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!