So lately...

Things have got a little bit busier for several reasons (school, welcome week, social events...) therefore I have not been able to update the blog. I will probably create a post to describe a regular day as soon as things get smoother.
For now, all I can tell is: because of the way of living, of the university and especially because of the people, I love being here =)

Have a great weekend!

PS: for those of you who were aware I had English tests, I passed it so I don t need extra credit hours in English during the school year.

Nightlife

American people prefer RNB and hip hop to dance in nightclubs. As a matter of fact it s quite hard to get used to that kind of music when you come from a European background. This is why tonight we decided to go to the only nightclub in AA that plays dance music: Necto...

Shopping

Earlier during the week I took PJ and Yann to Dunham's department store that sells sport gear.
Guess what happened...

A week spent programming in C++ makes you do so many silly things...

U look like John Lenon on that pic' man

I wonder if the guy looking at the security video cameras had a good time watching us haha

1st house party

Last Friday at Yann's place

Warm up with PJ and Ben

Flipcup is not always that easy... Actually girls are amazingly good at it.
It can replace beer pong or be used as a complementary game.

The dancefloor in the basement of Yann's house... stunning...
Unfortunately, American people prefer drinking rather than dancing :(

Schedule...

... for fall '07

Alex's weekly select

Every wednesday, Alex, my mentor in Sketchy-Side-Of-The-American-Culture will teach you new words that English teachers do not tell you in class.

"Sorry I cannot come over tonight, I have a shitload of work to do"

New apartment

As some of you may know, I moved in my new apartment last Sunday. For now I am hosting PJ since his lease starts next weekend.
Here are a few pictures...

The kitchen. You can see the entrance door at the far end.

The fridge in the foreground and a glimpse of the living room in the background. I just wanted to give you an idea of how the living room and the kitchen were connected together.

The living room with the desk in it


My bedroom

PJ's "bed"

Saturday night

PJ is getting ready...

As we say in French : bogoss... ;)
Well actually I wanna thank you for your help through that challenging night. We have to hang out more often ;)

We went to the grocery store with Dayna, Lauren and PJ were I bought that amazing chemically-modified watermelon... see how shiny it is :)


As you may have guessed, in fact we just went bowling haha
Here are the winners of the game : bogoss and Lauren


As usual it was good spending some time with you, too bad you weren't here Yann

Today's issue

Drawing from Yann
Colors by PJ

Work hard, party harder

Some records from this crazy week thanks to PJ's cellphone...

BD's Mongolian BBQ
You pick up vegetables, meat and sea food and they grill it in front of you. If you like meat, that's definitely a great place to go to.

At Pinball Pete's

At Pinball Pete's (ctd)


We didn't miss the opportunity to go back to skeeps even if now, I no longer feel enthusiastic about going back there, at least not until college students come back

Ben (Canadian)


Chris (Korean)


Jay (Indian)


Yann (French)

Yiming (Chinese)


Myself

My new daily activity...

... like most of the other students from the Business School

A few shots from a regular school day

A few pics from PJ's cell phone to give you a flavor of what we experience 6 days a week lol

Class time
You can see the teacher standing on the left hand side


The teacher's command center


Wait for the bus that takes you to central campus while Yann sends an sms to his future girlfriend ? :-)


Rest after classes on the diag near by the American flag...


... and try to concentrate and study a little if there aren't too many girls around lol


Then go to Wendy's and order this triple burger sandwich for diner...


... or go to the best Korean restaurant in town with great friends =)

Glimmer of hope haha

Thank you Mr Yann =)

Saturday night at Yann's house

Last Saturday "we" decided to watch a horror movie at Yann's place.

Everything is all set, let's get things started


"hmm I would love to taste your sausage before the movie starts" lol


PJ and myself were quite frightened during the movie...


... whereas Yann was The very courageous guy of the group =)


Alok and Yiming passed by at the end of the movie

Nice time spent with you guys !

Written driving test

Some good news today : I passed the written driving test, which is the first step before I get this American driving license. It was not as hard as the French one so, no wonder I didn't fail lol
It was questions like : do you have to fasten your seat belts : sometimes ? always ? when it rains only ? haha, I m kidding of course but that still gives a flavor of what it looked like.



I'll have to wait 30 days before I can take the driving test since my French license is laminated. They just told me it took some credibility out of it and chances that it may be fake are greater...
So I have to drive during 30 days with someone who already has a valid US license. It will be okay to remain on my own in the car since I can drive during 3 months with my int'l license. Just bear in mind that in the next door state, in Illinois they directly exchange your license so that you need no test (written and driving) at all...
Therefore the good point for you French readers is that the French administration is not the worst in the world hahaha

I told you...

... I had an internet connection issue. Remember ?
Actually I found a new network I can connect to but the only problem is that I can get it only in a tiny winy corner of the house. Guess where it is...

If I close the window I lose the connection :-s
Fortunately there is not too much through traffic in the street out there lol

Weeks all look the same

Last week we had courses of finance only. It was a subject everyone had been waiting for obviously. Our teacher, Nejat Seyhun is very catchy and explains very well. No wonder this person set a worldwide index for the stock exchange (correct me if I m wrong).

I would say that on the whole, teachers are far better than those we had at Supelec in France. Going to the class is also very entertaining since you can bring your laptop to work with it.
We have been doing some case studies in groups of 4 or 5 students through the week. It was very interesting for me to see how people from different cultures would work in teams. For instance Chinese people would say what they have to say no matter what it costs to say it. They are very straightforward compared to French people. I would rather say that Chinese are "pragmatic" and the good point is that it makes things much easier in a business environment.

This long silence on the blog was mainly due to after hour homework in finance, which is a new subkect for me. Though, there was still time to play pool and to watch the Simpsons movie at the theater with Yiming. That was quite funny. If you have any pieces of advice concerning new movies let me know !


I have been spending the rest of the weekend going to the pool, working and resting before the beginning of the upcoming week, with everything it involves ;-)
Oh I forgot, it's been more than a month since I arrived in the US and I am still not tired of eating everyday at a fast food restaurant. Actually it's even worse, the more you stay here, the more you see people eating, the more you wanna eat too lol

Have a great week!!

Tuesday night

I am going through an internet connection shortage thereFOre I will try to do my best keeping you updated from the computer lab at Angell Hall.

Basically we spent Tuesday evening with the girl that previously rent the apartment where I live right now. We went with some of her friends to see a play designed for freshmen students in order to making them aware of what college student life involves (open up to others, living in a community, partying, alcohol, safe sex...)

The theater company

Yann and Lara

Then Yann and myself went to his house to "rescue" (haha) Dayna from a bat that had got into her bedroom lol.. err sorry it s not funny... lol

Later I night we went to my house with some Yann's roommate and some other friends from the FE program. We then went to skeeps... err... just to tell you PJ that it was really hot. Yann, Ben, Rich, Jay and myself are looking forward to meeting you there with Alla haha

Too bad I couldn t get some pictures from that night. Actually it may even be better this way ;-)