Hmm...

Found that on Mik's post, as always...

Your Values Profile

Loyalty: You don't really value loyalty. In your opinion, friendship should be earned. If you don't agree with someone, it doesn't matter how close you are. You'll let them (and everyone else know) exactly what you think. Honesty: You don't really value honesty. You do value getting your way, no matter what. And if a little lying is required to do that, no problem. A few white lies never hurt anyone (at least, that's what you tell yourself!) Generosity: You value generosity a fair amount. You are all about giving, as long as there's some give and take. Supportive and kind, you don't mind helping out a friend in need. But you know when you've given too much. You have no problem saying "no"! Humility: You value humility a fair amount. You tend to be an easy going, humble person. But occasionally your ego takes over. You have a slight competitive streak - and the need to be the best. Tolerance: You value tolerance highly. Not only do you enjoy the company of those very different from you... You do all that you can to seek it out interesting and unique friends. You think there are many truths in life, and you're open to many of them.

The Five Factor Values Test

Hmm, it's quite unexpected. Loyalty is well described. I'll earn my friendship and so will you. And I'll tell if I disagree. But I'm not gonna break a friendship easily. That's probably tolerance.
You do value getting your way, no matter what. And if a little lying is required to do that, no problem. Nope, I don't value getting my way no matter what. I do value getting my way, and I may bend the truth a little. But it's something I don't like to do.

Next post in a coupla days. I'm beat, dead tired, and I'm losing the will to keep my eyes open. So I'm off to bed. Now, at 9pm.
Great job, just exhausting and with the goddamn steepest learning curve I've ever witnessed.

The grass is greener...

So am starting tomorrow morning, and I hate every second that brings me closer to that 9am deadline.

To tell the truth, my prime motivation to find a job was that unemployement doesn't pay much. And I need much to live. So economically, I had only 2 simple solutions:

• find a job
• find a rich woman to marry

Feasibly, solution 1 was the only viable.

I've been evading settling down for a long time, waiting for a job offer rather than looking for one actively, and staying away from long-term contracts. My last 3 pro experiences were failures. My student exchange in the UK was one of the worse experiences in my life, and it lasted 6 months; my internship writing Quality Management documents is hardly what I wanted to do, and my first interim mission in Toulouse showed me some the bad sides of having a job: stupid boss, proactively inefficient team members, and utterly boring tasks. It felt like being in a rudderless sail boat with no sails on a glass-smooth sea. You're not going anywhere, and the only thing that changes is the size of your ever diminishing supplies.

I'm going to have a hard time readjusting to the realities of the workplace. Don't want to wake up, don't want to dress up, don't want to answer to anyone's authority and plainly don't want to spend my days behind a desk that's not actually mine.
I'd hope that the novelty wears off fast, and that I can fall back to a semi-boredom state where small surprises keep you entertained but don't push you to your limits. And I hope I will never be expected to stay late, let me do my regular 40 hours a week without complaining. Or I'll go work at the chain where the 35 hours specified on my contract actually mean something.

Hmm, I actually heard german companies compensate you for overtime through additional days off or bonuses. I'll have to think about it...

Oh YEAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

I looked for another title, but I can't find any that fits better cuz

I HAVE FOUND A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I signed this afternoon, after two unnerving weeks.

Since monday afternoon, I was set to sign on monday morning at firm B to work "in situ" at firm A. Acceptable job, with major pros and major cons, but lousy contract. At least, I had a job.

Tuesday Guy 3 of firm C calls me to set an appointment (already had seen Guy 1 and 2, guy 1 I hated, Guy 2 I loved). We decide on wednesday, even though I'm only going to discuss the long term possibility (I hadn't told him).

Wednesday comes, the interview starts fine, and when the time sounds right (before we start talking business) I inform him that I've accepted with firm A and that I'm only here for long term investigation. Not bothered, he explains his needs: 3 places for which he has another 10 candidates. At that point, I no longer care because I can't afford to take risks and competition seems stiff. After he has explained that and his vision and his work methods, I'm thoroughly depressed, it's too good to be true yet the risk to lose everything like last time is too high.
Comes the end of the interview, and he asks what I think of it all. Which is something like:
That job would rock, it's the first consulting firm that has transmitted something which is not just marketing, and I just love the way you seem to manage the team and your professional life, but sorry mate, you're too late. I'm signing on monday with the other ones.
I don't know what clicked, but he told me he'd get a contract by friday, I just had to call Guy 2 the next morning and confirm I was ready for the ride.

Thursday, I call Guy 2, confirm I'm set but that if I don't have anything by friday night, I'm signing with firm A. Not 3 minutes later, one of the 2 co-CEOs calls me "I've got Guy 2 in my office, he's telling me to call you and set an appointment tomorrow". Geez, they're fast. Right, I'd love to meet you, what time's right?

Today, he starts the interview by "Our goal is first, to present ourselves and discuss the job in general terms, and finally sign the contract". That sounds like a plan, right? 1 hour later, I've officially signed the contract and I'm on my way back to the inner city.
The last thing to do was to call firm A and inform them of my newly found position. Didn't go that well, but hey, what d'you expect when you tell them off on a friday at 5 pm when I'm supposed to sign monday at 9am and start working one hour later, which is already weeks later than the customer expected.

I've got apprehensions, I'm not so sure how that mission will turn out, and I don't even know yet what my exact task will be.
But I have no regrets and it's written white on black right here that at this point, I firmly believe I have chosen the path that will be the most interesting.

And good week end to you too, I'm off celebrating!!!!!

Just to show...

que je peux encore parler francais (avec les fotes quand meme)!

J'ai deux entretiens cette semaine, l'un avait lieu lundi, l'autre a lieu demain. A chaque fois, la necessite de prendre le velo pour aller sur place, 10 kilometres sous un soleil magnifique et sans un nuage. Temperature de printemps (29 au plus aujourd'hui), pas de vent, et la Garonne commence a descendre, on en voit le fond le long de la piste cyclable. Les immeubles en bord de Garonne doivent etre tres agreables en ce moment. Et j'adore voir les gens profiter de leur jardin, surtout quand ca implique de l'huile solaire et un bikini string rouge. (@ _ @)
On ne va pas se formaliser, elle etait a plat ventre sur sa serviette.


Sinon, les lecons de conduite sont devenues tres interessantes, malgre 2/3 frayeurs aujourd'hui. L'anecdote nous a fait nous ecrouler de rire, le moniteur et moi:
au volant de notre bonne vieille Modus, on attaque une petite route sympa et, comme d'habitude, j'accelere un peu legerement au gout de mon moniteur (l'a pas froid aux yeux, et on est un peu dans le meme etat d'esprit). Donc il ecrase l'accelerateur, je garde le pied legerement dessus pour sentir quand il arrete et trouve qu'il ne s'arrete pas, (ca doit etre un test pour me faire retrograder et passer les virages un peu vite, je me dit). Toujours en 4ieme, j'ai arrete de regarder le compteur et me concentre sur le virage ki suit quand il me signale que 105km/h, "ca fait beaucoup, quand meme".
Lacher de l'accelerateur,
freinage, retrogradage en 3
freinage, retrogradage en 2
Arret, passage point mort, frein a main.
Il semblerait que j'ai (moi, pas lui) garde le pied sur l'accelerateur beaucoup trop longtemps, sans m'en rendre compte, apres qu'il l'ait relache. "ah bon, tu l'as relache? j'ai rien senti". S'en suit 3 minutes de fou rire, 2 minutes pour se calmer, et un redemarrage un peu incredule.

Y ajouter un demarrage loupe avant un rond point et un refus de priorite eliminatoire (la voiture en face allait pas vite, etait loin, j'aurais pas tente si j'avais ete a l'arret et ca passait largement, mais ca aurait ete eliminatoire quand meme) et la session s'est fini avec 3 questions pas compliquees pour valider le Module 1. Je suis donc officiellement capable de conduire ma voiture convenablement. Il me reste juste a prendre conscience de mon environnement exterieur et a m'y positionner (ahem priorites a droite, ahem choix de file sur la rocade...).


Sur ce, je vais aller profiter des derniers rayons du soleil pour enfourcher ma bicyclette et aller voir le Da Vinci Code. Comme ca, je pourrai le critiquer en toute bonne conscience.

Not that it will matter, but...

UBUNTU 6.06 DAPPER DRAKE IS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's time to close the curtains, switch the lights on, order pizza and beer and lock myself in. Return to geek mode, in short.


So, that Ubuntu thingy is the flavour of linux that did turn me into a die-hard linux fan. I've only kept Windows so far for a few reasons:

• Can't read MKV files on linux in fullscreen and many animes are encoded in mkv. That's because of my graphic card. I hope to solve the graphic card driver issue with Dapper so...
• Can't print in Linux. Driver problem with my printer and CUPS. Ought to be solved with a bit of mouse and command-line work.
• My resume doesn't show up like it should in OpenOffice on Linux. It does however on OO on Windows, so it's probably a font I haven't installed.
• I haven't tested the iPod compatible software on Linux just yet. So I'm still running iTunes on Windows just in case.
• I only have Matlab for Windows, not for linux.

I'll use this clean reinstallation of linux to hopefully solve problems 1 to 4.

Major geek fun time ahead :D.

On a side note, does anyone know of a good software to organise notes? I'm collecting recipes every few days to solve a problem or another on my computer and I'd like to centralise those data into a structured thingy somewhere.