Vaches, Vaches, Vaches

What's today, oh yeah, my first job interview! And this just isn't any job interview, its one in French!

In coaching myself for the interview, I contacted my Mom, Angela, and Elena for advice on what to say and to think of some possible questions they might ask. I also went through a series of breathing exercises, no I am just kidding! On the day of the interview, Wednesday, I left with my folder, pen, and lined paper. I was definitely ready for this interview. The only thing was that I had to take a train to Paris, the metro to another gare (train station), wait two hours for the TGV (a super fast train) to Vendome, and then a taxi to Montoire where Romer, a division of Hexagon Metrology, is located. Oh and to start off the day, the bus was super late, completely unlike Compiègne, so another woman waiting and I walked to the gare de Compiègne together. She was really nice and talked for the half hour walk to the gare. I made it just in time to buy my billet (ticket) and board the train. Turns out she is originally from Russia, but has lived in France for 12 years so speaks fluently. I understand everything we talked about and held a constant conversation for about a half hour. It was great. I had a good feeling that today was going to be a good day.

I brought a book with me to keep me occupied for the long journey ahead. Good thing I had because by the end of the day, I had already read 120 plus pages of the book! For all you who know how fast of a reader I am, that was remarkable. 

The part of the trip that I was most nervous for was meeting the taxi that Hexagon had reserved for me. Luckily, a woman with a sign saying Hexagon was waiting right outside the gare de Vendome for me. We took a 25 or so minute car ride to Montoire. On the way, I saw vaches, vaches, and more vaches (cows). I felt as if I were in Foster/Glocester - no school! I am pretty sure there are all of five houses in Montoire and Hexagon. Although, it was very pretty, it was not much of a social area. Upon entering Hexagon, the rush of nerves paralyzed me, but I was fine once the lady behind the desk smiled at me (the first person in France to smile at me). I met with the head of research and development as well as one of the heads in the engineering department. They presented a short presentation about the company, asked me questions, I asked some, discussed the living arrangements and transportation, and toured the facility. Overall the whole thing took two hours and while the company seems great, there were a few bumps in the road. One being the transportation to and from work. I would have to live in Vendome which is about 25 min away as I mentioned earlier and there is no public transportation, unless you consider the cows! I would have to buy a car and/or rent one if that is possible and I am not sure how attainable that may be. I was also not entirely gung-ho for the projects that I would be doing during my internship. They are more of a design based company and the facility in France only works on robotic arms, which is not one of my ideal internships, but hey, who ever finds one that is perfect. 

The whole experience was great. As I was reflecting on the whole interview, I am proud that I went to the interview and did everything in another language and all on my own. You learn to do a lot of things that you never imagined doing when you live in another country. Before I make my final decision, I am going to look into some other options. I think there may be something more suitable for me. If not, I guess I am going to buy a cow!

How the French do American Sandwiches

Tonight at Pic, the student bar on campus, there was an American themed repas (plate). Each week there is a different theme. One week it was a romance theme and if you bought a sandwich you got a rose. Cheesy things like that. Anyways I was interested to see how they interpreted American sandwiches seeing as their hamburgers were far from American. I got my plate and the sandwich had three slices of bread (this is a lot for the French), two slices of ham in each layer, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise all held together with a toothpick. The sandwich was accompanied by chips and candy haha. There were sour gummies, root beer cans, and my favorite, gummy bears. It was a pretty good meal and the biggest sandwich I have seen since being here. Although I was not too fond of the white bread, it was delicious all the same. One recommendation I would have for future American themed sandwiches would be to do a turkey and ham combo. I think Mark from the IEP house needs to show these guys what an American sandwich is; although, they are headed in the right direction.

Karaoke French Style

This week, Esperanto had a karaoke night for us at one of the bars. We decided to go there and check it out. Contrary to how Americans do karaoke, the French do it slightly differently. For starters, I did not know there was any other way to do karaoke other than the way we know it, but I was wrong. French karaoke does not include a microphone and consists of the whole bar singing every song. There is not just one person that goes up and chooses a song to sing. The French have the words projected onto a screen so that everyone can sing along. Everyone is up and "dancing" and singing. Now for the playlist. What is karaoke without a little Journey - French karaoke. There were tons of ABBA songs, like their whole discography, Kate Perry,  some really lame songs that I have never even heard of, and a few good ones in between, oh and how could I forget, A Whole New World from Aladdin (but in French). It was by far an experience.

Fall is Back

Fall is back again. I definitely brought the Floridian weather back with me because we had two weeks of 80 degree weather and nothing but sun. Unfortunately that came to end this weekend. It is back to being cold and rainy here in Compiègne. I have not seen the sun in three days; its quite depressing. Fall is not the same as it is in Rhode Island. There is no Scituate Art Festival here, no apple picking or pumpkin picking, and most importantly, no meat pie for Dad's birthday! Seeing as there are only five trees in all of Compiègne, I have not seen too much foliage which is also quite triste (sad). 

It has finally hit me that school has begun. I would rather be out exploring, but sometimes you just need to buckle down and do work. So far my classes are not too bad. I am taking German as you know if you read my earlier blog and that is probably my favorite class. Scratch that, it is my favorite class! It is getting a little harder now though. My French class is going okay. I am giving a presentation this week with two other people on non-verbal communication. Thank you COM 100 for having me write that analysis on non-verbal communication. Never thought I would be saying COM 100 was worth it, but I guess that is why we shouldn't say never. My composite materials class is hard, but its okay. Stephan and I are lab partners and we made composite fiber plaques last lab. This week we are going to be doing some testing on the plaques we made. Learning about the European Union for three hours in a row and right after lunch is so long and so boring. It is also hard to stay awake because you have just eaten too. We as a class struggle through it. Some of my Spanish speaking friends are in that class as well as a few Americans so that's good.

A few things I noticed in my classes. All the French students take out their pencil pouches, notebooks with a thousand lines, literally, and then pay full attention for the entire class. Also, classes are an hour and a half at the minimum. I thought 50 min was a long time, boy was I wrong. Stephan and I have come to the conclusion that we are going to have awesome attention spans in class when we get back. Enough about me, back to the students. They all take out their red, blue, and black pens, and a pencil, oh and a ruler. Then they always write in pen and always in cursive, even for engineering classes. If we do an example with a figure, they draw the figure in pencil.  That is the only time they ever use pencil. They use their ruler to make sure the 3-d square or whatever they are drawing is exact. Come on people. They use their ruler to underline the title of their page too. The different colored pens are used for making their notes neat and organized so they can distinguish between this or that. I still haven't figured out their decoding yet, but I am working on it. By the way, no one even looks at their phone during class either. This is not just one or two kids, this is everyone. It is so bizarre. The French are way more strict about note taking than we are.

Just a few observations that I have made since being in class. Also, I can tell which students are French by their backpack too. I would say 2/3rd of the French students at UTC have eastpack backpacks. It is the oddest thing I have ever seen. I guess it would be like walking around campus and seeing NorthFace everywhere, but worse!