Life of Åsmund

Today I had my exam in Opto Electronique Quantique, the only fifth year course I do here at INSA. No, it didn’t go well. I’ve read like a maniac the past days, but it seems it didn’t suffice for me to grasp the essence of the course.

Today’s lesson in French is about the phrase many foreign students have to learn some time during their stay abroad:

“I failed a course.” or
“I flunked a course.”

So, here’s the French equivalent:

“J’ai échoué un cours.”
“J’ai foiré un cours.”

Simple and useful (unfortunately). This lesson does of course have two sides, the phrases on one and the moral You need to work throughout the year to succeed.

Even though I probably failed the Opto Electronics course, I’ve had a good day. Thanks to Philippe and especially Claire, I finally managed to finish the DM (Devoir maison = home work) in Nanophysique 3. What a great feeling!

Saturday (6th December 08) I attended the ANSA Christmas ball. It was really nice to meet so many Norwegians, taste such great food and wine! I went home early (02h bus) to be able to work for the exam. Many thanks to Santiago for helping me understanding some for the Opto!

I’m listening to Kent’s “Tillbaka til Samtiden” album. Fantastic, worth a look! I’ll finish off this post with a picture taken from my apartment window.

Good night to you all!

I have a lot to do the coming days. FX and I still need to do the report (we didn’t do anything sensible yesterday) and we also have the multidiciplinary project hanging over our shoulders.

Today we went to CNES (Centre nationale des Etudes Spatiale) to visit our project tutor. The CNES center here in Toulouse is the largest CNES centre with around 2000 eployees and a lot of security (it’s a huge place). Normally, it’s not a problem to be Norwegian in Europe – we have pretty much signed every agreement there is with the EU, except the membership one. But at CNES it’s different. Norway is not a among the partners of CNES, therefore my tutor had to pick me up at the entrance – and return me when we were done. Funny :)

Yesterday, on the metro home on the metro, Nina, Geir and I discussed the differences between Danish, Icelandic and Norwegian. Then in the escalator some French guy asks us if we have two minutes. Sure! And we end up correcting his English assignment outside the metro. Glad we could help! Funny!

Now I’m gonna continue studying Optoelectronics for my exam on Monday. In an hour it’s badminton time! Wish me luck!