To change a bit, guess what... I don't have much to say... again !

Life goes on and is pretty boring, that's all about classes/lectures/seminars and work and that's about it.
This 14th of February was slightly unremarkable, fortunately.

We handed in the Canada application forms yesterday. They were hard to complete, but here I am. Applied for the UQAM, the University of Montréal and the University Laval. The UQAM seems the most accurate to my course, but I would be delighted to go to Université Laval as it's located in Québec, which I would really love to live in.

Results at the end of May. I'm not confident at all about getting taken, mainly because the Politics department selects their candidates prior to submitting the applications to the canadian universities, and that makes it be like 1 person / university. Plus the fact that I couldn't get a personnal recommendation... (which means, a recommendation from a teacher who knows the student. Lecturers don't qualify for that. And in the double path I'm in, we have no political science class - only lectures. Too bad.). And last but not least, I'm far from having an excellent report.

But you know... No trying, no gaining.

Apart from that, as I was saying, life just goes on. That, and the fact that my british politics lecture, which is given in English, starts at 8:00 on tuesdays and I'm so still asleep then that I completely mix languages and am totally unable to say what language I'm hearing/writing. Hehe... call me wicked !


( And now for your entertainment, a few tests... )

Until next time, farewell folks !

Unlike most people around these days, I don't have much to tell about.

Absolutely nothing's happened in my life since I last wrote in here. How sad is that ?
It's intersemester break now at university, exams are starting tomorrow and frankly I'm sort of fed up already. What's the point ? I mean, right I'll have my Licence at the end of the year, and what for ? What's the use of it with the new rules on M1 acceptance ? (thanks the government for having passed that in spite of the strikes).
Canada isn't even a proper aim. All the latest info notes say it's for students in years L2 and L3, meaning that being a M1, I wouldn't qualify. Moreover, even if I purposedly fail my year, not only wouldn't I get taken, but undergraduate programs for the exchange just suck. As does the undergraduate status itself, in my high opinion.
Edit January 16 : Funnily enough, I received my application form today. It says "L2 and L3 student for 2005-2006. Meaning that they mean this year. Meaning that I do qualify. yay !

Other than that, I tend to remain projectless, jobless and aimless.
However, I've been doing good work on the A&C website, and I'm quite happy with it, I'm doing way better than the ADAG website. (For those who didn't follow/care, those are 2 websites I'm being paid to do).

Jobless for various reasons, the main being that I'm suffering of the too-high-a-profile syndrom, said my job advisor. Great, what's the use of studies then ? Well the true problem is that for most student jobs, they're less likely to hire someone with such a profile, mainly because they fear I may be smarter than average or more aware of the laws and work rights, I may be a pain and not be as sheepish as some would. Secondly, in my area of competence, there is little chance to find part-time jobs with flexible hours (my timetable changes nearly every week).

Aimless because I still don't have a clue about what I want to do.
Sara reckons it's no big deal and that I'll just see what happens.
True enough, still not very handy to make choices. I mean honestly, without an aim, why would I go fight to enter a M2 that takes like 15 people out of 500 applicants ?

As for life itself, I've been questionning my friends a bit these days. I'm unsure who's who. Most of them are just inexistant these days, as I explained in an earlier entry. Too busy with their "partners". Also I found out they've started organizing inter-couple stuff (except for those who're just busy due to an excessive liking for work), like dinners, bowlings, etc... just the 4 or 6 of them. They said they didn't tell me so I wouldn't feel left out. Honestly, even if they did, I wouldn't have gone with them, and I would even have been annoyed at them, so no real harm done, but I only get to see them twice a week at the university now.
As for those in the other group, the university one, it's just the old same crap about theaters, dinners and opera seats. Urgh.

Not to mention a few things I've been disliking, like how for new year (mainly) they all (including online people, most unfortunately) started to make tributes in their blogs, or articles... like, thanking those who make them happy, etc... I aim at nobody in particular with this and most of them aren't on LiveJournal anyway, but given that I happened to never been quoted a single time, I take it I don't bring anything special to anyone.
I mean, it's not something that I particularly care about or desire or whatever. It's more like the fact of having tons of people thanked for being there, from various people, and never being there that makes me jump to conclusions. It's just a bit too much.
So then, I don't bring anything noticeable, that's a good think to know though, means that I won't continue wasting my time listening and trying to work out ways out or just what to say to everyone... After all, I should care of myself first thing, shouldn't I ?

So to sum it up, I'm projectless, aimless, jobless and soon-to-be friendless. And a huge victim of society's standards (but you knew it already, didn't you ?)

So let's fall into fashion and here is an egoist song, well a song about egoism :P
( Lyrics )

Just took the time to write this and I'm feeling OK again... Cool :)
So, arey ou friend or foe ? (for this one, comments are open even to anonymous (non-LJ) people !

I had the most useless dream the other night.
I was sitting in a room in the United States, which happened to be my room (though hadn't got anything to do with my real room), working on an essay on my laptop (which happened not to be my real laptop either) and at some point, someone I knew entered and asked me if I could lend them my car. So I threw the keys to that person who set off.
And a few seconds later, that person was back, saying, « Man, I can't drive that. » - because the car was my real car which implies no automatic gear. The end.

Go figure.

This happened as a conclusion to a quite bad week. It all started on Wednesday when I got to talk to the 1142 responsible (translation : the responsible of the Master 1st year ("4" because it's the fourth year overall) of International Relations ("2") at the Political Science department ("11" because it's UFR 11).
Remember my Canada-related project ? That one that involved me going to do my M1 year over there, through our exchange program with the CREPUQ.
It happens that the UFR 11 only set its exchange programs for M1s on the second semester.
Whatever you do, when going through an exchange,you always make your first semester in Paris.

( Here you can read my different exchange solutions. )

That guy from the office advised that I went to the UP1 International House for more information, so there I went on Thursday afternoon.

Thursday happened to be the worst day I had for a long time.
First of all, I woke up nearly too late and had to dash off very quickly.
I caught a bus on my way, and decided for a go on Line B to get there.
I have two ways to go to the university :
- Metro line 7 (6 stops = 10 min) then line 4 (another 8 stops = 12 min) then 5 min on foot = around 30 min overall
- Bus 54 to Paris-Nord station (10-20 min) then line B (2 stations = 6 min) then 2 min on foot = around 20-30 min overall.
So it doesn't change much things anyway but here I was, feeling lazy, didn't want to walk much.
Maybe it was a mistake.

The bus was OK, and when I got on Platform 42, the train was just arriving, so I stepped on and managed to grab a seat because it wasn't too full. Then it departed after 5 min, then was quite slow until the next station - the legendary Châtelet-Les-Halles for those who know the city. There were so many people to climb on that I wondered how I would get out. The arrival at St Michel-Notre Dame was quite comical actually, but I wasn't let off so easily. Whenever I had to cross a street, the traffic light moved to green. Then the lecture of European Construction was really insteresting... but also really dull at the same time, thanks to the teacher's voice I guess, I managed the two first hours correctly, the third was quite annoying and I nearly fell asleep in the end. Great.
Went to lunch with friends and my blue card decided on a strike and wouldn't let me pay, it took four attempts. Then on the afternoon, I went to Grosbill Micro to grab a bar of RAM I had ordered, and they happened not to have received it. Set off for the International House who was nearby... Special closure that day. And to really make the day special, I got a cold from walking accross the city, making my extended week-end quite... not as good as I'd've wished.

I think that the idiot who writes the storyline of my life had a good laugh with me on that day.

So here I am, left with about no information on what I'm going to do next. I want this sorted out before the Xmas holidays, fortunately I'll have the Student Expo on the 27th and 28th November where most of the universities from everywhere in the world are, which can only be useful.

That might be dull, or boring, but that's what occupies my thoughts these days.

I'm really not fun. :x

Busy week.
Those two words are a perfect summary to the week I've just had.
As usual since June, I've been working. My full-time (35 hours/week) job ended on wednesday.
Thursday was when the exams results were out. I surprisingly did very badly in History, fortunately I did well in Political Science. In the end, my year is validated with 10,043 out of 20 ! Woah, that was close ! And in the same time, I validate my whole cycle ! YAY !
( For those who are interested, here are my marks )
( For those who are unfamiliar with the French grade system, here is how it works )

***

So, planning on future.
L3 year should be fine, my timetable is neat (16 hours a week...), and I get thursday afternoons, fridays and saturdays off. Along with tuesday afternoons. And monday mornings.
The big deal is for my M1 year, as I'm planning to ask the international mobility status. It's a status that allows you to go to study one semester or one year in a university in another country, either through the erasmus-socrates program, or internal exchanges programs.
The University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - where I am - has strong exchanges with the CREPUQ, that's a sort of biggish group of universities in the province of Québec, Canada. Being a student applying for a Master in Political Science, with an international profile, and willing to work at an international scale (possibly at the U.N.), this exchange is quite interesting for me. For one thing, most students who follow that path would go to the U.S. or U.K., so going elsewhere is all good for me. For another, it allows me to pull back to francophony studies, and most of the students who do that go to Africa instead, so it's all good too. And last, but not least, I have always wanted to go to Québec.
I guess that going to a country that is so different, so american (for those who don't know, I spent eight months studying in the U.S. back in 2000), yet people there still can speak French, must be a really interesting thing to live !
Also, the willing to go away for a change has been growing thicker into my mind these weeks/months. Don't mistake me though, I have been thinking of it for some years already. I know I have to do it, and I want to do it.
It remains nonetheless a bit scary and yet exciting at the same time. I'm used to living alone, as my parents spend about five months a year elsewhere, so that's no big deal. But it's one thing to live alone in a city where you've spent (nearly) 21 years, and going 8000 km away, with a big ocean between your homeland and you is quite different, is it not ?
Anyway, I trust it's something I can cope with, yet I still need to think about it more.
In the meantime, I'm gathering all the information I can about the universities in Québec, and it seems that the only one that offers second cycle studies in political science is the UQAM, University of Québec in Montréal (edit : it seems that the UdeM, University of Montréal, has it too). Pity, I would've gone for Québec, but I guess Montréal is just fine. I'm due to stop by the International Relations House of my university sometime in October to start the process.
The real big problem is money, still. A year there would be around 5000 CAD, speaking of fees. They also suggest you have 7500 euros for ten months, not including the visa (150 euros) and the plane tickets. And the exchange can't be approved if I can't prove I can have 750 euros a month for ten months. Fortunately, the news is that firstly, the regional funding isn't social in the end (only for people not in an exchange), so I can have it whatever my parents earn, that's 416 euros a month, then my university helps too (about 120 euros a month), so I guess I can cope with it now. I can't work there to complete the amount because you need a working visa for it, and they have quotas, so basically, I would need to go to the U.S. in a French consulate, and then I can apply for a proper visa later. Tricky !
Anyway, it all seems well engaged, so I'm quite satisfied for the moment.

On other news, I've been working so much lately that this week-end is barely a break ; and on thursday night, I even collapsed before it was midnight !