Here is the video I made of the fireworks

I only managed to get part of it as I ran out of battery…but this gives you an idea of how cool it was!! :D

A fun Saturday night, or seeing one of the wonders Paris has to offer

After having spent one month doing intensive work for my Master’s even before the semester started, I finally got to the point where the professor finally told me what he wanted instead of just giving vague comments like ‘It can be improved’.  I turned in the work the way he wanted 3 hours after he told me that, so it worked out for both him and me.  That left with potentially 2 days of vacation before the semester officially starts on Oct 12.

We went out on Saturday night and found our way to Montmartre, where they were holding a festival for their vineyards etc.  The culminating point on the saturday night was a mega fireworks show that was way better than the New Year’s fireworks that I saw at the Eiffel Tower for New Year’s day 2008/2009.  I managed to make a short video of some of it before my battery died (ALWAYS make sure you have a full battery before you go out).

There was supposed to be a jazz concert too afterwards but we opted to go elsewhere as Montmartre was REALLY crowded.  There had to be at least 1,000-1,500 people there at the foot of the Basilique de la Sacre Coeur.  We went to Odéon and just chilled before going back home before the metro stopped working.

All in all, I had a good time.  After a looong time.  It was about time.

Until next time ;)

Bitterness in the soul, or oozing negativity from everywhere

Something strange happened today.  I spent long minutes criticising many of the things that were wrong about my university despite knowing that none of it would make anything better, and I was at my very best eloquence-wise.  Matter-of-fact expressions combined with appropriate exaples, along with pseudo-venom about the wrongs of a whole system that seems to stem from idiocy and that defy modern human intelligence; these are not the things one would want for dessert, which was precisely when the whole topic of conversation arose.

While lambasting its merits, or rather lack of, I had thought after thought that stemmed.  Afterwards, while I was reflecting in my room, only then did the bitterness of my previous statements strike me.  Later followed, how had I become such? What had happened? Was it the countless failed attempts at my genuine efforts that came to a halt because of lazy and/or incompetent professors? Was it my own little idealistic world that was having trouble being accommodated into real life? Was it that I was busting myself day-in, day-out without knowing why they were making me do so? Or maybe a combination of all these and some more too?

I guess as much as I have bad luck concerning the French system, it’s the opposite concerning the people I have around me.  It’s been a little over two weeks since I met my a-few-d0ors-on-the-side neighbour but we have already grown quite close.  And she proved to be as good, if not better, of a person I had thought she was tonight when she offered to come lend an attentive ear after seeing that I had been really bitter at dinner, which is normally a sign that I am tired/fed-up/on the verge of blowing up from too much repression, but all that without knowing what my being bitter meant.  Good diagnosis? Sixth sense? Common problem? Deja vu? Who knows.. She’ll make one helluva good doctor though.

We spent maybe around an hour talking tonight.  I must admit it felt nice.  I had re-lost the habit of talking to somebody, hence my quality of life having decreased a bit, due to not really having someone really ‘here’ for a while during times that were very demanding.  Ok, granted that the other person who I would have wanted ‘here’, as I called it, had very demanding times herself with the loss of a family member and also due to other stresses like readapting to a new university/workplace in a ‘new’ city (not literally new since she knew the city pretty well)

I miss Silvia so much that I don’t know what to do.  I have been bound here because of university and now because of paperwork due to my not being part of the EEC.  It is, and I can’t even deny it, putting an intense stress on my rapports with everybody.  I certainly don’t want it to be this way, and I will do all that’s required to remedy to the situation.  Despite understanding that she is busy and has many other commitments, I can’t help but wish that she was ‘here’ a bit more.

Dreadful conclusion: Am I becoming needy!??

Adding milk to tea or tea to milk, or being braindead

After practically one month in Paris, I can say that I spent half of it strenuously studying and doing assigments.  I finally did some paperwork that ensured my being admitted for year 2, and now also cleared the paperwork for the residence permit.  I have a few days of resting before the semester starts.

During the past week, I had reached a point where I could not really think properly.  I would frequently, subconsciously, invert things while talking or thinking and that would usually result in funny outcomes.  Imagine mixing up the sentence structures of two or three languages and the result, whilst being ugly and incomprehensible, can be pretty funny.

I now have one week before I go back to univ, so I should make the most of it.

A slow life, or a fast reality

I have been here one week now.  Rather, tomorrow will be one week, but counts as almost the same.  Having met my professor and all, I have felt abnormally stressed since.  Is it because of the impending work that awaits me? I don’t think things to do have ever scared me.  Is it because so much is at stake? Probably, but then again, I have become used to that as it happens almost everywhere now.  Is there a simple like anywhere anymore? Thought so :)

I have three professors to meet and maybe by then I may have found a reason for my one-time, albeit lasting a whole week, inability to perform to my best.  The easy way out would be to blame stress but I have always handled stressfuls situations well.  At work that is.  Maybe academics are completely different.

Oh well, we’ll find out what happens soon enough!

A welcoming back to Parisian life, or the re-structuring of oneself

So I landed in Paris on tuesday, and had an appointment already on the next day.  Moving in was no fun this time, not that it ever was, as the room I got was very small.  It did not only seem small, but you could feel its smallness as soon as you walked between the narrow space that is the space between the shelf and the wardrobe to get to the ‘main space’ of the room.  The room I had in this very building here last year was, as per what the woman at the reception said, not bigger.  However, it certainly felt so! I can’t help but feel a pressure against my lungs when I am in this room :S Claustrophobia alert!

I went to my appointment to meet my professor.  As usual, I was a few minutes early (for I hate to be late).  Knowing how sometimes punctuality can be loathed, especially in the Old World, I just climbed back down the 5 storeys and went to get a bottle of water.  I made it back to the office 15 minutes later, knocked, but nobody.  So I waited…and waited….and waited.  30 minutes past the time he had told me to come..how strange.  Thinking he was caught up in an urgent meeting, I kept on waiting..and thus, 1h15 went by but still no trace of the man.  So I left.

Upon reaching home, I promptly emailed him and got the reply at night that he had changed his planning and would instead meet me the next day.  How happy I would have been had he told me this BEFORE my going to the university to spend half the day for nothing.  Oh well, I guess that partly (forcedfully) accelerated my getting used to things here.  I reckon it might still take me a while longer.  Or longer than that.

You sure welcomed me well, Paris.

Back in Paris, or the beginning of Chapter II

I got to Paris this morning, and got to the same place where I used to live before.  Nothnig much as changed, if anything actually.  More to follow soon, once I get some rest and manage to get into the mindset that is needed to live in Paris.