Big Girl Pants

SURVIVING ALONE

Received my first ever letter from dearest Zara, read it after she left. So touching :') Haha!

So after those who came to settle me in left, it was time for me to put on my big girl pants and survive alone. 

Surviving alone means having to cook. Eating out in Paris is expensive. There aren't any coffee shops or hawker centres or food centres, so eating out means eating in restaurants, cafés and bistros. That probably comes up to around 10 Euros each meal. Groceries for a week cost 10 euros, so cooking is really the logical way to go.

I reallyyyy suck at portion control. Somehow I always end up overcooking even though I feel as though I'm deliberately decreasing my portion size!

Soup for first 2 days of the week and Pasta for the next 2. 

Going for french class means getting back home at 9+ every tuesday and thursday, this makes it a lot easier to deal with my excess food! haha!

Also made grilled salmon one of the days and THANK YOU TO NIC for giving me the prawn chilli. I love it!

One thing awesome about the place I live in, is the bakery downstairs. The smell of bread and pastries is just mouth-watering. And it also means I don't EVER have to worry about breakfast.

A Croissant and  a Brioche

Can I just say, the croissants in paris are AMAZING. Every friday, we have croissants given to us in the office. The other interns were telling me how it was too buttery, and although I nodded as if I was agreeing/got what they meant, in my head it just went "Paris can do no wrong when it comes to croissants!" haha, it was better than ANY croissant i've ever had. I LOVE the croissants here. I could eat one everyday, and I'm not even a fan of bread. 

-End of Croissant Rave-

WORKING IN TOTAL

TOTAL is HUGE. I know, its an MNC, so obviously its huge. But I mean its REALLY HUGE. This building right here, is solely for Marketing and Services. It has 31 floors and is as big as a whole freaking hotel. There are 2 other buildings, the Main Building with the Big Boss (Who goes to office in a fancy car, when cars usually don't go in to the square where the office is located!) is like double the size of the building for Marketing and Services.

So, I'm on the 3rd floor and my room has 5 other interns :) All french. All the interns speak french, are in their final year of college, and study in France. I'm the oddball, and the youngest. They were pretty shocked to realise I was 20. Almost all of them there are looking for jobs/applying for a Master's Degree and have been interning in the office for 3 months.

Heres the lobby of the office beside the walkway to the cafeteria

Talking about the Cafeteria, food in the Cafeteria is awesome and is served IKEA style. You get your tray and line up in which ever line that has the food you want. They have 5-6 different choices each category: appetisers, desserts, fruits, salad, main course. Of course there are drinks and free water. And they also serve pastries too!

For the main course, we get to choose a meat/fish product and the side dishes are free for us to scoop any portion we want. Side dishes include fries, pasta, rice, diff. kinds of veggies etc. depending on whats served that day - this means we can be full just on your main course which will probably cost around 2 Euros.

A full meal including fruits appetiser and dessert usually cost about 5 Euros!

Moving on to the people in THE OFFICE and how I'm adjusting.

The first day I went to the office, I told my boss I did not manage to create a bank account. And who knew, there was a bank in the TOTAL building! So he booked an appointment, and I created my account that day. 

Everyone at the bank was good looking. It was a small branch with 3 people, the 2 girls and the Guy were all really pretty. Big eyes, nice features, and they could all speak english.

The interns in the office speak really good english too, but they don't do it very often. Many of them have gone to Canada or the UK to study so they speak really well, but they are pretty self conscious about their accent/feel like they are inadequate (even though I honestly think they speak well), since english is after all their 2nd language.

I had a really nice intern partner (we are both under the same supervisor) who got mocked because while he was explaining the work he was doing/stuff about the company to me in english he apparently used the words "so far" about 10x. So its a running joke among all the french interns now.

But he was (and is still) really nice. He accompanied me to get my badge, to the bank, and even made phone calls so that I could get my computer.

Most interns wait about 1 week to get their computers ready, but thankfully for him, I got mine in 2 days, and I started work immediately. 

The other interns were surprised I was made to work in my first week, because they spent their first week reading up on all sort of stuff about the company, but since I did that while I was in Singapore, I could go straight to working on excel.

WORK:

I have to use a french keyboard!!! I'm pretty sure after my 3 months here i'll be able to use NO keyboard, and would have forgotten my fingerings for the US keyboard. 

In Singapore, the bosses reply emails in an instant, and the interns see them regarding work several times a day. But here, it was just "this is the file", "this is what I expect as my end result", "ok go on now, you can come and leave anytime you want, as long as you get the work done!"

There is no hand holding, no guiding. The boss is too busy to meet you more than once every few days, and usually each task/job takes several days to complete. The supervisor has never once checked up on me, in fact I have to constantly remind him to give me work to do because he is just SO BUSY. He really is. 

In Paris, you can wear jeans to work, sneakers are fine too, just remember your blazer. Pink blazer is cool, whatever you want to wear really. Just don't be scantily clad. And you can come in to work anytime from 9-10. No problems! But instead of leaving at 6, the full time staff leave at around 5+ but the interns (and managers) usually stay till 6.30pm latest 7. But you are allowed to leave anytime after 4.30pm, the other interns will not judge. Their reason for staying till 6.30 is that they feel they are productive at that time of the day.

Another cute thing about Parisians, is their smoke breaks/coffee breaks. After lunch, we go for a coffee break. At 3+ we go for another coffee break. Everytime there is a coffee break, there will also be a smoke break, where some of the guys will head out to the square outside the building to chill and smoke there. People will be there in the morning, after lunch and probably in the afternoon around 3.

Probably the smoke breaks = why they stay till 6.30pm hahaha. 

So different from the singapore strictly 9-6 culture. Different, but I like it!

INTERNS:

The french interns thought I was from China. Most of them didn't know anything about Singapore. But after my first day, they 2nd day in office, they asked me really random questions about information they found out about SG on the web.

One of the guys asked me "So what is your Native Language" and "Why is it english" and another replied "because singapore was a british colony!" I was really impressed by how they actively read up about things they don't know. They are smart people. A little ignorant about asia, but still really smart. Then again of course they are, TOTAL in Paris is like Shell in Singapore or BP/ExonMobil. Getting an internship there does wonders to the resume. 

On the second day at work, I was being "interrogated" about which countries singapore prefers to do trades with, and how welcoming we are to foreigners blah blah blah, by one of the interns, and after realising I'm not from china, and not very chinese, and that I was planning to learn french, it was like a switch flipped. Since that day he became really nice to me. 

But from his point of view, he had bad experiences with Chinese nationals who went for exchange in his school, so.. I guess I understand where the judgement came from. He even apologised a couple of days ago for thinking I was from China. 

(I honestly think its alright to be mistaken to be from China, everyone is judgemental, no matter how hard you try not to be. So I don't mind being judged initially. I just have to accept it, and let them know the facts, and eventually they'll see me for the person I am. They are nice enough to try, and for that I'm really thankful.)

This same guy also told me he wanted to go to some african museum with me, take a photo and sell it to United Colors of Benetton, and he'll give me 10% of the profit. 

Another guy in the same room as us took on a different approach. He asked me what the singapore flyer was, because to them a flyer is a pamphlet you give out to people. He asked me if the singapore flyer could be eaten. He also asked me about the whole chewing gum thing, and said "What would happen if you chewed chewing gum, spit, and threw the cigarette on the floor after smoking it, right in front of a police man?" I told him he'll be fined. He is one funny guy. 

A few days ago, one of them asked me if we could watch porn in singapore. And while buying lunch at a shopping mall near the office yesterday, those 2 guys brought me around and kept asking me do you know this shop do you know that shop, they found it really amusing to hear my answers, and i have no idea why hahah!

Sadly, funny guy has left the office. He's done with his internship. 

The interns have a lot of fun while working. They find joy in teaching me random french slangs, asking me if I know french celebrities like Marion Contillard, and playing random french songs/diff countries national anthem, english sentences with different accents (thai/italian etc) and asking me to guess them, and the french weather report.

On friday, they decided to eat outside of the office, and we joined the crowd on the grass, and just picnicked.

My strawberry tart for dessert :)

RACISM:

I wouldn't say racism is much of problem.
But! Even though office is fun, its depressing when everyone speaks in french and i'm never part of the conversation. They do try to speak to me in english, but their conversations are always in french (so hopefully in a month or 2 i'll at least be able to hold a 5 min convo in french, after my french classes). Occasionally, when I meet other interns (that sit in other rooms - rmb hotel concept corridor and rooms) when they ask me if I speak french, and I say no, they will go "not at all?" and if I say no, they go "oh" and then walk away. I guess it is normal, and I don't really mind that. Putting it in perspective, it would be weird if one day I was expected to speak in chinese to my friends when i've been speaking to them in english all along. So I'm totally cool with the whole speaking french thing.
I JUST WANT FRIENDS!! -Desperate-

One unfortunate incident though: One of the interns I met is REALLY good looking, but, he is was not nice. After he found out I don't speak french, he never spoke to me in english and made random remarks about China as if it was suppose to affect me. I was really annoyed at that. But saying anything would be social suicide, so I just shut up, and brushed it off. Move on, believe that if he bothered to talk to me, he would not be so judgy.

Going home alone/during weekends at the Metro I do get stared at a lot. Black people stare at me, and randomly say hi. Normally I just give a damn bitch face - my neutral blank face - on the Metro so nobody attempts to rob me or try anything funny. So far it has gone alright. Even though its not rare to find asians in Paris, I guess it still comes off as unusual to most people.

Generally, just carry your stuff close to you. And be careful when you're travelling around, don't leave your bags open etc. and things will be fine.

A picture of a Metro near my house

//sidetrack//

According to the french interns in the office, its common for people to kill themselves by jumping on the tracks when the trains are coming (and the most common way to commit suicide is by hanging oneself). So I should always look the other way, else I would not be able to sleep for a month. One of them told me "maybe you'll see it once when you're here". Cannot believe they told me that. Now whenever somebody goes really near the edge of the platform I just turn away. //

Even in French Class I was discriminated by this caucasian girl. Im saying caucasian because I don't know which country she's from. Everytime she said something, and I said  "sorry?" because I didn't know if she was speaking french or english, she will go "oh never mind" like I wouldn't understand. She even went "You've learnt french before this?!" 'cause I joined an already existing class that started 5 weeks back. And I just went "Yeah, I took a course in college a year back." To which she gave a really doubtful look.

I was quite taken aback by her actions. Nevertheless, I promised myself to give her another chance. Since she wasn't in class last thursday, this coming tuesday i'll be friendly and attempt to talk to her.

The other asian students are nice 'cause I'm thick skinned and went up to talk to them, so we all sort of go home from class together now. The guy from Uruguay is also cool. Unfortunately, we all have really different profiles. Korean-american travels out of paris every weekend. To Milan, to Amsterdam etc. Heck, she must be really rich! Indian girl, really likes India and finds paris worse than Singapore cause she loved Singapore during her short stay there. And based on her likes and dislikes, we don't have much in common really. Guess it's back to having no friends :( Baby steps.. maybe in time to come.

So... when I'm not having french class, or during weekend mornings, I Skype with my family, and friends, and Jerald Tan. 

If you really read through the whole blog post up to this point, I salute you!

Hope the random pictures made it easier to get through the post. Had a very eventful day today (pictures and stories for another post), and its time for bed!