Here's to my "keeping up to date".
Jun. 13th, 2006 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pphaneufLet's see what happened, shall we?
Monday the 5th, the lady![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
azrhey and I went downtown to sort out a few last minute details, including my income taxes (a return! whew, I haven't seen too many of those in my life!). Went back to her place and had some last decent non-good pizza, as we ordered some Pizza Hut (who refused to deliver, even though the restaurant was about 5 minutes away, silly people). Shared the pizza with azrhey's parents, my parents, my dad's girlfriend, my sister and my cousin who was just back from Europe herself. There was then a ride to the airport, upon which I was stressing out at what was an exponential rate, after hurting my leg by dropping one of those 30 kilo pieces of luggage on my right tibia. My family was rather silly, as families often are.
The flight went pretty well, other than the previously described lack of lateral space, horrible British coffee, questionable movies (okay, there was the movie with the two girls making out, that was all right) andazrhey getting wine spilled on her.
Upon arriving at Heathrow, we shuffled off to the bus as quickly as possible, as we deemed it was probably safer to wait at Gatwick. Was getting rather tired by then, and I slept almost all the way on the bus. Woke up enough for a sandwich, chips and a pint of Guinness there, then off in the next flight, where I also slept (although it was rather brief). After some confusion with our luggage at Toulouse-Blagnac airport (one of our luggage got marked differently and went in some other weird place), we cabbed to our apartment.
It's an attic apartment, and much to my dismay, it also has stairs of death, which didn't look too encouraging with our huge (and heavy) luggage. After struggling muchly, managed to get everything there. I think it was about 8pm (local time, 2pm Montreal time) by then, with something like three hours of sleep in me, this last effort of getting our things up there more or less finished me off, so shower and bed it was for me.
Tuesday the 6th, I think I woke up at around 11am, making for more than 14 hours of sleep. Went to the préfecture, without success (it was 2pm by the time we got there, it closes at 3pm and there was a long line outside of the foreigners office). Headed over the bank, whereazrhey and I both got accounts, surprisingly easily. Checked out cellphones, thinking of getting a Motorola V3i (the newer version of the RAZR), but I need more paperwork from the bank done first.
Wednesday the 7th, I got up really late, more catching up on sleep. Too late to go to the préfecture, again (didn't waste my time trying, at least). I did things, but I forget what. Too long ago now, and it's all going past me as a buzz, it seems.
Thursday the 8th, I biked from the apartment to my soon-to-be workplace, as I got up a bit late, again, and had a call from my soon-to-be employer, wanting to meet me to sign paperwork. I meant to go to the train station, but I got slightly lost and went right by it on a bike path. So I just kept going. A guy who was biking by saw me pondering on my map, and offered to guide me to Lardenne, which is halfway to Colomiers. I checked out fancy bikes at a big store there. The bike included with the apartment rental is okay, but it's a cheapish mountain bike, heavy, with fat tires, and after 15 kilometres at a not-so-good clip (because I can't do better!), I feel like junk. And I miss clip-less pedals, oh do I miss them.
Friday the 9th,azrhey and I tried going to the préfecture, once more. I went early enough, but now it was closed, "for security reasons". Okay... So we went to the Portuguese Consulate, but it was closed too, due to the employees being on strike. So we headed to the Canadian Consulate, surely, Canadians are going to have reasonable opening hours and give clear information, right? No, we rang a couple of time on a button beside a tiny sign saying only "Consulat du Canada" and nothing else, with no answer. Later, we checked it out on the web, they're open from 9am to noon, that's it. We stopped for dinner in a small restaurant with a really friendly owner, but he's absolutely nuts. He was talking about how he was waiting for the summer to arrive, looking at us in shorts and t-shirt, saying we were hardened Canadians and stuff, how the weather is so bad, with the clouds and all... It's something like 28 degrees, the sky only has a few very thin and translucent clouds (you can easily see the blue sky through them), and I'm baking in the sun. Even Portuguese-girl azrhey agreed with me about that guy.
Saturday the 10th, missing a good bike muchly, and having decided not to just buy the Giant FCR 2 without having done some shopping around, I did some shopping around. I'll have to wear my sunglasses less, otherwise I'll be looking like a racoon soon. The heat is dry, and quite easy to deal with, I find, but the sun is quite intense.
Sunday the 11th, I went to Portet-sur-Garonne, to the south of Toulouse, as a bike ride to see a potential bike shop there, even though I knew it'd be closed (it's Sunday! what are you thinking?!?). Not so nice, riding on the shoulder of a large, but still non-highway road. I cooked dinner, toazrhey's surprise. I think I'm having some sort of weird anti-SAD, where there's too much sunlight for my taste, and it's getting to me. At 10pm, it's barely getting to be actually night. cpirate, more than ever, I tell you, daylight savings are moronic!
Monday the 12th, that was my first day at work. I'm finding that 7am is a stupidly early time for me to try to get up, particularly when considering I was more used to 9-10am at best, with an extra 6 hours time difference. Grumble. Fought a bit with the SNCF self-serve ticket thingy, got on the train and got there pretty quickly (it's about 10 minutes of train, with a less than 5 minute walk to the office from the stop). I made a good impression on the people there for my first day, I think, as I felt rather confident in my capabilities and seemed to surprise many of them with how quickly I learned, feeling on top of things already. But that was just the surface. It's going to be challenging work, sure, but I have this feeling that what we're doing is fundamentally silly, except for some extreme cases (which you don't want to get involved with anyway), so it's rather difficult for me to whip up some faith and interest in the work. Also, while it's not ridiculously uptight, it feels like quite the "serious" work environment, which combined with the working hours (a hair under 39 hours a week on average, which doesn't include lunch, and "core hours" of 9:30am to 4:30pm), makes me totally feel like I've "lost" and I'm "one of them" now. This had me extremely depressed, and I came home an emotional wreck.azrhey took me out for dinner, and managed to cheer me up, with the help of some very good chocolate dessert. The fact that arriving back home from dinner put me just about at bed time was a bitter reminder of my "new life" as "one of them", though.
Tuesday the 13th, it was a stupid morning. I went to the préfecture, waiting 2 hours in line, only to be told that I didn't need to go after all, but that I should check with the Sécurité Sociale to make sure. We went there, and no, there was nothing special, after 20 more minutes of waiting in line. By that point, I was very grumpy. I wanted to stop by the post office to pick up the letter which will allow us to get checkbooks and banking cards, but by that time, it was too late. We managed to catch a real estate agent office that only closed at half past noon instead of right at noon (oh, the luxury!) and got some information about an apartment (yeah, real estate agents take care of renting as well, picking up extra fees from all around in the process) that is very close to the train station that can take me to my workplace, for 732 euros. It's not a ridiculous amount (well, as long as I avoid converting it back into canadian dollars!), and it seems rather nice, even having a pool! We're awaiting a call to take an appointment to visit it. There's another in the same building that just appeared, slightly cheaper, might be even better.
Okay, we're now, now. I'll try to keep up better than that, this is ridiculous.
Congratulations to whoever knows what an "opercule" is, in the context of microwaveable food. Yes, it's a French word. No, it's not referring to a part of my anatomy (or of the food's anatomy). Weirdos.
Monday the 5th, the lady
azrhey and I went downtown to sort out a few last minute details, including my income taxes (a return! whew, I haven't seen too many of those in my life!). Went back to her place and had some last decent non-good pizza, as we ordered some Pizza Hut (who refused to deliver, even though the restaurant was about 5 minutes away, silly people). Shared the pizza with azrhey's parents, my parents, my dad's girlfriend, my sister and my cousin who was just back from Europe herself. There was then a ride to the airport, upon which I was stressing out at what was an exponential rate, after hurting my leg by dropping one of those 30 kilo pieces of luggage on my right tibia. My family was rather silly, as families often are.The flight went pretty well, other than the previously described lack of lateral space, horrible British coffee, questionable movies (okay, there was the movie with the two girls making out, that was all right) and
azrhey getting wine spilled on her.Upon arriving at Heathrow, we shuffled off to the bus as quickly as possible, as we deemed it was probably safer to wait at Gatwick. Was getting rather tired by then, and I slept almost all the way on the bus. Woke up enough for a sandwich, chips and a pint of Guinness there, then off in the next flight, where I also slept (although it was rather brief). After some confusion with our luggage at Toulouse-Blagnac airport (one of our luggage got marked differently and went in some other weird place), we cabbed to our apartment.
It's an attic apartment, and much to my dismay, it also has stairs of death, which didn't look too encouraging with our huge (and heavy) luggage. After struggling muchly, managed to get everything there. I think it was about 8pm (local time, 2pm Montreal time) by then, with something like three hours of sleep in me, this last effort of getting our things up there more or less finished me off, so shower and bed it was for me.
Tuesday the 6th, I think I woke up at around 11am, making for more than 14 hours of sleep. Went to the préfecture, without success (it was 2pm by the time we got there, it closes at 3pm and there was a long line outside of the foreigners office). Headed over the bank, where
azrhey and I both got accounts, surprisingly easily. Checked out cellphones, thinking of getting a Motorola V3i (the newer version of the RAZR), but I need more paperwork from the bank done first.Wednesday the 7th, I got up really late, more catching up on sleep. Too late to go to the préfecture, again (didn't waste my time trying, at least). I did things, but I forget what. Too long ago now, and it's all going past me as a buzz, it seems.
Thursday the 8th, I biked from the apartment to my soon-to-be workplace, as I got up a bit late, again, and had a call from my soon-to-be employer, wanting to meet me to sign paperwork. I meant to go to the train station, but I got slightly lost and went right by it on a bike path. So I just kept going. A guy who was biking by saw me pondering on my map, and offered to guide me to Lardenne, which is halfway to Colomiers. I checked out fancy bikes at a big store there. The bike included with the apartment rental is okay, but it's a cheapish mountain bike, heavy, with fat tires, and after 15 kilometres at a not-so-good clip (because I can't do better!), I feel like junk. And I miss clip-less pedals, oh do I miss them.
Friday the 9th,
azrhey and I tried going to the préfecture, once more. I went early enough, but now it was closed, "for security reasons". Okay... So we went to the Portuguese Consulate, but it was closed too, due to the employees being on strike. So we headed to the Canadian Consulate, surely, Canadians are going to have reasonable opening hours and give clear information, right? No, we rang a couple of time on a button beside a tiny sign saying only "Consulat du Canada" and nothing else, with no answer. Later, we checked it out on the web, they're open from 9am to noon, that's it. We stopped for dinner in a small restaurant with a really friendly owner, but he's absolutely nuts. He was talking about how he was waiting for the summer to arrive, looking at us in shorts and t-shirt, saying we were hardened Canadians and stuff, how the weather is so bad, with the clouds and all... It's something like 28 degrees, the sky only has a few very thin and translucent clouds (you can easily see the blue sky through them), and I'm baking in the sun. Even Portuguese-girl azrhey agreed with me about that guy.Saturday the 10th, missing a good bike muchly, and having decided not to just buy the Giant FCR 2 without having done some shopping around, I did some shopping around. I'll have to wear my sunglasses less, otherwise I'll be looking like a racoon soon. The heat is dry, and quite easy to deal with, I find, but the sun is quite intense.
Sunday the 11th, I went to Portet-sur-Garonne, to the south of Toulouse, as a bike ride to see a potential bike shop there, even though I knew it'd be closed (it's Sunday! what are you thinking?!?). Not so nice, riding on the shoulder of a large, but still non-highway road. I cooked dinner, to
azrhey's surprise. I think I'm having some sort of weird anti-SAD, where there's too much sunlight for my taste, and it's getting to me. At 10pm, it's barely getting to be actually night. cpirate, more than ever, I tell you, daylight savings are moronic!Monday the 12th, that was my first day at work. I'm finding that 7am is a stupidly early time for me to try to get up, particularly when considering I was more used to 9-10am at best, with an extra 6 hours time difference. Grumble. Fought a bit with the SNCF self-serve ticket thingy, got on the train and got there pretty quickly (it's about 10 minutes of train, with a less than 5 minute walk to the office from the stop). I made a good impression on the people there for my first day, I think, as I felt rather confident in my capabilities and seemed to surprise many of them with how quickly I learned, feeling on top of things already. But that was just the surface. It's going to be challenging work, sure, but I have this feeling that what we're doing is fundamentally silly, except for some extreme cases (which you don't want to get involved with anyway), so it's rather difficult for me to whip up some faith and interest in the work. Also, while it's not ridiculously uptight, it feels like quite the "serious" work environment, which combined with the working hours (a hair under 39 hours a week on average, which doesn't include lunch, and "core hours" of 9:30am to 4:30pm), makes me totally feel like I've "lost" and I'm "one of them" now. This had me extremely depressed, and I came home an emotional wreck.
azrhey took me out for dinner, and managed to cheer me up, with the help of some very good chocolate dessert. The fact that arriving back home from dinner put me just about at bed time was a bitter reminder of my "new life" as "one of them", though.Tuesday the 13th, it was a stupid morning. I went to the préfecture, waiting 2 hours in line, only to be told that I didn't need to go after all, but that I should check with the Sécurité Sociale to make sure. We went there, and no, there was nothing special, after 20 more minutes of waiting in line. By that point, I was very grumpy. I wanted to stop by the post office to pick up the letter which will allow us to get checkbooks and banking cards, but by that time, it was too late. We managed to catch a real estate agent office that only closed at half past noon instead of right at noon (oh, the luxury!) and got some information about an apartment (yeah, real estate agents take care of renting as well, picking up extra fees from all around in the process) that is very close to the train station that can take me to my workplace, for 732 euros. It's not a ridiculous amount (well, as long as I avoid converting it back into canadian dollars!), and it seems rather nice, even having a pool! We're awaiting a call to take an appointment to visit it. There's another in the same building that just appeared, slightly cheaper, might be even better.
Okay, we're now, now. I'll try to keep up better than that, this is ridiculous.
Congratulations to whoever knows what an "opercule" is, in the context of microwaveable food. Yes, it's a French word. No, it's not referring to a part of my anatomy (or of the food's anatomy). Weirdos.
