These few days were the worst I've felt in Paris so far. The spring break was amazing but the brutal transition back to school is more than I can take. Makes me think that coming to France for exchange was a horrible idea. I miss home and familiar souls and the feeling that the world is good. All I've seen after my return is people either being very unhelpful or trying to take my money away!

Too young to perceive beauty.
Thoughts clog the mind.
They're not enough.

What's the magic word?

*
Mom and John landed this morning in Paris, so for the time being, we're all jammed up in my tiny room! I can't say that I'm real comfortable right now, so it's a VERY excited thought that I will be meeting up with Melanie in Milan on Sunday morning! The current itineary is: Milan - Venice - Florence - Livorno - Pisa - Roma (then Liverpool with extended family, and back to Paris) but there might be some changes along the way. Travelling with parents is weird. I think I still need to add 10 more years before I can fully appreciate the romance of it. I love my mom obviously but some situations and Mom just don't mix! Traveling is one of them.

Trying to get things done in Paris is mental and physical violence. I try to learn from my mistakes and avoid the whirlpool KOs that the administrators throw at us, but I'm running out of ideas about how to do that. The problem is that I want to leave one month early from my residence, and according to the contract, I need the approval of my host university. I went first to the residence office, who sent me to the international office on campus (30 minutes away by foot may I add), who sent me back to my residence office, who sent me back to the international office 1 minutes before it closed, which made the lady very spasmic and the scene was U.G.L.Y.

I swear that EVERYTIME you need to find out an information in Paris, they will send you in circles. No one sympathises with you and everyone feels like they're being incredibly lenient for taking their precious time to listen to your troubles!! And once you run out of patience and try to talk over them like they consistently do to you, they feel like you're harassing them!!! (She actually said "arreter de me harceler et me mettre de la pression"...ME?) So I can't be a push-over nor can I use reason... can someone just tell me the magic word? like "open sesame please?"
*(Notre-Dame at night, during our walk)

Lab RANT

Time to celebrate the end of all labs for the semester! This week's had a rough beginning, as I've had two physiology labs (or TP for "travaux pratiques", they call it here) covering two afternoons already. The lab session that I have on Tuesdays is probably the worst I've ever endured. It's just terrible because the report is due at the end of the session and I always end up with gravely retarded lab partners. We have to hand in the lab report as a pair so not only do I have to worry about the parts I write, I also have to drag the other person along with me. Last time, I'm sure my lab partner was on some powerful painkillers and after escaping from him this time, I was paired with a girl who writes the most senseless things. The level that people aim for over here just seems so much lower than what I'm used to at McGill. No suprise though, here's what I recently learned.

Post-secondary schools in France are categorized as "les grandes écoles'' and "les universités". Students who do better go to the first kind of schools, which are usually private and very selective. On the other hand, the universities accept anyone who apply. I knew beforehand that Pierre et Marie Curie was the best university in France, which is part of the reason I applied here, but turns out it's only the best of the worst and there's a whole untapped realm out there! It sucks for students over here because alrealdy in their early twenties, they have to deal with the weight of a division between classes ie. the intellectuals vs commoners.

Back to the subject of my physiology lab on Tuesday. We were supposed to study the action potential on a frog's nerve. I didn't expect the sample to be simply given to us but I was also not prepared for what followed. Without even a warning, the TA's brought in live breathing frogs in glass jars (we're talking huge ass toads too), took them out one by one and repeatedly planted a sharp rod into their brains to "desensitize their central nervous system." It was disgusting and inhumane. I know they kill rats in laboratory all the time by decapitation but I just couldn't bear this one. And what's worse, they don't provide gloves for the dissection and we had to gut the poor frog with our bare fingers and nails! I also recently fond out from a friend in Chemistry that they don't use glove to handle organic reagents. I really can't understand the principle behind that.

Cloud surfing on Sunday morning

Sunday brunch at CROUS never disappoints. I think I've mentioned before that there's a student cafeteria on the second floor of my residence. Usually food is stale and disgusting on weekdays but then comes the magical Sunday brunch!!! So this is how it works: for 2.85 euros, you get 6 points, meaning that you can pick 6 items of your choice at the buffet, plus free juice and coffee à volonté. I can't ever comprehend how people can waste 4 points on 3 croissant and one dish of cold chopped tomatoes when there are so many choices. TADA:

Last night was an experiment to remember. It was a bar called the ''Latin Corner'' where women's wish come true lol. So first of all, upon entering, I was shocked to see out of control half-naked [male] waiters. They were like silhouettes of danger waiting to happen. They would randomly hit girls on the butt and pull people's shirts down. [lmao Amy's right, it sounds like a sexual harassment bar] And people pay them to get sexy-time involving whip cream and hairy legs. Fun? Not so much for me than generally awkward and just plain jaw-dropping. Plus, I went with girls who left me releasing pigeons (new Chinese expression learned from my brunch buddy Pan - means ditching) all weekend so I felt a bit sour already for that. Here's a lesson for all : when a Chinese friend asks you to go to a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, it's because she's serious about it and will be looking forward to the event! For the Chinese, going to dinner IS THE PARTY and it doesn't matter what happens afterwards! Comments?

Dieu merci c'est vendredi = TGIF

I felt incredibly French today after buying a baguette at one of the many boulangeries around the 5th. And so I asked a tourist to take a picture of me in front of the Pantheon lol. The baguette was fresh out of the oven so that made me pretty happy!

Actually, I think within two months, my habits have taken a very serious French turn. I love the idea of drinking wine with a meal (and it's not only the idea either - it feels GOOD) and my favorite snack these days is baguette topped with camembert cheese. So that's two things. I've got to take it easy with the Camembert though cause judging from the roundness of my face nowadays, I'm getting fatter! Well I actually don't care about my weigh that much but it just so happens that all fat gained is deposited in my face and I'm not too happy with that, considering that my face is quite round enough as it is!

A few exciting plans are in place for the next few weeks. Next weekend, Melanie is passing by Paris at the start of her spring break and I imagine that we're going to explore Paris once more. The weekend after, mother is landing in Paris with John. I'm going to meet Mel in Milan a couple of days later and we're doing a tour of Italy. Then, I'm flying Rome-Liverpool to spend a few days with my extended family before going back to school. I love a two week break in the middle of April muhahah. Gotta enjoy the good times while they last. Cause they won't. But others will come. Such is life.

Amsterdam and head-butting

SAY HELLO TO AMSTERDAM!!!

Melanie and I went couchsurfing in Amsterdam this weekend. I fell in deep bliss with this city! This has nothing to do with the scandalous lifestyle I usually like to get mixed up in (yes girlfriend) such as drugs and the red light district. I might as well mention now that we did not go back to the red light district at night and I regret it so much! Apparently the prostitutes take your camera and throw it in the toilet if you try to take a picture of them.


Also, I was completely stunned silly by it's large number of bicycles (1 million bikes : 700 000 habitants) and beautiful canals. I had no idea Amsterdam was known for those. In conclusion, it's a city that I would definitely consider moving into, although what's a chemist gotta do in Amsterdam??? This means one thing: change career paths.


Something else I'd like to mention proudly : today, I stood up for my cultural heritage. Coming out from the uni, I was stalled by a young woman who wanted to recruit people for a campus communist group. When her partner saw me, he walked over and shouted "Chopouka!" or something stupid like that. The weirdest part of it all was that when he said that, his eyes were gleaming, as if expecting me to become his friend! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What is it with this country that people think it's okay to make fun of someone's language? I asked him to repeat what he said and when he did, I told him that no one of the asian race appreciates a comment like that, and that his attitude is close to discrimination. I walked away casually after making my point but I should have nagged on until I squeezed out an official apology. So many things were left unsaid but there's no need to worry, I'm sure this is not the last time someone's shouts a made-up Chinese word in my direction so I have plenty of chances to preach.