My neighbour Rosa.

Start of a new semestre

Tomorrow will be the start of a new semester at UTC. It doesn't really affect me in a great deal since I started my work already. However, all my friends are back and of course, there are new international students.

My new neighbour is a spanish girl named Rosa. She's in mechanical, so "fludios dinámico y termodinámica" were her specialties. I will have a photo of her posted when I get a chance.

It's also nice to see some more Canadian representations. Two girls from the University of Sherbrooke and two guys from the University of Montreal are staying here for one term. Interesting, now I can REALLY hear the quebecois accent. It's quite noticible, although I can understand perfectly fine.

In term of sports, I will probably pick up mountain climbing again, hopefully this time I can stay with it. I should also try out for the basketball team. :)

It was nice to see every one back, although it had only been barely one month. This was actually one of the major reasons I want to stay in Compiegne and that is to stay close to the unversity environment. Now when I think about it, it's probably a right choice.

Beatrize, Rosa's friend.

We are in the middle of saying the word "Chorizo". The name of the Spanish sausage, damn it tastes good. Going to get a whole bunch of them in Barcelona!

Bea's little figures of spanish dancers! All the way from Spain!

Going under the knife...

Knifes, cuts, blood and submission. That's what it was about this morning. No, I didn't get attacked. It was the operation on my ear.

So the swell of my ear had subsided quite a bit since last week, and it stopped hurting but it was still not 100%. The swell was soft, seems like there was a collection of liquids. So this morning I went to the hospital to see a specailist, not knowing exactly what will happen.

I had no problem checking into the hospital, got a sheet from the front desk indicating the doctor's name, and the room number. I went into the room, the first thing I see is a operation table. Wow, that was serious, I thought. I had never had an operation before, not even a dental fix.

The doctor was there waiting, with my files in hand. After a quick exam, she confirmed that it was necessary to cut it open and empty out the collection of liquids, otherwise the problem will come back.

She had to put my ear to sleep first. She had to inject the medicine into my ear in order to do that. It was a strange sensation. You first feel the pain of the needle, then afterwards it feels like a trickle of water is going down your ear tunnel, straight into your ear drum. She then asked me if it had hurt as she pushed on it. It felt like she was poking it with a Q-tip, so I told her no (Afterwards she told me she was using a operation knife! boy did the medicine work). She then started her operation. It was funny because it was right in my ear so all I heard was the sound of scratches, like how it sounds when you scratch a piece of paper, but in reality she was slashing the swell open, and squeezing the excessive liquids that are in there. I lied there like a baby, listening to these strange sounds of flow of liquid, clingings of metals, and separations of flesh at literally zero approximity.

I am quite impressed with the speed of the completion. It only took her about 5 mins to clean it up throughly, and afterwards it kept on bleeding but it was just blood coming out so I am sure it was cleared. I will still need to finish the anti biotics, also wash my ear regularly until it heals.


That was something...

I am almost discouraged...

monday morning and the first thing I get is a phone call from my boss saying that there are some problems with my stay permit.

This problem is even more complicated because they put down a stay permit marking that I am chinese in my canadian passport.

INSERM can't pay me until this is solved.

I am really pissed off now because no one told me its a problem until the last minute! I got my work permit fine, no problem at all. The next thing they just turn around all of a sudden and say that there is a big problem that you will have to fix!!


The worst case is that I will have to redo all my papers.


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That's right, there is a chinese proverb "Huo Bu Dang Xing" which bascially means that the bad things always happens together. :S

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And let me futher state that I am proud to be chinese. I am only frustrated with this untimely logistic mess.

Lost in Translation...

One complication about going on exchange to a non english speaking country is that all your materials will be non english and what do you have to do when you want to get them accredited at UW? You will have to translate the materials in English, at least the detailed course outlines.

Extra work...but what can you do, it's part of the process. I will complete a document for my undergrad chair with as much info about the courses as possible. This way he can look at my course informations now, rather than after I go back.

More Danone Photos

UTC School News Paper covering the Danone event.

Ear problem.

Never thought I would actually end up in a hospital here.

For some strange reason my right ear had been acting a little strange lately. It got swollen so badly for no reason all of a sudden, and even worse, the swell was in the ear that it blocked the tunnel so I was having trouble hearing.

Yesterday my little swell friend decided that he really didn't like me so he started to give me this pain that I could hardly bare. So to the hospital it was! It was late so no bus and since now is really holidays for the French students, my friends with cars are all gone. So I had to walk for a hour in the cold, but really needed to take care of my buddy.

The hospital and the ER was actually quite similar to those in Canada, which I remember quite vividly not too long ago from my bike accident.

The ER doctor couldn't really do any analysis since I really don't know what was the cause, so he took my ear and squeeze the sh#t out of it. Boy did it hurt, although I must admit that after most of the crap had been taken out, it felt much better.

The doctor then gave me a prescription of some anti-biotics, which I had to buy right away for the night. After finding out that I walked to the hospital and had to walk back, the nurse felt kinda sorry for me and decided to give me some anti-biotics at least to cover the night. I felt saved because the pharmacy is all the way on the other side of the city!

I am seeing a specialist next tuesday to have it further examined, I don't think it's anything serious, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Happy New Year!!

That's right, it's the chinese new year and I would like to wish every one the best in the new year!

The Louvre. Free...

Mona Lisa. From a far view. You can't take pictures close up. The actual painting is much smaller than I expected. The colours have faded greatly. It was interesting none the less.

There is a thing in France where the first sundy of each month the major museums are free. This is one of the chances when you can visit the Louvre museum without paying an arm and leg. It certainly surpasses the British museum that I had seen just past week, in fact it's so big that one needs at least 2 or 3 days to see every thing in details.

My first site was of course the painting "Mona Lisa". No surprise it was extremely crowded. I was not even allowed to take photos close up.

The next big site was the statue of Venus, not as popular but busy none the less. The shoulder has some parts chipped off, but over all it was in a good shape. The Greeks knew how to make statues. Their interpretation of the bodies was unbelievable. Take a look at the album for yourself.

They also had some really nicely designed jewlleries, of which I forgot the origins. A really impressive part of the Louvre is also the museum itself. Allmost all of the ceilings have relief statues, and amazing paintings. It's hard to describe in words so you have to see it for yourself in the album :)

Over all the Louvre does hold up it's reputations in my opinion. In terms of collections as well as presentation. Best of all, it was all free :)

A crown of pearls. From the Louvre

The ceiling of Louvre. My jaws had dropped...

The REAL statue of Venus.

Alright... May be Agent Smith is not an easy cookie after all

Work is kinda slow in the first week. One thing that is quite painful is waking up early each day to catch the train to Paris. Then the metro...You have to literally push your way out other wise you will certainly miss the station. As well as the formidable odours of dried urine, smoke, and sweet in the tunnels.

Folks, some parts of Paris is not as elegant as you might think or have imagined.

When you come back home, it's already 7, you eat, 8, you take a break, 9, soon it's time to sleep. :S

The thing is also that I find I still have trouble sometimes communicating with my colleges. The good thing is that there was a formal coop student to help me out a bit.

Things should pick up in a few weeks I hope.

I also want to see if I can help out with the local school Aerial robotics group. That will be late Feb, early March.

Aside from that I am also waiting for an response from my undergrad chair on how to procede with the course validation process as I will need my credits here to be transfered to UW in order to have them recognized. The fact that I will have to make up a 3B main course will also mean I will need to repick 4A / 4B courses.


Many things still in the state of uncertainty...

Imagine the scene in the Matrix where there are thousands of Agent Smiths...

This is practically what I will be doing for INSERM. A simulation that will be able to simulate an hospital with each personal as an agent, interacting with each other. After we will introduce agents of virus, and observe how they evolve, in the end we will introduce vacines as agents as well. The goal is to simulate a "Micro Monde", micro world, with each player interacting with each other.


Lots of work ahead...