Monday, June 18, 2012

My first year in Rouen

         The end of year is coming so fast, it's time for a making-up. So last year I graduated in Statistics and Business Intelligence from my the Technological Institute of the University Paris Descartes. I got accepted at the National Institute of Applied Science of Rouen, which is not as famous as Polytechnique for instance but a good school with a good reputation in France. Moving to Rouen was kind of a big decision : it meant living my life in Paris, moving in the Northern part of France while my parents are living in the South and it meant leave my friends and the excited life in Paris. On the other side I had the opportunity to join an engineering school and in France, schools have (almost) always a better reputation than the Uni. So here was the deal. I only applied in the INSA and in the last year of the bachelor in applied mathematics of my university and thanks to my good ranking in my class (and the recommendations by my teachers) I could make a choice and my heart went for Rouen.

          I also ended a 3.5 months internship in Eurovia. I was quite sad to leave this internship. To be honest, I prefer working than laying down in the sun. Life in the office was good : I could choose when I wanted to work (ok I couldn't arrive after 9.30 am and leave before 7pm) but nobody was really supervising me. I had a good relation with my colleagues and the management staff and it was my first experience of working in a company. And above all, I was payed and got a prime which allowed me doing another InterRail trip and not asking money for food and transportation to my parents this year.

          August was supposed to be a good month : spending a week (ten days ? I don't remember) holidays in Montpellier, at my parents house and with my grand parents the coming back to Paris in order to prepare my year in the engineering school. However, the day after I came back, my mother called me to tell me my lovely Grandpa died. It was the worse day of my entire life, I became speechless and emotionless. I have so much admiration for this Man, it couldn't be true. I new it has to happen because he was old and suffering a lot but he has always be my second father and we were really closed. It has been an hard moment for all the family but now I've moved forward. I miss him everyday but I know he's in peace and he doesn't suffer anymore. This terrible event made me decide to stay at my parents house to support my mother who went to a deep depression.

        I canceled my trip but decided to find some places to go anyway. My grandpa told me once "trips are making the young become someone". I thought he would have been proud to know I kept traveling. This took me in Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and finally Norway and was a fresh air to this horrible month of August. Then I arrived on September 5th in Rouen and luckily found a place where to live the next day. My mother helped me to move in and a few days after I was in the INSA.

            My first day was really surprising. He never studied in a school before so I was very surprised when a girl I didn't even know came, said hello and just introduced me to the other people of my class. I'm always shy when I meet people and often it takes me 15 days or more to sympathize with someone. The administration introduced us the rules of the school and of the applied mathematics department then the girl of the morning, Claire, who became my godmother in the school took me and the other people who joined the school to discover Rouen. I found that very nice. We ended at 6 people so another girl, from my class this time, invited us to her place. Adeline became my partner for projects. More surprising, the next day I found them in the metro and they not only remembered me, they said hi and took me to the class. To be honest I was really happy because I would have been lost the first week in the school.