La Vie Niçoise

There is no CSSS equivalent at the University of Nice.

Those of you who know me understand that this is like digging a stake in my heart, pulling it out still beating, julienning it, and feeding it to rabid rat-dogs.

On the other hand, I have made some friends here. Today I enjoyed a sunny lunch out on the grass with Kenzo, Denis and Brian. Kenzo is a super easy-going guy from Nice who's bilingual in english, enjoys a good game of volleyball, and reminds me a bit of Morgan. He also indulges me on my adventures (eg. the mystery of the two towers... pics to come).

Denis is a math guy from Toulon coming into informatique (CS), so we help each other out during tutorials. He's really patient with my french, even though sometimes I get frustrated that all my english ideas get bottlenecked as my mouth urgently tries to translate in real-time. Today he taught me what soustraction meant by writing an example on paper. Gosh, did I feel dumb..

Brian is the requisite lovably crazy dude, hailing from Montpellier, transiting from St. Tropez every morning. He bought us lunch today, said he liked my Google shirt. Yeah, it is pretty awesome ;)

So I guess with a common lunch and a cohort class, it ain't too bad having no CSSS. In fact, je m'amuse bien at the university library (bibliotheque universitaire). I've taken to learning french there during breaks. It's quite efficace, actually, and I doubt SFU has anything like the section at UNSA's B.U. I'll let you guess what I spend hours doing at the library...

I've never, ever spilled anything on my keyboard before.

Just now, I was struggling with the Pegollo's printer, pulling on a jammed sheet of A4 paper, when paper yank -> hot Orange Pekoe -> Pegollo's open laptop magically aligned. I won the tug-of-war with the printer, but I lost in life.

Yay for destroying the belongings of the family who's feeding me and putting a roof over my head. Speaking of feeding, I'm getting fat :( People have even started noticing...

Today was thoroughly entertaining.

My Tuesday schedule of 5 hours of Combinatorial Optimization could very well have driven me crazy. I braced myself as I entered the Amphi Chimie at 10h this morning, having heard beforehand that the prof was Greek, and was hard enough to understand if you were fluent in french. That's alright, I was up to the challenge. I plopped myself into the front row once again, and watched the prof intently as he prepared his slides.

Yeah, he did look greek; a round, deity-looking guy wearing a flat gold necklace and a plump, satisfied smile. He moved with sweeping gestures, and I expected his lecture to be as grandiose. But when he started to speak, I almost laughed out loud in the silent lecture theatre. (I clapped my hand to my mouth and shook silently, eyes laughing instead.)

You know George's dad from Seinfeld (or Carrie's dad from King of Queens)?

Yeah, Dr. K communicates with the same blatant disregard for his listener's eardrums . When he speaks, he stands erect, raises his head with his eyes slightly closed, opens his mouth and shouts! And not all the time, no. Just random outbursts that jolt everyone out from their seats. Oh man.

2 hours of that in the lecture theatre... I was grinning in bemusement the whole time, even if I couldn't understand half of what he was saying. Same deal in our 3 hour long tutorial. I thought he might tone it down in a smaller room, but no.

Apparently it gets old/tiring after a while, but for now, I'm very very amused.

All my instruction so far has been by female CompSci profs. Sandrine, Isabelle, et Carine. Three of them!! How cool is that??

Gawd... first day... so tiring.

I really took for granted the way SFU scheduled classes. First of all, you can choose what classes you feel like taking, they only last 50 minutes, there's plenty of time for breaks....

Today, I felt like falling over by the time lunch came around. Here was the schedule I was assigned:

8h - Languages & Automata (2 hours)
10h10 - Databases (2 hours - in the same lecture theatre)
12h15 - Lunch (45 mins)
1pm - Databases Tutorial (2 hours)

I'm bringing my waterbottle tomorrow. Dehydration and migraines = bad.

On a brighter note, Denis introduced me to his 3 friends from Antibes who are in first year Math/CS, and they seemed nice :) I was a little surprised when ils ont fait la bise as soon as we were introduced. I thought that double cheek kiss thing was just between people who knew each other well, but apparently not! At least I've learned to prevent myself from jumping back in wide-eyed surprise... (Why are you entering my personal bubble?!?)

Before I left the orientation, I experienced my first real moment of culture shock in the 1.5 weeks I've been in France.

The crowd had dispersed slightly around the directrice, so she looked around and asked if anyone else had any more questions. I'd already figured out the TD thing, so all that was left was finding out what to do with that English as a Second Language class that was slotted for the entire day, every Wednesday, that all the other students had groaned about. It didn't seem right/fair that I should take it alongside the others. 'Specially if they curved grades here.

I stepped up and started to introduce myself, having e-mailed her previously and wanting to thank her for her help. She knew my name without me having to say it. I guess they don't have too many Canadian girls coming to their program very often.

The next bit of the conversation went like this:

Directrice - "Vous avez des questions?" (Do you have any questions?)

Me - "Oui, à propos du cours de l'anglais...Euh, est-ce que c'est possible de ne le prends pas...parce que c'est pas juste..." (Yes, about that English class. Um, is it possible to not take it? 'Cause it doesn't seem fair)

D - "Ah... l'anglais du première annee alors?" (First year English then?)

M - "??? *confusée* Non, je veux dire, peut-etre le francais alors..?" (???*confused* No I mean, maybe I could take french instead?)

D -"Ah ben no... Hé! Prof soandso, viens. Le cours de l'anglais, qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire? Elle parle pas l'anglais." (Oh no I don't think so... Hey! Prof soandso, come here. What can we do about English class. She doesn't speak English.)

M - "Oh nonono! C'est que je le parle fluentement!" (Oh nonono! It's that I speak it fluently!)

Crowd and Directrice - *ogle*

Random guy - "T'es maitrise en anglais??" (You're fluent in English??)

M - "Oui...?" (Yea...?)

And then it hit me. THEY THINK I'M FROM CHINA.

Today I was a tourist. Man, my feet hurt.

Yeah, considering I found out yesterday that school actually starts THIS Monday, and not the Monday after, I decided I should actually get in as much "vacation" time as possible. Climbed a small mountain (ok, a hill), chilled at a café with a glace à la banana split, strolled the beach, wandered the 'spensive tourist shops, got hit on by gross french guys, and tried a Nicois specialty, socca. It's basically like a salty crepe, made with pois chiche (cornmeal?). It was alright, but too much is like dipping your tongue in the Mediterranean. Too salty.

I need to get friends. Today was cool, sure, wandering around town on my own schedule, but well, the downsides are obvious. That's okay, I think next week should be better. I'll be spending the week in a cohort of about 40-50 other CS students... maybe one of them will want to be my friend? *puppy eyes*

Orientation was yesterday. It was pretty much as I expected. Got to the lecture theatre early, where 68 guys and 4 girls milled around, waiting for the doors to open. They were all in their little groups, slapping each other on the back, joking around, fait-ing la bise all over the place. It just didn't seem right to march right into their reunions, so I leaned on the wall.

Once inside, I grabbed a front seat, determined to understand every frenchy word coming out of the directrice's mouth. Behind me I heard murmurs of someone wanting "du chewing gum" and his friends coming up dry, so I turned around and offered up some Trident. They looked surprised, but gratefully accepted, and voila! Ice Broken. Introduced myself to a couple guys named Jonathan and Fabian, but got cut off by the prof who was starting the orientation.

I was in for a few surprises.

First of all, as I mentioned, school apparently starts on Monday, Sept 26 (Surprise #1). For some reason I thought it started on Oct. 6, you know, considering they scheduled my registration on Oct 5th!! Kinda weird to go to school before completing my registration, but whatever. They had my name because I'd pre-reg'd online, and that's what matters.

Then she told us our compilers class would be done in Scheme, stressing that although "you've used it for a long time now, you better revise". So, I have to start looking at Scheme this weekend (Surprise! #2)... oh well, no biggie. And not really a surprise either.

Anglais would be taught every Wednesday for the whole day.... Hmm... and something else about "TD"... what was that?

Actually there weren't too many other big surprises, I guess I just felt very enlightened by the end of her speech. And full of questions, but as a gigantic crowd of students pounced on her after she finished, I decided to line up for pictures and talk to her after instead. As I waited, I thought I'd get one question out of the way, so I poked the guy in front of me:

-"Euh, pardon... vous savez c'est quoi le 'TD'?"
-"Traveaux dirigés, mais j'sais pas comment ca marche ici, j'suis pas de cette fac."

Ah, so TD are labs. And he's a newbie too! Turns out he's a transfer student from Toulon named Denis. Cool, so here's the plan: find more french-speaking transfer students, and that way I can get both the culture aspect and the I'm-alone-and-need-social-involvement bit. French friends, my dream come true. Hm, overthinking this much?

Got a call on my NEW cellphone. It was the guy renting out a 6-bedroom apartment in Nice Centre. We set up a meeting tomorrow for me to give him the deposit.

Oui c'est vrai! I've found a place to live!

I'll be moving in on the 1st of October. My room is big, with tall windows that overlook the street below. There's a couch, a little TV, and precious precious wireless internet. The best thing about the place is that there are 5 other students living there. I'm imagining it kinda like Big Brother, but without the cameras. Hm, setting my hopes a little high, eh? We'll see how it really turns out...

Yeah, I'm sick. Caught it from the little girl of the family I'm staying with. Ugh, my orientation at school is tomorrow, et quoi alors?? *sniffle*

On the bright side, yesterday I bought a cellphone. Here, all cell phone numbers start with 06, whereas home numbers start with 04. So my number is 06.xx.xx.xx.xx. Courtesy of the phone company Bouygues Telecom. Try and say that 3 times fast. Or once :P

French people are fanatics when it comes to text messaging. Colourful pulsating TV commercials for horoscopes to be sent to your phone (for a fee, bien sur) and even packages where you get free SMS' if you agree to have advertisements sent to your phone. Terrible.

Also, I think I'm getting hooked to French trash TV. Star Academy, like Big Brother and American Idol rolled into one. I'm rooting for Ely, la francophone canadienne!

I had this great plan to get a SIM card for my cell phone today. A sim card, a charger for mon portable, and my very own french phone number. Tito Noel told me to try Orange, down the block. Okay, sleep in till 11am, get ready, head out, get to Orange, realize that EVERYTHING'S CLOSED ON MONDAYS!

Noooo...

Well, except restaurants. So I went for a crèpe instead. Mmm...

Alright, I figure it's time I do the whole blog thing, since I said I would and such ;)

It's been a week since I left Vancouver, but it feels like months. I miss everyone terribly, but that's probably mostly because I haven't met many people my age yet.

My first 3 nights were spent at the beautiful Les Camélias Auberge de Jeunesse. I arrived after 11pm the first night, so I had the pleasure of sneaking into a darkened room with 5 sleeping people, making a loud ZZZIIIIPPP noise as I cracked open my luggage, and painstakingly taking out my stuff to get ready for bed. I did as little as possible, even foregoing the bedsheets so I would stop making so much noise!! That night, I slept in the jeans and shirt I walked in with. Needless to say, it wasn't the most comfortable night.

When I got up though, the morning was glorious. A sweet breeze wafted in through the open window. It the clean, fresh, unlike anything I've ever smelled. Everyone had already gone down for breakfast so I made as much noise as I wanted, zipping and unzipping my bag to my heart's content ;) Oh, also, the toilets are ingenious. It's basically just a rounded rim, small enough so girls don't fall in, but no flat seat liable to get peed on.

Anyhoo, breakfast was free, and tasted as such. Some nice baguettes and unlimited coffee/tea/hot chocolate, but the nastiest cereal you'll ever encounter on the face of the earth. Probably better that I only stay there 3 nights. Breakfast was the best part of the hostel. The first morning, I met a young German couple travelling through Europe, the second morning, some Japanese guys and a couple spanish/brazillian dudes, and the third I spent talking to one of the Japanese dudes I'd met the day before. We exchanged MSN addresses, since he wants to learn more English, and I told him chatting online was how I learned French (c'est vrai!)

The second best part of the hostel was meeting people in the same situation as myself. When I returned from school on the second day, one of my roommates looks at me and asks (in french) "Hey, were you at the faculty of science today?". After I finally figured out what she was asking (go 13 years of french class!!) I said yeah! "At the library?" Yes! Turns out she saw me there earlier that day.

Her name was Liouba, a 2nd year Math student going to the U of Nice, also staying at the hostel while she looks for a place to live. She was super nice, and really patient with my crappy french. It was sad to say bye on the last day, but we promised to find each other when school started. What's wrong with me though, obviously I should've asked her if she wanted to find a place together, double our search, etc, right? Too shy *blush*... maybe I'll call her tomorrow.

Okay, I'm going into wayyy too much detail. The next few days I met up with the church folks my mom hooked me up with, visited Monaco, hung out with the kids of the church folks, ate french sandwiches, realized there's a housing crisis in Nice (woo), and met a Newfie girl who was actually in my Montreal French Summer Camp in 2001. Also realized how disorganized the U of Nice is, I'll whine about that later. Toodles!

Voilà mon premier message.