Everything s going ok !!!!

Hi!!

Let's begin with a trial of answer to the question i'll be asked more than 30 times in the next days : Everything is going all right !!!! From the very beginning of the day, once we were at the station with my mother and Cyril, I had some very deep emotions, having on mind the idea that once again, after Denmark, I was going to leave family and friends. And now that's done.

What should I start with, to tell you my first "day" in Saudi, (let's say "night"). I will say that after quite a tiring journey by plane, I was very happy to walk on this land. Indeed : the plane took off from Paris at almost 12, then we arrived in Roma at 2, then we took off again 1 hour later, spent 4 hours aboard between Roma and Jeddah, then landed for another hour, and finally reached Riyadh at 10:30 (French time). Oh yes, for those who didn't ask me about this, there is one hour of difference between FR time and S.A. time. Now i'm on the same time as in Lithuania, by the way...

I tried to take some pictures during the flight, few of them are "acceptable" but i'm going to publish them anyway. My battery went low quite rapidly, it wasn't even a matter of space on my memory card :(
Well, I'll leave a comment for each picture.. Now that I found a technique to create galleries, It should be easier to publish them : the question is "when will I do it now?".. I hope i'll have time for this soon.

There is a paradoxical difference between FR and S.A. (and a lot of other ones, of course, but it's not a cultural judgement), in the sense that here, it's 1 hour later than in FR... But on the other hand, in S.A. the "weekend" is on Thursdays and Fridays.. as an equivalent for our Saturdays and Sundays.... which means that i'm already on weekend (sorry guys..)!

Another good news is that I met my chief tonight, Roland, with whom I got along quite rapidly. He picked me up at Riyadh airport, and I was lucky to get out rapidly from the Customs, otherwise he would have left without me : in the airport there was no flight announced from Paris, so he was worrying a little bit. The particular thing in Riyadh airport is that they control the content of your luggage (X-rays) even when you leave the airport. As I was a foreign person, I needed to fill in a form with my datas, name, surname, place of birth, date of delivery and expiration (for passport) and on the document it was written : "BEWARE ! DEATH FOR DRUGS TRAFFICKERS". I have no reproach to make to myself about this topic, of course.. But then I started thinking that if someone approached my handluggage during the flight, while I was in the bathroom, he could put something inside that didn't belong to me. So, before having my luggage checked at the Customs, I searched into my handluggage if there was anything "suspect" inside.. You'll probably think i'm silly, and why not paranoïd, but still, those written words on the immigration form were very impressive.

To deal with my chief again, he drove me to the diplomatic neighborhood of the city, where there are 2 amazing checkpoints at the entry. Then, he took me to my "temporary place", a little studio near his apartment. Before my arrival, he had the room cleaned and started the air-cooling system, which is really not a fancy thing here. at 10h30 (S.A. time), the temperature was still above 33°C. He put some bread, jam, mineral water in the fridge, so that I lack nothing at the very beginning, and I'm very thankful to him for this mark of attention. After letting me visit "my" place and drop my luggage and bags, he invited me for a Coca cola at his place, where we talked about our objectives for the running of the Saudian-French cultural center. We talked mainly about the region of the Gulf, the places where we could find some potential students (universities, companies, private schools). A very interesting conversation, all in all..

Now I've come back to my place, it's 1:10AM and i'll go to bed soon. My chief proposed me to use internet today (Friday) so I will save this message and try to publish it on the blog. Thanks for your reading, and feel free to leave some comments, questions or suggestions if you like.

Take care... and see you soon.

I GOT IT .....

Wow... it's been quite long to wait for those documents. This morning, at 9, the FedEx post(wo)man rang at the door (so... she woke me up but it's not too bad ;) ) to give my the missing papers.. Train ticket, flight ticket, and passport. Nowww everything seems to be ok, nothing can prevent me from leaving anymore. I still have to do some photographs with very strange dimensions, buy some clothes, pork and alcohol.. Actually to conform their law, I should get heavily drunk and eat a lot of ham to be disgusted at the end...

Sun is appearing today, it had been 5 days in a row that it was hiding, now that 6 days are remaining until my departure the weather's changing. Let's not complain : maybe it's a good thing that I have rain in Simandre, because this kind of climate should be more or less "absent" in Saudi. Let's forget about clouds.

I'm in a hurry now, I'll post another message later, 'cause some other news are expected for today.

C.U.

Some news about...... Passport!!

UUUHHH... What a pain, this "passport-story"... At last I have some news, and not bad ones.. Still, I haven't won the game yet. Yesterday, I called the ministry, to take some news about this bloody piece of paper (which I hope is not bloody for real...) and they merely replied "No Sir, still no news from consulate.." Well, then I decided to write an email to my chief there, in Saudi, who replied me "don't worry, I'll try to control the situation".
Then he called the consul himself, to ask him what was going on, and the latter told him that I could call by myself, if I needed some information... which I did. Now, it seems that everything (... almost everything) is ready for me to go... except the flight tickets. It would be good if I left from here on the 6th or 7th, which would leave me some time to finish.... errr.... start packing everything up.
This morning I called a former colleague that was in Ryiadh, to ask him some questions, but it seems that Ryiadh and Khobar are 2 worlds apart. (please no joke about "worlds apart") First about religion, it's much more strict in Ryiadh whereas it's much more cool in Khobar. As well as for the climate... I'm expecting hot-damp weather..
Now.. I still have to buy a little container to put my stuff inside, I haven't done this yet, and an "emergency box" with a big pot of sun-cream (why not buy a brush to spread it...?), and a lot of things that could be very useful. I'll try to leave stress at home, because if I decide to take it with me, then there won't be enough space anymore for clothes and books.
It's not easy to find something really special to report on this blog, during this "waiting" period... Not that I have nothing to tell, but days look like each other, even though i'm often outside doing some activity.

I'll go back to my "pre-packing" activity... See you later..

it's been a long time!

After almost one month away from "home" because of exams, I'm back to my lands.. Exams were generally nooot thaaaat bad, but the best way to confirm this is to wait for exams : until then, I prefer not to give any firm opinion..

On Tuesday, everything was ready to leave St Pryvé.. 4 big boxes contained books, the printer, clothes.... in other words, my mess :P . Today, I realized I didn't turn back towards the house, to see it a last time before a long one. Despite little misunderstandings that have no more meaning to me, I'm sure I will miss this place. Everyday, to have dinner there , to study, to sleep until the next day... and sometimes not sleeping.. It's there that I discovered my "student profile", or a "student philosophy (which is definitely not wise at all, according to some colleagues) : for almost each assignmen, I waited for the eve of the deadline before efficiently working on the topic. On the other hand, from the very day when the professor gives the topic, I start thinking about it... I read some articles, look at some websites, and sometimes, take some notes but not too much ! : otherwise it would mean that I work in advance, and that's definitely contrary to my methods.

It's true that the level of stress kept increasing, along this academic year : this method was still working but at the end, the results didn't exactly correspond to my expectations. Sometimes it was much higher than expected (in this case, why complain?) but sometimes, it was lower.. Well, it seems that I didn't master that well the fiability of the method. Luckily, I've never had to face a tragedy...

Now, about my departure, I still have no news from the ministry. They are waiting (so am I, by the way...) for my VISA, and only then, they'll be able to book my flight. The big question mark now follows the word "WHEN"... Actually, I'm not worrying that much and I don't think there is a reason to feel very concerned : when it's time to go, i'll go ! :) However I had some news from the FR school in the city where i'll settle : its director sent me an email and proposed to provide me a temporary accomodation, leaving me the time to find my own roof. I have some chances to find it in the FR compound, but I'm still thinking about the advantages and defects of such a choice... This topic will be dealt with later..

That's it for today.. Tomorrow, a family meeting is planned, from the Italian side, to celebrate Mother's day with the grandparents. We should be 32, all in all, it will be one of the last meetings until a long time from now.

Take care, and see you soon

The end of exams...

I'm done with exams! Today was supposed to be the most loaded day of exams, all in all I was supposed to write during 6 hours. In the morning, there was the exam of textual linguistics (or "speech analysis"), the topic was a funny poem from Fourest, about sardines. The task was not to explain the meaning of the text, but to analyse its poetical features as a linguist would do. Then, I had some hours to think about something else, before the other exam (at 2.00 PM) which was to last 4 hours. It took 2.30 hours to answer the questions that were not very difficult. However, I prefer to t for the results before giving any pronostic. I preferto be careful, any "accident" can happen.

It seems that today was my last day at university before the month of September when I come there again to defend my internship. I realized this after leaving University with Mathieu, a good friend of mine that I've known for 4 years.

After the exam, we had some relaxing time at the Library, playing Legion on the Internet (a game online made of questions about general knowledge), as we often did during the year, before attending Mrs Volpe's lecture about "didactics of French as a Second Language", on Mondays and Wednesdays. Tonight, we were supposed to meet Xavier at Mathieu's flat but he was unfortunately not available, it would have been nice to spend a "laughing session" altogether as it was the case in 2nd year of Bachelor. Well, I keep my fingers crossed hoping that I'll be able to meet them again in September, after the defence of my Training. The little "goodbye party" of tonight was nice, simple, as usual we made jokes with Mathieu and François and had good time. Now, I consider having the same kind of celebration with my other friends : not more special than usually, as if we were to meet next week.....

Today, Friday 19th of May, I think I'll put an end to my Internet connection in my studentroom of St Pryvé, then it means that I will maybe not update my blog until a few days. Now, even though i'm not totally feeling that "exams are behind me", I'm trying to think about something else. I've put my friends aside those last days, because of exams, and I think I should meet them again very soon. Pressure of exams, papers to hand in made that I thought too much about myself, now I want to think about my friends and to feel available again for someone who counts even more than anyone.

Soon I should receive some news about my Visa, I'll report them on the blog as soon as I can do that. Until then, take care.... and thanks for reading...

(Also, I want to thank Louis for the little modifications that he did to the blog, namely to the banner that is much cleaner now... )

After Literature exam...

This is the sponsor of the day...

Well, this day is not bad... The commentary of the poem was not too hard, there were many things to write about it. Even though 4 hours seem to be a lot for an Literature exam, I think it's just enough. In the afternoon, the professor who teached us "FR Culture and Society" gave us the CDs with the works of everyone, which is a good memory of what we did this semester. At the end, the professor cried a little, because she felt sad to leave us..
Another good news is the fact that my doctor gave me some news, she will send me back my papers for the VISA application.. At last !!
The sun has come back over Orleans, the mood is better... I hope it will last !!!
See you..