YAHOO!

Yes, it's that time again! It comes around 4 or 5 times a month! Everyone's happy! YES! It's the weekend!!!

This is hopefully going to be the best weekend so far. I've been quite tired this week so I'm looking forward to going out tonight. Plus the clocks go back on Sunday so I get an extra hour of sleep. Plus, it's a bank holiday on Tuesday! To top it all off, as the French are inherently lazy, most companies (including us) take the Monday off too!!!

So, I'm going to have a shower, get something to eat and then find out if anyone wants to come out. I'm planning on spending the weekend being cultural: going to the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Centre George Pompidou, ... oh, and the social security again.

Have fun everyone!

GAAAAHHH!!!

Today started much like Friday did. I got to work and realised there wasn't much I could do. I'm still waiting for documents and things to be validated. To make things worse not many people seemed to be in. I wasted some time, um, did some work until 12:00 and then went and asked the secretary if she thought it would be ok if I went to sort out getting a social security number.
On my way from home to the metro station I dropped my suit in at the dry cleaners before catching the metro to Bercy. A week or 2 ago I had emailed the social security to find out how I could get a number. They replied telling me to go to 113 rue de Bercy. When I got to Bercy I left the metro station and headed off in what I thought would be the right direction. Unfortunately I hadn't noticed it said Rue de Bercy and I was walking along Boulevard de Bercy. Eventually I got to Rue de Bercy and to where I should find number 113. 113 is an apartment (or perhaps just the space taken up by garages for some apartments). *Sigh*. I asked around and after walking about some more I eventually found it at number 173, with the entrance hidden behind some stairs (it's just near Gare de Lyon). I made my way up to the office and took a ticket. I thought I was going to have to wait for ages but my number came up as I got to the front of the queue at the reception desk (to confirm where I had to go, what I was doing there...). Anyhow, I went into the little office and told the woman I needed a social security number. I handed her the email response I'd received so I could be certain that she wouldn't understand my situation. She explained that I couldn't get a social security number there as I needed to get it from my local office and go there with my first payslip and a form that work would give me. GAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
Well that was a waste of a day!
It was too late to go back to work so I went to the shopping centre at la Defense to see about getting a mobile phone. I went back home, dropped off my stuff, then went back to the shopping centre to pick up my suit and buy some food, I'm really beginning to hate those steps up to la Defense. There are escalators but they don't work and won't be fixed until the new year (they've put a sign up but haven't started work yet).
I'm going to bed now as there's a meeting tomorrow morning which I'll probably have to take minutes for. Thankfully I know a bit about the subject so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Coffee and Halloween

Well, so much for 35 hours a week! As I mentioned, this week was budget review week which involved lots of meetings and, for my part, lots of confusion. The meetings were done by Wednesday which left the rest of the week to do other work. Part of my work, when not attempting to write minutes, involves communicating information about the various IS projects currently being done. I have to write status reports and newsletters and things, so obviously I have to ask people for information. This means that at times I have very little to do because I'm waiting for information from people, waiting for reports to be validated, waiting for answers to questions.....
And this brings us to Friday. I had arranged to meet with the guy training me (who has pretty much finished I think) so I asked him a few questions but otherwise he, the other stagiare and I drank coffee and chatted most of the morning. At about 11:40 we went for lunch. If you go before 12:00 you get a free coffee so we had lunch, got our free coffee and then went for a walk. The afternoon was spent doing some work (to be honest there wasn't much I could do as I'm waiting for things, I'm not just lazy or Parisian) but I left at about 4:00 as there was nothing left to do and I'd arrived early and left late for the rest of the week.
Friday night I went to the guy down the corridor's flat where he had a few English people round. We had a few beers (we've all been to Auchan (the supermarket) where they've got an offer on Kronenbourg 1664: 24 bottles for under €€9!) and chatted.

Last night was Halloween. Ok, it's a bit early but Friday night I was talking to the other intern from work online (I'll call her M for brevity's sake as I don't want to use people's real names here) and she invited me to a kidsHalloweenn party. She used to babysit for some kids and their current au pair, another friend (ex au pair I think) and M were having an earlyHalloweenn party. It seemed like it might be fun and I thought I'd better get to know some French people my own age rather than just hang out with English people all the time. M's 2 friends are both German (so I'll call them G1 and G2) and the kids speak French and German. This made it a little confusing as it sometimes took a moment to work out whether they were speaking German or whether I had just forgotten all theFrenchh I know. Anyhow, we played hide and seek in the dark, musical chairs and chatted a bit. At about 11 M, G1 and I left (G2 is the au pair) to go to a bar. G1 had arranged to meet some people near the Arc de Triomphe.
M knew a place called the Sir Winston (just off from the Champs Elysee) which looked quite good but was very full. It's an option for next time I go out though. We went on to another bar though on the Champs Elysee about 150-200 metres from the Arc de Triomphe. It was a nice bar, quite trendy and nowhere near as expensive as I thought it would be. We had a few drinks and in the end only one of G1's friends joined us.
It was a pretty good night, if a little out of the ordinary. I'm going to try and do more with the French people I know because they're helpful when it comes to learning the language and I get a lot more practice than at work.

Ok, time to finish now. It's Sunday which means washing day...

You can have a free lunch but only if you come to the 8:00 am meeting

Don't worry, I wasn't eaten by the Social Security. They gave me a form. I took it to the HR dept and they send they'd get it back to me. They only had 4 lines to complete but I received an email from the Social Security today asking me to get in touch with them so maybe I didn't need that form after all.

So, it's budget review week. This means lots of early morning meetings (in French). I'm meant to take the minutes for them but to be honest I think I missed most of it. I just got lost in all the figures and not knowing how the review process works or what to expect (I had asked what would happen) it was quite confusing.
On the bright side my boss did pay for lunch for everyone at the meeting. I had beef in truffle sauce. The beef was cooked French stye .i.e.: Not.

On Saturday I went for a walk. I went up to la Grande Arche and then headed down towards the Louvre. At the Palais de Congres I met my friend from uni (the first one I met) and we walked on together. We went about 13-14km and went all the way down to the Louvre, then through the courtyard and then back up parallel to the Champs Elysee until the Grand Palais where we got the Metro back.

Anyhow, I'm off to bed as I have to get up early again tomorrow.

Body armour - check; laser shield - check; Damn, still need the prozac!

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, I haven't had much time recently. Now I'm working I find that after I've got up around 7:00, gone to work, left around 6:00, got home, eaten and lazed a bit, I'm too tired to be bothered to type. I'm getting used to it though so I'll start posting more soon.

We (nearly all the English people I know plus friends of the guy on my corridor form his uni) went out to Place Monge on Friday night. We stopped at Châtelet first but saw one place asking €9.00 for a pint and quickly moved on. Place Monge was a lot cheaper and we found a good bar. On the way there we were waiting at a Metro station for some more people to join us and it turns out one of them was a girl I knew from college. We were in the same French class and went on a French exchange. It was quite a shock to see her again but there have been quite a few coincidences so far.
I didn't do much on Saturday and ended up watching the first 2 series of Coupling after someone quoted it on Friday night.
Sunday I went to the Sacre Coeur for the Fête des Vendages where there were stalls selling dried sausages, wines, Pineau, cheese, wines, sweets and wines.

Tuesday was a big day at work. Once a month there is a big meeting where presentations are given about projects. I was acting as secretary which meant I was taking the minutes and sorting out the presentations on the projector. Despite having asked for people to send there slides to me the week before I still received an email 2 minutes before the meeting asking for a laptop with an internet connection. Luckily someone else had already requested one!
I've decided I like these meetings as we got a 3 course meal with wine (and coffee of course). The meetings are in English and I managed to take the minutes ok apart from one project where I got a little lost.

The rest of this week I've been trying to work but it's difficult as I find I'm often waiting for other people to respnd before I can continue. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't in meetings or busy most of the time.

Tomorrow I'm going to hell. Ok, actually I'm going to the Social Security office to get a Social Security number so I can be paid. The receptionist (well she's more than that, PA maybe) at work and the guy training me were telling me to smile, stay calm, make sure to take a ticket even if I'm the only person there, be as nice as possible, don't expect them to do anything to help,....

Can it really be that bad?

Ze zill boggle you zith buzzzords

I don't like French keyboards! The AZERTY layout means I have to delete and re-type half of what I type.
Just a short post today. I did some work on a newsletter and learnt about how to post on the intranet system. The research for the newsletter articles was quite heavy but I'm getting used to the business language. The guy training me is out tomorrow. I'm going to get some sleep now as, being a student, I'm not used to getting up early.

Veal

They say it's tough at the top but I'm not so sure. I had veal in raspberry sauce with ratatouille for lunch today.

My second day had a typically Parisian start. I had to leave before 8 as there was a strike on the RATP network and the SNCF so I had to cycle. It's an easy ride (although I almost forgot that the road crosses the Seine in 2 steps) and only takes about 25 minutes.

There was a meeting this morning which must have taken almost 3 hours. Luckily I didn't need to take minutes in the end as it was quite heavy. It was mostly in English, apart from the more heated parts, but I found I could understand most of the French (apart from the jokes). It's just a case of trying to understand the subjects now! There are lots of IT projects about which I know nothing about and when they're being talked about in acronyms it becomes even more difficult!

At lunch I sat with some others my own age (ish). There was no room at the table with the others from the office to the other stagiare and I went and sat with some friends of hers. We went to the coffee bar afterwards and luckily I didn't win the "game" (I mentioned it in the last post).

In the afternoon not much really happened. I re-organised an agenda and we sent it out to people but mainly I discussed projects and things I didn't quite understand with the guy training me. I'm not sure what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon as he's going to a meeting. I hope there's some work because I don't like just sitting around. It's also annoying that there aren 't set working hours. I have to do 35 hours a week but no-one counts them and I don't need to write down when I will be/have been in. I keep forgetting how long lunch has taken so I never know when I should leave. I'm going to start keeping track. They seem to be quite keen on coffee breaks too, I'm still getting used to the strength of the espressos.

I found out today that I need a social security number before I can be paid. I had assumed that the company would sort that out but apparently not.

Champagne and caviar

I started work today! I managed to get up at 7:00 despite not being able to get to sleep and got the bus to work although the walk to the bus stop took a little longer than expected. I was a little worried about the Paris traffic in the morning but got there in plenty of time. When I arrived I said who I was to the lady at reception and she organised an ID card for me.
I spent the day going through some parts of my job, the tools I'll use and the upcoming meetings. There's a guy training me who has been doing the job whenever there hasn't been an intern to do it (as far as I know).

At about 12:00 everyone was called into a room where I another woman (mainly the other woman) were introduced. Then came the champagne and hors d'oeuvres (including cavier on little bits of bread). A little later we all went to lunch. After lunch we walked upstairs from the canteen to the coffee bar. There's a "game" they play (I didn't have to today) where they all put there passes (which you use to pay for food) face down on the counter and the guy serving picks one at random so that person pays for all the coffees.

In the afternoon we sent some emails and drafted an agenda for a meeting next week.
Thankfully most of today was in English. I'm concerned that when the guy training me was speaking to the other stagiare I couldn't really understand but I think that was mainly because they were talking too fast.
I think I'm going to try and use more French before they start as then at least it will show I'm willing to learn and improve.

Anyhow, I've got to stop now as I need to get ready for tomorrow. I've got to cycle into work thanks to the strike.

Tired

I got up after 12:00 today. "Tsk, lazy!" you might think. Unfortunatley going to bed at 5:00am tends to make you quite tired.
Since my last post I've met quite a few people. I've now met 4 other English people from my building (one has since moved to her friend's flat which is closer to her uni), some friends of 2 of the Brits from my building, and a french friend of my friend from uni.

I went out with the English guy on my corridor, uni friend and his french friend to the Latin Quarter on Friday. The Latin Quarter is the/a student area and has witnessed protests over the years. There are lots of restaurants there but fewer bars. The social scene over here is quite different to in the UK. For a start, at uni people go out to a bar or a club. Here I guess people go and eat. I assume it's because there's less of a drinking culture than in Britain (or maybe they're just more cultured when drinking). To be honest the bars we went in didn't have the studenty atmosphere I expected but then that could have just been where we went. Another thing I'm going to have to get used to is table service in a bar.

Last night was la nuit blanche (the white night). It's a little difficult to describe but is basically a big art festival centred around 5 sections of Paris. There were several art installations in the streets, a fashion parade (we saw that from the bus but thought it was a jumble sale at first) and then more art inside buildings. We only went into one of the buildings as the queues were very long. The piece was based on CCTV but I can't really explain it here. We also saw some short films which were,...um, ...contemporary.
I went with the English guy from my corridor and another Brit from upstairs but we also met up with people on the same course as the guy from my corridor.
There was also some music. A DJ and some people with drums at Les Halles, and apparently 300 guitars at the Sacre Coeur but we didn't see them as we were too tired from walking all night.
It was a good night and I'm going to try and go to more of that sort of thing while I'm here.

I start work tomorrow. I'm not quite sure what to expect. I'm just hoping that my language is up to scratch and that they'll give me a bit of leeway for the first couple of weeks while I learn the workplace vocabulary. I'm going to get a small notebook to put in my pocket and write new words in.

Well, I'm going to go for a walk now to get some fresh air.