I haven't been writing lately, I know... There are still a lot of things on my mind about the recent events; things that I have to figure out or come to terms with. Nevertheless, the last week at UC was quite nice. Even though I had too much time because I didn't actually HAVE TO do anything and I thought that if I don't have to things to do, I'll just sink into a horrible horrible depressed mood. I didn't. Even though I did have to go through some things that didn't make me very happy.
Cat-sitting for Jocelyn
Jocelyn is a tutor who said that I could stay at her place in July if I take care of her old ill cat. A very good deal. So, I went over for dinner to talk to her about it (and very conveniently Frank was there too, so we could plan ahead) and to meet Walter. I spent the weekend after this dinner cat-sitting. Walter is not much different from my dog, he is moving quite slowly and he loves to get attention. So, I was there typing an e-mail and Walter would poke my leg with his paw to get on my lap. I thought that putting him on the table and petting him with my left hand while typing with my right would be a reasonable concession on such a warm day, but eventually he started to poke my shoulder with his paw this time. As if he would be saying "pleeeeease", and so I said "alright". This is almost exactly how my dog does the same.
Free time
After sending in my files to Hinze to finish my lab couse, I had a sense of freedom. For the first time in I don't know how long, I had free time. I saw three movies in three consecutive days: The Dreamers with Paul and Laurens, Dogville with Fede and his Canadian first year from his UWC and Elizabethtown with the whole gang. I also had dinner with Paul and Laurens once after a whole afternoon of hanging out doing nothing. See "nothing" below.
Paul and his ringtone act
Laurens attempting to do the ringtone act
Seeing Joram's family
I had to pack everything that was Joram's in the unit, which was quite a task. Books, cutlery, a vacuum cleaner, drying racks, a laundry bag, a mixer, a water boiler, a teakettle, CDs, his computer, his slippers and some other bigger and smaller items spread out in the whole place. I was literally cleaning him out of my life. Well, at least from my space. Anne, his mother, picked everything up and also took me along to Bennekom so I could say good-bye to the whole family. I hate to say good-bye. It drives me nuts. Is there a way to go out with Joram's family instead of going out with him?
I had a very long conversation with Anne and Jurrien, Joram's father, during the night. We sat in the garden and talked for 4 hours. I felt a bit guilty for keeping Anne awake for so long, and as it turned out, also Jurrien, because although he went to bed earlier, he kept the window open... The day after I felt very depressed. All the questions were asked, and no one had the answers. Maybe I expected them to do, but they were just as puzzled as I was, and this gave me an even worse sense of hopelessness. The fact that I knew I was leaving in a couple of hours didn't help me feel better either. Two hours left, one hour left, half an hour left...
Anne's graduation party
And then, there was the graduation party that Anne and Mauro threw in Ermelo on the afternoon of the day I had to leave Bennekom. I must have been a sad sight at the train station in Amersfoort, sitting on a bench alone, crying, waiting for a train that has been delayed. But it all got much better during the party. I was dancing with Mauro, talking with a lot of people and drinking wine&coke (VBK, for all the Hungarians) and Bailey's. The way home was one of the highlights of the evening. The guys brought some booze on the train and then engaged in a funny conversation with an NS worker. See it for yourself:
The general atmosphere
Bernat hiding in the toilet
And the funniest one...
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Nice IV - Pictures!
Bernat taking a picture...Can you hear the camera? And Bernat?
Nice from the top of the mountain. 
Barnat loving the jasmins. 
Alberto :) 
Coffee break! 
Note the clear indication of where the coffee breaks take place.
All of us...
The meeting room and the team minus Mike and me. 
Still in the meeting room. Bernat titled this picture "Desperation".
Bored...
Me working very hard... 
Bernat working very hard... 
Nice III
The meetings
There is actually not much to say about the meetings apart from that they were extremely long and sometimes quite boring. The sexual relationships with ants contibuted much to the atmosphere... I haven't seen such inefficiency for a long time, but what had to be done was done eventually. The coffee breaks were essential parts of the meetings and despite the huge red signs saying "FOOD AND DRINKS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE MEETING ROOMS", the bin was filled with coffee cups very quickly.
Not-so-skinny-but-almost dipping
So, after the first day of meetings we all went out to a picturesque town for dinner. I thought that these places only exist in fairy tales. It was beautiful. It had everything you would imagine about a small village in the South of France, the hill, the little houses, the stairs leading up, narrow streets, pots, flowers and plants everywhere... Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. At dinner, Bernat proved that he can eat amazing amounts of food and had two pizzas. As for me, not so accidentally, I drank enough wine to feel better.
Rosemary, Bernat, Mike and I got a ride to the train station, where we found that the last train was supposed to leave at 23 45, which meant that we had some time to walk around. Rosemary showed the way to the beach. The moment we got there, I knew we'd end up in the water. Bernat was the first one to jump in. Then Rosemary. I was standing on the beach next to Mike, the team leader, contemplating whether I should join Rosemary and Bernat who were happily swimming around, or stay on the shore because I was sick already. I figured that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and that I was sick already (i.e. it was bad enough and feeling a bit worse wouldn't have make so much of a difference), and I started to undress. Did I mention that we didn't have swimming gear or towels? :) The water was great. Walking out of the water in a wet T-shirt and a thong, and dressing up were quite an experience. Then Bernat thought he lost his sunglasses and I thought I lost my thong. Yeah, it was interesting... At least I had a skirt on. Evetually, we found them both.
Then we headed towards the international bar, where we consumed some more wine in a very nice atmosphere. We realized it too late that we should be leaving and since we knew that we wouldn't make the train anyway, we walked around a bit more and ended up in another bar with another bottle of wine... I'm afraid I don't remember much of the conversation apart from how brilliant it was. We took a taxi back to Nice, climbed up the drunken stairs (all the stairs are a bit tilted toward the middle of the staircase), which now felt less drunken than usually, and we sat in the living room for a while just before going to bed.
Such a nice evening! Are all research meetings/conferences like this? :) (I was told this was not the case....)
The evening of Rosemary taking us out for dinner, sitting on the beach looking for the smallest pebble and Bernat inventing a new sport
The last evening Rosemary was there, she took us out for dinner to a very nice restaurant in town. The food was delicious. I thought that the French give tiny portions of food, but I was almost full by the time I finished my (and a part of Rosemary's and Bernat's) starter. It was a long and lovely evening of story telling. We were sitting there on the beach after dinner, the three of us between all the couples, and we were telling are little stories. Rosemary has the best ones. Bernat invented a new sport: throwing a large pebble in the air above the sea and throwing another one which has to hit the first one. It's extremely difficult to do. Bernat and I were trying very hard and Rosemary was just laughing. The couple closest to us started to do it as well, so maybe we did create a new game in Nice. At one point I gave up and suggested that this sport should be included in the standard UC selection procedure. If somebody gives up too early, then they won't make it here. If somebody keeps on doing it until they manage, they'll make it but they are insane. Well, Bernat did make it (not to say that he's insane but that he's very gifted in throwing pebbles) and then we started to dig holes next to us, going deeper and deeper, looking for the smallest pebble that we could find. (We're so not grown-ups and it feels so good!)
The last day: naps and the city
Rosemary had to leave early in the morning, but our plane only left in the evening, so we had a day to explore the city. The first time I woke up was at 9. I had a shower, had some muesli and went back to sleep. Then, we both woke up at 11. Well, I woke up and I woke Bernat up to be precise. We had brunch. We decided to have a nap. We woke up at 13.30... It was really time to start our day. No excuses any more. We packed some of our stuff and left for the city, Bernat armed with his camera and me armed with some money for shopping. I tolerated Bernat's obsession with taking pictures (which I share, but I didn't bring my camera) and he tolerated me walking in and out some boutiques and spending 20 minutes in a bijoux shop called Nirvana. The name was good; that place was heaven for me. On the way back, we walked by the rocks at the end of the beach where some boys were jumping in the water. Bernat spent 20 minutes making 3 photos there. They better be good.
We finished packing, cleaned up a bit, arranged the money with Nathalie and left. Since we had some time to catch the bus, we went to a small pub and had a drink. We almost missed the bus to the airport :) You know the story from here. The plane was delayed and so was the train. When I got home I passed out on my bed immediately.
There is actually not much to say about the meetings apart from that they were extremely long and sometimes quite boring. The sexual relationships with ants contibuted much to the atmosphere... I haven't seen such inefficiency for a long time, but what had to be done was done eventually. The coffee breaks were essential parts of the meetings and despite the huge red signs saying "FOOD AND DRINKS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE MEETING ROOMS", the bin was filled with coffee cups very quickly.
Not-so-skinny-but-almost dipping
So, after the first day of meetings we all went out to a picturesque town for dinner. I thought that these places only exist in fairy tales. It was beautiful. It had everything you would imagine about a small village in the South of France, the hill, the little houses, the stairs leading up, narrow streets, pots, flowers and plants everywhere... Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. At dinner, Bernat proved that he can eat amazing amounts of food and had two pizzas. As for me, not so accidentally, I drank enough wine to feel better.
Rosemary, Bernat, Mike and I got a ride to the train station, where we found that the last train was supposed to leave at 23 45, which meant that we had some time to walk around. Rosemary showed the way to the beach. The moment we got there, I knew we'd end up in the water. Bernat was the first one to jump in. Then Rosemary. I was standing on the beach next to Mike, the team leader, contemplating whether I should join Rosemary and Bernat who were happily swimming around, or stay on the shore because I was sick already. I figured that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and that I was sick already (i.e. it was bad enough and feeling a bit worse wouldn't have make so much of a difference), and I started to undress. Did I mention that we didn't have swimming gear or towels? :) The water was great. Walking out of the water in a wet T-shirt and a thong, and dressing up were quite an experience. Then Bernat thought he lost his sunglasses and I thought I lost my thong. Yeah, it was interesting... At least I had a skirt on. Evetually, we found them both.
Then we headed towards the international bar, where we consumed some more wine in a very nice atmosphere. We realized it too late that we should be leaving and since we knew that we wouldn't make the train anyway, we walked around a bit more and ended up in another bar with another bottle of wine... I'm afraid I don't remember much of the conversation apart from how brilliant it was. We took a taxi back to Nice, climbed up the drunken stairs (all the stairs are a bit tilted toward the middle of the staircase), which now felt less drunken than usually, and we sat in the living room for a while just before going to bed.
Such a nice evening! Are all research meetings/conferences like this? :) (I was told this was not the case....)
The evening of Rosemary taking us out for dinner, sitting on the beach looking for the smallest pebble and Bernat inventing a new sport
The last evening Rosemary was there, she took us out for dinner to a very nice restaurant in town. The food was delicious. I thought that the French give tiny portions of food, but I was almost full by the time I finished my (and a part of Rosemary's and Bernat's) starter. It was a long and lovely evening of story telling. We were sitting there on the beach after dinner, the three of us between all the couples, and we were telling are little stories. Rosemary has the best ones. Bernat invented a new sport: throwing a large pebble in the air above the sea and throwing another one which has to hit the first one. It's extremely difficult to do. Bernat and I were trying very hard and Rosemary was just laughing. The couple closest to us started to do it as well, so maybe we did create a new game in Nice. At one point I gave up and suggested that this sport should be included in the standard UC selection procedure. If somebody gives up too early, then they won't make it here. If somebody keeps on doing it until they manage, they'll make it but they are insane. Well, Bernat did make it (not to say that he's insane but that he's very gifted in throwing pebbles) and then we started to dig holes next to us, going deeper and deeper, looking for the smallest pebble that we could find. (We're so not grown-ups and it feels so good!)
The last day: naps and the city
Rosemary had to leave early in the morning, but our plane only left in the evening, so we had a day to explore the city. The first time I woke up was at 9. I had a shower, had some muesli and went back to sleep. Then, we both woke up at 11. Well, I woke up and I woke Bernat up to be precise. We had brunch. We decided to have a nap. We woke up at 13.30... It was really time to start our day. No excuses any more. We packed some of our stuff and left for the city, Bernat armed with his camera and me armed with some money for shopping. I tolerated Bernat's obsession with taking pictures (which I share, but I didn't bring my camera) and he tolerated me walking in and out some boutiques and spending 20 minutes in a bijoux shop called Nirvana. The name was good; that place was heaven for me. On the way back, we walked by the rocks at the end of the beach where some boys were jumping in the water. Bernat spent 20 minutes making 3 photos there. They better be good.
We finished packing, cleaned up a bit, arranged the money with Nathalie and left. Since we had some time to catch the bus, we went to a small pub and had a drink. We almost missed the bus to the airport :) You know the story from here. The plane was delayed and so was the train. When I got home I passed out on my bed immediately.
Monday, 11 June 2007
Intermezzo
I somehow suspected that I wouldn't be able to finish all the Nice entries before Joram would come by to say bye and leave for Italy again... I also thought that I wouldn't be able to write about Nice again without jotting down some random thoughts about all that is going on. I was right. I don't know what to start with though. Don't expect a structure. The perfect track for this post is above.
I still feel completely let down. It was working well, it was beautiful, it was the best relationship I've been in. I used to think that the value of a relationship is a positive function of how much pain and suffering it carries. I was so wrong. It was the first time I realized that it's not the pain, but the happiness. And I was truly happy with him.
Love is blind and selfish. Selfish, especially. I want him all for myself. And now he's offering his friendship and asking for mine. My initial reaction in my head was something like this: "Are you out of your mind?!" We were living together for a year, we woke up together, went to bed together every day, he let me in at 5 am when I was chiefing, we were playing under the shower, he took care of me when I was sick, I cleaned his back, I know every single hair on his body, we did our laundry together, went to DH together, we were coping with bad trips together, traded our Xs cards for full semesters, I accepted his previous teeth and he my always-too-quickly-growing hair, and now he's saying he wants to be friends. And what can I do but accept it? After all, I used to be his friend. After all, friendship and love must be pretty close.
While staring at his face, lying next to him and contemplating on how it will be from now on and trying to figure out what I felt, I came up with the perfect description. I only said it much later, but this was the essence of the thought: "I hate you because you're taking away from me the person I love the most." It covers it all.
It's all a bit like an addiction. Of course, he's the smartest, the sweetest, the most beautiful. These are just the starting assumptions. But he also makes me feel like a "whole". Without him, I feel like a cripple. He makes me breathe easily and now that he's gone, it's as if a grip around my throat would make the flow of the air more difficult. Very difficult, in fact.
I don't understand how emotions can disappear from one minute to the other. I'm afraid it wasn't actually just a minute. It's unfair the least. But with the words of our dear Hans, "life is unfair"...
And this? "Ja zeker, zei de vos. Jij bent voor mij maar een klein jongetje als alle andere kleine jongetjes. En ik heb je niet nodig. Ik ben voor jou een vos als alle andere vossen. Maar als je me tam maakt, dan zullen we elkaar nodig hebben. Dan ben je voor mij enig op de wereld en ben ik voor jou enig op de wereld."
We are both hypocrites here. It's not that I've never stopped loving someone. It's not that I've never been in his or her place. And it's not that he didn't know that it was coming, but he didn't say a word. He screwed it up and I'm finding it hard to understand, even though I know what it is like. I'm not even sure whether I can say it was him; is it ever the mistake of one person? Did I fail to give him something he needed? He never said so.
So, here I am with something, which is very complex for me, but in essence is only a simple statement: he wants her and not me.
Theory says that insight should help. Well, it doesn't.
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Nice II
The walk and the evening
Where was I? The long walk of the first day. Long walks are great: you can fill yourself with the new impressions, you're in a different environment, you can talk about anything you like. Normally, I'd also add that you can remain quiet and you can reflect. So, sometimes we talked, and sometimes both of us were immersed in our thoughts. And those weren't always nice moments. My thoughts pulled me back to earth, I forgot where I was in reality and I was back here, thinking about Joram. About all the questions that I asked and those that remained unasked. Thinking about her. Thinking millions of whys. Thinking whether she knows how much I love him, how much I still wanted to give him and what is being ruined. Does she have any idea what I am like and what the last 15 months meant to me? Is she serious? Does she have any doubts? Does she know that I have no doubts at all?
So, by the end of the walk, I was exhausted, and probably not only by the walk itself. We found the way down and got a sandwich at a small sandwich bar because it was too early for dinner in restaurants. Then we still had to go through the pain of shopping for food. We got very nice stuff but it took ages. Bernat spent something that felt like an hour in front of the selection of wines. So, I took the responsibility off his shoulders and picked the second wine, in 10 seconds. It was pretty good, actually.
Sleep.
We slept in. We were supposed to pick up Rosemary around 10, but we woke up at 10. At that point, I felt feverish enough to say that I'd rather stay here if that's alright, and I took two paracetamols and a bath.
When Rosemary arrived, we had the good stuff that we bought for dinner, alongside the two bottles of wine, which seemed to clear my throat and my heart for a while. Rosemary's troubled expression made it clear that she was already working in head and so we proceeded to prepare for the first meeting. We went to bed around 3 am, I think.
Sophia
The meetings took place at the ETSI headquarters, in Sophia. The place is really weird, no one seems to live there, but it's a complex of social realistic buildings, in which actually a lot of groundbreaking stuff happens nowadays. It's located in the mountains, and the large pine trees are kept around the buildings, which makes it feel quite lovely instead of giving the impression of a concrete block that it would look like in a city.
Where was I? The long walk of the first day. Long walks are great: you can fill yourself with the new impressions, you're in a different environment, you can talk about anything you like. Normally, I'd also add that you can remain quiet and you can reflect. So, sometimes we talked, and sometimes both of us were immersed in our thoughts. And those weren't always nice moments. My thoughts pulled me back to earth, I forgot where I was in reality and I was back here, thinking about Joram. About all the questions that I asked and those that remained unasked. Thinking about her. Thinking millions of whys. Thinking whether she knows how much I love him, how much I still wanted to give him and what is being ruined. Does she have any idea what I am like and what the last 15 months meant to me? Is she serious? Does she have any doubts? Does she know that I have no doubts at all?
So, by the end of the walk, I was exhausted, and probably not only by the walk itself. We found the way down and got a sandwich at a small sandwich bar because it was too early for dinner in restaurants. Then we still had to go through the pain of shopping for food. We got very nice stuff but it took ages. Bernat spent something that felt like an hour in front of the selection of wines. So, I took the responsibility off his shoulders and picked the second wine, in 10 seconds. It was pretty good, actually.
Sleep.
We slept in. We were supposed to pick up Rosemary around 10, but we woke up at 10. At that point, I felt feverish enough to say that I'd rather stay here if that's alright, and I took two paracetamols and a bath.
When Rosemary arrived, we had the good stuff that we bought for dinner, alongside the two bottles of wine, which seemed to clear my throat and my heart for a while. Rosemary's troubled expression made it clear that she was already working in head and so we proceeded to prepare for the first meeting. We went to bed around 3 am, I think.
Sophia
The meetings took place at the ETSI headquarters, in Sophia. The place is really weird, no one seems to live there, but it's a complex of social realistic buildings, in which actually a lot of groundbreaking stuff happens nowadays. It's located in the mountains, and the large pine trees are kept around the buildings, which makes it feel quite lovely instead of giving the impression of a concrete block that it would look like in a city.
Nice I
I arrived back from Nice last night, quite late. First, the flight was delayed, then the train, and so we missed the last bus back to campus... Now, after a refreshing sleep I'm here to give (part I of) an update on the trip, which was altogether so nice. I promise to refrain from the dumb Nice-nice jokes in the future :)
The mission
Those who have read previous posts about the ETSI project that I'm working on must have some idea what that was all about. We're collecting data from speakers of 30 languages to create a standard for basic spoken commands that can be used with ICT devices that will understand those utterances. It's quite an interesting thing, and we are using a new way of collecting data, which is actually so funky that the paper written by Rosemary was accepted to the 2007 Interspeech conference. Bernat and I are working as research assistants for Rosemary, who is a member of the STF (Speacialist Task Force (I somehow always think that this expression refers to something in the army)) that has to complete the project. The STF has to meet the criteria for certain "milestones" in the project, which are basically deadlines for the completion of certain parts of the project and the report. This time, the table of contents had to be finalized. (No, I'm not joking, I travelled to France to finalize the table of contents :)) Some additional topics were on the agenda, which we didn't know much about because the e-mail with the agenda never arrived.
The schedule
So, we were supposed to spend the 7th and the 8th with attending meeting 9 am till 5 pm. + Coffee breaks. Evenings: free. Bernat and I arrived in the morning on the 6th and left in the evening of the 9th, so we had two additional days to explore the city (and catch up on sleeping). Sounds good, doesn't it?
The arrival
So, after an especially emotionally challenging long day, I decided to take a short nap before packing. Joram joined me, although he never takes naps. Then I got up in the middle of the night, packed my bags, decided to take my pillow but not my mother's laptop, because I thought that I'd be a very sad sad sad person if I couldn't survive without e-mail for 4 days. (Eventually, it turned out that I couldn't survive, and since I'm here writing now, you must deduce that I got the opportunity to check my mails.) My alarm clock was set for 3 am, I got up, finished packing and made a note of the address of our apartment and how to get there. Meanwhile, Joram made two sandwiches (he is still so fab) and by 3.40 I was ready to leave. Crossing the campus loudly with the bag rolling behind me, I was wondering how I would climb over the gate to catch the taxi. I left my Xs card with Joram. At that point, approaching even more noisily and with more speed, Bernat cought up with me and with a beautiful masculine move, tore up the gate. Who needs an Xs card here?
Taxi, train, airport, flight, bus. I ate the two sandwiches on the train while thinking "how the fuck did we get here". Bernat passed out on the train in 5 minutes and sank lower and lower in his seat. I was staring at the black scenery running by and the reflections of the girl in the window. I finally dared to fall asleep on the plane and woke up to the unbearable pain that the pressure change caused in my disgustingly filled sinuses when the plane started to descend. Oh, dear. Those 15 minutes were very long. Our bags were within the first 3 to arrive, so we happily went outside to find our way to the place we were supposed to be at. It was only then when I realized that I was in France and I haven't spoken French for more than 2 years...
The place
Nice was beautiful. The bus took us alongside the coast, the sea was blue and so was the sky, the seagulls drew big circles in the air (and played darts with Bernat with extreme accuracy), the palm trees and the flora in gerenal made me think I was on holiday, the houses radiated a mediterranean atmosphere and the jasmins embedded the city in a cloud of sweet fragrance. Unfortunately, I couldn't smell anything for the first 3 days... I found the house quite easily, but we had to spend some time waiting outside, because the girl that had to give us the keys was late. When she arrived, we finalized everything. We exchanged money and keys, and just before leaving she said "I put the shits on the bed" in a beautiful French accent. There was only one way to recover from the limited amount of sleep that we got: sleep a bit more.
The tour of the first day
I am really good at sleeping. I can fall asleep almost anywhere, even if I only have 10 minutes to sleep. But I have to admit that Bernat beats me. I woke up first, had a shower and woke him up. I got some muesli from the kitchen and by the time I was back, he was asleep again. Right, I thought, and browsed the shelves for books about Nice. I found two guides, very bad ones, but one of them had several small maps in it. I spotted where I wanted to go, woke up Bernat again and presented to him that we're first going to go to the castle of the two kings, then we'll find the stairs up the hill and climb to the top of the Mont Alban, where there's a fortress, then cross the hill to find another fortress, climb down, see the port, see another hill and then have food, buy more food for the evening, and come home. Something already told me this was a bit too ambitious.
Armed with two beautiful cameras, we left the house and we were already stuck a 100 metres away from home, taking pictures of the fountains for 15 minutes. We eventually got to the Two Kings' whatever place, which was a huge garden in essence, with really old olive trees and dozens of small children playing around. I bought a bottle of water for the rest of the trip, which turned out to be one of my best ideas within the 4 days. One of the other ones was to buy sunglasses, which now soothed my irritated eyes and brightened all the colours through a reddish filter. We found the stairs up the hill. By the time we climbed it, we were the men who went up the hill and came down the mountain, at least that's how it felt. Probably, it wasn't a mistake that the place was called a "mountain". We walked through the forest, admiring the view once in a while. This is the place to mention that my navigating skills are dispeakably bad. Bernat's, on the other hand, are very good, and so we never really got lost.
On the way up, we saw bunches of old people playing petanque and we stayed a bit to watch the game. I couldn't stop feeling happy for the bottle of water in my hand and I saw shapes of chairs in the trees. Bernat couldn't stop thinking about food. We hoped there would be a restaurant at one of the fortresses but there wasn't. We actually only found one fortress, for the simple reason that there was only one. The way back, a group of firemen was emptying the tanks of their truck and we raced berries in the little stream of water slaloming down the road. We dropped the two berries at the same time and followed them as far as they got and mine won :) Haha, yes, we're so mature. We asked for directions from an old couple, who said that we could only find restaurants downtown and noted that the day before was their 60th wedding anniversary. When I congratulated them, they said that it was too much and laughed. Then, we asked for directions an old man sitting on a bench, but he could only tell us where we can find water. I was so happy again (the bottle was empty by now) that he added that he didn't say "wine", he said "water".
The mission
Those who have read previous posts about the ETSI project that I'm working on must have some idea what that was all about. We're collecting data from speakers of 30 languages to create a standard for basic spoken commands that can be used with ICT devices that will understand those utterances. It's quite an interesting thing, and we are using a new way of collecting data, which is actually so funky that the paper written by Rosemary was accepted to the 2007 Interspeech conference. Bernat and I are working as research assistants for Rosemary, who is a member of the STF (Speacialist Task Force (I somehow always think that this expression refers to something in the army)) that has to complete the project. The STF has to meet the criteria for certain "milestones" in the project, which are basically deadlines for the completion of certain parts of the project and the report. This time, the table of contents had to be finalized. (No, I'm not joking, I travelled to France to finalize the table of contents :)) Some additional topics were on the agenda, which we didn't know much about because the e-mail with the agenda never arrived.
The schedule
So, we were supposed to spend the 7th and the 8th with attending meeting 9 am till 5 pm. + Coffee breaks. Evenings: free. Bernat and I arrived in the morning on the 6th and left in the evening of the 9th, so we had two additional days to explore the city (and catch up on sleeping). Sounds good, doesn't it?
The arrival
So, after an especially emotionally challenging long day, I decided to take a short nap before packing. Joram joined me, although he never takes naps. Then I got up in the middle of the night, packed my bags, decided to take my pillow but not my mother's laptop, because I thought that I'd be a very sad sad sad person if I couldn't survive without e-mail for 4 days. (Eventually, it turned out that I couldn't survive, and since I'm here writing now, you must deduce that I got the opportunity to check my mails.) My alarm clock was set for 3 am, I got up, finished packing and made a note of the address of our apartment and how to get there. Meanwhile, Joram made two sandwiches (he is still so fab) and by 3.40 I was ready to leave. Crossing the campus loudly with the bag rolling behind me, I was wondering how I would climb over the gate to catch the taxi. I left my Xs card with Joram. At that point, approaching even more noisily and with more speed, Bernat cought up with me and with a beautiful masculine move, tore up the gate. Who needs an Xs card here?
Taxi, train, airport, flight, bus. I ate the two sandwiches on the train while thinking "how the fuck did we get here". Bernat passed out on the train in 5 minutes and sank lower and lower in his seat. I was staring at the black scenery running by and the reflections of the girl in the window. I finally dared to fall asleep on the plane and woke up to the unbearable pain that the pressure change caused in my disgustingly filled sinuses when the plane started to descend. Oh, dear. Those 15 minutes were very long. Our bags were within the first 3 to arrive, so we happily went outside to find our way to the place we were supposed to be at. It was only then when I realized that I was in France and I haven't spoken French for more than 2 years...
The place
Nice was beautiful. The bus took us alongside the coast, the sea was blue and so was the sky, the seagulls drew big circles in the air (and played darts with Bernat with extreme accuracy), the palm trees and the flora in gerenal made me think I was on holiday, the houses radiated a mediterranean atmosphere and the jasmins embedded the city in a cloud of sweet fragrance. Unfortunately, I couldn't smell anything for the first 3 days... I found the house quite easily, but we had to spend some time waiting outside, because the girl that had to give us the keys was late. When she arrived, we finalized everything. We exchanged money and keys, and just before leaving she said "I put the shits on the bed" in a beautiful French accent. There was only one way to recover from the limited amount of sleep that we got: sleep a bit more.
The tour of the first day
I am really good at sleeping. I can fall asleep almost anywhere, even if I only have 10 minutes to sleep. But I have to admit that Bernat beats me. I woke up first, had a shower and woke him up. I got some muesli from the kitchen and by the time I was back, he was asleep again. Right, I thought, and browsed the shelves for books about Nice. I found two guides, very bad ones, but one of them had several small maps in it. I spotted where I wanted to go, woke up Bernat again and presented to him that we're first going to go to the castle of the two kings, then we'll find the stairs up the hill and climb to the top of the Mont Alban, where there's a fortress, then cross the hill to find another fortress, climb down, see the port, see another hill and then have food, buy more food for the evening, and come home. Something already told me this was a bit too ambitious.
Armed with two beautiful cameras, we left the house and we were already stuck a 100 metres away from home, taking pictures of the fountains for 15 minutes. We eventually got to the Two Kings' whatever place, which was a huge garden in essence, with really old olive trees and dozens of small children playing around. I bought a bottle of water for the rest of the trip, which turned out to be one of my best ideas within the 4 days. One of the other ones was to buy sunglasses, which now soothed my irritated eyes and brightened all the colours through a reddish filter. We found the stairs up the hill. By the time we climbed it, we were the men who went up the hill and came down the mountain, at least that's how it felt. Probably, it wasn't a mistake that the place was called a "mountain". We walked through the forest, admiring the view once in a while. This is the place to mention that my navigating skills are dispeakably bad. Bernat's, on the other hand, are very good, and so we never really got lost.
On the way up, we saw bunches of old people playing petanque and we stayed a bit to watch the game. I couldn't stop feeling happy for the bottle of water in my hand and I saw shapes of chairs in the trees. Bernat couldn't stop thinking about food. We hoped there would be a restaurant at one of the fortresses but there wasn't. We actually only found one fortress, for the simple reason that there was only one. The way back, a group of firemen was emptying the tanks of their truck and we raced berries in the little stream of water slaloming down the road. We dropped the two berries at the same time and followed them as far as they got and mine won :) Haha, yes, we're so mature. We asked for directions from an old couple, who said that we could only find restaurants downtown and noted that the day before was their 60th wedding anniversary. When I congratulated them, they said that it was too much and laughed. Then, we asked for directions an old man sitting on a bench, but he could only tell us where we can find water. I was so happy again (the bottle was empty by now) that he added that he didn't say "wine", he said "water".
To be continued...
Friday, 8 June 2007
Very quick update from Nice, France
It's been a blast!
Nice and the surrounding area are beautiful, Rosemary and Bernat are just great, the time allocated for sleeping is reduced, the meetings have been long and sometimes very boring, but the coffee is good and unlimited :) I'll be back on Saturday (very late at night) and you can expect pictures and spicy stories! Tomorrow will be a free day, so I'll plan a new route for Bernat and I to explore the old city.
Love from here...
Nice and the surrounding area are beautiful, Rosemary and Bernat are just great, the time allocated for sleeping is reduced, the meetings have been long and sometimes very boring, but the coffee is good and unlimited :) I'll be back on Saturday (very late at night) and you can expect pictures and spicy stories! Tomorrow will be a free day, so I'll plan a new route for Bernat and I to explore the old city.
Love from here...
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Weekend blues
I might as well start this entry with "Dear Diary". You'll see why.
Yesterday was a real low. I spent my whole day in my pyjamas, trying to work and being unable to get anything done. A very frustrating experience, crowned by the 6-hour daytime sleep I took as a break. Filled with nightmares, of course.
In contrast, today was a relatively good day. Yesterday night, I was very reluctant to make an appointment with a psych class group to help them this morning with DirectRT, so I wrote that I'd check the files right then. But they didn't see my mail and I ended up seeing them this morning. It turned out to be a nice experience, something which made me start my day, and quite an altruistic act, which always make me feel happy. I helped them this evening too, actually.
Then I printed the plain tickets to Nice and wrote an e-mail to the person we're supposed to meet to get the keys and do everything else you're supposed to do when renting a place for a couple of days.
I edited the short movies I shot at the ETSI project into a very basic, 10-minute film. And when I'm saying "very basic" please do understand that as "very basic", copying and pasting clips after each other. A very satisfying experience, except for the realization that Joram's computer does not have enough space on it to save the film. Apparently, it needs much more space for the process of saving than what the actual file will take up. Sometimes I feel like such a technical dummy.
I later spent a couple of hours with trying to figure out Matlab with more or less success. I was really counting on Joram's help with this, but... Well, you all know the story. Classes start tomorrow and I'll see how the course will go.
I had tea with Anna in her unit. I haven't seen her all year and now I would have liked to say that we should meet more often next semester, but she's leaving... We concluded that I could still go and visit her in London, especially with the number of people I know there. She also offered me most of her furniture. I'll have a big room next year and I'll need some things to fill it with. I mainly signed up for one because Joram was planning to hang around in the second semester. It would have been big enough for the two of us, but now it might be way too big for me. It would be nice if the furniture alone could fill up the emptiness...
And now, when mentally I'm more on the "up" side, my body is giving up again. I have a fever and I can feel every single one of my bones/joints/muscles. Not a good sign. Should I take this as a warning? Am I actually forcing myself to take some time off? (Darn, Robert Dunn's psychodynamic approach to everything...) Am I sabotaging my own plan to go through with the lab modules in any case to prove that I'm quite well and not shaken by the fact that my boyfriend has just left me?
Yesterday was a real low. I spent my whole day in my pyjamas, trying to work and being unable to get anything done. A very frustrating experience, crowned by the 6-hour daytime sleep I took as a break. Filled with nightmares, of course.
In contrast, today was a relatively good day. Yesterday night, I was very reluctant to make an appointment with a psych class group to help them this morning with DirectRT, so I wrote that I'd check the files right then. But they didn't see my mail and I ended up seeing them this morning. It turned out to be a nice experience, something which made me start my day, and quite an altruistic act, which always make me feel happy. I helped them this evening too, actually.
Then I printed the plain tickets to Nice and wrote an e-mail to the person we're supposed to meet to get the keys and do everything else you're supposed to do when renting a place for a couple of days.
I edited the short movies I shot at the ETSI project into a very basic, 10-minute film. And when I'm saying "very basic" please do understand that as "very basic", copying and pasting clips after each other. A very satisfying experience, except for the realization that Joram's computer does not have enough space on it to save the film. Apparently, it needs much more space for the process of saving than what the actual file will take up. Sometimes I feel like such a technical dummy.
I later spent a couple of hours with trying to figure out Matlab with more or less success. I was really counting on Joram's help with this, but... Well, you all know the story. Classes start tomorrow and I'll see how the course will go.
I had tea with Anna in her unit. I haven't seen her all year and now I would have liked to say that we should meet more often next semester, but she's leaving... We concluded that I could still go and visit her in London, especially with the number of people I know there. She also offered me most of her furniture. I'll have a big room next year and I'll need some things to fill it with. I mainly signed up for one because Joram was planning to hang around in the second semester. It would have been big enough for the two of us, but now it might be way too big for me. It would be nice if the furniture alone could fill up the emptiness...
And now, when mentally I'm more on the "up" side, my body is giving up again. I have a fever and I can feel every single one of my bones/joints/muscles. Not a good sign. Should I take this as a warning? Am I actually forcing myself to take some time off? (Darn, Robert Dunn's psychodynamic approach to everything...) Am I sabotaging my own plan to go through with the lab modules in any case to prove that I'm quite well and not shaken by the fact that my boyfriend has just left me?
Friday, 1 June 2007
Unbalanced
I'm not sure what to write and whether to write until things - or at least my thoughts - get a bit clearer. I heard and thought up a lot of smart things in the last couple of days, all of which would deserve to be mentioned. Maybe I'll write about them at one point. Smart ideas and universal truths, however, are hard to incorporate into my emotional life. It's one thing to know and another to feel. I just hope that knowing can help. My personal heroes during this last week have been Caroline and Rosemary and their infinite wisdom. Hugs.
I'm feeling better. Life started again. I cleaned the mess in my room, did my laundry and bought a lot of nice food again, so my fridge is full. I just cannot work (read) and I'm worried about my lab modules. My plan now is to work very hard for the Matlab module, get it done, and then use the energy generated by the knowledge that I was able to do it to complete the SRT module. I have no doubts that once I get into it, I'll be able to do it. I just have to get into it. These things never come at a good time, and of course, there is no such as a "good time".
I need to find a new balance in myself and in my relationship with Joram. What is clear now is that we don't want to lose each other. It's a good starting point and we will work out the rest slowly. Time usually helps and heals.
I'm feeling better. Life started again. I cleaned the mess in my room, did my laundry and bought a lot of nice food again, so my fridge is full. I just cannot work (read) and I'm worried about my lab modules. My plan now is to work very hard for the Matlab module, get it done, and then use the energy generated by the knowledge that I was able to do it to complete the SRT module. I have no doubts that once I get into it, I'll be able to do it. I just have to get into it. These things never come at a good time, and of course, there is no such as a "good time".
I need to find a new balance in myself and in my relationship with Joram. What is clear now is that we don't want to lose each other. It's a good starting point and we will work out the rest slowly. Time usually helps and heals.
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