Lost in the City

Yes, the Cubbies did it, they slid in the first spot of the Central Division!!! It took a victory against the Phillies while the Brewers lost to the Mets. Yes, I know, there are still two months to go… and that’s a loooooong time. But that won’t prevent me from savoring today’s good news!! Nope, no one will spoil my fun! It’s so good to see the cubs’ flag up that pole at Wrigley Field!
Now to get back to the real life (wait… the cubbies wouldn’t be for real???)… it has kept being insane lately… which is why I’m posting some news here and hope you’ll cut me some slack while I’m dealing with my backup and not replying your (always interesting, of course) emails.
Work has been really busy for what should have been a slow month of July, and it's barely starting to slow down. This was for a couple of good reasons though. Perhaps more on that later… For now, I have to say that the most insane thing I have been dealing with lately is the bus situation. It’s August, Parisians are supposed to be away, so they cut down the number of busses. That means a bus every 15 minutes on my route if you’re lucky... and that's for peak hour. Bottom line: on the way in and one the way out, it’s 30 minutes in a packed bus. NOT a great way to start and end a day, particularly with a bum leg that tends to swell in the heat. So, nope, Ludi is not a happy camper when coming out of the bus.
Still on the work front, I got some very good news. Well, not me so much as a great colleague of mine, who just got the nod from the adoption commission to launch an adoption procedure. See, when you want to adopt, you first have to get this commission’s agreement that you are fit to adopt. It’s particularly difficult when you are single, which is my friend’s case. She faced the commission on Tuesday and got the decision yesterday. She took me out for lunch to celebrate. Great great news! Any kid would be lucky to have her as a mom.
The thesis is progressing. Some good work got done today as I finished the second subsection of my segregation chapter. I’ll start working on the third and last subsection tomorrow.
Finally, the marathon training is going great. I decided to give a real training a chance even if I'm not completely healed yet. I put to good used the long hours put in studying track and field training in the past and made my own training program. This is going very well for now. Let's hope my leg, knee and ankle will play nice and let me train properly!
And… I guess that will do it for today. I am totally pooped and have to get ready for my parents' arrival tomorrow evening.

Third trip on the job. After Cherbourg and Grenoble, here comes Arcachon. The whole division spent three days there for the yearly internal seminar. We all flew in on Monday afternoon and flew back home on Wednesday afternoon. Frankly, I’m not sure such expenses were needed for what it was… we could have done the same work in a single day in some Parisian location. That said, I had a good time. It was pretty intense, with the workshops starting early and ending at 9 PM the second day, but a very nice experience overall. Since I am still quite new I didn’t know everyone in the division yet. The seminar was a good opportunity to get to know people, and get to know better those I already knew.

It started with a bang! On my third day of work, I was already away from Paris on a mission. I attended a symposium organized by the Andra (National Agency for nuclear waste management) in Cherbourg, a nice little town on the (English) Channel. This trip was interesting on a professional and a personal level. Professionally, the symposium helped me clarify a number of things regarding the nuclear field and its actors. I mean, they have acronyms for everything here. So when it's new to you, you get very confused very fast. Let me give you a nice little sample of the acronym buffet. You have:
-the agencies (IRSN, Andra, etc.),
-the other 'players' (CLI, CLIS, CLIC, OPECST, ANCLI, CSPI, etc)
-the divisions within the IRSN (DRSRDRE, DEND, DSR, ect)
-the projects (CIP, COWAM, GRNC, etc)
And then there are the working acronyms: GT (Groupe de Travail), GEP (Groupe d'Expertise Pluraliste), WP (Work Package)... In short, welcome to acronymland!!
Now about the personal perks to the trip: I got to discover Cherbourg and its harbour. It was a nice break from the urban life I enjoy in Paris.