A Fresh Start (up)

Big news today … After having asked his permission to my father, Rémy “officially” proposed to me this week-end, and I said yes! We’ve been talking about it for a very long time (almost 3 years, after he “non-officially” proposed to me!), and we’re finally doing it! We are having a “civil” wedding in August in San Francisco in City Hall with only our witnesses and US friends, but we are also having a religious wedding in the South of France next summer (2009) with all our friends and family, which will be the big event. All our family has started planning already!

This blog was talking about Internet and Technology a few months ago, so I don’t want to get too cheesy here, but I really had everything like I have dreamed of: the proposal on the beach, then a suite at the Four Seasons (which was at least 3 times larger that my apartment, I could have lived in the bathroom!) with some rose petals on the bed, some champagne, and massages at the spa … I guess I love luxury, despite years of claiming that I’m a simple girl!

Apart from this big news, the smaller event of my week is that I started my acting classes in Stanford, and so far it’s been great, we’ve learnt how to shoot a commercial … I won’t be Monica Belluci anytime soon (or never for that matter) but I’m having a lot of fun!

I’m just back from our team building event in San Diego, and it was really awesome! Nothing like the cheap stuff that most companies do, but actual fun!

On Monday we went sailing in the San Diego bay, and it was my first time: I was really good with the steering wheel, I’m definitely the daughter of a fisherman . Then we had dinner at an awesome restaurant and finally drank a lot in a karaoke bar…

Today we went to the San Diego zoo (not the one I went to the last time I visited San Diego, but the “Wild Animal Park”, which is a large park / breeding facility) and we went to a safari where we could feed some giraffes! Of course I loved it: most of you know how excited I get when there is a combination of animals and picture spots

All the pictures of my team and the giraffes are here. I definitely want to live on the beach someday; San Diego is pretty awesome for the “surfer style”…

I know I look ridiculous with this hat, but I must say I like the picture anyway… My damn attraction for everything that I saw on American TV!!!

As you might have understood, I’m just back from France after my one-week trip. I spent a couple of days working at the eBay office in Paris to avoid losing too many days off (they are precious in the US!) so I saw everyone again: it is almost hard to imagine that the two offices are part of the same company, since the different sizes create completely different atmospheres. I must say that I enjoyed the traditional French breakfast in the cafeteria where everyone spends at least a few minutes in the morning to discuss with others around really good brioches

I presented my thesis on Thursday, got an A and a great proposal: my tutor told me that she thinks that I can get published, and that she would help me if I considered it. I am thinking about it; it is both a lot of work and a great opportunity.

On Thursday I attended the class gift ceremony and the last HEC party: I saw people that I haven’t seen in two years even if I deeply love them, it seems crazy… But during the party everything seemed exactly the same, it was so reassuring… I realize that it must be really hard for those, unlike me, who have spent this last year in HEC. For me, this week was just a nice remembrance of how it used to be; for them, it’s much more the end of something without a clear vision on the future. The graduation ceremony was really moving, especially our dean’s speech: this school really deserves its first rank in Europe, and for once (even if it is highly unusual for a French person!) I must say that I’m really proud to have had the privilege of attending such an institution. All the pictures (party + ceremony) are here.

But all this week I’ve been waiting for a “click”, that would make me think that I belong in my home country, and that this time in the US is just a nice experience. I’ve been looking for that in the many attentions of my mother, in the laughs of my friends, in the terraces of Parisian cafés… and I just couldn’t find it. Of course I miss my parents and friends, of course I miss French food and art de vivre, but I never felt that I belong there, whereas being in the US seems natural… I’ve heard the terrific question a thousand times this week: “why do you want to stay in the US?”… and I can’t manage to find a rational and therefore convincing answer to give to these people, so I always answer with the same passion that I had when I was 5 and told my mom that I wanted to live in the country of the big buildings; which automatically lead people to think that I watched TV too much and that I will go back to France when I’ll realize that living in the US is not an episode of 90210 every day. Well, I don’t want to ascertain things because you feel stupid when you change your mind despite what the proverb says, but I am *almost* sure that I’ll never feel delighted at the idea of coming back to France, and therefore will do everything I can to avoid it, even if it won’t be easy considering the visa mess in which I find myself!

Anyway, I finally took a plane back yesterday to go back to Rémy (who I missed so much this week, I am so sad that he couldn’t attend those moments with me) but since it is me, nothing could go easy: 6 planes landed at the same time in DC, so I spent 3 hours at Immigration and Customs, then I heard that my connection was delayed because of a thunderstorm in Richmond. 4 hours later my plane finally arrived but…. it had a technical problem: they couldn’t turn the computers on, and therefore couldn’t put fuel in the plane! I started to sleep on the floor of the airport (a few hours after having heard by my dean that I am part of the elite of the world, it’s somewhat ironic) and another 2 hours later, we finally boarded: useless to tell you that I am exhausted, especially after spending the entire day catching up with work emails!

Just a quick post: I’m flying back to France tomorrow for a week, to present my thesis (on Thursday)  and attend my graduation ceremony (on Friday). I can’t wait to see you again guys

Quick summary of the past week: a lot of work, a nice dinner with Nicolas and Thomas in San Francisco yesterday,  and a day in Santa Cruz with Audrey and Guillaume today. A beautiful beach (as you can see), a nice lunch around 4pm, and the visit of the “mystery spot”, a really weird place in the forest where gravitational rules are not respected, you can see it all here! Yes, we seem very stupid not standing perpendicular to the floor . Other event of the week: Remy participated to the show on BFM radio called “L’Atelier Numerique” to speak about his job; I’ll post the podcast here when it’ll be available! Yes, we will all be famous for 15 minutes of our life

See you in Paris!

Bad, bad week: a bad flu after my Yosemite trip, some tight deadlines at work, not many hours of sleep, and the confirmation that I won’t get my visa this year. Yes, dear friends, I’ll be back to Paris in February 2009! I hope that, like Nico says, “brunches with friends and lots and lots of boat trips” will compensate the fact that I really didn’t want to see the Eiffel Tower again so soon. Speaking of Paris, I’ll be there next week for my graduation: it is weird because I feel so out of touch with all this school thing, but on the other hand I feel really nostalgic that this part of my life is over. I’ll share the pictures with the nice square hat soon!

A part from that, the week wasn’t all bad: I had dinner with Seb and Valentine (from the French office) on Thursday and it was really cool, like a real French dinner in a French restaurant with a lot of talking before, between and after the meals… Seb saw that I was on the verge of getting completely crazy with the flu + the workload, so he saved me from a major nervous breakdown by inviting me that evening

Fortunately this week-end was pretty cool: Audrey turned 25 and invited some friends to a nice restaurant in SF (see picture), so I met some cool people (French, of course, can’t help it!) and then we went to a club (French, of course!) where I met an HEC from my promotion that I was supposed to meet in the weeks to come, but I guess the French community is a small world!

For this 3-day week-end, we had planned to go to Yosemite National Park, since all the guides mention that it is THE best week-end to visit Yosemite. We had planned to go boating on Bass Lake, to rent a canoë on the Merced River… I had packed all my bathing suits and light dresses, and we were ready to go!

We arrived at our hotel at night, after miles of sinuous roads: I think I had already turned green an hour before our arrival. I will never regret enough to have eaten this Burger King burger before leaving

When we got out of the car, we realized quickly that the light dresses would be absolutely useless: there was still snow everywhere! We got into the room to discover that, of course, there was to heating, which was definitely a problem since I only had a nightie to sleep! We also discovered the 20 warnings about bears: apparently 37 cars have been destroyed this month in Yosemite by starving bears! I started thinking “why the hell did I decide to come here? Wasn’t Vegas attractive enough???”

But things can always get worse: when we woke up on Saturday, it was the remake of The Great Flood, and of course, the hotel manager told us that the weather would be the same for 3 days! She even advised to go visit the Yosemite museum, displaying pictures of Yosemite: if this is what I wanted to do, I would have used Google Images, dammit!

Since I am a really stubborn person, I decided to try to see at least the most famous spots, in order not to be obliged to come back! The intensity of the rain was decreasing a bit, so we managed to see Maripose Grove of Giant Sequoias, the Bridaveil and Yosemite Falls, El Capitan… and the picture you can see is a proof that we made it! What can’t be seen in the picture is that, just after taking it, we ran like crazy to the car because we were freezing, and then spent the night watching Gilmore Girls

On Sunday morning it was getting even worse so we left without any regret, except the one of having missed the opportunity of a 3-day week-end! I am so not a “nature” kind of girl!

Remy had a conference in Chicago this week so I went with him for the week end. This city is simply awesome! It is a rare example of what my ideal city would look like: there are pieces of art everywhere! All my pictures are here.

First of all, we decided to be fancy and booked the Sheraton for 2 nights: and I remember the time when I said that I was a really simple person…! Truth is, I really enjoyed the sweet sheets and pillows, and the room service of the Sheraton… It feels good not to be a student anymore

In a nutshell, we took the architectural boat tour which describes the most amazing buildings I’ve ever seen, then we took a walk in Millennium Park and saw the great Cloud Gate and we spent at least half an hour watching ourselves in this bean-shaped mirror. If you don’t know what the Cloud Gate looks like, you should better check my pictures, otherwise there is no way to explain what it is

In the evening we went to Shula’s steakhouse, and for a carnivore like I am, Chicago is a real paradise! Then we headed to Kingston Mines, the most famous blues club in Chicago, and one of the bands was great: J.W. Williams & the Chi-Town Hustlers are really worth listening to.

On Sunday we went shopping on Magnificent Mile: and entire mile of great stores, isn’t it supposed to be called heaven? Then we went’ to Gino’s East to try the famous deep dish Chicago-style pizza: 6cm of toppings!! Finally we went to the Chicago Museum of Contemporary art: even if the Koons exhibition only starts in two weeks (I was so frustrated!!), we got the chance to see some amazing pieces, including a big shell in which you can lie down!

Going back to work after a week end like this is kind of tough, especially since I’m all alone in a big empty apartment … And you guys, what are you up to these days?

I spent most of the day in the middle of my paint tubes, brushes and canvas: the result is this piece of junk on the left but I felt so good! It was as if I had what I liked the most in my “old” life back

Apart from that, back to my French week. We had dinner on Tuesday with David and Veronique, two great French expats living in San Jose… It was really cool to share our thoughts about the life and people here, and they had some really great stories (most expats have, but they really know how to tell them ).

On Thursday I went to a dinner gathering HEC alumni on the West Coast. Amazing people there, and it is always reassuring to see that even if, having just finished school, I have the impression that business careers are really “standardized”, it is not always the case, especially among HEC expats. There was in particular an entrepreneur advisor who took the time to tell me how he got there, and I would simply love having a job like that in a couple of years.

Yesterday we went to the Open Studios gathering 160 artists, and I had a real love at first sight with Sunn Yo: her paintings make you calm and serene, her portraits are just astonishing, the colors great, the technique perfect… Anyway, after that we joined the French gang (Cécile and Karim her boyfriend, who is American but speaks a perfect French, Audrey and Guillaume) to a great Moroccan restaurant called Aziza and had a delicious pastilla to share. Yes, I know I’m supposed to integrate a little bit better, but it’s not my fault if I keep on meeting great French people

A dinner with friends on a Saturday night and painting on Sunday, I feel as if I was still in Paris! Oh, I forgot about the difference in climate

It all started with me having my licence…and ended up with me buying this car (on the picture)!

OK, let’s do that chronologically (I don’t even have time to get creative while giving you some news!). On Tuesday evening we had dinner in SF with Thibault and Anne-Laure who were starting their tour of California: wow, that was so great to see some friends, and listening to them arguing about the next steps of their trip felt like home, and more exactly poker parties in Paris!

After a crazy week at work, on Friday night we went celebrating Jenni’s move from our team to the Motors team (this girl really helped me getting settled at work, this is so bad she’s leaving), in a great French restaurant called Foreign Cinema. God, I missed foie gras so much!! Pictures are here.

On Saturday, Audrey, Cecile and I attended a Fashion show organized by the Academy of Arts to recruit new students (pictures here)… It was absolutely great, exactly as we see them on TV, except that the models are even skinnier in reality… To sympathize with them, we went eating chocolate pudding just after :-). And then we went to the SF MOMA, I think I could spend my life there… This afternoon, and in particular seeing those prospective students at the Academy, made me realize that, since I decided what I wanted to do so early, I am not really aware of all the other type of careers and lives people have outside of the business world. I’m not saying that I imagine myself as a fashion designer (even if my mother would have preferred that!), but I would love to meet people with more diverse backgrounds… Speaking of which, on Saturday night Nicolas invited us to meet Thomas, his partner, who just joined him in the US: a true artist, graphic designer and photograph. If you want to check a great photoblog, Thomas’ one will definitely be worth your time. After eating with them and Seb around Castro St, we went to a pub in the same street… and I was the only girl, surrounded by guys who were obviously more interested in Rémy than myself… I’m definitely in SF!

And today… Rémy went checking some cars this morning and came back with a big smile: “I found it, we just have to sign the papers”! 200 hundred signatures later, I found myself writing a check of $11,000, on the verge on falling from my chair, imagining that the next time that I will check my bank account there will be a huge difference… In these kind of moments, you just want to be a kid again and have Mom&Dad (this is almost a brand) take care of everything, so I called them and they scared the hell out of me: “have you checked that the engine is clear? what about the brakes? how can you be sure that it wasn’t involved in any accident?”… Anyway, I bought a really nice Toyota Yaris, that I’m going to pick up probably tomorrow since I need to get an insurance first. What do you think? I find its “face” (no, I’m not crazy, I know that it won’t speak to me like Disney’s ones) really cute

To relax after this stressful choice, we went to… Alcatraz (I know, a spa would have probably been a better choice)! We chose the evening tour, and it was awesome, first of all for the view on the City, but also because you really get to see what you have in mind: the alignment of microscopic cells, the ways prisoners took to escape, the cells of famous prisoners… and you can’t of course miss the entire story of Al Capone… Eh, you know I love Mafia stories! Pictures are here.

After a nice work and a nice apartment, I start to have nice friends and a nice car. This expatriation is going well, right?

I am finally not a desperate case! It started really badly though: I arrived 45 min late because my instructor refuses to buy a GPS, and the examinator I got started by saying “oh, you’re from France? I hate France, people are so mean and rude there!”… It turned out that the guy was delighted to see me smile, since he thought that it might be the sign that “new generations are probably France’s last hope”… The guy was actually really nice, and I couldn’t really disagree with what he was saying: I did leave France for a reason! He ended up the conversation by asking me if Carla Bruni was smart, and I was… speechless! So now I’m going to buy a car… without knowing a single thing about cars! Any advice? I want to keep it under $10,000 (used) and ideally be able to resell it.

Well, this week is completely crazy at work, so I’m going to bed now, but just for info I posted an article about the New Media Arts conference on Tech IT Easy here, and an article about a great conference I attended today by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, about customer satisfaction, here.