Falling into the wine trap

We got an invitation to an open house for a vineyard, which later caused our credit card to experience severe "heart attack" as boxes of wines were being loaded to the trunk. The vineyard owners appearantly have effective marketing skills as the open house came with a package of free foods, drinks, horse ridding and vineyard visit.

These fresh breads stuffed with goat cheese and French rillette are just simply delicious! We would definitely go back next year. :-)

A ride with the horses touring around the neighborhood.

Visiting the vineyard.

On the way to the vineyard we stopped by to store some mushroom. We bought 5kg!

I saw this in the second vineyard we visited. Did you see the fish just jumps out to "enjoy the nature"?

Small lighting project

Today is a public holiday as France is celebrating the end of World War II. Amazingly, a lot of stores are operating including those who sell home improvement products. We used the holiday and the fact that the in laws are here to install some lighting in the apartment. Well we are very pleased with the result.
This one has Chinese characters "Happy New Year" on it.

This one is being installed in the living room and the lighting level could be controlled and adjusted.

Random photo

I found this photo cute. You won't be lost if you are dressed like that within a group. Within second you can tell that 5 & 8 are missing (7 is half hidden by 6).

Barcelona fresh market

We visited the fresh market closed to Las Ramblas Street. Once inside I was caught by a bunch of colorful and mouth watering fruits. This market of course sells other stuffs, but I'm such a fruit-addict that I only thought these photos, hmmm. After some observation we found that the groceries here are generally cheaper than in France.

Fruit store at the entrance

See how gigantic these avocados are! And the mango on the right bottom on this photo cost around 4,30 euros. So expensive!

These strawberries and cherries are less pricey than in France

We got a spicy appetite stimulating sausage

Barcelona = tapas heaven

The concept of Spanish tapas — eating little plates of food with alcoholic beverages are quite similar to the Japanese sushi or the Cantonese dim sum (with tea). This trip served rather as a food tour to us, seeing that we spent more than 200 euros on these tapas. Each tapas cost around 1.25 euros to 2.50 euros, and we can easily consume 15-20 each meals. Anyway these tapas are quite filling and after 3 days I was hoping to try out other Spanish cuisine.










Look at the huge amount of tapas that covered the whole table! After one hour they were mostly in our stomach.

Tapas with Sangria, the good match

What would be the first thing you want to do coming back from a vacation?

We arrived Nantes around 11pm.

After dropping all the suitcases, I went straight to my laptop. Hubby did the same. We stayed on the computer for almost an hour, even though we have to wake up super early tomorrow.

Yeah he is a geek, and I'm the geek's wife. Computer and internet have long been one important part of our life.

Why does USA have different labor day?

I always thought that the world is celebrating labor day on 1 May until I worked in USA. Well, they celebrate their labor day on the first Monday of September.

Anybody knows why?

I will see you on Monday. Departing to Barcelona soon.

We are going to Barcelona

Car rented. Apartment found. We are heading to Barcelona on the Worker day's holiday.

In France, May is a vacation month. My company is giving all interns both Friday 2 and 9 May off so that we can have the long weekends since both 1 and 8 May are holiday in France. I get Monday 12 May off too. That means I will only work 3 days this week and next week, and 4 days the week after. Yeah!

It has been a while I wanted to go somewhere outside of France. People keep saying that the Europeans are lucky that they can just drive around and will enter another country. It might not be true for every Europeans, as I have known of many French who prefer to stay inside France than to visit around the neighboring countries. Well, not me! I will definitely go around whenever I have chance.

My in laws garden is a place for treasure

I love to wander around my in laws garden to discover some new species of flowers or vegetables. Today I discovered that apple flowers are as beautiful and stunning as other famous flowers.





And these are strawberry flowers.

Should I adapt a French name?

I'm not talking about last name.

It has been 4 weeks I started working, and there are only two coworkers who manage to call me by name. One of them is my manager. The rest, they would say excuse me before continuing with their business.

All because I have an Asian name which is not so common in France. Since they don't use batch and the door is broken, there is no visual object to display my first name. So, I brought a name tag with my full name to the company, still they couldn't recall, and was afraid of the wrong pronunciation I guess.

I got by in US by letting them call me Bee instead of Bee Ean. In my master class in France everyone managed to call me by Bee Ean after several weeks. I know it is very painful, but I have resisted to adapt a Christian name all along. Now, I'm seriously thinking about make everyone's life easy, by simply calling myself Jennifer, or Catherine or something like that.

What do you think? Any suggestion on name?

PS: We are heading to Brittany this weekend to meet with a bunch of cousins whom we have never met or only meeting them once. Great food on the way...

Daddy, she is looking

Have you guy made the mistake where you accidentally entered the toilet of the opposite sex?

I did. Once during camping, I was brushing my teeth and a little girl entered with his daddy. She starred at me, then said:"Daddy, she is looking!" And the response? "Let her look if she wants." Gosh I didn't know why the dad answered this way but I was not looking at him on purpose. As soon as I realized that I made a mistake, I quickly ran away. So embarrassed.

And today, I discovered I have been using the male toilet in the company for almost a month. I thought the company is having unisex toilets, even though it has a man head on the toilet door. One of the toilets has mirror so I thought it was meant for the ladies. Several times some male colleagues saw me entered and left the toilets but nobody says anything.

Well, apparently there are two more toilets with the woman head on the other side of the building. Nearly a month I was asking myself why there was no dustbin in the toilets, now I know, the men just don't have the same need as the women.

Being the minority

I'm the minority in the company.

Out of the 17 interns, 2 are women, including me.
Out of the 17 interns, 16 are developers, one is from management, that's me.
Out of the 17 interns, 16 are French, one is foreigner, that's me.

It is actually not fun being the minority. During the internship presentation today, I raised a question, repeated twice, and the manager couldn't understand me due to my accent. Luckily the others told him what I meant. Sad.

Yes, my honourable Mr Small

The French has a lot of weird family names. They could sound so normal to a French, but totally bizzare to a foreigner like me. Imagine you are seeing a small guy and he is called Mr Big. You could be facing a thin guy and he is called Mr Fat. You have to call the most unhelpful and unfriendly civil servant Mr Niceguy. Imagine you are meeting your director and he is called Mr Small. What would happen if a judge is called Mr Small? Do you still say:"Yes, my honourable Mr Small"?

I'm blessed with nice in laws

Once a month we would go to my in laws place to spend weekend with them. We usually arrive late during the night so they would be already on bed.

Every time we enter the room, we will be greeted with some dessert. Hubby will be all happy enjoying the yummy food, most of the time including my part since I don't want to eat sweet before going to bed plus I would always be super tired when we arrive.

Once my brother in laws spotted the leftover and immediately got jealous. Apparently he doesn't enjoy the same treatment. My in laws treat me like a daughter but they are not kepoh (busy body) kind of parents. I'm blessed with such a good in laws.

Do you want to live in a round house?

We saw this cute house during the weekend in Brittany. It is so small, but yet it seems someone is living there. I'm curious how the owner decorate the house.

Malacca strait: The danger of pirates?

Source

My French family was eager to visit Malaysia again, and this time I recommended them to take a cruise trip, from Port Klang to Singapore. "No way, it will be too dangerous", was the response from my father in laws.

Before I visited France, I had never known that the Strait of Malacca is dangerous due to the devastating piracy activities. Either I was not reading enough, or the Malaysian medias failed to report the seriousness of this matter. Never once I heard a Malaysian said they won't visit the Strait due to the pirate activities. We went to Pangkor, toured Langkawi, boarded on Star Cruise without second thought.

And here, a foreigner is telling me that my country is full of pirate activities. I really don't know what to say. Has anyone heard of people being kidnapped in this Strait? Any pirate story to share?

If you are interested, you can read this piracy report on National Geography.

Weekend in Brittany: What did we eat

It was my in-laws 30 years anniversary. They prepared these little cuisines, all yummies. One thing for the French, they like to be their own chef and decorate home made food like those in the restaurant.

The weather was nice so we got to have bbq.

BBQ on the way.

Dessert: Chocolate cake. The chocolate was running inside. Usually it goes with English cream or raspberry sauce.


Just a nice way to spend a lazy weekend. We eat very well each time we go to in-laws place. They both like cooking and we both loving eating. :-)

Car pooling to work

I have been carpooling to work for exactly two weeks now. Besides saving on petrol and share the driving task with others, I get to practice my French with these cool guys everyday.

There are 4 of us so I need to drive only once a week and twice every three weeks. When it was my turn to drive I got very nervous since I drive slower (the other three are guys) and don't want to make anyone arrives late at work. Luckily in this industry working hours are quite flexible. I mean your boss won't blame if you arrive 5 minutes late.

In the morning usually those who don't drive try to catch up with some sleep. The journey is about 1 hour 15 minutes. On the way back we usually chat all the ways home. It is such a good training as I found myself to be able to eloquently express an opinion and not afraid to be judged. Since they are on the same industry and in the middle of their professional life, I get to ask them questions that I don't dare to ask at work.

I have since driven twice and it seemed that they are not scared of my driving skills, so I think I passed my probation period with them. :-)

Hubby's way of cooking rice, without rice cooker

When I cook rice, I use rice cooker. I actually didn't know how to cook rice otherwise before coming to France. Now I can do the Indian Pilaf rice.

When hubby cooks rice, he uses his father's recipe, which is believed to be one kind of Indian rice as it is called "riz pilaf".

Preparation for two people:
1 1/2 cups of rice
1 tbsp of cooking oil
2 1/2 boiling water

Boil water. Put the rice in a pan. Add in oil. Keep medium fire and stir the rice constantly, make sure every single rice coats with oil. Continue until rice become white and turn a little bit brown.


Pour in boiling water. Cover the pan with low fire for around 15 minutes.


Done. Yummy with some slow cooked pork and green vegetables.

The French are not kiasu "afraid to lose"

Over lunch I was discussing with a friend the practice of some French Universities that publish the exam results over the notice board.

I asked her:"Won't people feel ashame if they got a bad grade compared to others?"
She paused and think. Then she said:"Maybe not, but you know we are not like the anglo-saxon culture who instill competitive spirit in life."

I was so curious to find out that the French has a complete different education system and mentality in class. The system does not reward you if you do good in class, which mean you won't go receive a gift from your headmaster because you were ranked number 1,2,3 in the class. On the other hand, you would have to redo your year if you don't pass.

I remember vividly how my teachers distributed the exam papers. People who have the highest grade would be on the top. So if you were the last one to receive it, you know how bad you are. In my report card I would have my rank in class and the overall ranking with all the students same age as me. My neighbor, beat her daughter because she got 96 instead of 100. These days, parents literally ask kids "What is your ranking in class? How many As did you get in PMR?..." We are living in the world where everyday people compare our achievement to others, and less, in our own progress. This is not so the case in France.

My friend couldn't believe when I told her that during my Uni time, some students stole others lecture notes so that others won't be able to get good grades in class. Yes, this is how kiasu the system makes us. It was difficult to make real friends with the coursemates, as we were fighting constantly with each others. People tend to hide information for themselves so that they would get better grade than you.

Now, I do see the bright side of the French education system. In my class, people are willing to share, and we don't fight much among ourselves. If you get good grade, good for you, but seldom people would get jealous over it. I was very impressed by how people can be good friends during the college life and keep in touch after graduation.

I think it will be good to have a balance between reward and competitiveness. Reward those who work well, but let them strike for themselves, not due to the kiasuness. So, next time if your kid is not doing well in class, help him improve, but don't tell him:" Why you so stupid lah, Ah Beng also got A and you are even worst than Ah Lian. "

We don't have to be kiasu to perform.

French pao (bun)

After lunch hubby said he prepared some "pao" for me. He was referring to "pao" as the Chinese bun I showed him in Malaysia. When I look at it, it was actually some bread stuffed with chocolate. What a nice way to eat a bun. Hubby actually had a hard time to accept the concept of the Malaysian pao or bun which stuff with roasted pork, red or green bean paste, coconut or peanuts.

Living in a foreign country I have seen various way of appreciating the similar foods. Just this morning I was in the fruit section of a grocery shop, and I was attracted to the green pears. While drooling over how crunchy they would be, the French women besides me commented that the pears were too green and not ripe enough. Apparently French people prefer the ripe pear then the green one. And, I discovered that a ripe pear tastes very good too. You should try one day.

Exam results: Should they make public or keep in private?

I got two of my exam results and I still couldn't get used to "everyone can see your grade" kind of mentality. One of our professors literally sent the result directly to us, so everyone in the class knows the note of everyone else.

As contrast, when I was working in my University in USA, I have to help my professor to key in one by one quiz, test and exam results online. Students can then consult their results through internet. They need password to login to their account so they won't know others' results except told by others. In Malaysia, my University sent me the semester results by post.

It is hard to understand this concept as the French emphasis privacy principle a lot but this practice is certainly against it.

Should the government authorize DNA test to everyone

In French laws only a judge can authorize the DNA test.

With the internet, now the French can do the test anywhere in the world. A lot of them choose Spain since it is just closed by. It costs around 300 euros with a very simple process.

Now, do you think the French government should make DNA test available to everyone? In the news today, a woman did that to identify the father of her daughter. She risked being sent to jail for one year and a fine of 5k euros since she violated the French laws. Some criticize this action as they think it would destroy the harmony of a family.

What do you think?

Day light saving time started

On the last Sunday of March, France and European Union switch on the day light saving time. This morning, while reaching 2am, my computer time actually went directly to 3am. It means that there is only 6 hours differences between France and Malaysia instead of 7 hours during the winter.

I'm glad I was with some friends who happened to tell me about the time changes. Since Monday I will start my internship, imagine arriving at 9am and realized that you are late as it was already 10am.

No graduation ceremony in France

Well, the school is over, and I just realized that I won't have a graduation ceremony like what I did in Malaysia and USA. There will be no graduation gown, photo session, family and friends coming over to celebrate with me. Only at this moment I realized how much Malaysia's education systems have been influenced by the Anglo-saxon culture. I grow up watching graduation ceremony for pre-school, primary school, second school and University.

Graduation photo session in University of Malaya. Different collar color represents different discipline (Sains, Business, Engineering...).

Graduation ceremony in the USA. Throwing the cap to the sky (cap toss) is one of the ceremony traditions.

During the ceremony (commencement).


Personally I do not mind to not have the graduation ceremony since I had had two in my life. But for the other students, won't they miss something wonderful in their life? Anyone knows whether other European countries like Germany or Switzerland are having this kind of ceremony?

Class over

Thursday we had our last class. During the night we had a party. It is hard to believe that I won't see some of the classmates for a while, or for the rest of my life.

Overall, it had been a very nice class. Classmates have been very friendly. I will miss the time we went to eat in the canteen, prepared for our presentation, having coffee and tea break, taking about the internship, making fun of people, their funny accent when speak English...

C'est la vie like the French said. "People will face sadness, happiness, separation and reunion" like the Chinese saying. No matter what saying, I enjoyed a lot the friendship from these people, and I will miss them. The time for nostalgia is already started.

France threatens boycott the Beijing Olympic Games

With the riot in Tibet, the French medias have been talking about the possibility of France boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games. Almost everyday the 8pm prime time news will show how brutal the way the Chinese authority treats the riot, and how they closed and manipulated the information to the Chinese people. Due to this media cloture, the Chinese surveyed on the road said "they don't think it's that serious", "they don't care about the current situation in Tibet", "they are not scared". The French medias blame the ignorant Chinese about Tibet independence movement as the result of medias manipulation of the Chinese government.

Personally, I don't think the Chinese have no other way to get the information about Tibet situation. A lot of Chinese actually know how to hack the firewall and have access to many websites that are not authorized by the Chinese government. I kind of agreed to a statement by a Chinese girl during interview:"Don't mix politic with sport!"

I don't think it's going to do much if other countries boycott the Olympic games. The Chinese will just win more medals for themselves, with no change to the way they treat the Tibetans. The pressure has to come from the Chinese people themselves.

Men with two wives

Malaysian Islamic allows the muslim to have up to 4 wives. However, in reality, I have never known of any Muslim friends who have more than one wife. Therefore it was shocking to see a politician to have 2 wives in his biodata one day in a local newspaper.

I think it was Datuk Ahmad Said, who is the MB of Terengganu and leading to all the political saga these days. While I couldn't find back the biodata I saw that day, in today's staronline they no longer say he has two wives, instead that he is married to Norliza Mahmud and have 8 children. I thought I was wrong, but then I saw another article talking about how his wife is in stress due to the current situation, and she has 4 children. While, if Datuk Ahmad has 8 children and she has 4 children, that means the other 4 children are from a different mother.

So, is the media trying to hide the fact that he is married to two wives? Are Malaysians less acceptance to bigamy policy now?

Another politician who has two wives is Datuk Seri Hadi from PAS, he has 14 children.

Anyone know of Malaysians who have 3-4 wives?

Final exam week

We are having our final exams this week before starting our internship. Having studied in three different countries for degree and master program, I have to say that the way the final exams are carried are very different and it has largely influenced the I prepare for the exam.

In Malaysia (bachelor program):
Every paper had one final exam. It was very painful as all of the exams were open questions and you have to memorize the whole book to be able to score well. Of course I didn't do well as I didn't like this exam method. To add the pain the courses were taught in Malays and all text books were in English.

In USA (master program):
The exam system suited me well, as grades were distributed out to projects and final exams did not weight as much to the total grade. The most exciting part was that most of the time it was open book system, you can refer to whatever reference you want during the exams. Sometimes I was allowed to bring in a piece of "cheat sheet", where you put all the relevant formulas or definition in an A4 size paper and bring with you during the exam. Scored very well in this system.

In France (master program):
This course has very big influence from USA system since we are having partnership with Georgia State University. Most of the class don't have final exams. We are evaluated through our presentation, group projects and case study analysis. I will have 2 exams coming. I have to say that the exam questions from first semester were a lot tougher than those I had in USA. I couldn't tell how well I score as we haven't gotten the grades from the first semester! The professor is too busy he still hasn't come out with his grade thus delaying all other grades.

Conclusion: Personally I think the US and French system are a lot better than those in Malaysia, but the fact that I'm having master courses rather than degree might raise the differences. Since it is my second master program I do not have much motivation, as long as I can pass it will be ok. :-) Don't really care for my CGPA, plus the French have 20 point system so nobody will understand what it means anyway. Nobody has every gotten 20/20 so why bother?

Let the seniors teach the juniors

There is one aspect in my course that I really love and think they should be implemented in the Malaysian education system. It is the strong ties between the alumni and the current students from the same course and same school.

With the strong link, we manage to have a network who provide useful advises and powerful network contact in looking for an internship. Some alumni actually sent us the internship offers from their company and we got to contact the HR recruiter directly.

Most importantly, the school hired some seniors to share their professional knowledge and experiences in the class. This enables us to expose to the latest trend and skills demand in the industry. Recently we had a seminar, one senior actually brought along his company director for a very interesting topic. What impresses me is their willingness to keep the ties and share their precious knowledges. As a result, more companies have confident in our course and do not hesitate to hire us.

I used to think that there is no free lunch in the world, so free/cheap education system must lead to low quality education. I have to say that I'm very wrong, this course certainly provide the best price/quality return I have ever have. :-)

Doraemoon the Japanese Cultural Ambassador

The popular Japanese cartoon character Doraemoon has a new mission, this time from the Foreign Minister of Japan. He is hired to promote the Japanese culture to the world and try to make friends to as many people as possible.

I'm an all time big fan for Doraemoon. While a lot of kids are crazy about American cartoons, I always opt for the Japanese one, especially Doraemoon.

Therefore, I'm glad Doraemoon becomes the Japanese cultural ambassador, I hope I can meet him one day!

Tricky pricing strategy

Price for one pack of Belin peanut corn snack: 0.87 euro

Guess how much it cost for two packs wrapped together as promotional item?

Answer: 2.14

What?

Yes, you got it, the unit price for buying two packs is more expensive than buying one. Something I learnt in France, do not automatically consider things will be cheaper when you buy in bigger quantity. A lot of people got tricked this way, conveniently buying products that are displayed in the promotional racks, packed in several quantities or during discount time. Basically, you have to check out price per kg for every items.

Paris Housing Crisis: Apartment and Sex

A friend sent me this article, talking about the housing crisis in France especially in the Paris areas. People actually offer room (for those who couldn't afford the rent) in exchange for different kind of services: sex.

I have yet to know anybody around my social circle who couldn't find an accommodation in Paris. When I was going to take up the internship there, I quickly came through several options. One of them being staying in those Chinese run bed and breakfast, offering around 15-20 a night, dinner included. If not, there are a lot of Chinese students willing to rent out their living room to share the rent.

I have to say that I have a very different mentality than the French. I have gotten used to sharing room and space with other people, so living in a living room was not shocking to me. Of course I didn't really do it since I was not going to Paris anymore. Easy said than done.

The point is, we are all having housing crisis in the French standard in terms of space and privacy. To tell you the true, I'm actually missing the time I lived with my family (8 people in 3 rooms house), and with friends during my University time (12 people in 3 rooms apartment).

French civil servant: What motives you?

We had a case study, in which we had to help 200 civil servants to change their job habit in transition from paperwork to non-paperwork. The average age of the workers are around 50 years old (several years before retirement) and mostly women. The management sensed that this change might upset their employees and the productivity rate might drop after the implementation of the new system. They hired us, the consultant, for the change management plan.

While drawing out the plan, it came to point that I proposed to come out with rewards to motivate them into this change.

Naturally I proposed ideas that seems to work in Malaysia or US:
1. Let the 12 departments compete among them. The department with the highest productivity will win a week of vacation somewhere.

Idea rejected. Reason: The French don't like competition in work. The work union will certainly oppose this idea.

2. If the whole company manages to maintain their productivity rate for the first 3 months after the new system, everybody will go for weekend vacation in a domestic location.

Idea rejected: The French won't be tempted just by a weekend vacation.

3. Increase their salary

Idea rejected: They are nearly on retirement, money is not a motivator anymore.

At this point I won't even want to try other methods like best department team, best employees awards....

The main problem are: The French civil servant won't get fired, so they won't care about their productivity. They just want people to leave them alone, let them do their 9-6 job and don't expect extra things from them.

I regret that I didn't know the French culture enough to propose more workable ideas. It is time for me to really observe the French culture. If the French manages to have one of the highest productivity rate in the world, I must have missed out something (I'm not being sarcastic). Our teacher (professional consultant) told us that in France, the change management usually deals more with the users psychology than technical elements.

Salt desert!

On tonight's Pekin Express (similar to Amazing Race in US), the contestants were asked to cross the salt desert by foot. A desert full of salt!!! This is the first I heard of it and it is simply impressive and stunning. It used to be salt lake. It is located in Bolivia, a place called Salar de Uyuni.

I'm not sure I could cross this desert by foot though.

I got my pork jerky from Singapore

Wow wow. This Saturday we went to pick up our pork jerky, brought to me by a friend who went back to Singapore to celebrate Chinese New Year. We were very excited once we got it as I had to stop hubby from eating immediately.

Once open, each of us got 4 pieces of jerky to ourself, and I have finished up my quota in two days. He still has 2 pieces left. It is time to steal from him. :-)

How will the opposition share the cake

The opposition coalition won 5 states and are forming the new governments.

It is then the time to share the victory cake.

By logic, the party who won the most state seats should be the state government leader (Menteri Besar), but this logic is challenged by the current constitution, where only a Malay Muslim can lead the state, with only exception to Penang.

With this constitution in mind, PAS is going to lead Kelantan, Kedah and Perak, PKR in Selangor and DAP in Selangor. The situation becomes very tricky for Perak.

Perak state seats won by:
DAP 18
PKR 7
PAS 6

But PAS will be the leader for Perak, despite holding the least seats among the opposition.

The reason, DAP has no Malay Muslim candidate even though they hold the most seats. The logic will be to look within PKR. Unfortunately, among the 7 candidates, there are only three Malay Muslim who do not hold too high position in the party. So, PAS will lead Perak.

This general election is giving a strong message to the government that the people is tired of race based politic. And here again, we are limited by race politic.

DAP Perak president could not be the Menteri Besar (MB) despite winning the most seats in the states, simply because he is not a Malay Muslim. DAP is trying to get the Perak Sultan to agree in appointing a non muslim, but I don't know how much chance they have. And I heard that PKR wanted their people to be the vice MB.

Let see how they share the cake, eventually.

Malaysian political blogger gets in to the parliament

Holly shit, the power of blogging! This guy is so popular in the Malaysia bloggerspace and now he is in the parliament representing Malaysians. Cool!

Opposition won over Penang, Kedah and Kelantan

Wow, earthquake in Malaysia!

The opposition has successfully taken over 3 states, created history moment for Malaysian politic.

Until now, the alliance of DAP, PKR and PAS have won 24 seats over 40 in Penang. These three parties will form the state government. It is time for the opposition parties to prove their ability! A lot been said during the election campaign, it is time to act and to prove how they could perform better than the current government. It is very important that they hold on to their promises, as the whole country is watching. If Penang is under good control in their hand, it would be more persuasive that they have the ability to take over other states in the future.

Bravo Malaysia for this change!

I'm happy for this change, but at the same time worried about the future of MCA and Gerakan. Will UMNO punish them and diminish their influence in the coalition?

French local election Vs Malaysian general election

This weekend, both France and Malaysia will have election.

The French one is just a local/municipal election, while Malaysia is having the general election.

It has been a lot of critics in Malaysia where the coalition in power parties control the main medias, thus leading the election campaign; while the opposition parties have relatively smaller media coverage and budget to attract voters' attention.

In this context, I think France has an efficient system. Our local candidates' posters arrived to us in the same envelope. Each candidate presents his team, agendas and what he is planning to do to the community. We can make comparison immediately. If one would like to have more information, he or she can simply refer to their website. This way, not much money is wasted and the posters reached the target audience.



Just imagine you receive the posters from Song Choi Leng (MCA)
Lim Guan Eng (DAP) for the Bagan area. Both of them have the same space and same budget for their propaganda. You read and you compare and vote for whoever pleases you better. Both site get to express their agenda, as simple as that.

Sadly, I don't know how long Malaysia could reach the French level in terms of fairness in election publicity and communication. Every asked when I told them I have no right to vote from France. It sound so weird to the French that I can't even vote from the embassy here.

We won

We had a simulation games today. We were divided in groups and had to sell a solution to a company (played by students). Among the four groups, we were chosen. We won the project, wow!

It was a meaningful win as despite my broken French, I managed to transmit the message during my presentation. Besides, my team mates were able to understand me and helped me transform the ideas into written form. It boost up my confidence to stay competitive in the French speaking world.

On the other hand, the professor had a very valuable remark. I was proposing a solution and justified it through the French culture, in which I pointed out the French "resist to change", directly in front of a group of French directors (played by students). In the professional world, it would have caused us the project, as it would created dissatisfaction due to my insensibility to the culture and pride of the audiences. The French students didn't find it offensive, as they have gotten used to my critics all the times. :-) Still, a note to myself.

Movie: Into the Wild

Excellent movie. Directed by Sean Penn.

The story is about a guy ventured into Alaska from West Virginia, living in the wild without any outside world interruption. At the end of the journey, he discovered that:

"Happiness is only real when it's shared".

Do you agree with him?

I would rephrase the sentence:

"Happiness is amplified when shared".

I have my internship!

Yes, after several months of intense looking, I have finally found an internship.

In fact, I got two offers, and I have to turn down the one which I love, as the internship will be placed in Paris. Fortunately both offers have interesting mission.

Well, very soon, I will have to start driving daily to a city that is 100km from mine. Considering that I drove each way 38 miles per day to go to my school in USA, it shouldn't be a big problem, I hope.

Well, thanks for listening to all my whining about the difficulty in looking for an internship. I really hope this would lead to a good start towards my career in France! Thanks to people who have taught me to be patience and perseverance in my life!