happy times:sad times

What a month people, what A month. I think that's what happens when time gets confused as to what season it is: March thinking it's September, April thinking it's October--I mean, who WOULDN'T that confuse?!

A few weeks back, Vincent and I housesat for some friends who just happen to live in the center of Sydney. We stayed a little over a week, and it was.... fantastic! My week was chock full of Starbucks--just a 15 min walk away--writing "heaps" on my thesis proposal in a very quiet and productive environment, and running. And ohhhh the running! Vincent went a few times and I did a few long runs as well.
1. around Cooge

2. Centennial Park

3. Bronte, there and back

4. over Harbour Bridge

This, people, is what running is all about. The sun, the fresh air, the trees, the ocean. Too good. Too good to be true, even. I should have known better. But I let the week take me, and I went with it. Silly Lindsay, silly silly Lindsay.

It's been fourteen days since that last run in the city. If I would have known it'd be my last, I would have tried to go farther--you know, run to Manly or something. Sigh. Needless to say, I'm sad about this. And to top it off, Vincent's in Melbourne for all of April, I have a thesis proposal that's overdue, I'm constantly having to resist all the planning going on around me about upcoming nuptuals, while trying to prepare everything before I go to the States for a month. How can a person not run in this situation-- I swear, my will is stronger than my mind.

But, before I had a total and complete nervous breakdown--which, in all honesty, is not without merits--Vincent decided to be the perfect husband-to-be and bought me a shiny new present (Well, the verdict is still out as to who he actually bought it for--him or me, but I think we both agree that the timing was for me). His name is Marshall. He is a 20" iMac with a lot of memory and super sonic speed. His large screen helps me do awesome linguistics and it's quite fun to watch movies on. Yay!

In addition to this most lovliness, Vincent also bought me a ticket to Melbourne so I can hang out with him down there. I'm very excited about this because 1. We will be in the same city again, 2. There will be little distraction so I can focus on getting my proposal done, 3. There might be penguins to go see, 4. I can actually do work and collect data for my PhD project AND the medical sign bank project. So it's a win win all around.

Accordingly (I am trying to eradicate the word 'therefore' from my writing--apparently it doesn't mean what I think it means), I have taken the good with the bad these past few weeks. I really wish I could go running--the weather now is perfect for it, but I'll take the extra time and focus on my studies.... I guess. Everyone say THANK YOU VINCENT for being so perfect.

And our next post will most probably be from Melbourne.... unless I try to make Karen's magic bars, in which case, you might get one in between.

Ciao!

Melbourne...

Because most the readers are native english speakers, I figured I would write in english (well at least try to). And my fellow french friends know english well enough to understand me.

I went to Melbourne on tuesday morning to work for a branch of Publicis, called Mojo. Mojo deals with the website graphics and they needed a developer to work on an application for Qantas. Because Digitas is the programming branch of publicis, I went to Melbourne to help them finish the project.

I am currently at work, in South Bank, a very nice area of the city. The company is next to the river and close to a nice pedestrium with lots of restaurants and shops. Also, the hotel I am staying at is a 3 minutes walk to the company which is great. And, because there aren't many people staying there at the moment I got an upgrade!

- a living room with a big flat screen TV, couches, big table and its 6 chairs around it
- a kitchen with oven, microwave, fridge, toaster, coffee maker...
- 2 bathrooms with washing machine, dryer, shower and bath
- 2 rooms, with 2 big beds and a TV in one -- you guessed that I slept in the one with the TV :)
- a balcony

I have to agree that this room is a little too big for me, but I am not complaining.

The work is interesting. We are building an application for Qantas that will ask Australians what they like or admire. Then Qantas will analyze these data and display a graphic map of Australia with what people like or admire depending on where they live. It does not seem clear, I know...
Along with that, the application will regularly retrieve data from Twitter and Blogger (Google) and parse the data to only keep the ones with the word love in it, or admire. I am working on this part, retrieving the data from these apps and parsing them to display only the ones we need.

So yeah pretty cool application, and Melbourne is quite nice so far. Weather is great too, while it's pouring rain in Sydney hehe. I will be there for about 4 weeks.

Peace out!

leaky buses rock my world....

NOT!
But I don't complain, because they get me from point A to point B, with sometimes a point C thrown in there sometimes. And today one of the six that I rode actually hit a car! HAHAHAHA-- please don't be offended by the laugh (well, really you can- I don't care). It's just that I didn't really think buses hit cars. But I really think this one did. I'm not a hundred percent positive because we didn't stop to check. Poor car-- even though most of you know my stance on low-occupancy vehicles, so I'm more or less 'eh' about it. Whoever it was should learn from this experience and learn to take the bus...with me! It's waaaaay more entertaining and environmentally sound, and it also builds good character- something we all need.

Au travail

C'est après près de trois mois de vacances intensives dans la magnifique ville qu'est Sydney que j'ai commence mon premier "vrai" emploi. Je dis vrai car j'ai quand même passe tout le mois de février à travailler sur des courts de tennis avec des enfants pour leur apprendre ce fabuleux sport.

Employé depuis lundi a Digitas Australie, cette première semaine s'est très bien passe. Avant toute chose, permettez-moi de vous présenter Digitas Australie ! Digitas Australie ouvre officiellement le 1er avril. Situe dans les bâtiments de Publicis -- Digitas étant la branche marketing digitale de Publicis -- dans the Rocks a Sydney, Digitas Australie a été crée par un français -- Nicolas -- avec qui j'ai travailler a Digitas France pendant le mois d'avril dernier -- J'ai réalise mon stage de fin d'étude a Digitas France, petit monde je sais bien. C'est d'ailleurs à cette période qu'il a décidé de partir à l'aventure à l'autre bout du monde.

Me voila donc à Sydney, travaillant dans une start-up, avec un manager français ! Les locaux sont super (photos à venir) et l'endroit est fantastique -- regarder sur Google Map : the rocks a Sydney. Il s'agit d'un vieux bâtiment -- vieux en Australie veut dire 200 ans max :) --, classe monument historique, avec vu sur la baie de Sydney.

Nous avons a disposition -- a disposition signifie gratuit pour moi -- un réfrigérateur remplit de canettes, un toaster avec du pain et de la confiture, miel, Nutella, peanut butter, beurre... Sans oublier le café ou the.

Digitas Australie va me sponsorise et donc me permettre de rester ici plus longtemps que mon visa courant le permet -- 1 an.

Je viens d'apprendre que l'alcohol -- bieres, vins -- etait en libre service tous les vendredis apres-midi ! Elle est pas belle la vie...

Holy Cockatoo Batman! I think we're outnumbered!

You are not going to believe this...

(Get the lyrics to this song)

A mighty marvelous monday morning, if I do say so myself.