A REFRESHING WIND
Friday:
FX and I got through our last presentation. During lunch there was a weird ambiance in the school restaurant (RU) because of plenty of "seniors" who had their final day. They had all dressed up and some had already drunk a alot! Hilarious!
Fifth graders having fun and alcohol in the RU
Friday was Boom night! Synnøve and I went to say goodbye to Mélodie who's leaving for Mexico the second semester. Then we went to Malena's apéro (pre-party) where we met all the other Erasmus! I finally got to pop my 18€ champagne bottle. It was the perfect occation, as the first semester is over! The bad, stressed out feeling was like blown away!
A really good Boom party! Lots of dancing and fun!
Saturday:
I got home around 05h. Around 07h30 I woke up because of heavy wind banging my window shades. After doing my laundry (and starting to read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons) I went to centre ville where I got the Médiathèque card. It gives me free entrance to several museums in Toulouse and four sport events (football or rugby). The wind that banged my window shades had done a lot of damage to Toulouse. Amongst the destruction I saw, a shop's huge window was destroyed in centre ville, there was glass everywhere! When I got back I saw that a few roof tiles had fallen of my residence's roof onto the pavement :S Several HUGE trees on campus had fallen down, one crushing a car, others bending thick metal fences.
Luckily, the tree fell away from the house!
Sunday:
We initially thought about using our free Cité de l'éspace ticket, but found out that it was closed. Instead we (Nina, Fie, Cate, Geir, Kristian, Joao and I) visited Musée des Augustins before we had a delicious but expensive lunch outdoors! Not bad for the end of January!
Roman columns in Musée des Augustins
17th century art at Musée des Augustins
Fie, Joao, Geir, Cate, Nina and Kristian enjoying appel Pie, cheese cake, lemon pie, chocolate cake 1&2, rasberry & pistache cake AND crunchy mush cake! Loved it!
Then we went for an afternoon cinema session, again with free tickets, watching Slumdog Millionaire. I really liked it, recommendations are hereby given!
Photo: Wikipedia.org
Monday:
The first day of "Semaine CREDIGE" or "Semainte inter-semestre", which for me means an intensive week of Module d'overture. My course is Photography and digital post processing, a subject I have plenty of interest in. The first day consisted of lots of theory, most of which I already knew, and some history. Tomorrow, Tuesday, we're starting to take photos ourselves and playing around with Photoshop!
I went to Claire's goodbye party, she's leaving for Berlin on Thursday. That means my primary helper in school is disappearing. Thank you very much for the help and have fun in Berlin!
So, a "short" summing up is over, thank you for reading! See you around for the next post!
FREEDOM
Today we celebrated Roberto's (Columbia) birthday! Happy birthday! I joined the others in a party in Roberto's room. We counted about 35 people in his 9m^2 mansion! It really feels great to once again be in good health AND to have time for spare time! It's so much fun to finally be with the others again. It really feels like I've lost two weeks of our precious time, simply because of exams and sickness (specially with the ones leaving after the first semester. Johannes being the first).
Ooh. It's one o'clock and I should get some sleep. I'll add some images from the birthdayparty. Enjoy and Good night!
Tiago's awesome cup (Secret Santa present)
Kristofer re-appeared in an intimate concert with his "Goodbye" song. The crowds went wild to this soon-to-be classic.
It was crowded. Roberto front right. Synnøve, me and Susana in the back. Happy birthday!
Oh by the way. I came across a weird "social" service called Plinky. Had to try. Something to try! The plot is to share your answer to an asked question. You can check it out at Plinky.com or look at my fresh profile here. :)
Again: Good night!
THE GOOD FEELING
But the feeling of not being capable to learn it all in time isn't good. Right now I'll go to make myself a cup of tea and listen to Anna Ternheim's "Sombody outside" for a few minutes. Maybe it helps.
ABOUT DROWNING SLOWLY
I've been working since 8h this morning, so I'm pretty fed up with anything that looks/sounds/feels like work. In Marketing class at 8h, I started preparing for the presentation FX and I had at 13h. I tried to memorize as much as possible of the four possible presentations - I'm still not confident enough to freely, and without manuscript, explain quantum mechanical phenomenas in French.
The thing about today's presentation is this clever plot:
Make a 10 minute presentation of four experiments you've completed throughout the semester. At the time of the presentation you will draw one of the four - which you are to present.
So, FX and I have the past days made four presentations, three of which will be a waste of time as they will NEVER be used for anything. Love it, specially since I have to work a lot with writing down what I want to say in French and then memorize the sentences.
As a reminder to myself, these are the experiments we prepared:
- Luminescence 2 (Electro luminescence) <-- The one we presented
- Optique Fourier
- Effet Magnéto-phonon
- Absorption de Semiconducteurs
To make the whole thing even better, FX and I really f***d up the presentation as we had misunderstood some basic concepts. Though, I'm just happy it's over, one less thing to worry about.
Right after the presentation we started preparing our Multidisciplinary project presentation, due Friday. Around 6h of work made gave us an ok result.
I got home (listening to the Arn Trilogy on audiobook. I'm always listening to it when moving between places) and made myself a fast pasta dinner. At 20h30 I started preparing for Thursday's exam in Nanophysique 3 and got squeezed in 3 hours. I'm happy about the work I've done today!
Tomorrow I can concentrate on Nanophysique 3 as I have the whole day "off"!
I recently discovered Matt Costa's "Songs we sing" album thanks to Last.fm, it's simply fantastic and great for relaxing between the work sessions!
Life as an Erasmus student is not very fun right now, but after Friday (also Boom night) the workload will decrease! Just need to hold my breath a little longer!
THE PAST DAYS
Monday
The exam on Monday went horribly bad, I had focused my energy on the wrong topics. Oh well.
After the exam I prepared a Marketing presentation with my group, getting to bed around 1 o'clock. The presentation didn't go very well for my part, as I read my sentences from a paper. (it was in French, so I have a little excuse there) Anti-dynamic presentation in other words. The others in my group did very well in my opinion and impressed me with their presentation skills!
Tuesday
Studying for Électronique du solide in Bib'INSA (the library)
On Tuesday, after the presentation I studied for the Thursday's exam until 16h30 where I picked up my brand new checkbook in the bank. So now I own my first checkbook ever! (they are next to extinct in Norway)
At 17h I had a meeting concerning the trip to the Alpes in April. I got to try out how to write a check right away as a 200€ check was needed as a deposit in case we ruin the apartments we're going to rent (I made 8 in total to help my friends who doesn't have a checkbook yet).
Synnøve showing me the science of removing a check from the checkbook without destroying both
I went home, felt like crap so I went to sleep before 20h. No more studies.
Oh, by the way! Tuesday I found out that I passed the fifth year course Optoelectronics I had to take in order to get my year abroad accepted by NTNU (my home univ.)! Wee! Made my day even if I felt like crap :)
Wednesday
Lab from 08h30 until 18h30. The first lab with Mr. Gauffier and I think it will be quite fun. Mr. Gauffier is an interesting man. Especially I find it fun how he walks around smoking his pipe in the lab (No smoking policy in the building).
FX sitting next to the MET instrument
Safety glasses are important when vaporizing gold (yup we did)
As every day I've been eating Ibuprophen like I had no tomorrow, so I got through the day quite well and I managed to study Electronique du solide until 23h.
More Ibuprofen
Thursday
Exam from 8h to 10h. Went better than the exam on Monday, but still quite bad I think. Went home, sleeping/relaxing. Had French class from 14-16h. Went home, went to bed and slept until my alarm clock went off 09h Friday
Friday
FX and I (FX is my lab partner) were supposed to work today, but as I had a little fever this morning I told him we had to postpone it until Saturday. So today is my getting well day, I'm staying in bed. No time for fuzzing about!
Have a nice day and a fun weekend!