Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire-Day 72- March 22nd, 2018

I usually have math Thursday mornings at 9:45, but I no longer have it due the changes in our schedules. This meant my first class was French at 1:30. I decided to be more productive this morning, and as a result got up at 8 AM. After breakfast, I worked on a prelab for circuits and did a bunch of studying for French. This studying and practice wasn’t for my French class, but just to improve my vocabulary.

I spent about an hour looking at French vocab, then called it quits. Afterwards, I watched two episodes of TV on my computer. It was almost time to head out, so I ate the other half of my sandwich for lunch and it was extremely filling. I headed out to campus for French class.

The trams were super crowded today because it was the first day of the strike for the French train company, SNCF. The SNCF essentially has a monopoly on most of the trains in France. If you’re taking a train between French cities, it is most likely on an SNCF train. The reason for the strike is the labor reforms being done by Macron. Workers in the SNCF have great benefits and pay, but the reforms will greatly impact this.

Fortunately, Grenoble’s tram is not run by the SNCF, but the tram service was still impacted for some reason which I’m sure relates to the strike. The line I take, the C line, was not impacted and I got to school on time.

When I got to my classroom, I was very surprised. There was another class in there! I checked my schedule and realized I made a very stupid mistake. I accidentally skipped class. French ended at 1:30, not started. There were let out early and that’s why I didn’t see anyone when I arrived. I felt bad, but I hadn’t missed a French class before and don’t plan on doing it again.

While I didn’t actually have French at 1:30, I did have circuits lab. At least I was on time for this one. This was the first AC circuits lab and we were forced to partner up with a French student. My friend Vesko was in my lab section, so we partnered up. The irony is that Vesko is actually from Bulgaria and not France.

The purpose of this lab was really just to learn how to use an oscilloscope. An oscilloscope is a machine that measures wave signals that are inputted as an electric signal. The heart rate monitor you always see in an emergency room on TV is technically an oscilloscope. Oscilloscopes are very important in AC circuits, which is why we were using them.

The Oscilloscope

Oscilloscopes are a pretty intimidating machine and it definitely did not help that the buttons were labelled in French. I have used them before, but didn’t know what I was doing. Vesko and I spent the next three and a half hours painfully completing the lab. I really didn’t like this lab instructor because he would barely help us. I feel like I understand the oscilloscope now, but it took the whole period. I was more than ready to go home.

The lab took long enough that I didn’t have enough time to go to the gym after class. This was annoying, but I could just go tomorrow. I was pretty burnt out from lab, so I just relaxed in my room until it was time for dinner.

Dinner was fantastic this evening. For an appetizer, we had salad and “pigs in a blanket”. I asked Anne-Marie what they called them in French, and she said something that pretty much translated to “small hotdogs”. I told her what we called them in English and she thought it was pretty funny. The main course was grilled chicken with lentils and carrots. I don’t know how she prepared the lentils, but they were delicious and had a great smoky taste. As usual, we had bread and cheese, then a small dessert.

I did really well with my French at dinner tonight. After dinner, I was talking about skiing with A-M and Jessica. I explained how I skied for the first time in France and now want to buy a used pair of skis over the summer since I like it so much. The highlight of this conversation is when I made A-M laugh really hard with a joke in French. It’s hard to explain a joke out of context, but I essentially made fun of Jessica’s poor skiing skills. I find it super difficult to be funny while speaking another language, so this was a big accomplishment for me.

After dinner, I quickly changed and headed out to meet my friends. At lab today, we made a plan for most of the BU group to go out tonight. We were all meeting at le Tord Boyaud around 10. I was meeting Nick, Jonathan, and Harry at La Nat’ for the first round of drinks.

You can’t go wrong with a pint of Kanterbrau, peanuts and a sausage (all eaten of course)

We all enjoyed our beers and sausage, then eventually headed to le Tord Boyaud to meet the others. I have described this bar before, but it is great because they play really good music and have cheap bottles of shooters (aka strong flavored wine). Nick and I split one of the bottles when we got there.

All the BU people included, we had a pretty big group of around ten people. Our Irish friend David ended up joining us too which was nice. Since we had such a large group, we elected to bar hop. We went to the bar with the sand on the floor next, but the vibes weren’t that good, so we moved on. The next stop was our favorite pirate-themed bar, Barberousse. It was packed with French people and was a great time.

They play mostly French music, but I’ve been there enough times to know the words to a lot of them. The highlight of Barberousse was when my friend Sara and I got flaming shots. I could explain how it works, or you could just look at these next two pictures.

I was very excited if you couldn’t tell.