　おいしい！

Thursday, April 05, 2007

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A Wonderful Achievement for Miss Miao

Yesterday, I did an amazing thing. I set myself on a business trip to Paris. Armed with resumés and the like, I put on my bravest front and decided that it's time to cut it out. To stop being a slacker and to stop being so tui fei (so lazy to the extent of being worthless). So I armed myself with a black turle-neck top, well pressed blue-black trousers and high boots and a white jacket. Trying to come across as imposing as the Parisians and the white to neutralise the effect.

I don't see myself as a sua ku (mountain tortoise), but I'm more used to exchange my IC for a security pass at the security counter on the ground floor of offices rather than imposing HUGE COLONIAL GATES with security buttons, push-to-talk, intercom and the like. I stood outside the grand gates of the offices, not knowing which button to push. I felt like an idiot. So easily intimidated, how to rough it out in the Parisian world?

I just followed my instinct and chose one button and it turned out to be the correct one. I heard the lock click and luckily I did not have to speak to anyway. The gate opens out to a big hall way and a courtyard as several offices are housed in here. I took the escalator, followed directions, greeted women in the lift and arrived at the office.

The girl at the reception was totally the stereotyped of a young Parisian woman, heavily made-up and looked like she's ready to refile her nails anytime. I asked to speak to this woman that I've been trying to reach for ages, via the phone, emails, voicemails but to no avail. Thus I explained that since I'm in Paris, I decided to come in person to speak with her. It happened that she was on vacation and she had just gotten back so she had her afternoon booked with many interviews and files to go through. That's the reason the underling told me that she's totally unable to meet me. She said I can go back on Friday. My heart dropped. I didn't spend 30€ on train tickets to Paris and back for nothing. So I asked if I could come back later then. She said a firm no and it must be Friday. I was totally disgusted as I knew she was in the office. But as it is, I went during lunch hour, it was around 1.30pm and for Parisians, lunch hour is strictly lunch hour and nothing else will be entertained. Totally depressed and sad, I walked out. At least I had an interview on Friday. Yet, I really am so disgusted and every cell in me is screaming "DON'T MEET THAT BIATCH!"

Then I realised that I had nothing more to lose. Thus, I went to seek out Kelly Services to drop my CV with them. A young woman came out to meet me and upon knowing my purpose, she told me that I can't do this.

YW: You must go to the website and fill in the particulars and post your CV there. We don't accept hard copy CVs.

Me: That's what I did several months back but I received no replies whatsoever.

YW: Really? No one replied to you?

Me: There was a woman who replied to my CV but last time my French wasn't really up to the standard. But since, I'm already here, could you just take my particulars and sign me up?

She thought for a moment then she went to the back of the office to make some calls. Coming back she asked me if I have my CV with me and she went through a little interview with me. She asked me to send the particulars of my ex-manager so that she could call to verify and told me that she'd get back to me once she received any matching job offers.

I heaved a huge sigh of relief! At least something done! Something concrete! I really wished she could get back to me sooner before Friday so I do not need to meet that biatch that I mentioned.

Sigh. Paris is beautiful. Yet, it's heartlessly cold. When you are a jobseeker with doors closing all around you and businesslike people rejecting to meet with you. It's grim and sad, when you are a lone traveller, with no friends in that city, no one to meet for lunch. It's painful, when you are in boots, doing topography with french maps and french signs, walking around in circles. It's hard on the stomach, when you know you have not much money and you don't want to splurge because there is no cause for enjoying yourself at restaurants when you haven't had a job.

Going to Paris makes me alive because of the jostling in the metro and the crowd at Galerie La Fayette. The smiles of the PRCs in front of Louis Vuitton, the happiness of Japanese tourists milling around the perfume shelves and the English tourists crowding around postcards stands. Yet, among all this people, I guess I am the least happy. I am not a happy tourist. I have a purpose in Paris. That is to work. Worse, that is to find work. But jostling with the crowd makes me appreciate the quietness and tranquility of the countryside again. However, at this moment, I am not happy. Much as people say how happiness is a state of mind and you allow yourself to be happy and all and how we should always count our blessings etc. I am counting my blessings each and every day. Yet I am not happy. It's going to take a long while before I will be happy again.

12:54 pm　うまい！Y