Thursday, June 30, 2005


First pay check!!!! My supervisor has just come in a handed me an envelope with a nice little check for 559.95€ so I'll have a bit to cushion out my bank account when I go back on saturday. :)

Well yesterday evening was um... fun! I got a letter in my pigeon hole on monday saying that I needed to go and speak to the ladies in charge about changing rooms. Apparently my room needs painting. Perhaps I have been a students too long and have got used to shabby paint work, but I think it is fine. Anyway yesterday I went to go and speak to one of them. Unfortunately it was Cathrine that I spoke to. She is
not very concidereate of my lack of understanding- she speaks very fast and is rubbish at finding different ways of saying things. But I spoke to her anyway. I was left after the conversation with the belief that I needed to go upstairs and pack my stuff up, and she would phone up to my room later to arrange the move. So I went and packed up my things, and waited, and waited. In the end I went down stairs again (would have phoned but phones are scary in english let alone french). There I ran
into Brigitte- the nice Lady who had helped my fill in all my forms etc. She explained very clearly (admittidly with the help of a guy standing nearby who spoke some english) and said that I needed to change rooms, I could go back to my old room afterwards if I wanted etc etc. However the big difference was that she said it would be a week to 10 days before I move! I was not impressed. I had put all my
effort into packing up (and I hadn't eaten anything at that point- about 9). Was not good. So I went to MacDs and indulged myself in a lovely burger!

Tuesday, June 28, 2005


I am being eaten alive! It is way too hot at night here to sleep with the windows shut, and so they have been open every night inviting in every flying bug around. and the bugs all seem to want to eat me (must be coz I'm so sweet! lol).

Work has been quite nice the past couple of days. My program finally does what I wanted it to do (well it does it once and then crashes, so I've got to debug it somehow), and I've had a room all to myself so have had music on all the time. Before there was another guy on placement (Tim) here, but I never actually managed to say more than hello and goodbye to him- oops. So now eveyone can look through the windows and see me sitting there talking to my computer (tell it just how stupid it really is) and singing along to my CDs.

Monday, June 27, 2005


This world is official crazy!!! well certainly very strange. I have just popped down to the vending machine here at work to get some munchies (random food rather than the actual sweet of that name). As I always do when given the chance I got a Kinder bueno. Now that was not the strange part- the price was. Here in france chocolate bars and the like cost silly amounts (in a bad way). In a Tabac (like our newsagents) you will pay 1€ is for one of these bars or more. but the vending machine was only 0,75€. Now you may be thinking that I've lost it. You may even be one of the many that have realised I have lost it. But this doesn't happen!!!! Vending machines always cost way more than shops!

Sorry I don't have any real news to add to my ramblings, but that is the way it goes.

Friday, June 24, 2005


as promised there are now a couple of photos of the music festival. Eventually I will turn this into a proper page with a menu option. for now you can click on the following link

Photo page


Well my big new today is that for the first time since arriving I didn't eat my breakfast alone! This might not sound like a huge deal but trust me it was. Last night Brigette (one of the ladies in charge of running my foyer) introduced me to a group of english speaking girls- two americans and an australian. They were all amazingly friendly, it was really nice if a little strange as they were all fairly fluent in french so kept switching effortlessly between the two languages. Unfortunately they are only here for another week, but they have promised to introduce me to their english friends. Apparently there is a bar not far from the foyer where "all the english people go". So anyway it was one of them that I had
breakfast with. So a huge thanks to all of you who have been praying that I will make friends- it's working :)

Thursday, June 23, 2005



Woohoo I have internet access at work again!!!! I have done my last few entrys at work (the main reason being that I am too shattered after work to even think of doing anything other that blobbing). However my new work account hasn't had internet access until this morning, so I couldn't post anything :( So this entry will be a kind of catch up

Tuesday saw Peter leaving the office *sniff* so we all had cider and nibbles in one of the meeting rooms as a little fairwell party. It also saw me get my new account open - good thing to as I had been using Peter's up until then and obviously with him gone that would have been tricky.

So I finally have a working account, some real work to do and no idea how to do it! lol. It is programming in C++ which is a more advanced version of C (hence the +s). Unfortunately I've only worked in C before so although I understand most of it there are some bits the working of which are still a complete mistery.


Tuesday evening was the Caen music festival. I don't really know what organisation goes into the day, but in the evening the effect was that the streets were lined with "buskers". They weren't really busking though (I only saw one bucket all evening) they had just taken to the streets and were playing their music. I am going to try to remember to put some pictures of this up some time because it really was
extraordinary. Every few feet there was a new group of musicians. I'm not just talking a lone man and his violin, this was entire bands- full drum kit, several guitars, keyboard and singers. Each with their own sound system, some with a lone amp and some with stacks of speakers that would make stage crew proud. The streets were rammed full of people just wandering up and down and listening. The range of
styles was incredible: little boys and their 'bands', bigger boys still in their 'bands', rappers, a marching band (inc. cymbols, drums and xylaphones (I know they weren't really xylaphones, but I can't remember their proper name)), french rap artists, metal bands (not made of, just performing), native american pan-pipes
and regge. However easily my favorite was a group of drummers. The group ranged in age from about 11 up to 30ish with almost 20 people each with a .... eek I can't remeber the name for those either! well they were african drums. But the noise they made was fantastic, and they kept up constant playing for 15 minutes at a time. If you have ever tried to play a hand drum really loud and with any kind of complex
rhythm you can appreciate that this is not a little acheivement. Well anyway I really enjoyed it :)

I think I have written enough to keep you going for a bit, so I'm gonna go back to my work now.

Bbbbbbbbbbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Monday, June 20, 2005


I have discovered that new routines wear you out like nothing else can. Each night I have been in bed by 10 and slept solidly until about 7, both this weekend and last I have managed to spend either saturday or sunday doing nothing (i.e. sleeping until stupidly late, then watching dvds and then going to bed at about 10ish) and I'm still shattered. I guess adjusting to new situations takes extra energy- especially
when you have to speak a new language as well.


Sunday though I did manage to get out and go to church. It was quite a strange experience really. Most of the hymns they sang had the same tune as an english hymn, but different words. This was quite helful really as I didn't have to worry about the tune, just the words. unfortunately it gave me a sharp reminder of home and I nearly burst into floods of tears when they started singing.

Preachers are actually reletively easy to follow inn another language (comparitively speaking of course). The main reason being: 1) in public speaking you have to speak clearly and slowely 2) if you know the rough topic they are preaching on you have a good chance of guessing roughly what they might be talking about.

I also met a lovely lady after the service who could speak some english so we had a little miss match conversation of french and english. As I was leaving she asked if I was coming back and when I said yes she smiled and said that we should speak some more french then. So I have a friend (though I have no idea what her name was! hee hee)

Friday, June 17, 2005


My understanding of French has let me down slightly- I must amend the details in yesterday's entry slighty, as Peter is leaving work on Tuesday (rather than the contry). But it doesn't make it any more sad that he is leaving.

Last night Peter's placement tutor from the university (Rodger Seebold for those of you who may know him) took me, Peter and our boss out to dinner. It was great once we finally got there. Marc (our boss) had a meeting in Paris earlier in the day, and then things to sort out when he got back here, and to cut a long story short we were a little bit late getting to the hotel where we were ment to be meeting Rodger. So
Peter and I just sat and chatted for an hour or so before we went :)

The dinner for me was ham, grilled fresh samon, Crème brûlée it was yummy. And all paid for by the university (Well kinda by me really seeing as how I still have to pay half my tuition fees while on placement)

Due to our late start and the meal going on for ages due to us all having a good natter I didn't get back until 11:30- my latest night in Caen yet!

This morning Rodger has been in the office to do tutor stuff with Peter. But while here he has also been making sure that I've settled in OK. He has said that I'm to e-mail him in a week to make sure that they have given me some work to do. So the people here have to give me something to entertain myself or they will have to deal with..... The wrath of Seebold. LOL.

Thursday, June 16, 2005


I have now officially been living on my own, in France for a week now! And actually I've managed much better than I thought I would. Food has been alrightm generally I have been so hungry at meal times that I eat all sorts of strange things- had far too much undercooked meat! I have held (what you could almost call) conversations with several people (in French of course) and sorted out all the paper work for the
housing benifit I can get.

Things at work are thankfully much better now than they were on the first day (but that can be expected- first days as a rule are rubbish!). So Sarah is a much happier bunny :)

I wore my capacitor earing today (made from old components in the lab) and got a great reaction! It always makes me smile to see the look of shock on people's faces when the realise what they are, hee hee

Got dinner tonight with Peter (the student I'm taking over from), my 'boss' and Seebold (a prof from surrey). Should be interesting.

I'm gonna miss Peter next week- Tomorrow is his last day as he is going back to England on... Tuesday I think. He is absolutaly lovely and is the only person here that I have really talked to. Everyone can speak english, but they don't. I guess this way my French has a chance of improving, but it makes for an unusually quiet Sarah (bet you all wish you were here to see that!)

Ne who should probably get back to doing some work. Well I say work, I've really just been sat down with a simulator, a little camera, tons of reading and I've been told to play (to get familiarised with the project). But I have been writting this in little chunks while waiting for one of my computers to finish loading the new settingsm so I can see what they do. I have two computer you see, coz I'm special. It's great except I keep mixing up the mice and getting very confuzzled when my little pointer doesn't move

Au revoir

Monday, June 13, 2005



Ever thought about how hard it is to buy a train ticket? No I hadn't either, until today! For those of you who have used the Croydon trams the system here is very similar to that- and when you don't have a clue what the options are, it is very hard to pick. I tried asking a lady nearby, and her very helpful responce was that she couldn't work those machines! so I managed to miss the bus by seconds. The fabulous thing about the Caen transport system is that you can buy one ticket and you can use it on a bus or a tram, from any point in the city, to anywhere else in the city. A wonderfully simple system (once you have managed to buy your ticket of course). So I managed to catch a tram to work instead. Of course me being me, I left enough time to get to work that if I missed the bus I still had time to walk there. Consequently I arrived at work an amazing 45 minutes early. So I sat at the
tram stop outside work and read "There is always enough" by Rolland and Heidi baker for half an hour. When I arrived the lady at the front desk was expecting me. I got a badge and as asked to wait in the reception, to be met by the company "head of human resorces" or something like that. The introductory talk was all in english and when I was handed over again they all spoke english to me (so I understood it all).

I was given a tour around the office and told about a million name- none of which I now remeber of course, introduced to Peter (who is the current University of surrey placement student) then sat down with a ton of reading to do- to try and familiarise myself with the project. The fact that all this documentation was in english actually helped very little. Most of it was written with the assumption that the person reading it was familiar with other parts of the project and just the subject area in general- not me!

12 saw us wandering off to canteen, where the only piece of conversation I vaguely understood was when one of the girls said she had seen a frog!

Then more reading!

At the end of the day I was so tired that I couldn't face walking back as I had planned, so I went to get the tram. The service doesn't half change from morning to evening! From every 9 minutes it went to me waiting over 45 minutes, reading my book again. But eventually I made it back to the foyer and went straight into dinner. I have no idea what was in the mush of vegetables that I ate, but I ate and ate until it was all gone- and it was lovely. Then I managed my biggest acheivement in my french so far. I went (with out looking in dictionary or phrase book before I went) to the foyer reception and manaed to arrange a meeting with the boss lady to
finish off the paper work.

now me needs lots of sleep

zzzzzzzzzzzz

Thursday, June 09, 2005


Bonjour

Main news: I have arrived!!!!!!

This is the hardest entry I have written yet- for several reasons. Firstly I got to the end of my little rainbow of colours (so had to work out if I was going to start again from the begining, or work backwards). Secondly I have a bit of a headache from trying very hard to remeber my GCSE french (french people speak very quickly!!) hee hee. And lastly I have the joys of writing on a french key board!!! This is not too bad, as most of the letters are in the right place- but not all of them (so please excuse any odd looking spelling mistakes).

So what can I tell you about my last two days....

Yesterday my dad and I left home at 6:10 and drove down to Portsmouth to catch a ferry at 8:30. The ferry journey was fairly non-discript except for the wonderful chance we got to see a coast guard helicoptor. They were obviously filming for something (the camera man hanging out the window was a huge giveaway!!). But they flew litterally meters from the ferry, filming the boat and us all waving at them- It was quite a treat.

Then came the long drive to Caen (and we only variated from our intended route once!). Finally we arrived at the place where I am staying. We walked in and in out broken French, anounced out arrival. The lady on the desk had no idea who we were, or that we should be coming! Luckily it didn't take long to sort everything out, and I am now happily installed in room 2.20

The evening saw Dad and me sitting outside a little resaurant, in the evening sunshine, on the cutest little cobbled street, eating steak and jacket potato. Resaurants are great- but it can take a heck of a long time to work out what is on the menu. And even after you half an hour, you can still get it wrong. The lovely 'cold meats' that my dad assured me I was ordering for starters, turned out to be the largest plate of salad I have ever had. Luckily he had the right word for steak, and although I smothered mine is sauce so I could see the lovely partially cooked pink insides, it was rather nice.

This morning was breakfast in a little cafe, a shop for cleaning materials and a bit of food (the essential milk for my tea).

And then I waved au revoir to my dad. So now I am all alone!


The facilities here are not bad, fairly similar to standard university accomodation. There is no broad band in the rooms, but apparently I can get dial up. However there is a little room with three computers, all of which have broadband access. I think there about 160 girls here though, so they might get quite busy durring the evenings. We shall have to wait and see. Other than that I haven't really explored much. I will try to have a poke around soon and post up some
photos so you can have a look.


Anyway, I think I have rambled on long enough for one day. I shall now go and finish unpacking all my stuff, but never fear I shall write again soon.

xx

If anyone does want my full address please e-mail me (see the "links" page)


Saturday, June 04, 2005


Finally back in good old London again. I arrived back on Wednesday evening and I have spent almost the entire time since then unpacking the vast amount of stuff I have carted back from guildford. The really funny thing is that tomorrow I will start packing it all up again ready for going to France. Unfortunately I have to cut down quite a bit for France- otherwise I'd have just left it all boxed. Oh well, never mind.

I still don't think it has quite hit me that I'm going for a whole year. It feels like I'm getting ready for a holiday! It's exciting though. This morning I was looking at a map of Caen, and managed to find where work is and where I'm staying.

'Tis all very fun.