Like I wrote in my post “Suspense!” I was still waiting on some answers for the future.
Well I got some :
- “Will I get accepted at ULP in Strasbourg?” Well I did get accepted so next year I’ll be attending class in Strasbourg! My room is booked, I already know the public transportation from my dormitory to my class-rooms, I know where the American Football Club train there and I’m making a good list of restaurants and bars that I need to visit once I’m there. Edouard 1 - Cruel-World 0!

- “Will the aliens finally invade us this year?” I got a phone call : apparently we were saved by increasing price of fuel. Their great commander in chief’s spokesmen told me that they could come here and enslave our primitive ass, but that they couldn’t possibly afford to refuel only half their fleet for the trip back home with the current state of the oil market. That was a close call!

- “Will the US finally come to sense and impeach Pr. Bush? ” Edouard 1 - Cruel-World 1

- “Will Kotooshu earn the Yokozuna title by winning the Nagoya Basho 2008?” Apparently not … as it seems he will be a contestant for some performance-prices but the yusho seems out of his reach in his current health-condition. Hakuho is still unbeaten too … but it still mathematically possible.

The Japan-Exchange issue is still on hold … but the fact that I landed an acceptance to the ULP is a big step toward my final goal. Same goes for the Favre issue. July is not over so I won’t judge it yet, and some important things will happens next week that will greatly affect my final impression.

PEACE!

I’m not the kind of guy that could be the hero of films like “Almost Famous” or “Velvet Goldmine”. I don’t gravitate around musicians or film’s artists. I’m a down-to-earth Rock n’ Roll fan computer programmer. I’m the average folk that have one in a billions chance to make rock history or (lamer) history at all. But sometimes, the awesomeness of some people I know just fall down on my knees.
I want to tell you the story of my drumsticks. I’m currently living in Paris in a little loft, for free. The other day, while cleaning up a forgotten closet in my apartment I found a barely used pair of drumsticks. My neighbor being a film maker (and, by the way, the son of the guy that lend me the loft) that love to help out his friends, some young musicians he meets at his favorite bar, I assumed that this were left-over of a long forgotten music clip filming and went on using them to lose stress on any object that could produce a nice sound without disturbing the neighbors(tables, books, stools, wallets, etc etc).
Just yesterday, my very own friendly-neighborhood-film-maker came by to ask me a few washing machine related stuff (like “why do you keep on using high-temperatures!” or “where did you put the plastic bowl?”) and saw me fooling around with this sticks. He then went like this : “LOL, do you know what those sticks are?”
That’s how I learned that my sticks were actually the property of the drummer of the rock band Noir Désir
famous around Europe (and maybe the world) for this song “Le vent nous portera” or this one “L’homme pressé“. This group is also well known for its lead-singer/guitarists killing his girlfriend in a drunken fight (they were both drunk and she fell on the table apparently … which still makes him an asshole, minds you). By the way, the girlfriend was also the daughter of a family that is the closest representation of a royal family the French movie industry might have, the name was Marie Trintignant.
My neighbor landed those sticks in Bulgaria, the Noir Désir were on tour there, he was simply accompanying a photographer that was covering the tour. They were sitting at a table in a restaurant when the band came and sat at the very table beside them. They were just over with sound-checks and the drummer, Denis Barthe, was still carrying his sticks with him. After exchanging some very boring banalities with the photographer and his companion the band finished eating and went to prepare itself for the show. Denis just left the sticks behind as they were barely chipped and no more useable (as they might have damaged the drums during the concert). My friend had the good idea of picking them up and keeping them as a memento of the tour.
Now I’ve inherited those sticks … and frankly I don’t care where they came from : they are just very good for loosen up a bit when I’m alone and working on complicated stuff. For me it’s just a nice true story, and I needed to post something on my blog. Thanks Denis Barthe!

On a side note : I’d like you all to see this movie : CHOCOLATE. I’m not talking about the one with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche - although that one was really good too I must admit - but the one with JeeJa Yanin. It’s a Thai movie directly from the same mold that was used for  Ong-Bak (same producer and director, and the choreograh of Tony Jaa is the master of the lead-role actress), but god is that girl great … Don’t go there if you love well written stories with complex plots or lots of actor’s work. This is a 100% action packed movie, the 20 first minutes (the classic intro of the character) is so-so but we see a lot of Hiroshi Abe in it(LOL… I love that actor). Just watch it with friends to have some fun and disconnect your brain for 110 minutes. Watch the Trailer for now … this one doesn’t lie, what you’ll see on this teaser is what you’ll get on the movie. So get ready for seeing a cute girl (really Aya Ueto’s level cuteness and all IMHO … ok maybe a bit lower … but that’s an almost illegal level of cuteness too) kick some (many) A$$! Peace!

Here comes a few questions that should be answered soon :
- Will I get accepted at ULP in Strasbourg?
- Will I be allowed to participate in an Exchange to Japan?
- Will Brett Favre return to the Packers for the 2008-09 season?
- Will the aliens finally invade us this year?
- Will the US finally come to sense and impeach Pr. Bush? Vidéo
- Will Kotooshu earn the Yokozuna title by winning the Nagoya Basho 2008?
- Will July be a good month in Paris?

Maybe some of those questions will have answers in a few days ^^.

By the way, I know I already have a student room’s on Strasbourg campus … the prob is I don’t know yet if I got accepted as a student by the school itself. I love French administration.

See ya all!

I found a good song to symbolize what was my past 2 weeks of work.

Unfortunately, I promised my “boss” to speak about what we are making only to my most trusted friends and family members, or just to anybody that couldn’t understand the concept and, therefore, wouldn’t be able to stole his idea. That might sound a little paranoiac … actually it sound a lot paranoiac. But I kinda understand it, his ideas are pretty good too.

Paris is nice. It’s big … too big. People always have a sad or angry face on the bus. Food is not that great if you go to the supermarket, and it’s expensive. Paris is good for rich people.
I finally got some cooking instruments, from now on veggies are back into my diet … w007! I received a humanitarian package from an Italian association - a.k.a my mom sent me my coffee machines with some Italian coffee powder. This package comes at the right moment in this time of deep crisis.

I just entered in contact with a high-school friend that now lives in Japan (it’s easy for her as she have double nationality Japanese-French) through Facebook. She’ll try to enter a docotrate program in Todai or Waseba … so I’d like to wish her luck on this forum. And I really hope we will stay in contact.

Over and Out!

I just though it was time for my first post since I moved to Paris.

Right now I’m in Paris for helping some high school friend finishing his new awesome website so that it could be released during August. It’s a great new concept, using a lot of original ideas, I personally think it should work out for him and his project; and I hope he won’t forget me when he becomes a bazzillionaire thanks to the hard work I put in his project!

I arrived on the 3rd of June by train … it only took me 11 hours and a sleepless night in an uncomfortable night-wagon. Then I had to carry my 70kg+ luggages around the subways of Paris to reach my “workplace”, which is a nice apartment in the west of Paris near the Business District of Paris (La Défence). We started to work right away, but it was more a big briefing about what needed to be done rather than a proper working day. At 18h30 I left my “boss” and headed to my mom’s friend’s apartment.
After a 20 minutes Bus ride I arrived in Colombes, a reaaaaaaaally peaceful suburb of Paris. I lost my way a little, but, eventually, I found someone to ask for directions. Once arrived at my new home I installed myself and then was invited by my “landlord” to a nice little restaurant, more a “crêperie” than a restaurant.
At the end of the day I was exhausted.

The rest of my week would have been a normal “metro-boulot-dodo”, if it wasn’t for an unfortunate event that occurred to my “landlord”’s son, which happen to be a dear friend of mine too.The pour fellow had a bike accident on my arrival day, nothing serious, but enough to prevent him from bending his knees for a few days. The guy, let us call him Mr.J for this post’s purposes, happen to be a carpenter. Mr.J had a roof to build near Paris, not too far from my current location, and was searching for some help so that he wouldn’t finish his work late and miss the beginning of his next building site. I proposed myself : “You know, I think my boss wouldn’t mind me taking a day off to help you out (he really didn’t mind, my boss is the best)”.
Of course, that was before I discovered it was about destroying and building a roof. I’m afraid of highs. In the end I spent all of Thursday as Carpenter! That was really fun! Building something huge and material, is like the missing part of my computer-geek life. I usually spend my need to build things into my cooking, but building a roof is like … Dude! I can build a house! Sweet!
Result : I was tired, dirty, with a few bruise and richer, by a 60€ (75$) … which is IMHO a lot for only 1 work day.
The following Friday, was a normal working day.

I spent Friday night and most of yesterday with my cousins that live in Paris. I planned to go see them only on Saturday, but unfortunately my whole cooking equipment is composed by only one (crappy) coffee machine for now, in fact my apartment is beautiful but completely empty. I was kind of forced to go eat at their house on Friday night, and sleep there. My haunt was quite pleased to have me and see me after so long. And the food was great ^^.
Yesterday I went to eat some Yakiniku with them at a Korean Restaurant near “La République” in Downtown Paris. This actually was my first trip to the center of Paris since I arrived. There, I met some of their friend that invited me to go jog with them this morning, in fact I’m preparing to leave and meet them now. I learned something nice : SOJU is the next best thing after SAKE and SHOCHU … Koreans are cool people too, you know.

I will receive some cooking equipment sometime next week, but I’ll have to find ways to feed myself without ruining my budget. My mom will ship me my two coffee machines (Moka and Cucuma). And she’s doing a great job at translating my dad’s income’s formulary from Italian to French, so that I can send them to the CROUS in Strasbourg. Thanks mom!

Here is a few pictures from my apartment. L@ter!

I’m currently preparing all my stuff. I’ll be living in Paris for the next 3 months.
Like I mentioned before I’ll be working for a high-school friend that just started his own company. The project seems really interesting and I hope I’ll learn enough so I won’t look like an idiot when I’ll start my Master Course in October.
I’ve got a last administrative mater to take care of before departing tomorrow night. But it’s something that will be resolved in a couple of hours. Insurance.

I went on a short trip to my hometown near Nice. I needed to open a bank account and do some stuff for my parents; in the end I didn’t have time to contact my best friend. I think I’ll regret it sooner or later. We are both going to be busy, he’s got a really important Job, he’s got practically a wife now, and I’m still a responsibility-phobic student that just wants to go to Japan to have some fun. If everything goes well for the both of us we will see each other less and less. That’s the kind of things that makes you realize that things are changing; whatever you do you can’t stop it. I’m getting old.

A fun part about going away is seeing my mom getting crazier as she slowly realize I won’t be around anymore, and that my sister is going to leave soon. Since we moved to Italy, she’s been always talking how shocked she’s about the fact that Italians tends to leave there parents house only when they are getting married (due to the fact that Italian moms are really possessive and that buying house is not possible without a 10 years of savings here). But now that we are leaving she’s like: “Why leave so soon? You’re still young.” I’m 25, nearing 26, and I think I’m late … I should have been leaving 3-4 years ago. But you know: “Merde happens!”

Let’s stop talking about that, here is a list of the last things I noticed around here:

• The real reason behind Mars exploration projects - by Chappatte for the IHT
• You don’t know what good Cinema is? Look HERE
• Tekkon Kinkreet is a fucking masterpiece. I’m talking about the Manga; I’ll try to catch the movie later.
• I need to make myself a visiting card. It’s starting to get useful.
• I just bought the book with the most boring first 10 chapters.
• Google maps have 3 to 4 years old photo of Nice … Garibaldi Plaza is not like this at all now.
• I finally remembered why I started to be interested about Japan when I was a teenager. But I can’t write it here, I’m afraid the reason might read this one day.
• Bob Sanders facts are hilarious. And Bob Sanders is THOUGH!

I must say that I expected this a little sooner. But like a lot of Sumo wrestler that had a rapid run to the top ranks of the banzuke fatigue pilled up and became somehow of an handicap and even worse … injuries.

But I’m happy to see him win his first official tournament. I’m beginning to dream about a tsuna now ^^.

Congratulations to Kotooshu Katsunori born Kaloyan Mahlyanov Stefanov!

I also found this little website for those that likes him.
http://www.kotooshu.net/

I’m sure of one thing : Asashoryu and Hakuho will be mad … and do you know what happens when you provoke Asashoryu? Do you remember the 2006 year? Next tournament is looking promising too^^.

While being the third most active industrial region of the world (The triangle Milan-Turin-Venice), Italy is still plagued by one of the heaviest and most corrupt administration systems. But for once it’s not my problem.
Right now, I need to gather some documents to send to my next school, and so far the Italian part of the deal went smoothly. In fact the longest part was the 15 minutes spent in the line waiting for my turn.
Here is a check list of the things I need to obtain or to do :

• my High-school graduation diploma - done [April 30th]
• my High-school grades - done [April 30th]
• a document that certify that I’ve graduated from Milan University - done [April 31st]
• Obtain an official translation of the above mentioned certificate(IT to FR) - done [May 2nd]
• Get it certified at the French consulate of Milan - done [May 5th]
• Write a motivation letter to explain why I want to enter the Strasbourg University 1 - done [May 4th]
• Do copies - done [May 5th]
• Final check by phone with the school’s office - done [May 5th]
• Send everything to Strasbourg ! - done [6th May]

You’ll notice that the hassle is caused by the French administration wanting an official and certified translation of my Italian certificate. I had the luck to find a really kind translator that accepted to do it tonight and to give it to me Friday (tomorrow is the 1st May, the “Work Day”, nobody works), I’ll have to get up early on Monday to go to the consulate and get it certified. It’s just bad luck that tomorrow is not a working day here AND in France, or else the consulate would have been open, and everything would have been sent by Friday at 12AM *sigh*.
Other things to do? Yep. The CROUS thingy, to get an apart in Strasbourg and maybe some financial aid.But now I’m just waiting for them to send me the papers I need to fill and the list of official documents I need to send.

Well, I cheered myself up by ordering my new PC. I chose this one. I decided to get a notebook because I’ll be moving and working around a bit from June to September and even after that (Paris -> Japan -> Paris -> Milan -> Strasbourg -> Japan … if everything goes according to plan). Once I’ll get settled I’ll think about getting a more powerful desktop work station.

I think I’ll do a post soon about my friend G., as it’s the guy I’m going to work with from June to August.

It’s done! I finally graduated from my university.
Strangely, in Italy you get called “Dottore” (which means doctor) after a Bachelor degree (3 years of study here), while in the rest of the world you have to get yourself a doctorate (7 years and more of hard work).

Anyway, Thursday 17th of April, I made a little introduction for my thesis in front of some of my professors, my family and whoever was interested. In the end I was awarded a 92/110 vote … which stands for a 16,76/20 in France or a B+ in USA/UK. Not bad.

I’m really happy that this part of my life is over. I really didn’t like my current school. If I knew better 6 years ago I would have gone to attend school in France, but staying here in Italy gave me the opportunity to study Japanese and to make some valuable friends. Now I’m preparing myself for next year. My “search for school “was a success coupled with a great disappointment : I did find a lot of schools in Japan that were really interesting, even in public schools, but as I couldn’t find anyway to pay for my tuitions and my stay in Japan I had to give up, for now.

For now my main plan is to join the “Université Louis Pasteur” - soon to become “Université Louis Pasteur Strasbourg 1″ - in Strasbourg. They have some Nice computer science Master courses the tuition is lower (200€ (250$) a years!!!! All inclusive!!!) and I get the opportunity to try to apply for exchanges with 8 different Japanese Universities.

Here are a couple of pictures of my gradution day.

My parents made a video of my speech … I’ll try to upload it, if it’s a good video. For those interested in reading my thesis I can send you a .pdf copy of it, but it’s written in Italian. I’m thinking about making a translation in French and English, might turn useful when I’ll be attending schools in France or Japan. The title is :

Implementing the Game of Go : Going beyond the physical limits of the board and remote interaction trough the net.

Near my house there is a small abandoned villa. Abandoned house are not what you can call beautiful … but their garden often are, while they are slowly returning to the wild. I took this pictures with my cellphone, so you might not see much, it just made me realize that tulips (those yellow and red dots on the picture) are in full blossom in this seasons. While you go Sakura-sighting in Japan, In Holland you go tulip-sighting.

Yesterday I went to my favorite Japanese restaurant with some friends, I tried this sake, which is the first Nigorizake I ever tried. I loved it! I paid 10€ (approx 1300¥) for a 0,5l bottle … was it too expensive? I’m asking the few sake lovers I know. I bought another one to drink at home … just for me *hu-huh-hu*.