Lost in the City

That was fun! As part of Dominick’s visit to France, we dashed down South for my mom’s birthday, combined with mothers’ day, fathers’ day and my father’s birthday. It’s amazing all we could squeeze in a single day!
We started with a bike ride. At lunch, we celebrated my dad’s birthday and got a piece of the infamous “charlotte aux fraises”, his birthday cake. We then drove to the beach, which is about half an hour away.
That’s where we had some baseball fun. Well, frankly, it was more than fun: I had a blast! I played catch with Dom and my father while my mom took pictures. Then we switched to batting practice. That was great! After that, we drove back home in time to have drinks with my aunt, uncle and cousins. Finally, we celebrated my mom’s birthday. Her cake is a “Black Forest”. It has been since I came up with this idea a few years ago. You see, since she is the family’s baker, she never had ‘her’ cake when we grew up. She would have a different cake every year, depending on my dad’s mood. There once was this memorable strawberry pie, whose sticky syrup almost glued our teeth together... Anyway, when I started baking on my own as a teen, I came up with the Black Forest idea, and have been making it ever since for her birthday. Very good cake. Of course: with cherries, chocolate and whipped cream, how could it not be delicious?

Don't expect a lot of comments on the election here... I'm way too depressed for that right now. I'll just say that I'm devastated to now have a President who will forcefully shred to pieces everything I believe in, everything I have always fought for, everything I think a society should be. The sad thing is: most of his electors don't even realize what they actually voted for yesterday. Well, good luck now.

Labor Day is on May 1st in France not in September. It also is a traditional day of marches all over the country. This year, Labor Day had a special flavour given the proximity of the presidential election's second round. This is why I didn't go marching. I preferred going to Segolene Royal's last Parisian meeting at Charlety Stadium. This was the biggest political meeting to date in the 2007 campaign, gathering 40,000 people in the stadium while 20,000 were outside, the gates having been closed. The atmosphere was unbelievable. Young people mostly, cheering for Segolene Royal. She wasn't alone on stage though: actors and singers were by her side, voicing their support to her campaign. They spoke, they sung, offering to all of us left-wing hopefuls a very nice and inspiring afternoon. It was important for me to be there, close to political friends, to bask in a left-wing atmosphere in those gloomy days.

The news came through my parents at 6:30, as I was in the metro, on my way to Jeanne's place. Two polls supposedly put Royal ahead of Sarkozy, and a third one put her right behind him. I was at Jeanne's a few minutes later and we could see on the "Le Temps" website (it's a French-Swiss newspaper) the first exit polls which gave Sarkozy ahead of Royal with respectively 29% and 26%. The final results are:
1. Sarkozy (31.18%)
2. Royal (25.87%)
3. Bayrou (18.57%)
4. Le Pen (10.44%)

Good side first: I am obviously glad to see that Royal made it to the second round. I am also extremely happy to see the high participation rate we had for this election: 83.78% is a score that would be unbelievable in the U.S. In France, we have to go back to 1965 to find such a high rate (84.7%). Last time around, in 2002, when we managed to have a second round between the right and the far-right, we had the lowest rate ever for a presidential election (71.60%)... which is still high compared to the U.S. situation, but still.

Bad side now: it doesn't look very good for the Left on the second round. First, because Sarkozy came about 5 poitns ahead of Royal yesterday. Second, because of the poor potential for vote transfer from eliminated candidates to Royal. Indeed, aside from Sarkozy and Royal, the two candidates who received significant percentages of the votes are Bayrou and Le Pen. Bayrou's electors will most probably split between Sarkozy and Royal on the second round, but 75% of Le Pen's electors should go to Sarkozy. Royal can only count on traces from the LCR (Revolutionary Communist League... hey, it's France we're talking about!), the Green Party and the Communist Party.

According to the first polls done yesterday right after the results, Sarkozy would win 54-46. I guess there is still a lot of leafleting to do... Let's not give up hope until May 6th though.

As every Sunday, I went to the Farmers' market located at Raspail/rue de Rennes this morning. It's a market that takes place there every Sunday and where you'll only find organic products, but all kinds of organic products (vegetables, pastries, meat, essential oils, etc.). I buy my whole wheat bread for the week, and I get some cereal as well from time to time (cereal as in grains, not *breakfast* cereal: from quinoa to millet), when my stock runs low.
Today was different from other Sundays though... as it is an election day. So this is what one could see across the street from the market: a polling station. It was actually comforting to see people waiting in line out of the building. Most of the polling stations in Paris are schools. Since there is one in the street next to mine, I could see several people going there earlier. I didn't go. Not because I don't intend to vote, obviously... but because I'm still registered to vote in my hometown, down in southern France, so I voted by proxy, delegating my citizen's right/duty to my mom. She cast my vote earlier today. Let's hope it'll go well.
The last polls seem to be encouraging, putting my candidate Segolene Royal on the rise. My brother goes as far as to feel that she'll end up first on the first round. Rationally, we'd expect her to come behind Sarkozy, with 24 to 25% of the votes. Only a few hours left before we know who the two second-round candidates will be. Polling stations close at 6pm in small towns, 8pm in big cities, so the tv stations give the first exit polls at 8pm. But this year, Belgian and Swiss media said they would announce the results at 7pm. Then, of course, the data starts circulating wihtin the political partys between 6 and 7, so I should get a first indication even before 7. My cell phone battery is charging right now... I'm getting ready for the evening. I'll take off around 6 to go meet my friend Jeanne at her place and follow the results with her. Then who knows... the left wing tends to gather and celebrate at Bastille when we win elections. Getting to the second round isn't a win though... (even if it would be such a relief) and I would hate tempting fate. So we'll see how the evening goes, take one round at a time.

I'm not known to be overly optimistic... not that I'm pessimistic, sincerily... I'm just realistic most of the time. ;-) So why would I be optimistic about the outcome of our presidential election, tell me?

The campaign is drawing to a close, with the first round of the election taking place on Sunday (we always vote on Sundays in France). I have been as involved in the campaign as I could be, keeping myself informed of course, and leafleting in my neighborhood mornings, evenings and quite a few weekends. It is now pretty obvious that Sarkozy, the right-wing guy, will make it to the second round. At this point I'm not even sure the left wing will make it. Segolene Royal does have an advantage in the polls... but it's a small one, so who knows. We might end up with a second round opposing Sarkozy and Bayrou, meaning respectively: a socially-conservative-and-economically-liberal candidate and a moderate (but still...) right-wing candidate. That would be the second time in two elections that the left doesn't make it past the first round. Tough ...and telling as to the state of the nation. And I'm not even talking about the nightmare scenario that would have Sarkozy up against the far-right candidate Le Pen on round two. What happened to my country? I wonder.

Okay, more on that later. It's time to get some rest now.

Between all the paperwork and a first mission right away, I didn’t really have time to settle during my first week at work. I don’t think the past week qualifies either: Monday was a Holiday, Tuesday was a RTT… which stands for Reduction du Temps de Travail. Now here is a topic of interest… We legally have a 35-hour week in France. But at the IRSN as in many other firms, we work 40 hours and get 24 off days in the year as compensation. Of those 24 days, 12 are set by the employer while the other 12 are chosen on a personal basis. Tuesday was one of the days set by the company… Anyway, back to the point… after two weeks on the job, I still have to experience a basic week. Actually, I’m starting to doubt there’ll ever be one… but I’m digressing again.

There are three main things I’ll have to juggle: work, rehab, and my PhD. Then, of course, I don’t intend to be a hermit, so I’ll also have to make time to see my friends. “Have to” as in “I really want to and couldn’t do without”… not as in “damn… I guess I really should make time for them” ;-) AND, I won’t let you forget I’m a Cub fan (yeah, like you really could have missed that piece of information before…) so I’ll definitely have to make time for the games.

Work: I’m spending a lot of time at the office, I admit. It’s usually an 8:30 am-6:45 pm affair with a one-hour lunch break in the middle. So yes, if you do the math on a 5-day working week, it’s more than 40 hours… I guess that’s what it takes to get a nice salary at the end of the month. Not complaining anyway since time passes really fast when I’m on the job.

Rehab: I did it after work during my first week, but I quickly realized that it wouldn’t last long at this rate… I would be too wasted to do it properly. So I came up with an alternate plan. I now bring my lunch at work several days a week and spend my lunch break doing my rehab at a soccer stadium nearby.

PhD: Frankly, it’s hard to keep up while starting this new job, but I still manage to put some time aside to read and write. Let’s just make sure it will last on the long run! I’m done with the baseball part (the Senators, D.C.’s local team in the postwar era, were integrated at that time), and I think I’ll start working on the race issue now: schools, restaurants and movie theatres were all integrated during my time-frame.

These three things haven't apparently anything in commun, I know... but actually they do. Or at least they did today. See, this afternoon, before going north to meet my parents and my niece, I played catch at the Jardins du Luxembourg with Brent, an Hawaiian.
I met Brent on Craigslist. He replied to an add I posted looking for someone to play catch. So we hooked up at the "Jardins du Luxembourg" around 4:00 and thrown for about two hours. That was a lot of fun. We got a lot of curious stares and made an impression on a lot of kids who are not used to see baseball gloves around. By the way, the gardens were crowded. It was nice and sunny outside, and a Saturday too: perfect recipe to have Parisians go out to the park.

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.

I swear, this blog is turning into a baseball blog... It's not really my intent, but what can I say?
So I'm down South at my parents right now, getting ready to take the train back to Paris in a little while. I decided to spend a few days here when I still can, because starting in April I won't have vacation for a year.
I have been serious about my rehab since the accident, and I still am. In Paris, it's either indoors cycling or swimming. Here, I took my bike out for a ride on Sunday and Monday. I biked a route I hadn't been on for a long time, with a nice hill in the middle, and I can't believe how fast I climbed that one. The only time I went so fast was when I came back from a "cycling vacation" in the Alps - where I climbed most of the major mountain passes.
On Tuesday, I did something totally different though. I had brought my baseball glove, ball and bat from Paris, and my mom had borrowed a couple of gloves at the Junior High she teaches at... so I went to the town's stadium with both my parents to play for a while. We played catch at first and tried some batting after that. It was really fun. The only thing left to try is real pitching... I'll find a way.
Time to sign off now, so I can get ready and take my train back to the capital city. There is some leafleting waiting for me as soon as tomorrow morning.