manipulate it in anyway. It would stay the same indefinitely.
New beginning or hold on to the past? It was a tough choice.
I clicked "No". In the end I couldn't do it. Erasing the ipod felt like I was erasing my memories.
The next day, as if the music knew it had been on the brink of oblivion earlier, great song after great song came on along with the memories attached to them. A Bob Dylan song downloaded by the "around the world by bike" guy when he crashed at my place after coming through Syberia. Music from my Japanese Yosakoi team. The Red Hot Chili Peppers song that was playing all over Thailand the first time I was there.
I may change my mind later but for now I think I made the right decision.
Nevermind that I had long ago lost the ipod/laptop connector nor did I have itunes installed on my laptop. Fortunately these things could be remedied and after waiting a week I egarly plugged my ipod into my laptop only to find a message that said something like "Sorry, your ipod is formatted for macs and is not compatible with windows. Would you like to reformat your ipod?"
I would have clicked "Yes" had there not been in parathesis afterwords, a message casually stating that formatting would effectively wipe my ipod of all data (Which makes me wonder: had I switched from a pc to a mac would I have gotten an alternative message like "Thank you for switching to a Mac. Don't worry, all your music is safe and sound. And here is 100 dollars).
Torn, my mind flashed to my old mac that was sitting back in the States basically on life support. There was a very good chance that if I lost the music on my ipod it would be lost forever.
Not like that was a bad thing mind you. The last time I was able to put anything on this ipod was in 2005, the year I left Japan. Everything on it is old and outdated, and kind of random. And since the music was downloaded from limewire the ipod is terribly organized due to all shorts of weird mispellings of song titles and artist names. The only good way to listen to it is to put it on random but then songs like B.I.N.G.O (as in, there was a farmer who had a dog - I used it one day in one of my classes in Japan) come on after Jay Z's Big Pimpin'.
It's a bit of a hot mess. And perhaps this was an opportunity to change that. To start over. With a click of a button I could effectively erase my "OC" phase or my secret penchant for Britney Spear's music (What? It's catchy!).
And most importantly I could learn French on the metro. If I clicked no however, that would be it. I didn't have access to any Macs so that would mean I would not be able to manipulate it in anyway. It would stay the same indefinitely.
New beginning or hold on to the past? It was a tough choice.
I clicked "No". In the end I couldn't do it. Erasing the ipod felt like I was erasing my memories.
The next day, as if the music knew it had been on the brink of oblivion earlier, great song after great song came on along with the memories attached to them. A Bob Dylan song downloaded by the "around the world by bike" guy when he crashed at my place after coming through Syberia. Music from my Japanese Yosakoi team. The Red Hot Chili Peppers song that was playing all over Thailand the first time I was there.
I may change my mind later but for now I think I made the right decision.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
i saw la seine
So on the second day of my internship they sent me (rather unexpectedly) to my client site Antalis. Antalis is an international company that produces and distributes...drum roll please...
Paper!!!
Yes very exciting. Fortunately this view from my office window gets me through the day:
Paper!!!
Yes very exciting. Fortunately this view from my office window gets me through the day:
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
agenda
So I was given a planner as part of some "welcome to the company" goodies. Inside are helpful information such as useful telephone numbers, country codes, french holidays, and this:
I'm all set.
I'm all set.
Monday, September 7, 2009
paris et moi
So I offically moved to Paris yesterday just in time to start my internship. Having problems sleeping in new beds I had hoped to move Saturday to have an extra night to adjust but things being the way that they are (and my luck being the way that it is) it didn't happen that way. I managed to get my stuff into the new place at like 10pm Sunday night and my attempt at sleep after that all but failed.
When I finally was so exhausted that I could sleep my alarm went off and I couldn't ignore it because getting to work by 9am meant I had to leave the apartment at 7:30 (to be safe). I also had to look somewhat decent (add one hour) and there I was, hauling my tired ass out of bed and into the shower at 6:30am.
Fortunately my first day of work consisted entirely of orientation which meant I didn't actually have to do work, I just had to sit there and passively listen to presenters. Unfortunately all of the presenters are HR. And HR personnel in France don't speak English.
An entire day of French on like no sleep and I didn't manage to get fired. I consider that a victory.
When I finally was so exhausted that I could sleep my alarm went off and I couldn't ignore it because getting to work by 9am meant I had to leave the apartment at 7:30 (to be safe). I also had to look somewhat decent (add one hour) and there I was, hauling my tired ass out of bed and into the shower at 6:30am.
Fortunately my first day of work consisted entirely of orientation which meant I didn't actually have to do work, I just had to sit there and passively listen to presenters. Unfortunately all of the presenters are HR. And HR personnel in France don't speak English.
An entire day of French on like no sleep and I didn't manage to get fired. I consider that a victory.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
72 hrs
So after a month of being at home I was back in Paris after getting absolutely no sleep on the plane (damn that Benjamin Button movie, why did it have to be so good damn long?).
Anyways this means I had been up for approximately over 48 hrs when I landed in Paris and still had to lug my check in bag, laptop, bookbag, and purse to the hotel where I was meeting my friend CD.
Since I tend to lose things not attached to my body the practical thing to do was to strap everything to my body. I looked kind of like this. After almost falling over a couple of times and weird looks from people on the metro I finally arrived at my hotel and took the world's best nap.
Two hours later in the mist of my blissful horizontal sleep CD came and proclaimed that it was Saturday night and we would be going out! I told her I had been up for 48 hours. She told me she lives in Iowa. I was trumped.
So out we went and somehow we ended up missing the last metro so we had to stay out till the metro started running again. At 5:15am.
At first it was fine. Somehow the copious amounts of alcohol we had consumed made us both happy and awake as witnessed by the unfortunate souls who obviously had first, the misfortune to have to wake up at 5am and then, the misfortune to be in the same metro car as us as we belligerently yelled at each other followed by proclamations of love followed by yelling, proclamations of love, etc, etc.
At approximately 6am we arrived at our hotel where finally I could get some sleep. Only we couldn't get in. It was locked. We peeked at the reception desk. Nobody there.
You couldn't imagine the horror/disappointment. Images of myself passed out in front of the hotel curbside flashed in my mind.
We banged on the door relentlessly like dogs in a storm until a woman across the street told us to stop. We didn't. She poked her head out the window again and told me I was stupid. I told her she was stupid.
And then finally someone came and grumpily opened the door for us.
And that. Was the best moment of my life, dirty looks and all.
Anyways this means I had been up for approximately over 48 hrs when I landed in Paris and still had to lug my check in bag, laptop, bookbag, and purse to the hotel where I was meeting my friend CD.
Since I tend to lose things not attached to my body the practical thing to do was to strap everything to my body. I looked kind of like this. After almost falling over a couple of times and weird looks from people on the metro I finally arrived at my hotel and took the world's best nap.
Two hours later in the mist of my blissful horizontal sleep CD came and proclaimed that it was Saturday night and we would be going out! I told her I had been up for 48 hours. She told me she lives in Iowa. I was trumped.
So out we went and somehow we ended up missing the last metro so we had to stay out till the metro started running again. At 5:15am.
At first it was fine. Somehow the copious amounts of alcohol we had consumed made us both happy and awake as witnessed by the unfortunate souls who obviously had first, the misfortune to have to wake up at 5am and then, the misfortune to be in the same metro car as us as we belligerently yelled at each other followed by proclamations of love followed by yelling, proclamations of love, etc, etc.
At approximately 6am we arrived at our hotel where finally I could get some sleep. Only we couldn't get in. It was locked. We peeked at the reception desk. Nobody there.
You couldn't imagine the horror/disappointment. Images of myself passed out in front of the hotel curbside flashed in my mind.
We banged on the door relentlessly like dogs in a storm until a woman across the street told us to stop. We didn't. She poked her head out the window again and told me I was stupid. I told her she was stupid.
And then finally someone came and grumpily opened the door for us.
And that. Was the best moment of my life, dirty looks and all.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
grandma panties
So a while a go I wrote about how the director of my residence at school almost saw me in my underware. There are worse things. Like how your bf's grandparents can see you in your underware.
And yes. This happened to me. How? There are factors. The biggest one being that they don't believe in a/c here in europe (France included) so any thing that can be opened to help ventilate is. This includes front doors.
Now you might be wondering why I was in my underware in the first place. First, see above paragraph. Second, I don't like pants. Third, before lounging around in my underware I asked the question "Do you think anyone is going to come around unexpectedly because if they are I will be putting on some pants." I was told definitively no.
So imagine my surprise as I am sitting at the laptop downstairs enjoying the the brillance of Gene Weingarten (a man who encourages a union beween a man named "Hamburger" and a woman named "Frankfurt" for humorlistic value) when in walks the grandparents.
It gets worse. Because in France you can't just say "Hello" at a respectable distance and then go run upstairs to put on your pants. No. You have to get close enough to the person as to give the standard greeting of the cheek to cheek kiss. Yes. Even grandpa. And even if you are in your underpants.
And not just any underpants. Because I had been on holiday and doing laundry I was wearing what I call my "emergency underware" or as others call it "grandma panties". They look like this (minus the waist band).
Now which is more likely? That 1. I can pull off these bad boys as shorts? (they are a little baggy on me) Or b. I'm not fooling no one and should be more embarassed about my poor underware tastes and inability to size underware correctly.
I don't know. It all happened so fast and I don't have much "Your bf's grandparents are suddenly saying hi to you and you are in your underware" experience so I'm just hoping for the former.
Sigh. Everything. Happens. To. Me.
And yes. This happened to me. How? There are factors. The biggest one being that they don't believe in a/c here in europe (France included) so any thing that can be opened to help ventilate is. This includes front doors.
Now you might be wondering why I was in my underware in the first place. First, see above paragraph. Second, I don't like pants. Third, before lounging around in my underware I asked the question "Do you think anyone is going to come around unexpectedly because if they are I will be putting on some pants." I was told definitively no.
So imagine my surprise as I am sitting at the laptop downstairs enjoying the the brillance of Gene Weingarten (a man who encourages a union beween a man named "Hamburger" and a woman named "Frankfurt" for humorlistic value) when in walks the grandparents.
It gets worse. Because in France you can't just say "Hello" at a respectable distance and then go run upstairs to put on your pants. No. You have to get close enough to the person as to give the standard greeting of the cheek to cheek kiss. Yes. Even grandpa. And even if you are in your underpants.
And not just any underpants. Because I had been on holiday and doing laundry I was wearing what I call my "emergency underware" or as others call it "grandma panties". They look like this (minus the waist band).
Now which is more likely? That 1. I can pull off these bad boys as shorts? (they are a little baggy on me) Or b. I'm not fooling no one and should be more embarassed about my poor underware tastes and inability to size underware correctly.
I don't know. It all happened so fast and I don't have much "Your bf's grandparents are suddenly saying hi to you and you are in your underware" experience so I'm just hoping for the former.
Sigh. Everything. Happens. To. Me.
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