semaine 2!

I cooked rendang for dinner on wednesday and let shaoki the algerian try and he liked it! The next day he cooked a traditional Algerian soup which I cant recall the name anymore. Damn I forgot to take pictures of all the food.

Other than that I usually eat my meals at the university cafetaria. Each meal costs 2.80 euros and I get a salad, a main course, a dessert and a bread. Not too bad. It's somewhat similar to what I ate in INSA Lyon last year.

i've often heard cheongchye complain abt the "effectiveness" of the french system. and i am "privileged" to experience it first hand now. i was told by my dept that each student enrolled in a french instution is obliged to pay for social security which is a sort of health insurance. It costs an extravagant 192 euros. however, all other universities allow foreign students who have international health insurance to be exempted for paying this amount. My dept told me that INPG thinks that the rest has made a mistake and will bring this up at the national level. BUT, another dept in INPG allows my friends this exemption, too! So now I have to wait for the final decision and it has been 5 days. Before this is settled, I will officially still be un-enrolled in the school.

Anw, summer is coming to an end! The leaves are turning brown and falling. Soon, it is AUTUMN! Occasionally I will tremble at night because it was just too damn cold. Well perhaps I am just not used to it.

Most shops are closed on weekends so I always have difficulty finding meals. So I had to resort to cooking instant noodles/soups and eat some plain bread. Next week onwards I will stock up on pasta and whatever which does not require storage in fridge.

Yesterday I climbed up Bastille for the second time with a group of new friends. Well obviously my motive was not to exercise, but to make more international friends. I must admit it is still hard to communicate with all of them, especially since their level of French is so much better than mine. At least I am proud to say that I am making the conscious effort to get to know more people from all over the world: Chile, Bresil, Tunisia, Poland, Rwanda, Algeria and of course France. Whether we can become better friends or not in the future, we shall wait and see.