It's been a very long while since I last wrote, but that's just because work has been keeping me busy. The job isn't always the most exciting, but my co-workers are a dream, and I occasionally get some interesting projects to work on.
For example: A month or so ago, my boss asked me to work on a position paper regarding the implementation of IFRS for SMEs (a set of international accounting standards for small and medium sized companies) in the US. The paper is against the implementation, whereas I personally would be pro, but it's been really interesting to research and write.
The rest of the internship so far has been a testament to how welcoming the French can be. My officemate, Emilie, as well as two of the other women in the near vicinity, Aude and Melanie, included me right away in their girls' gym outings and coffee breaks. Every Monday and Friday (and Wednesday this week!) we complain for an hour before going to an hour long aerobics class. We complain the whole time we're there about how hard it is, take a shower, and go to the sandwich place across the street for soup and salad (which are always delicious!) and complain the next day about how badly we're feeling the effects of the gym.
While there's definitely some interoffice gossip, in general people get along and prefer to be in the company of others than alone, which is really different for me. Even in my amazing group at Horizon for my last co-op, the camaradery wasn't quite as pronounced. For example, Nathalie, the secretary to the #2 to the CFO who works in our department, invited me to lunch a few weeks ago. We went to a place where she knows the owner and had delicious pumpkin risotto with foie gras (sounds weird, but delicious) and finished with espressos. Over lunch we talked about her love of football (soccer), her upcoming vacations, notably to the World Cup in South Africa, and her amazing wedding to her husband that took place last November. Her dress was basically custom-made by Lanvin. Afterwards, we strolled around the area and visited the Marc Jacobs boutique (don't worry Mom and Dad, I didn't buy anything) For her birthday, she invited a bunch of the ladies from the area to a little conference room and we shared a bottle of champagne and some little cookies. Emilie, Aude and I bought her these precious bracelets online that completely fit her fun personality and we joke everyday about when they're going to arrive. Nathalie also took me across the street to see the Orangerie, the building where all of BNP Paribas' chief officers work and where Napoleon and Josephine were married. Next month she's organized a lunch with one of my bosses as well as a trip to the trading room. She literally knows everyone in the company and is just too precious when it comes to introducing me to them.
Whenever I don't have something else to do after work, Emilie and I leave together, and sometimes with one of the group secretaries who lives near me. Last week we walked home 3 times after work, instead of taking the metro. It's so amazing to me how much people want to be social here- and such a contrast to my usual preference to sit and read a book by myself! I'm just trying to go with the flow and accept 99% of the invitations offered to me.
I'm finally cooking a lot more, which is a joy. My roommate likes to cook/bake as well, so there're a lot of apparati in the house for me to play with. My favorite is definitely the stick blender, and I've taken to making a soup on Sunday night so that I don't have to make dinner Monday, Tuesday, and sometimes Wednesday depending on if Agathe shares with me. Past renditions have included carrot soup with cumin and crème fraiche, lentil soup with tomatoes and cayenne pepper, and split pea soup with ham and topped with emmental (similar to swiss). Today is going to be cauliflower soup since it looked good at the market.
Baking is also up since I have several excuses to do it. For birthdays, and just because, people at work are always bringing in treats (cookies, croissants, chocolates from vacation...). It's great for me because I get to try French things (like financiers and madeleines), and they love the muffins and such that I bring in.
I joined a choir about a month ago, too. I missed singing so much that it was getting unbearable. My boss knew someone who sang, and I went to their winter concert and auditioned a few days later. We're singing opera choruses, which always make me smile, and most of them are familiar, which (don't tell) means I don't have to practice too much. We always have about a half hour-45 minute break during which we drink (wine! and lots of it!) and eat, taking turns among the sections to bring refreshments. Tomorrow is my section's second turn (last time was carrot muffins), and I bought amazing looking rhubarb at the market, so I'm making a tart with it.
In other news, passed all my exams with reasonably good grades (18/20 in accounting-passing is 10 and normal is 13-14, the rest were less exciting), which meant that I didn't have to go back to the hell-hole that was Reims to retake anything, nor did I have to study. Phew! Also found out within the last couple of months that I get to spend fall semester as both a Research Assistant and a Teacher's assistant for some really great professors. I think the one that I asked about the positions put my name in for a scholarship, because I recently found out that I got it, but I'd never applied because I didn't know it existed. I got into all the classes that I need for the fall, so I'm on track to graduate a semester early. My fabulous friend Meg, and her two friends, just found us an apartment for the fall, so I'm really excited that everything's coming together so well.
In performing a fake job search, I found my absolute post-grad dream job in San Francisco. It's a Budget and Financial Analyst position for a non-profit called Room to Read that works toward child literacy in developing countries. Short of the 3 years of Budgeting experience, which I consider a minor detail ;-), the job fits perfectly to my qualifications, especially the idea of being "open" to international travel.
In every aspect of my life, I'm about 10,000 times happier in Paris than I was in Reims, and I'm really happy to be in France, even if I miss home and will definitely be ready for the familiar when I move back to Boston in August.
Peter is coming to visit on Thursday (!!!), so I'm excited to drag him around my city. We're going down to Montpellier/Millau for Ascension day weekend- we're staying with a family the first night in Montpellier, and then in a converted Chateau (read: Castle!) in Millau. Can't wait!
Also coming up: a trip to Barcelona the weekend after Peter leaves and to Agadir, Morocco in June.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Exams and the start of my internship
So glad to finally be finished with exams! Literally all of January and the first week of February was spent stressing constantly about them. In the middle of January, however, RMS decided it would be a really good idea to require two weeks of seminars- 1 on team management and 1 on marketing. These would not ordinarily have been too bad, and in a normal context would have provided a welcome break from classes. However, the fact that they took place in the middle of our study time (with required papers and projects for some, and thus little time to study outside of class) was obnoxious. The marketing seminar was a simulation in which we were assigned, in small groups, a company producing miscellaneous "communication devices" (it was hinted they were something like cell phones) with given characteristics, specialities, resources, etc. Each day we had to spend time allocating our resources in order to improve products through R&D or promote them in order to convince consumers to purchase them. Doing this in an international group was extremely difficult due to a pretty even divide in similar cultures. We had 2 girls of a nationality I won't name, who didn't seem to understand much of what was going on. Then we had 3 other girls who are all perfectionists and what a Westerner would consider "efficient" workers. However, we had maybe an hour and a half each time to do all the work leading up to a decision, a short deadline that made it pretty impossible to slow down and explain everything to the girls who didn't understand. So it ended up that the other 3 did all the work. Add to that the fact that one of the girls decided to leave 2-3 hours early on the first day because "she had a meeting," and she didn't even show up the 2nd day without telling anyone. The third day she apologized and said she'd do extra work, but by that time most decisions had been made and she didn't make an effort to ask questions about what had happened in her absence and just sat there staring at us. Lessons learned: when working in an international team, start as early as possible in order to explain the task, delegate tasks with a VERY specific quality standard, and check on status updates often.
The second week was a team management seminar, although it was a bit odd to learn about how to manage/work in teams when we'd been involved in at least 6-8 group projects for 4 months already... Again, lots of theory, a personality test to see what kind of leaders we are (MBTI test for anyone who's interested, I'm all the way to the left on everything, basically meaning that I like cold hard facts and efficiency, or at least that's my interpretation...), and team simulations. This seminar wasn't nearly as bad as the first one. It was nice to see that despite difficulties in expressing myself perfectly in French (which I would consider to be the biggest obstacle in leading a team, especially if they're all native speakers), I was able to set objectives and obtain them when it was my turn to lead a group.
Skip forward a couple of weeks to exams. I have never been so exhausted in all my life. I would wake up and take an exam starting at 9, then come home and study, with a short break for a most likely un-cooked dinner such as bread and jam, until midnight or later. Except on Tuesday night. Wednesday's tests were on Communal Policy (extremely detailed class on the EU that would've been difficult for any non-European to fully comprehend) and European Law. The law one was pretty easy, although I don't want to get ahead of myself and say I'm sure I did well. Communal Policy was mostly humorous. I was so exhausted from studying for other exams and moving half my things to Paris over the weekend that I just didn't have it in me to study for a class that doesn't count for me at Northeastern, and is full of information that I won't need to know in the amount of detail it was presented. For example, one of the classes was spent on the budget of the EU and we were expected to know the percentages of what is spent on each item... Yeah right. Other than that one, I'm reasonably sure that I at least passed the exams. I know for sure (from talking to my professor in passing) that I got a 14 on my French exam, which will have participation and some minor homework grades added to it. 14/20 would be such an awful grade in the States, but since almost no one ever gets above a 16 (which leads one to wonder why there are numbers like 20...), I'm not depressed.
After cleaning our apartment from top to bottom and throwing out most of the things we'd accumulated (including sneaking our futon out of the apartment in the middle of the night in order to put it near the trash of another complex...), Maggie and I decided we deserved something nice. We went to see "Le Concert" with French friend Diane and British friend Emilie. It is one of the best movies I"ve seen in a long time- and has been in theaters almost since we arrived! It's about a janitor who works at the Bolshoi symphony hall in Moscow. We find out that he used to be the conductor of said symphony before WWII, but was fired and driven to alcoholism when he refused to turn out the Jewish members of the orchestra. He intercepts a fax invitation from Paris to bring the Bolshoi orchestra to the City of Lights for a concert at the St Germain theater and must then go about rousing his old orchestra members to play a Tchaikovsky concerto that has special meaning for him. The performance at the end was so amazing that I cried. Can't wait to buy the DVD when it comes out in April. Next, Maggie and I went to one of the nice restaurants in town and had a 4 course tasting meal! Champagne to start with the first course of 3 preps of foie gras (Seared, plain, and with chocolate). Then our Loire valley red was popped open and we had a fabulous cut of beef with baby carrots and asparagus, a red wine sauce, and a potato gratin type thing. Cheese course followed, although it wasn't especially good. Dessert was absolutely fantastic- appropriately called a "symphony of dessert." Crème brulée, amazing strawberry ice cream, a molten chocolate cake, and a cheesecake with an extremely tart raspberry sauce. Lovely! And of course, coffee to finish. We arrived just after 7 and were the first table to sit down, but we didn't leave until almost 10 when the other parties were starting to finish their own dinners (the restaurant closes at 11), so I felt quite French :-)
Moved to Paris over the weekend, which was a long journey. The strap on one of my bags broke, and I got dirty looks from a lady on the metro, but I was helped several times by sympathetic people and got to my new apartment fairly close to my forecasted TOA. Went out with Jason and Dan for a cocktail at the Iguana bar, which had fun mixed drinks and a nice atmosphere. Sunday, explored the neighborhood and found a market (which makes me feel right at home) and then went into the center of town for a nice long walk and a pillow purchase (had to toss mine in Reims since there wasn't any room in my suitcase).
First day of my internship went well. We met my boss, Peter (the NEU alum who recruted us all), in the morning and chatted about working in a French company, completed some HR formalities, went to lunch with my team, and split up into our various teams after lunch to work. So far the job's not too demanding. I'm in charge of scouring the news for articles on accounting standards (but please don't send me any because Peter's criteria are very particular), translating accounting documents, and eventually completing a benchmarking project starting March 1st when annual reports start to come out. The people I work with are extremely nice and very inclusive. They'll let me practice my French, and they'll practice English with me. We don't always talk about work, either. I've learned ski vocabulary since the Olympics started on Sunday (which I haven't had time to follow), as well as old French for stepmother (marâtre, which is generally used in a negative context in stories like Snow White) and the name of "Taming of the Shrew" (Mégère Apprivoisée). I'm really lucky to have such nice people working with me, and they're all ridiculously smart as well. Just hope I can live up to their obviously high standards!
The second week was a team management seminar, although it was a bit odd to learn about how to manage/work in teams when we'd been involved in at least 6-8 group projects for 4 months already... Again, lots of theory, a personality test to see what kind of leaders we are (MBTI test for anyone who's interested, I'm all the way to the left on everything, basically meaning that I like cold hard facts and efficiency, or at least that's my interpretation...), and team simulations. This seminar wasn't nearly as bad as the first one. It was nice to see that despite difficulties in expressing myself perfectly in French (which I would consider to be the biggest obstacle in leading a team, especially if they're all native speakers), I was able to set objectives and obtain them when it was my turn to lead a group.
Skip forward a couple of weeks to exams. I have never been so exhausted in all my life. I would wake up and take an exam starting at 9, then come home and study, with a short break for a most likely un-cooked dinner such as bread and jam, until midnight or later. Except on Tuesday night. Wednesday's tests were on Communal Policy (extremely detailed class on the EU that would've been difficult for any non-European to fully comprehend) and European Law. The law one was pretty easy, although I don't want to get ahead of myself and say I'm sure I did well. Communal Policy was mostly humorous. I was so exhausted from studying for other exams and moving half my things to Paris over the weekend that I just didn't have it in me to study for a class that doesn't count for me at Northeastern, and is full of information that I won't need to know in the amount of detail it was presented. For example, one of the classes was spent on the budget of the EU and we were expected to know the percentages of what is spent on each item... Yeah right. Other than that one, I'm reasonably sure that I at least passed the exams. I know for sure (from talking to my professor in passing) that I got a 14 on my French exam, which will have participation and some minor homework grades added to it. 14/20 would be such an awful grade in the States, but since almost no one ever gets above a 16 (which leads one to wonder why there are numbers like 20...), I'm not depressed.
After cleaning our apartment from top to bottom and throwing out most of the things we'd accumulated (including sneaking our futon out of the apartment in the middle of the night in order to put it near the trash of another complex...), Maggie and I decided we deserved something nice. We went to see "Le Concert" with French friend Diane and British friend Emilie. It is one of the best movies I"ve seen in a long time- and has been in theaters almost since we arrived! It's about a janitor who works at the Bolshoi symphony hall in Moscow. We find out that he used to be the conductor of said symphony before WWII, but was fired and driven to alcoholism when he refused to turn out the Jewish members of the orchestra. He intercepts a fax invitation from Paris to bring the Bolshoi orchestra to the City of Lights for a concert at the St Germain theater and must then go about rousing his old orchestra members to play a Tchaikovsky concerto that has special meaning for him. The performance at the end was so amazing that I cried. Can't wait to buy the DVD when it comes out in April. Next, Maggie and I went to one of the nice restaurants in town and had a 4 course tasting meal! Champagne to start with the first course of 3 preps of foie gras (Seared, plain, and with chocolate). Then our Loire valley red was popped open and we had a fabulous cut of beef with baby carrots and asparagus, a red wine sauce, and a potato gratin type thing. Cheese course followed, although it wasn't especially good. Dessert was absolutely fantastic- appropriately called a "symphony of dessert." Crème brulée, amazing strawberry ice cream, a molten chocolate cake, and a cheesecake with an extremely tart raspberry sauce. Lovely! And of course, coffee to finish. We arrived just after 7 and were the first table to sit down, but we didn't leave until almost 10 when the other parties were starting to finish their own dinners (the restaurant closes at 11), so I felt quite French :-)
Moved to Paris over the weekend, which was a long journey. The strap on one of my bags broke, and I got dirty looks from a lady on the metro, but I was helped several times by sympathetic people and got to my new apartment fairly close to my forecasted TOA. Went out with Jason and Dan for a cocktail at the Iguana bar, which had fun mixed drinks and a nice atmosphere. Sunday, explored the neighborhood and found a market (which makes me feel right at home) and then went into the center of town for a nice long walk and a pillow purchase (had to toss mine in Reims since there wasn't any room in my suitcase).
First day of my internship went well. We met my boss, Peter (the NEU alum who recruted us all), in the morning and chatted about working in a French company, completed some HR formalities, went to lunch with my team, and split up into our various teams after lunch to work. So far the job's not too demanding. I'm in charge of scouring the news for articles on accounting standards (but please don't send me any because Peter's criteria are very particular), translating accounting documents, and eventually completing a benchmarking project starting March 1st when annual reports start to come out. The people I work with are extremely nice and very inclusive. They'll let me practice my French, and they'll practice English with me. We don't always talk about work, either. I've learned ski vocabulary since the Olympics started on Sunday (which I haven't had time to follow), as well as old French for stepmother (marâtre, which is generally used in a negative context in stories like Snow White) and the name of "Taming of the Shrew" (Mégère Apprivoisée). I'm really lucky to have such nice people working with me, and they're all ridiculously smart as well. Just hope I can live up to their obviously high standards!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Chez moi :-)
After the stress of 4 months of French, it felt so good to be back with the English-speaking people I love. Arrived (early! Thanks to a dear, sweet airline employee who put me on an earlier flight) Saturday (the 20th) night in time for burgers with the family. Spent Sunday relaxing and starting Christmas preparations.
Next two days were spent in San Francisco with Peter. He met me at the airport with tulips, because he knows I love them and we went back to his house for a relaxing evening with wine and cheese and grapes. He had to work for a few hours in the morning, so I toodled around Market St. and had TWO lattes from Peet's. How I missed the American sizes and that delicious foam that only Peet's can make. Went to lunch with his co-workers at a Middle Eastern place. They're all extremely nice and dumbed down their tech talk to traveling talk so that I could participate. Tuesday evening was the San Francisco Girls' Chorus concert, which I'd been looking forward to for months. It was such a perfect date- dinner at an Italian place, and then a concert where I got to hear Peter sing! The lady in front of us kept turning around and admiring his manly bass voice :-) Even the flight back to San Diego was fun- I'd brought a book to amuse myself, but we ended up reading an article in his magazine and playing cards together.
Christmas Eve we went to our old church for the 11 pm service, but it's changed a LOT since we used to go there and seemed commercialized. They didn't even sing very many carols, so I had to wait for that, too. Christmas was wonderful- got the camera I'd asked for and, among other things, a CD from Peter of his choir's Christmas concert with a note to me in the program!
Day after Christmas was a shopping trip with my mom and a nice lunch at Cheesecake factory while the boys went hiking. The rest of the trip gets kind of fuzzy in terms of the order of things. We went to Palm Springs and took the gondola up to the (almost) summit of Mt. San Jacinto, which was absolutely gorgeous! Peter and I drove out to Rancho Bernardo and did a wine tasting with a fabulous server whose son has also taken years of French and wants to study abroad (while I absolutely hate RMS and the school system here, I tried to stay positive). The place was fantastic (Bernardo Winery) and pretty good wine and a lovely area to stroll with a glass. Went for a short hike afterwards to eat a picnic lunch. Also saw "Invictus" with my Grandma and Aunt and had a fabulous early dinner at my favorite Jewish deli. On New Year's Eve, Peter and I got the Go San Diego pass, so we went to the Midway with my family and saw all the cool planes on board, and then went to Legoland by ourselves. Both visits were so fun- neither would've been my first choice on the list of 55, but just being with my family and Peter made them fun. New Year's Eve p.m. was relaxed. Made boeuf bourguignon with Mom's help for dinner, had champagne and raspberry cookies (made in Reims to serve with champagne) at midnight and got my first New Year's kiss from Peter! :-)
Leaving was really hard- I think most of the students here are really unhappy with school and the intense amount of stress put upon us, especially in this last month and a half. After being so happy with everyone over Christmas, all I really want to do is be done with school, have a real job, and be near the people I love.
Have to keep telling myself it's only another 8 months till I'm back in the States, and another year until I'm done!
Next two days were spent in San Francisco with Peter. He met me at the airport with tulips, because he knows I love them and we went back to his house for a relaxing evening with wine and cheese and grapes. He had to work for a few hours in the morning, so I toodled around Market St. and had TWO lattes from Peet's. How I missed the American sizes and that delicious foam that only Peet's can make. Went to lunch with his co-workers at a Middle Eastern place. They're all extremely nice and dumbed down their tech talk to traveling talk so that I could participate. Tuesday evening was the San Francisco Girls' Chorus concert, which I'd been looking forward to for months. It was such a perfect date- dinner at an Italian place, and then a concert where I got to hear Peter sing! The lady in front of us kept turning around and admiring his manly bass voice :-) Even the flight back to San Diego was fun- I'd brought a book to amuse myself, but we ended up reading an article in his magazine and playing cards together.
Christmas Eve we went to our old church for the 11 pm service, but it's changed a LOT since we used to go there and seemed commercialized. They didn't even sing very many carols, so I had to wait for that, too. Christmas was wonderful- got the camera I'd asked for and, among other things, a CD from Peter of his choir's Christmas concert with a note to me in the program!
Day after Christmas was a shopping trip with my mom and a nice lunch at Cheesecake factory while the boys went hiking. The rest of the trip gets kind of fuzzy in terms of the order of things. We went to Palm Springs and took the gondola up to the (almost) summit of Mt. San Jacinto, which was absolutely gorgeous! Peter and I drove out to Rancho Bernardo and did a wine tasting with a fabulous server whose son has also taken years of French and wants to study abroad (while I absolutely hate RMS and the school system here, I tried to stay positive). The place was fantastic (Bernardo Winery) and pretty good wine and a lovely area to stroll with a glass. Went for a short hike afterwards to eat a picnic lunch. Also saw "Invictus" with my Grandma and Aunt and had a fabulous early dinner at my favorite Jewish deli. On New Year's Eve, Peter and I got the Go San Diego pass, so we went to the Midway with my family and saw all the cool planes on board, and then went to Legoland by ourselves. Both visits were so fun- neither would've been my first choice on the list of 55, but just being with my family and Peter made them fun. New Year's Eve p.m. was relaxed. Made boeuf bourguignon with Mom's help for dinner, had champagne and raspberry cookies (made in Reims to serve with champagne) at midnight and got my first New Year's kiss from Peter! :-)
Leaving was really hard- I think most of the students here are really unhappy with school and the intense amount of stress put upon us, especially in this last month and a half. After being so happy with everyone over Christmas, all I really want to do is be done with school, have a real job, and be near the people I love.
Have to keep telling myself it's only another 8 months till I'm back in the States, and another year until I'm done!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The slump
Short of the Christmas market, things are pas bien here.
My sleep habits have completely changed. I stay up late because it takes awhile to wind down from school and then "wind up" again in order to work productively. This, obviously, makes it hard to wake up in the morning and stay awake in the boring classes. I have, on the bright side, been drinking more water because doing something helps keep me awake.
Our schedule/due dates are so insane that it's hard to keep them straight, let alone work productively. I've managed to keep up decently, based on what I've heard from the other Americans. Don't get too excited, however, this simply means that I've actually finished few papers, while others loom ahead of me. We have these evil little seminars that take up entire days and include a "dossier" (a paper of at least 5 pages in length) due shortly thereafter. These utterly interfere with our already disorganized schedule.
For example, this past week we had negociation and complex selling. I am an awful negociator, to the extent that it was one of the personality faults I named during our equally pointless seminar on finding an internship. So you can imagine how much I loved this class... The first day involved a case where we had to negociate the contract between a star chess player and a company who wanted him to play against their super-computer. The second half of that day was a case that insulted most of our German classmates because it was a replay of the end of WWII. Reading the terms used, you can well imagine why they would've been insulted. The country that was obviously Germany was called "Bierland," and the representative was named "Holger Wurst." The case went on to describe how Bierland had utterly destroyed Europe. Now, you and I both know that all of these things actually happened and that it was horrible. However, to bring up the issue in a class full of people who have dealt with the stigma of their grandparents' actions their whole lives is not exactly the most politically correct option.
Day 2 was better/worse. Our professor was much more interesting and shared more stories of his experience. However, he unfortunately took a liking to me and called on me all the time! One of his main points was that a negociation isn't truly successful unless everybody wins. However, in reality I've always found (thus the reason that I hate negociating) that everyone involved is concerned only with his own interests and is constantly trying to trick someone in order to come out ahead. We did several practice rounds in groups, and had only 20 minutes left of class when he decided that we were going to have a special negociation with one student against him. The only thing he told us what that he would be a buyer for a large chain of 2 * hotels, and the lucky student would be a seller of signs (like the kind that point you towards the ball room or the toilets). After what was supposed to be 10 min of prep, but was really only 5, guess who he chose?! Since we hadn't had any guidelines or any real prep, everything said was basically bs and could be whatever the speaker wanted it to be. So, for example, he had offers from another supplier, whereas I made up the fact that there were 150 rooms in each of 10 hotels. 30 years of experience vs someone who hates negociating is really no contest, and even though I tried my best, I just got so nervous and said the wrong thing several times. Afterwards, we discussed it and I was so upset that I started tearing up, so I didn't even participate in the discussion. I, thankfully, waited to cry until I was outside the classroom, but he must've seen the waterworks coming and tried to apologize as I was on my way out. He even went so far as to tell my friend, Harriet, that I'd done a good job and shouldn't be upset. This is the second time this semester that I've been in front of a group actively trying to find fault (even though it was a role-playing situation) and it's ended in my crying. Having never been like this before, I've decided that the camel back-breaking straw is French. In a similar situation in the United States, my language skills would at least be strong enough that I could fake my way out of "trouble." In French, however, I can hold a conversation, but can't react quickly enough to formulate the best possible response.
To top things all off, we finally received a response (after over a month) from Northeastern regarding which classes we'll be transferring back. The answer is: all of them! Since the credits are different among classes, some of them will be combined and the grades averaged in order to transfer them over. Unfortunately, the goal of French students is just to pass the class. Employers don't look as much at your grades as at the university you went to. For the Americans, however, we have to worry about grades in 17 classes! While a class may only technically have 2 credits, we still have a multiple hour exam and a 20 page group paper + presentation to do in many of them, so the work load is the same as a 4 credit class, we just see the professor (aka the only person who can advise us) less often.
Needless to say, it hasn't been an especially wonderful week.
On the bright side- I found out last week Thursday (hadn't posted about interviews for lack of time and for fear of failure) that I am officially going to be an employee of the Corporate Finance and Developpment department at BNP Paribas- the largest bank in France and I believe the 7th or 8th largest worldwide! :-)
My sleep habits have completely changed. I stay up late because it takes awhile to wind down from school and then "wind up" again in order to work productively. This, obviously, makes it hard to wake up in the morning and stay awake in the boring classes. I have, on the bright side, been drinking more water because doing something helps keep me awake.
Our schedule/due dates are so insane that it's hard to keep them straight, let alone work productively. I've managed to keep up decently, based on what I've heard from the other Americans. Don't get too excited, however, this simply means that I've actually finished few papers, while others loom ahead of me. We have these evil little seminars that take up entire days and include a "dossier" (a paper of at least 5 pages in length) due shortly thereafter. These utterly interfere with our already disorganized schedule.
For example, this past week we had negociation and complex selling. I am an awful negociator, to the extent that it was one of the personality faults I named during our equally pointless seminar on finding an internship. So you can imagine how much I loved this class... The first day involved a case where we had to negociate the contract between a star chess player and a company who wanted him to play against their super-computer. The second half of that day was a case that insulted most of our German classmates because it was a replay of the end of WWII. Reading the terms used, you can well imagine why they would've been insulted. The country that was obviously Germany was called "Bierland," and the representative was named "Holger Wurst." The case went on to describe how Bierland had utterly destroyed Europe. Now, you and I both know that all of these things actually happened and that it was horrible. However, to bring up the issue in a class full of people who have dealt with the stigma of their grandparents' actions their whole lives is not exactly the most politically correct option.
Day 2 was better/worse. Our professor was much more interesting and shared more stories of his experience. However, he unfortunately took a liking to me and called on me all the time! One of his main points was that a negociation isn't truly successful unless everybody wins. However, in reality I've always found (thus the reason that I hate negociating) that everyone involved is concerned only with his own interests and is constantly trying to trick someone in order to come out ahead. We did several practice rounds in groups, and had only 20 minutes left of class when he decided that we were going to have a special negociation with one student against him. The only thing he told us what that he would be a buyer for a large chain of 2 * hotels, and the lucky student would be a seller of signs (like the kind that point you towards the ball room or the toilets). After what was supposed to be 10 min of prep, but was really only 5, guess who he chose?! Since we hadn't had any guidelines or any real prep, everything said was basically bs and could be whatever the speaker wanted it to be. So, for example, he had offers from another supplier, whereas I made up the fact that there were 150 rooms in each of 10 hotels. 30 years of experience vs someone who hates negociating is really no contest, and even though I tried my best, I just got so nervous and said the wrong thing several times. Afterwards, we discussed it and I was so upset that I started tearing up, so I didn't even participate in the discussion. I, thankfully, waited to cry until I was outside the classroom, but he must've seen the waterworks coming and tried to apologize as I was on my way out. He even went so far as to tell my friend, Harriet, that I'd done a good job and shouldn't be upset. This is the second time this semester that I've been in front of a group actively trying to find fault (even though it was a role-playing situation) and it's ended in my crying. Having never been like this before, I've decided that the camel back-breaking straw is French. In a similar situation in the United States, my language skills would at least be strong enough that I could fake my way out of "trouble." In French, however, I can hold a conversation, but can't react quickly enough to formulate the best possible response.
To top things all off, we finally received a response (after over a month) from Northeastern regarding which classes we'll be transferring back. The answer is: all of them! Since the credits are different among classes, some of them will be combined and the grades averaged in order to transfer them over. Unfortunately, the goal of French students is just to pass the class. Employers don't look as much at your grades as at the university you went to. For the Americans, however, we have to worry about grades in 17 classes! While a class may only technically have 2 credits, we still have a multiple hour exam and a 20 page group paper + presentation to do in many of them, so the work load is the same as a 4 credit class, we just see the professor (aka the only person who can advise us) less often.
Needless to say, it hasn't been an especially wonderful week.
On the bright side- I found out last week Thursday (hadn't posted about interviews for lack of time and for fear of failure) that I am officially going to be an employee of the Corporate Finance and Developpment department at BNP Paribas- the largest bank in France and I believe the 7th or 8th largest worldwide! :-)
Monday, November 9, 2009
Champagne cave visit + 2 week summary
Haven't written in awhile, so here's a basic run-down of the past couple of weeks' events:
Arrived at Pommery and were offered one of 3 tour options- 1 glass, a nicer 1 glass, or 2 glasses of our choice. The latter option was only 5 euro more than the first one (and a horrid glass of champagne at a café in Reims will run you about 9 euro) so we decided it was well worth it. I was glad Casey was along because we also could choose between the French and English version of the tour, and without his weight we might've had to do the English version. We had time to kill, so we wandered around the welcome area (a concert was supposed to take place there tonight, so there was some really cool set-up going on) and the store.
The tour itself was fantastic. Our guide, Sandra, I believe, was fantastic and, luckily for us, very articulate (which is the reason why I actually remember most of what she told us on the tour). The company which became Pommery was started in 1836, and then formed a partnership with the king of industry, Mr. Pommery in 1856. However, Mr. Pommery died shortly thereafter, leaving behind his 39 year old widow and their two children. Veuve (widow) Louise Pommery was savvy and bought 75 hectares of vineyard land plus the production/storage/distribution center where the tours now take place.
We went down 116 steps (she told us, I didn't actually count) into what I believe was called a crayère (chalk room hollowed out for storing champagne because it keeps it at a nice, chilly 12 degrees C) where we started seeing our first bottles of champagne. As we were walking through, we noticed that most of the little hollows in the wall had names of cities on them. Sandra explained that it was actually a pretty smart way of organizing distribution. Everytime Mme Pommery's marketing director opened up a new market, she placed the name of the city over the area where bottles destined for that city lay. Miami, for example, which is also a beach in Spain, so we don't really know whether it was Spanish or American Miami, Zurich, Brussels, and even Rüdesheim (the small town in Germany we visited a few weeks ago). Overhead tracks with baskets used to carry 6 bottles of champagne (or 4 magnums) at a time. Now, however, they use electric vehicles, not the old system.
We talked about the fermentation process of Champagne. It's first fermented in big vats like normal wine, but is left open, so the bubbles from the first fermentation pretty much disappear. Then it's fermented in bottles, and the dead yeast forms a kind of co-agulated (I'm lacking in the proper vocabulary word in French or English for it) mess in the bottle. Of course, they remove this unsightly mess. How? Well, they submerge the bottle upside-down in a vat of very cold water (-25 celcius) so that the dead yeast freezes into a kind of "cork" at the top of the bottle. This "cork" is then popped off and the bottle is properly closed.
We also learned that champagne used to have 125 g of sugar/750 ml bottle!!!! They drank it as an after dinner liqueur in these cone shaped glasses so that the yeast (they hadn't figured out the filtering process yet) and the extra sugar would fall to the bottom, and they only drank the top part. However, Madame Pommery had a brilliant idea and started adding only 10g/bottle so the champagne was lighter. And that's how we got "brut" champagne!
The whole winery was showing a contemporary art exhibit, so a lot of the rooms had random pieces of "art," i.e. a day-glo pink dress, a weird red race car, a giant "A" with a bird all made out of neon lights... Very interesting...
We looked at the stacks of wine bottles. one of them had something like 300,000 bottles and went back 10 meteres. Every stack had a code on it, a letter which meant the kind of champagne, and a number that referred to the year. A 50, however, didn't mean that the wine was produced in 1950 (champagne is only drinkable for about 3-5 years after maturing), but was a secret code! Oh my!
The champagne tasting was absolutely fantastic! Maggie and I were glad we'd gotten the 2 glass option. The "regular" champagne wasn't that delicious. She got the "blanc de noirs" (all pinot noir grapes) as her first glass and I got the rosé (a big step, since I don't do rosé usually), and then we both got the millesimé as our final glass. So, so, so good. Smooth, sparkly, and perfect scent. I looked up liquid regulations for the airline (b/c it would probably pop in hold) and it looks like if I want to bring some home for Christmas I'll have to hope they have it at the duty free shop. Not really the same, but possibly do-able.
- Group projects galore! The research is generally pretty interesting, it's just mind-numbing to think of all the projects I have to work on. For example, my group hasn't even started on our Logistics project (which will involve interviewing a supply chain manager at X company and finding out all kinds of detail about his company, then a person chosen at random by the professor will present our paper in 15 minutes) because we have so many other things to do and the professor told us to wait until we had better questions to ask.
- Had a visit with my social class to the local "Prud'hommes" court. Essentially, France has two types of courts. The prud'hommes, and everything else. The prud-hommes (judges) are nominated by unions, elected by any employee, and rule on cases involving employees vs. employers. Unfortunately for us, all of the cases were postponed (one of them for not having a properly prepared case. seriously?) until at least next month, so all we got to see was the court room and listen to the prud'hommes talk a bit. Still a cool experience, however.
- The good news about this whole experience is that I'm becoming more and more sure about what I want (or don't want) to do. I absolutely detest my marketing class, for example. It bores me to tears, and I just don't see the logic/point behind it. However, I think I'm one of the only people who enjoys my financial diagnostic class, and I am absolutely in love with "compatabilité de gestion" (managerial accounting). I finished two cases in the time everyone else did 1, and it was interesting. And amidst all the disorder and confusion that is my scholastic life right now, my inner control freak really likes putting the right numbers in the right boxes and getting an answer that is right or wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Arrived at Pommery and were offered one of 3 tour options- 1 glass, a nicer 1 glass, or 2 glasses of our choice. The latter option was only 5 euro more than the first one (and a horrid glass of champagne at a café in Reims will run you about 9 euro) so we decided it was well worth it. I was glad Casey was along because we also could choose between the French and English version of the tour, and without his weight we might've had to do the English version. We had time to kill, so we wandered around the welcome area (a concert was supposed to take place there tonight, so there was some really cool set-up going on) and the store.
The tour itself was fantastic. Our guide, Sandra, I believe, was fantastic and, luckily for us, very articulate (which is the reason why I actually remember most of what she told us on the tour). The company which became Pommery was started in 1836, and then formed a partnership with the king of industry, Mr. Pommery in 1856. However, Mr. Pommery died shortly thereafter, leaving behind his 39 year old widow and their two children. Veuve (widow) Louise Pommery was savvy and bought 75 hectares of vineyard land plus the production/storage/distribution center where the tours now take place.
We went down 116 steps (she told us, I didn't actually count) into what I believe was called a crayère (chalk room hollowed out for storing champagne because it keeps it at a nice, chilly 12 degrees C) where we started seeing our first bottles of champagne. As we were walking through, we noticed that most of the little hollows in the wall had names of cities on them. Sandra explained that it was actually a pretty smart way of organizing distribution. Everytime Mme Pommery's marketing director opened up a new market, she placed the name of the city over the area where bottles destined for that city lay. Miami, for example, which is also a beach in Spain, so we don't really know whether it was Spanish or American Miami, Zurich, Brussels, and even Rüdesheim (the small town in Germany we visited a few weeks ago). Overhead tracks with baskets used to carry 6 bottles of champagne (or 4 magnums) at a time. Now, however, they use electric vehicles, not the old system.
We talked about the fermentation process of Champagne. It's first fermented in big vats like normal wine, but is left open, so the bubbles from the first fermentation pretty much disappear. Then it's fermented in bottles, and the dead yeast forms a kind of co-agulated (I'm lacking in the proper vocabulary word in French or English for it) mess in the bottle. Of course, they remove this unsightly mess. How? Well, they submerge the bottle upside-down in a vat of very cold water (-25 celcius) so that the dead yeast freezes into a kind of "cork" at the top of the bottle. This "cork" is then popped off and the bottle is properly closed.
We also learned that champagne used to have 125 g of sugar/750 ml bottle!!!! They drank it as an after dinner liqueur in these cone shaped glasses so that the yeast (they hadn't figured out the filtering process yet) and the extra sugar would fall to the bottom, and they only drank the top part. However, Madame Pommery had a brilliant idea and started adding only 10g/bottle so the champagne was lighter. And that's how we got "brut" champagne!
The whole winery was showing a contemporary art exhibit, so a lot of the rooms had random pieces of "art," i.e. a day-glo pink dress, a weird red race car, a giant "A" with a bird all made out of neon lights... Very interesting...
We looked at the stacks of wine bottles. one of them had something like 300,000 bottles and went back 10 meteres. Every stack had a code on it, a letter which meant the kind of champagne, and a number that referred to the year. A 50, however, didn't mean that the wine was produced in 1950 (champagne is only drinkable for about 3-5 years after maturing), but was a secret code! Oh my!
The champagne tasting was absolutely fantastic! Maggie and I were glad we'd gotten the 2 glass option. The "regular" champagne wasn't that delicious. She got the "blanc de noirs" (all pinot noir grapes) as her first glass and I got the rosé (a big step, since I don't do rosé usually), and then we both got the millesimé as our final glass. So, so, so good. Smooth, sparkly, and perfect scent. I looked up liquid regulations for the airline (b/c it would probably pop in hold) and it looks like if I want to bring some home for Christmas I'll have to hope they have it at the duty free shop. Not really the same, but possibly do-able.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Food lately.
Halibut (fletan) in soy-flavored vegetable broth with mushrooms, carrots, onions, bamboo shoots and Chinese cabbage.
Homemade pizza before cooking with tomatoes, garlic, basil, mushrooms and mozzarella. The mozzarella "leaked" all over, so it was a mess, but still pretty good.
Monkfish with whole-grain mustard and white wine sauce, garlic-sauteed spinach and roasted potatoes (all from market a couple weeks ago)
Uncooked tart with luscious pears from the market
Tart after cooking.
School, Germany
2 weeks into school and haven't had time to write about it... We have something like 13 classes, according to one of my German classmates (and Germans are good at counting, so I believe her). They are at random times. For example, Mondays we don't have class until 2 p.m., whereas there are some days when Maggie, my roommate, has class from 8 to 12:30, and then a break until 3:30 with class until 8 p.m. (French support is an additional requirement for certain levels). Some of the highlights(and lowlights?):The Good:
- Droit social (social law)- Hilarious professor who gestures, articulates and says "c'est-a-dire" all the time ("that is to say..." followed by another explanation in case we didn't get the first one.) France has a court just for disputes between employers and employees, with all sorts of crazy (he said it, not me) rules. For example, judges in this court (called prud'hommes) must be appointed by the unions, even though half are elected by employers and half by employees who might not even like unions. Furthermore, elections for said judges take place during work hours. Thirdly, judges are not required to have any legal experience whatsoever and have a crash course in law when elected.
- Introduction aux SI (Intro to Information Systems)- again a very good professor. This one's actually in charge of the school library, so when he found out about one of the papers we have to write, he took 15 min off the end of his class to show us where to find article databases on the library's website. He's also very easy to understand and encourages participation.
- Francais (no accents today, sorry. French)- loved Mme Spagnolo when she taught during our intensive French week, so this is no exception. She had an immense vocabulary and seems to enjoy us. She, too, encourages participation. While she won't laugh at you if you're wrong, she won't sugar coat your error, either. She is extremely well-informed about world events (for example, asked me about budget cuts regarding education in California before showing me the article she picked up in Paris that day about it) and is a pleasure to listen to.
- Politiques communautaires (Communal politics)- Taught by different professors with different backgrounds (politics, economics, sociology...) every time, this has basically been a modern European history course that all of the anglo kids desperately need.
- Logistiques et Supply Chain Management- Crapshoot. Sometimes fairly interesting, other times 3 hours of the worst kind of boredom there is. These professors also like to quiz us before teaching us. AKA- what are the three dimensions of logistics? They aren't anything you'd be able to come up with, let alone a quantitative answer. Note: in case you take this: Inter-organisationnel, intra-organisationnel, et environmmental. I'm not even going to check my spelling there.
- Diagnostic financier (financial diagnostics)- we haven't actually started any analysis yet, so it's early to judge. So far just a "review" of financial accounting. However, some European rules are the same as FAS (Financial Accounting Standards- US), and some are completely different. Amortizations, for example, refer to all forms of depreciation except for those on things like stock, which are reversible and non-permanent.
- Economie Internationale (again, no accents. International Economics)- Unfortunately the only class that is gauranteed to be on my transcript because I have to take it. This professor speaks in a low-pitched voice, aims his mouth at the floor, speaks quickly, is cocky as all get-out, and refuses to change. A couple of brave students asked him last class to please speak louder/slower then he wasted 10 minutes of class time telling us that we couldn't slow down because we have to take a test on the material whether we've covered it or not. The slides are full of paragraph long quotes (a big no-no in powerpoint presentations) and then he talks about things while we're writing furiously and says that some things won't be in the powerpoint and some will, but refuses to give us the slides ahead of time. At least it can only go up from there?
GERMANY! I love Germany! We took the train to Frankfurt and were met by Maggie's dad on Friday. Had dinner in the hotel in Wiesbaden (which is a government-owned hotel for servicepeople and employees on orders) with him and his co-worker. It was Italian, because it's an Italian restaurant, but was fantastic after just light snacks all day.
Saturday he went to drop co-workers off at the airport, so Maggie and I found our way to the downtown area. There happened to be a fantastic market that gave the Saturday market in Reims some tough competition. Tried apfelwein- which was absolutely fantastic. I would say, as usual, that approximately 99% of the people were absolutely wonderful. Also: no dog poop on the street, people mostly didn't run into us in order to prove that the sidewalk was there, children and dogs were well-behaved and gorgeous... Oh, and for my single girlfriends, German men are much better looking than the French ones, at least what I've seen so far. Looked around and did some very light shopping, mostly for postcards. For dinner, we took the train into Frankfurt and had dinner at what my untrained eye sees as a very authentic German place. We sat at a communal table, had our pilsner (so, so, very good with a perfect aftertaste) with food. For me a mixed grill plate with pork chop, small sausage, pork shoulder, sauerkraut (mmm), mashed potatoes and a thick slab of bacon on top of the potatoes. For dessert, Maggie's dad suggested we try apfelkorn. Typically, I don't like most liqueurs because they smell awful, but this one smelled and tasted like the first bite of a deliciously crisp apple. Because we want to keep doctors away permanently, we also shared apfelstrudel for dessert, which came with a custard sauce and whipped cream.
Sunday we took an autobahn (not as speedy as you'd think) down the Rhine to Rüdesheim. The town is absolutely gorgeous, overlooking the river. We strolled around and ended up taking a sky-lift thing up the vineyard-covered hillside to the top of the hill. Gorgeous, smooth ride that made me want to come back with someone I love... Quick visit to the top to check out the amazing view and then back down. Maggie and I did a bit of shopping while her dad went to feed the parking meter. We sat down for lunch at another nice German place. Had schnitzel with a mushroom cream sauce and spaetzel (German noodles) on side, with pilzner, of course. Maggie really wanted to try spaetzel, so we also got the appetizer version which had melted cheese and caramelized onions. There was an entertaining act of a beautiful singer and a guy playing back-up keyboard. They even sang a couple American songs (or example, "My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean" if memory serves), but what was the most fun was the dancing. Several brave couples took turns on the dance floor and I was so impressed with their talent. The women all added cute little kicks to their steps, and the men gracefully guided the girls across the little dance floor as if they did this every week. We finished up a little more Christmas shopping and then headed back to the hotel for some laundry and to bed early because we had to rise at 4 to catch the train. Great weekend and very sad to be back in school. Only about 8 more weeks until Christmas!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
