Tamsyn's Corner

So, after spending a Christmas and a New Year in the US, I'm now spending July 14th in France. I've been here for two months and a half, and I'm staying another three months and a half, to complete a 6-month internship. I'm working at LORIA (Laboratoire LOrrain de Recherche en Informatique et ses Applications), a research lab in Computer Science that's part of INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique), the French national research institute in Computer Science.

LORIA is located in Nancy, a city in the eastern France. The cool thing of living in Nancy is that things are not as expensive as they are in Paris, but you're still close to many important places in Europe. Paris is one hour and a half away, as is Luxembourg and Strasbourg (5 km from the German border). Brussels is like two hours away, and Amsterdam is another 3 hous from Brussels.

Nancy in itself is not that much fun, but its enough for a 6-month stay. I've been posting pictures of the places I visit. In two weeks I'm leaving for a two-week trip to visit Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Cologne and Paris, with my girlfriend. I can't wait!

Eso, eso. Licenciado en Ciencias de la Computación =).

It's over, it's done. Probably the only good thing to come out of the financial crisis: people actually thinking about who to vote. Congratulations, President Obama.

(Right now it's 338 to 163, and there's MO (11 EV), IN (11 EV) and NC (15 EV) undecided. It could end up 375 to 163. That would be nice.)

FiveThirtyEight calls it, CNN hints it, we get closer to President Obama. Let's hope for the good news in the morning.

Waiting for the landslide...

Que un formulario de la Aduana tenga errores de ortografía es realmente muy triste:




A ver si les avisamos a los muchachos de la Aduana que grabar no es lo mismo que gravar.

Es para Hugo que lo mira por TV.

Some time ago I was listening to "Goodbye Sky Harbor", a Jimmy Eat World song from their second album, Clarity. Turns out that they hail from Mesa, Arizona, one of the cities in the Phoenix Metro Area. Sky Harbor is the main airport in the Phoenix area. The song is one of those rare masterpieces, a piece of music that makes you drift away in peace, just fusing with the song and forgetting about everything.

The funny thing is that it got me thinking about my recent experience interning in the US. I lived for three months in Tempe, another city in the Phoenix Metro Area, and I traveled to and from Sky Harbor a lot. I kinda feel I will miss that airport. Everything I did while I was in the US was through Sky Harbor, as my internship was at Google's offices in Phoenix. To Sky Harbor I arrived, from Sky Harbor I left to Mountain View to do my internship training, from Sky Harbor I left for our Disneyland trip, and from Sky Harbor I left for New York. Many great memories I have from my internship includes the airport. It has become like a symbol of the whole trip.

La gente que usa funda para el celular.

La gente que se cuelga el celular enfundado del cinturón.

La gente que no usa bien los auriculares asimétricos (¡el cable largo se pasa por atrás del cuello!).

La gente que lleva el celular colgado del cuello.

Los menúes de los celulares Motorola.

Trillado: la gente que grita cuando habla por celular.

Recontratrillado: la gente que no pone su celular en vibrador en las situaciones que lo ameritan.

Nota mental: la próxima vez, solamente un Speed.

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Note to self: next time, just one Red Bull.