Courses, a late night, snow and some sheds

It's been a long time since my last post, the week before last was long and tiring. Last week was better but there's quite a lot to do at work.
The week before last didn't start well so I kind of ended up more and more tired as the week went on. From Wednesday to Friday there was a course on Information Systems Management held at the company University campus. They hold all their courses and events there but it's at Jouay en Josas which is between Paris and Versailles. Unfortunately that meant that I had to get up around 6, catch a tram round the outside of Paris, then catch a lift with my friend at work to arrive at 9 on the first day and 8:30 on Thursday and Friday. The days were filled with lectures on various topics (thankfully all in English as there were people from the UK, the Netherlands, and other countries). In the evening, at 7:00pm, there was a dinner which was nice (although I ended up having the same three course meal twice on Wednesday) but meant we didn't leave until 9:30, which meant getting back after 10:30.....and getting very tired. On Wednesday I had a meeting between me, my boss and some people from the University about the Convention which will be held in January (meaning we ate in the posh bit rather than the main canteen, hence 2, three course meals (unfortunately the same) in one day).
The course was quite good and I found the workshops interesting.
On Sunday I went out to the Frog and Rosbif which is an English pub (part of a chain) where they brew their own beer. There was a quiz on and we didn't come last! The beer was quite good too but I probably won't be going tonight as I'm running out of money for this month.

Last week was spent hassling people. For the convention in January I'm meant to be helping orgainsing who is coming (in terms of invitations rather than presenters) and making sure everyone doing a demo will have equipment (PC's, network access, ...) available on the day. I've been trying to get lists of participants back from the various division leaders of the company but it seems to be taking a while. I've got most of them but I'm still missing a few.
My boss also asked to speak to me about some things for the convention and for me to give him all the things I need him to validate so I took along a pile of paper.
It annoys me that no-one seems to actually require me to do anything. I mean I have things to do but it is not asked for unless it is a translation or something. I'm meant to produce newsletters but due to the time it takes for people to get back to me the one for November will be finished before the one for September! It's not because I've just sent one email and left it at that either, but then again I don't want people to see an email from me and think, "Oh great, what does he want this time?".

On Thursday I was asked by the girl from work if I wanted to come to a lecture being held at her university about IT stuff (I do Computer Science with French at uni in England for those of you who don't know). I figured it might be interesting and had nothing else planned so I went along. Afterwards there were drinks and then we went for a meal not far from rue Oberkampf. It was quite good but I must admit I found it a bit difficult to keep up with what was being said at dinner due to all the background babble.

Friday night I went out to Oberkampf again with some people from my building and met some more of their friends from uni. We went back to the same place as I'd been on Thursday night as I'd seen some pool tables there and we didn't know anywhere else. It turned out that pool was 12€€ per hour which was a bit steep, but we still had a good night. The people from my building went back about midnight but I stayed on with the others and ended up getting home about 4am.
Waking up at 1:30 in the afternoon and seeing snow is quite confusing. It has been really cold here recently. When I was on the course we came out to the car park in the evening and the windows of all the cars were iced up. The snow was fairly light and turned to slush by the evening.

About 2 weeks ago some sheds arrived at La Defense which seemed a little odd at first. Anyhow, it turns out they're putting up a Christmas Market which opens next Friday I think. I'm going to spend today doing all the things I should have got round to like applying for a travel pass, making a list of things to see, .... oh, and as it's Sunday, washing as well.

I read this article recently which shows the perils of smoking, or perhaps of being a French smoker....