Fréjus Monologues – Day III
Day Three already! The realization dawned on us, as we headed for breakfast this morning. It promised to be splendid day indeed, and we weren’t disappointed, although in hindsight, we could’ve really taken advantage of this day – beach and sports wise. The worst part about morning is the time between somnolence and the time when we ‘breathe’ in our coffee. And indeed, after the adventures of the previous night, sitting with the group from Darmstadt (or is it Dortmund), and drinking ourselves silly there, the somnolence this morning just refused to let us be! Tis funny what a wee bit of tipsy will encourage one to say, as I kept telling the Namesake that it would be a good idea for him to go and revive talks with a certain person from EST! Needless to say, this morning I had retracted that suggestion. Bah!
The talks in the morning dealt mainly with Metadata, and Contexts, both very interesting topics for the namesake. I took extra pains to follow, but got distracted, just putting the final touches to my presentation for the Kennisnet. The cluster got together after lunch (which was an inedible affair, as always!), and it indeed felt as if we were trudging along this day, without the embedded enthusiasm that was the hallmark of the first few days. I almost fell asleep during the cluster meeting, as we argued and debated over what is LD. We finally got a good concept map going by the end of the day.
Disaster has struck though. It seems or is rather confirmed that the Kennisnet meeting has been shelved. So much has depended on the Kennisnet arranging the participation of practitioners and non-experts, of prime importance for the requirements and gap analysis phases of my project. But that has fallen through and we don’t have the people necessary for our team of practitioners as of now. It was a crushing realization, to know that we got so close to a resonance meeting, but no cigar. Well Nico our contact there has asked for some more time till Friday to arrange for participants. But we are now thinking (after the talk with Francis on Skype) whether it would not be a better idea to postpone till after my hols in the US.
Back to the Summer School and the Namesake and I conducted our second consecutive cluster meeting, a pity though that just the two of us showed up. It seemed as if things would pick up during the activity time, as I signed in our names for the ‘Drama Improvement’ workgroup. But as always ours were the only two names there. Bleh!
After dinner though (which consisted of a piece of bread and a lone piece of cauliflower-boiled), we gathered in the hall, as that is the only place where we have a working Internet connexion. Seriously, what is it with the French cuisine and the Vegetarian way of life? It is almost a sin to be a vegetarian in France. Not that the food for non-veggies is a gourmet affair here either. Ugh. Really.
We all were surfin’ them Net here, when Lauri decided to host a pantomime contest, and asked for a show of hands for who all would participate. Ralf Klamma raised his, and started on his way out… and Lauri was like “are you participating? You raised your hand and you are leaving now”, and Ralf replied “But we are German ja, when someone asks us to raise our hand, we raise our hand, ja”
the namesake and I looked at each other and literally fell on the floor laughing at the laissez way in which Ralf cracked the joke! We could not stop even after we got back to our room, just seems as if we were the only two to get the joke, and actually found it HIL-arious!
Oh ye, jocularity! Love you we do!
Pictures from Fréjus ja! Mine I shall be upping on my website here, and here’s the link to pix from others (including the namesake) LINK CLICKY ME FOR FLICKY
Rissa’s gonna be here!
19 days and counting! It is just so surprising, the alacrity with which all came to pass! Just missing the love of mine, ever so much, I casually had dropped the idea, that lest VT not work out, she could think about visiting me in June, ahead of my visit to the US in July. Unfortunately, the thing in VT fell through due to some snafu with the UB legal department! It is just such a shame! She was just looking forward so much to the summer work in Vermont and get a chance to learn more about her chosen field. Lawyers and legal departments, contact me if you want to know more about how I feel about them!
So anyways, this afternoon I asked Rissa to look for cheap flights out from in and around Buffalo. We looked together, though she was so reluctant to, and we found some possible options which my love deemed way too expensive. Um, now what does money have to do with them love oui! We be in la France, and it is the land of love oui?
We continued our discussion after dinner, when we found something on Orbitz, and booked it! And just like that, with a mere click, it came to pass!!! Just 19 days to go! She is just so amazing to have agreed to come, and spend her time with me, even though she could’ve well stayed at home, and tend to the projects she has scheduled for the summer, in and around her place. I am ever so excited about the prospect of spending more time with her, and not rush from place to place as we did on her last trip here. *Sigh*
I don’t feel like dancing, but I’ll flail anyway!
Oh the pains and the regrets of the morning after. What a night it was! Katherine mentioned it in passing, at dinner (a staid, dull and boring affair, due to the fact that I am a vegetarian, and it is a sin to be a vegetarian in France), that there would be dancing after dinner in the bar. Well, we did not pay much attention to it at the inception.
But what an evening it turned out to be, flailing and dancing for hours till the namesake and I had just nearly passed out (with laughter and wine), and watching Ambjörn living it up! Amine sir, the quiet one, kept at the bar, coming in for a dance or two with Raquel when the fancy struck him! It is SO awesome to see him in this light, for months, nay a year, he was my supervisor and the ‘serious’ guy! But it is just great to see him here, living it up and talking to him, as a PhD myself. It just is really good!
The namesake and I had tried to play ping pong earlier in the evening in the designated ‘fun’ time, but due to the gale-force winds, weren’t able to play (this is our story and we are sticking by it).
Earlier still, we formed cluster groups and in the immortal words of Jon Stewart, it was more like a Cluster-f***! We quickly branched out of the Authoring cluster and became the LD group. Started off with 8 but soon had 2 people drop out (Bram and Zuzana) since it didn’t quite match what they had in mind for the group. We quickly built-up a concept map and moved forth. Met two quite interesting chaps from Vietnam, with who we basically hanged out the evening.
It is day 2 now, and we are in a presentation, which I am not really following. Need to finish my presentation for the Kennisnet on the sixth of June and send it forth to FBR.
Tim@9:51
Fréjus, France!
First blog from Fréjus! It has indeed been a long time coming. What a perfect place and perfect weather (though a little nippy in the mornings). The Summer School has officially started, and is in full swing, we are listening to Ambörn’s presentation, and he is showing some slides from Kashmir.
We finally did manage to get online, which is a relief, since all morning we were moving around with our laptops, divining for a WiFi signal. The signal is available only in the conference room, which shall be an inconvenience as I need to work on my presentation for the Kennisnet meeting. But well, c’est la vie. It is indeed a wonderful place to be.
We arrived after a long journey (7 hours) at a small village near Fréjus, a journey that took us (the Namesake and I) from Heerlen to Brüssel, and then a flight to Nice, and from there a bus to Azurèva. The namesake and I were given different rooms, which ain’t any fun, so we asked my roomie (who coincidentally turned out to be Amine) to take de Jong’s room, and the namesake moved in!
Drinks were waiting on the terrace, along with some old acquaintances (welcome and otherwise) from the Winterschool in Innsbruck. We said our round of hellos to Martin, Andreas, and the others, and joined the Dubliners’ table for dinner. (A tip here from the Namesake – ‘Mahatma says, no better place to be for a steady flow of wine and drinks, than at an Irishman’s table’ – Mahatma has spoken)
Dinner was a staid affair and our first introduction to French cooking, interspersed with regular cha-cha-cha’s of cheese and what not, and plenty of Rosé and du vin rouge! Needless to say the Namesake and I got pretty hammered as did almost all the guys there, having a “groovy” time man!
The funniest was when de Jong, drunkenly insisted that we barge our way into a room which I kept insisting was not ours. I am so glad that the party broke up at 12:00, otherwise no telling how hammered we would’ve gotten! It was an ‘interesting’ cluster meaning in which we learned alternative definitions of the common words like ‘picnic’!
Well, it is back to the presentation now. Watch this space for more updates!
Tim@11:20
Picture from Fréjus, eat your hearts out ppl!
Wait for RFCs
Finally finished with what I think is a passable paper for Barcelona. Mere few hours, and it is ready, I like that kind of work really. Now the wait starts for RFCs on the document. It was a really productive day indeed, somehow feels as if the Powerbook adds 10 to my productivity mana, that, in spite of having spent some part of the day, trying to configure Mac Mail for OU. The configuration went great, but just wasn’t what I was looking for, owing to how much the OU depends on Outlook and Exchange calendar stuff. Till I find a freeware Exchange <-> iCal sync DMG, I am staying put with Entourage. It may not be perfect, but it works. Argh. If only the GroupCal software weren’t so darned expensive.
Oh well, back to cooking dinner! Laterz muttz!
Tim@17:27
