A Sertaneja da França

Sertaneja é a cidade onde meu pai nasceu e onde minha avó e alguns dos meus tios moram até hoje. Uma pacata cidade de 5000 habitantes no norte do Paraná onde eu passei vários dos meus finais de semana e férias de infância. Guardadas as devidas proporções, Jouy en Josas é exatamente igual a Sertaneja, com a desvantagem que a missa nos finais de semana acontece ou no sábado ou no domingo.

No último final de semana a missa era no sábado e eu ia jantar em Paris, então perdi a missa em Jouy en Josas, o que acabou sendo ótimo pra mim, pois resolvi ir à missa no domingo cedo na Catedral de Versalhes. Uma igreja lindíssima e o dia estava perfeito - céu azul, sol e temperatura quase nos 20 graus. Depois da missa, fiquei andando pela praça central da cidade, onde estava tendo uma feira livre. É impressionanante como os franceses conseguem fazer até uma feira livre virar um acontecimento chique! Ninguém no Brasil vai "passear" na feira (bom, pelo menos não ninguém que eu conheça...), e foi exatamente isso que eu fiz no domingo. A variedade de produtos era impressionante - verduras e legumes (como no Brasil), mas também uma barraca especializada em produtos feitos com mel, outra com especiarias variadas (chá do Sri Lanka, temperos da India, etc.), uma com queijos, outra com doces, uma com flores, outra com frango assado, uma com carnes, outra peixes...enfim, uma variedade de cores, cheiros e sabores que realmente me impressionaram!

Tinha até uma banda animando o público...Claro que o cenário também ajuda, afinal de contas estava na feira na cidade que abriga um dos mais famosos castelos franceses.

Voltando ao meu jantar no sábado à noite, comi um cassoulet delicioso, mas como bom brasileiro, sugeri ao garçom que eles passem a servir o cassoulet com arroz. O cassoulet é um prato típico de Carcassone, uma cidade no sul da frança. Trata-se de uma espécie de feijoada, mas com feijão branco. É realmente delicioso, mas boa feijoada fica melhor ainda com arroz, certo? Falando em cassoulet e voltando em Sertaneja, antes de vir pra França eu estive lá pra visitar a minha avó e a tia Graça fez "cassoulet" sem saber que o nome do prato era esse. Mas o que eu posso dizer é que se um dia ela resolver abrir um restaurante aqui na França, tenho certeza que vai ser um sucesso...apesar do meu jantar ter sido ótimo, não posso negar que a receita da tia Graça estava melhor e ela ainda serviu com arroz.

Fiz minha primeira prova na segunda-feira. Prova de Contabilidade. Ainda nao tenho a nota, mas como o meu "balance sheet" (esqueci essa expressao contábil em português) fechou, acho que foi tudo bem.

Hoje eu não tenho aula e estou aproveitando para escrever pra vocês e colocar leituras e trabalhos em dia. Como teremos um final de semana prolongado, vou aproveitar para ir pro Vale do Loire com alguns amigos. Escreverei mais na volta (e colocarei fotos também!).

It is fall...(and my birthday as well!!)

I know I have not been very diligent in keeping this blog updated, but my routine has been quite hectic lately.

Between classes and marketing, supply chain and business economics assignments, I am out of bed before 7am and do not go to sleep before midnight. But anyway, no complains :) in fact I am quite happy with the course as well as with my classmates.

Today I had a nice day - did nothing special for my birthday, however I was extremely happy to receive lots of e-mails and phone calls :) that really made my day and I would like to thank you all for that!!

Everyone was asking me what I would be doing to celebrate my birthday today - the answer is nothing special actually...Jouy en Josas is quite away from Paris to commute in the middle of the week, so I'll just postpone the celebration and will have a nice dinner on Saturday. However no plans for dancing all night long, since our first mid-term exam, Accounting (in fact, Analyse Comptable - IN FRENCH!) will be next Monday, so I'll be quite busy next Sunday...

Other than that, it is fall in Europe already. We can feel by the temperature decreasing little by little and also by the days getting shorter...The sun is not out before 8ish, although everyone is saying that we have been lucky since the days have been pleasant and without too much rain.

A lot of people asked me where the campus is located. It is in fact very close to Versailles, where the famous castle is. A very beautiful area surrounded by a lot of green. In the picture above, you can see the view I have from my room. The leaves are all falling and very soon this scenario shall be completely different. The building in the back is the restaurant.

Once again, un grand merci to all my friends who made this birthday a very special one!

Always running...

I would like to apologize with all of you for not replying to your e-mails lately. Our schedule is at full speed already and I barely have time to finish all the assignments and readings we have to do for the classes. I have not been able to sleep before 1 am...

The good news is that today I just got elected Student Rep for my class, which I really liked!! For those who have already studied with me, they know I can do a good job! Quite modest, right? ;-)

Anyway, despite being running like crazy, I'm enjoying every day more my MBA and I'm meeting a lot of interesting people and learning so many new things that sometimes all this seems to much to be digested in only 24 hours.

Please do keep sending me news from you!! I enjoy reading all of them and I will do my best to (at least) keep this blog updated.

Gotta go now...I still have some work to be done before tomorrow.

Apartment on Campus II

And this is the very small kitchen...

Apartment on campus I

Just moved in to this apartment today. As you can see, there is a sitting area and a small kitchen, whereas in the previous one I only had a room and a bathroom.

The studying part...

By the way, by seeing these pictures you might have a misleading idea that all I'm doing is having fun in Paris every weekend - nope! Our workload at school is getting bigger and bigger and every day we have more stuff to read and group work to be done and I must confess that I had a very busy week and the next one promises to be even worse.

The highlight of the previous week was the Marketing class. The professor is excellent (and he knows it!), so he enters in class, introduces himself and after that jumps straight to the case study that was available for us in our pigeon holes. Since a lot of people had not read the case, students' faces were a mix of scare and anxiety, because he was asking them to raise relevant questions about the case and give their answers.

And the professor is very tough and does not allow people to just talk bla, bla, bla and you need to give him direct answers. Questions are like "Do you agree with this?" and the answer should be concise and short "Yes" or "No" and a brief explanation why. If you do not start your answer with that, he will not even allow you to continue speaking. People were just flabbergasted trying to understand what was going on.

The worst part was when he came to a guy who was sitting just behind me and asked:
- Do you agree with the opinion of that girl?
- Huhhh, yes
- Then what did she just say?
- Well...she said that...
- What was the question?

The professor was just shooting the poor guy!

You have to focus 100% of the time.

Anyway, since Marketing can be quite vague, I thought the class was very good because I'm sure everyone will prepare accordingly for the next sessions.

Nuit Blanche

This Saturday was Nuit Blanche in Paris, which means that events were going on all night long all around town. In this picture, we are in front of Sacre Coeur trying to enter to see the 300 violonists who were playing inside, but it was SO CROWDED that we just gave up and went to a bar close by where they had brazilian live music.
Anyway, we had good fun and since I got the keys to my friend's apartment in Paris, I didn't have to rush to catch the last train to Jouy en Josas at 10:30. But transportation was so scarce (and FREE - maybe that is why!) and we had to walk all the way from Hotel de Ville to Nation, ie a good 45 minute fast walk at 4 in the morning.
In the picture Mike, Juan Pablo, myself, Andres and Samar.

Catching the train

This is the train station of Jouy en Josas, the closest one to HEC.