Celebrities at Halloween

EPIC NOVEMBER UPDATE - Part 2 of 3


Okay so - Halloween. Yep, 4 weeks ago - I really need to blog more! I'm always too busy hanging out with my friend Procrastination Jones! I mean, he's always there for me when I'm down, but sometimes I feel like he's not really helping me with the root of my problems - hanging out with him is more of a veneer....... So, Halloween. I wasn't going to celebrate it. I know it's not big in France and to be honest I was tired and had work to do. But then Matt (I'm talking about the English one at ESC Rennes now) twisted my arm.

Halloween is a night of fun, games, and weird costumes, and at the latter, Matt is the master! He was searching for new ideas for costumes that we could do, and we thought of a few ideas, which included taping cereal boxes to ourselves with red marks on them, and carrying a knife (plastic of course, kids. Don't carry real knives - it's bad for your health!) - making us cereal killers! (We ended up giving that idea to Itzel for her to wear.... the French didn't really get the joke.....) and also WAIT A MINUTE! THIS STUPID BUS IS GOING PAST THE AIRPORT! I JUST WASTED 12€ ON A TAXI TO GO TO THE ONE BUS STOP WHEN I COULD HAVE GOT IT FROM RIGHT BY THE AIRPORT!!! GRRRRRRR we had another idea where we just blow some green or purple balloons, attach them to ourselves and go as bunches of grapes, but then we decided that wouldn't be practical.

We also thought about current affairs and considered going as Steve Jobs and Jimmy Saville zombies (but apart from being very disrespectful, we wouldn't know how best to make ourselves look like those guys), and I also thought of bleeding Euro coins and the baby that happened to be born earlier that day who was registered as the 7 billionth person on Earth at the moment (there's nothing scarier than the reality of an overpopulated planet and depleting resources).

Of course we didn't consider the usual boring vampires (although I did consider going as Edward Cullen and acting like a pompous twat for the evening) or werewolves (considered Jacob Black too - haven't got the bod, or the stubborn tenacity towards average-looking and bloody annoying women), or wizards, devils, zombies, Frankensteins or Nick Cleggs. We wanted to be different. We wanted to stand out.

And we did.

This, my friends, is how Matt and I won a costume competition. How we made countless people out on the streets burst out laughing. How we were asked for photos with many random people. How we took half an hour to walk through la Rue de la Soif, which is about 50-70m long. This, dear readers, is how Matt and I became celebrities that night.

What a night it was! Walking through the streets of Rennes I struggled to keep a straight face and act like I was dressed completely normally. People from all sides were looking at us, laughing and commenting in French (which scared Matt because he had to try and understand a lot of locals). The moment where you see a group of people walking towards a side street, going about their business, and then they catch a glimpse of you, stop, turn around and look amazed is PRICELESS! It is seriously so funny, and it happened repeatedly that night! Okay there were some annoying people too who just wouldn't let us go - chatting non-stop (usually due to drunkenness) but it was so much fun!

And the best part was - we discovered our new favourite bar.

I had heard about the Funky Munky a couple of times already, from people who had described the lovely atmosphere and the cheap cocktails. And tonight they were having a Halloween party. This was our destination. When Matt and I arrived, it wasn't exactly low-key. We were approached by loads of people, and warned by the bartender, who was dressed as Popeye, to be careful (I didn't realise how big the cardboard cut-outs were until this point). A few minutes in, the bartender announced the winners of the costume competition - 'The Facebook boys', and gave us a 1kg Chupa Chupps lollipop as the prize (Luckily Matt doesn't like strawberry flavour, because I don't know how we were gonna share that! I still don't even know how I'm going to attack it myself!) It was a great night, but I also felt a little bad for the others. They had spent lots of money on their costumes, and there were some great outfits (especially the guys from Coventry - Alina and Raj, fantastic effort!!!). How much did Matt and I spend? 1€ each.

We simply went to LeClerc and bought some marker pens, having gone around the side of the building to find a giant cardboard box that was perfect for the costume. (Wow, Dinan is a beautiful place. Just travelling over a big viaduct. Gotta bring the guys here!) Then we worked on it for about 4-5 hours, cutting the cardboard and designing the profile pages. I'm not the best drawer, but I must say I was quite proud of my efforts here. And yes, I added 10 friend requests. It may seem a little optimistic, but I was planning ahead. I had drawn a big button saying Ajouter comme ami(e) and sure enough, by the end of the night, over 10 people poked it. But yes, the cut-out remains in my room. In the cardboard box we found several posters advertising some perfume but featuring Emma Watson, the girl who played Hermione in the Harry Potter films and became a bit of a sex symbol by the Half-Blood Prince. I kept a poster in my room for a few days before disposing of it. It felt a bit weird having a perfume ad in my room.

So anyway, Halloween rocked! And we enjoyed the Funky Munky. Any readers who are in Rennes, check this bar out. The atmosphere is great, there is a real community feel to it, it is small yet sociable, and the bartender, Loeic, is the best bartender I've met! He's been in the business for years, having worked in many bars in the UK as well over a 10 year period before setting up his own in Rennes. As well as several bars in London, he has worked for Revolution vodka bars throughout the UK, including the one in Cardiff - which I usually visit on the rare occasion that I have money to go out in Wales. His English is probably the best I've heard from a Frenchman - he even has a bit of a London accent! And he has told Matt and I some interesting stories, including a customer who paid over £40000 in an exclusive club, buying everyone there drinks, just so that they would turn the music down a bit so he could hear his wife talk! God if I had that amount of money - well I'd probably take the wife somewhere else and donate £40k to Cancer Research UK, but that's probably why I'm not doing very well at Warwick Business School....

But seriously, there's a great range of drinks, the bartender speaks perfect English and French, and they also have some great events, including pub quizzes (making me nostalgic thinking about the Rising Sun near my house in Wales), but on stuff I actually know about! Gone are the questions about 60s music, ye olde expressions, pictures of celebrities who were big in the 70s, golf and other things for old people - we had a quiz just about rock music (which my team won, beating Matt to his great frustration mwahahahaha!!!) and tomorrow there's a quiz about Harry Potter. I've won 2 out of 2 competitions I've entered there, and I know WAAAAYYYY too much about the scarred spectacled sorcerer, so my winning streak there may just continue! But anyway, guys at the Funky Munky, if you're reading this, you are brilliant and very welcoming to us foreigners, and I wish you great success in your business!

So that was Halloween. A few days after, I finally achieved my main goal for 2011 - my new year's resolution: to visit a new country before 2012. And thanks to the hardworking guys at the Well'Come team in ESC Rennes, I got my chance: a little-known town called AMSTERDAM!!!

I've wanted to post this for so long....

DISCLAIMER: The original blog post turned out to be so long that I decided to split it into three parts. This is the first part. Enjoy!


Hello everyone! Isn't it a beautiful day? The sun is shining (okay it's getting dark - stupid winter!), the birds are singing (okay they've migrated to the South - stupid winter!) and everyone is looking great in their summery bright-coloured clothes (stupid winter). But seriously, life is good! Life is awesome! And do you know why? Because I've overcome the shit phase!!! That's right - it's been achieved!

Hang on, your face is blank. Why is that? You should be amazed! Why is there tumbleweed rolling around your feet? Oh yeah, you don't know what I mean by the shit phase do you? To the Olford dictionary!!!

shit phase (n):  the period of time during a semester or other related excursion where one goes through a period of sadness and feels down. This is often due to stress or homesickness, or the need for a new computer because your current one is a piece of shit. The shit phase can last for an indeterminate amount of time depending on its antecedents and consequences, and to overcome it is to feel a sense of joy and achievement.

(Origin = 'phase' from phases, plural of phasis, referring to 'appearance' of the moon and stars, used to determine time. 'Shit', in its stercoraceous original meaning, is believed to be derived from to 'split' and to 'shed', graphically depicting the egestion process. With the product of the process being thought of as bad, the word 'shit' has adapted this connotation, which has been used in this phrase). 

So now you realise why I'm feeling so good! You see, I haven't really updated the blog properly for quite a while. You've been expecting stories of my activities and experiences in Rennes and beyond, but recently I've only been feeding you updates on one aspect of my life - my failing internship application process. Indeed that has been a dominant part of my life at Rennes this past month, but it has hardly been all of it!

You see, I have been going through this shit phase, where the novelty of living in Rennes was starting to wear off. I was getting tired of the constant bullshit I was being fed at school, the group projects, the fact that I will soon be saying goodbye to some very close friends, the stupidly overpriced bars and the lack of open bars, the fact that I'm too scared to go to the hairdressers for fear that they'll give me the most gay haircut, the difficulty in being able to eat well, the fact I am constantly tired and the lack of decent hangover food, the corridor in the business school resembling the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter because it kept changing, the lack of rooms available at the school to study in, the....oh you catch my drift! A particular moment that made me question why I'm here in Rennes is when a Belgian friend asked me why I didn't just do a masters in France so my year abroad counts for something - that made me really think about what I was doing. Am I wasting a year here?

So basically, I didn't want to update my blog properly, because it would all just be emo stuff that nobody would want to read. Now if this was a diary, I would definitely have gone through with it, but despite it being a great opportunity for catharsis, I refrained and instead started listening to some hardcore music again. It's quite soothing if you feel pissed off and emo, but I hadn't listened to it in a while. Here, if revision/end-of-term blues are getting you down, enjoy! Of course, if you're all good, or just plain hate this kind of music, then don't worry! It's just there if you need it, if you are in a shit phase, or need some loud music to keep you up at night as you have an essay due in the morning.

But anyway, it's all getting better! My shit phase is over. Why? Because those group projects are done, the only thing i have to really worry about at Rennes. Yes, there's exams, but don't forget - nothing counts for me - so anything individual is nothing to fret over too much. Indeed, I will revise, so I actually learn something this year (if you can learn anything from Project Management!) but I'm not going to stress about it - it's not as academic as Warwick for starters, and if I can successfully cram for Warwick exams, this won't be too hard!

Also, I am writing this blog post in a lovely cafe in Dinard, having just returned from a weekend in Leamington visiting my closest friends who are stuck at Warwick Uni for a third consecutive year.  It was lovely to see them, and to have a fry up (which took bloody ages to arrive!), some proper chips, some lamb, curry and Cadbury's chocolate - all luxuries that I cannot really enjoy in France. Gathered around a hookah pipe saturday night, sharing stories of my year with my good friends and listening to their stories, I couldn't help but remember how chilled weekends at Warwick were, compared to the loud and bustling nights out in Rennes, where everyone went out. At Warwick, the big student nights are on Tuesdays and Thursdays - pretty inconvenient, but that's how it goes in the UK.

But it was great to have a relaxing weekend after the stress and sleepless nights of my three presentations and reports, and to see the guys who I've spent so much time with the last two years. Matt, an Australian expat who lives in Singapore, picked me up from the airport and I spent most of the weekend with him. The guy's a legend, great to drink with, a superb musician and much cleverer than he thinks he is! I also stayed with John, my only eurasian brother who is still in England. He and Amar, another good friend of mine, have secured jobs as investment bankers when they graduate - so I know some top dogs already! Might come in handy to get me out of my graduate job at McDonalds.....

Last night I ate at Cosmos with those three guys and Lil Chris (he's called Little Chris because there's another Chris who's a lot taller than he is, and they just happen to be best friends with each other!) - this guy is an awesome dude - as kind as he is talented, he is a very handsome man, loves dogs, fronts a kick-ass band, and was a football captain, and he is also an avid reader of my blog, so LC, there's your return shout-out! (That'll be £10...) It was lovely getting impregnated with food babies with these guys, but maybe not the best idea to overdose on MSG the night before a flight! Luckily I survived, and am in this lovely cafe in Dinard, waiting for my bus back home. By the way, due to my poor planning and poor French public transport, I wouldn't have made it to the UK were it not for my very kind Belgian neighbour Mathias, who very kindly drove me to the airport as a last-minute favour. Mathias, I tried to bring you back some Stella Artois Cidre, but the airport security confiscated it - sorry! I'm not used to this whole flying thing - was the first time I boarded a plane in 4 years! I came out feeling like my ears were squeezed to fit inside my head!

Also, I am typing this blog update with total freedom, not tethered to a mains socket - all thanks to my beautiful new MacBook Pro (a nice big step in my transformation process to become a pretentious business student!) I love it already and I think once you go Mac, you can't go back! Thank you Erasmus grant! In fact, let's have a nice happy song, to make up for the BMTH number earlier. You can't be upset listening to this - it's impossible!

Woohoo! Bipolar blog posts FTW!

So now, I am ready. Ready to give you a more traditional Ollish update of life so far in Rennes. I had promised stories about Halloween, Amsterdam, and how the blog saved me from an essay deadline. Apart from that, it's mostly been about the group projects and internship applications. We went out a few times of course, searching all night one night for a club called 'Museum' (got seriously lost - turned out we were asking for directions to an actual museum, at 01h30...). Plus, I stupidly decided to go to an open bar last week (they finally showed up again - and there had to be 3 in my most stressful week. Bye bye 100% attendance!) - which was great fun anyway, but a silly decision. But hey, I was stressed, and my friends were very persuasive.....

But anyway! Time for a quick summary of the last month! Or it would be, but I need to catch that bus back to Rennes. Hang on, will continue writing this in 15 mins.... Bear with me!

.....(frantically running for bus, babbling in French with the driver, convincing her that my ticket is valid.....)

There we go! All good - will be back in Rennes in about 2 hours. Currently on the French equivalent of the National Express, so of course it will be stopping at every single house on the way there. So I'll have time to finish this, with plenty to spare!

The next post describes the awesome experience that was Halloween, and the discovery of my new favourite bar. The third post documents what happened in between the other 2 posts - most notably my trip to Amsterdam!

But for now, remember this. If you're in a shit phase, don't worry too much about it. Think about what's getting you down and try to just sort it out! I got a new computer because my old one would not survive without a charger (and even when the charger was inserted it took some convincing for the PC to actually charge!), I visited my friends at the UK, had a quick break from Rennes, and reminded myself why I'm there. I'm definitely changing as a person, becoming more confident. All Warwick has done for my confidence was to bury it, and maybe a third consecutive year there would have put the nail on the coffin. But I feel better here, like I have developed more as a person through the challenge of living abroad. Maybe that in itself is worth it.

So without further ado, enjoy the next two posts! And remember, don't let the shit phase get you down!

Rant just beginning

Ollie

You can't test personality

DISCLAIMER: This particular post is going to turn into a rant, containing strong language. If you find strong language offensive, then kindly fuck off.


Hello guys! Ollie here! You've missed me, haven't you! No? Well I missed you. Bitch.

Anyways as always I've left it way too long before updating the blog. It's something I always want to do, believe me, but other things get in the way, like studies and KFC and beer. It's hard to fit it all in.

Okay it's 3am and I'm shattered. It's been a bit of a busy week for me because I have 3 projects due next week. THREE!!!! That's 3 presentations and 3 pieces of written work to go with it. The amount of stress we went under for marketing metrics was one thing, but knowing that on monday I'm due to present about the HR department of the Orange network in France when we haven't even had a response from the HR manager is pretty damn vexing.

However, that is the least of my concerns. You see, as the term has progressed, especially in the last few weeks, I realised something: my classes don't count for SHIT! So my motivation to work my butt off has decreased somewhat, but unfortunately for my group mates, it counts towards their free Double Degree that I won't be able to get because of Warwick's snobbery/exchange agreement with Rennes. My point is that my priorities, despite the impending doom of the unholy trinity next week, lie with getting an internship of some sort next summer to kick-start a career of some sort, which has truly been annoying me.

Of course, other things have happened in the past few weeks, but I will write another post on that topic very very soon. Stay tuned for stories about I became a local celebrity on Halloween night, the true extent of the attractiveness of Amsterdam hookers, the discovery of my new favourite bar, and how this blog has helped me survive an essay deadline.

But for now, there's something I need to get off my chest. Something that really bothered me this evening, after all my efforts this past week with my applications. By the way, I've done the 4 applications. We made the pact easier by allowing any 4 internship applications before I could shave, rather than specifically the Big Four. However, one of my applications so far is to PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and the others are to BT, AB InBev and Centrica. I shaved Tuesday night, having completed the applications, leaving a moustache for a banterous photo (below) before removing that too. Before then, I had not shaved since Halloween. That's right. Halloween.

Yeah I bailed out of the beard 10 days in, because the Saturday after my last post I was in a club. For those who don't know, I'll provide the Olford dictionary entry below:



 club (n): a) a dark, poorly maintained former workhouse where people go to get drunk and dance to repetitive music in the hope that they get laid. The music is often played on rotation, with the same chart-toppers receiving three plays per night, to which the general populace's attention span is oblivious. b) the optimal place for rape; everyone is drunk, it is tightly confined and there is never any mobile phone signal.


So yeah, I was in the club, because that is where society puts us 21 year olds. After getting free entry, saving me 14€, I sat around bored. The place was yet to fill up, but the 'music' was pumping so loudly I couldn't hear anything my friends were saying to me. I realise now this is the reason, apart from the Dutch courage that booze gives you, that people hook up so much in clubs - you can't hear what the other person is saying, so you can't judge them! However, I was not on it that night - because:

 1) The drinks were a fortune. I necked a couple of bad-tasting tequilla shots with lime that wasn't even fresh, and paid 5€ each time for the privilege. A few days later I bought 30 beers for that price in the supermarket, so ridiculous wasn't the word! The only way I was getting drunk that night was to take out a mortgage, and the banks were closed at 1am.

2) That irritating fur on my face. The copious hairs on my visage must have been having a right rave in there, but more likely it was the humidity in the air caused by the heat of a few hundred drunks and the ubiquitous sweat and exchanged saliva. Apart from the beard causing me great discomfort throughout my frankly boring time at the club, I also hated that I looked like the end result of Han Solo and Chewbacca becoming a bit too close....

So when I found out we were going out on Monday for Halloween, I REALLY did not want a repeat of the night, so I'm ashamed to say that I bailed. But there was no forfeit, so it wouldn't be a problem. But then Cam eventually noticed the lack of fur on my face, and turned the deal into what was almost a How I Met Your Mother-style slap bet. If you haven't seen HIMYM, then do it! But basically, if I shaved before submitting my fourth application he could get five free slaps to use at his own discretion, as hard as he can. So I HAD to grow it, despite the incessant itching and my looking like a hobo.

Anyway, after 15 days, I finally shaved. As you can see, my beard had become a bit thick. And what a shave it was! The feeling of satisfaction as I lathered the shaving gel, the thrill of achievement as I drew the blades across my face, the ecstasy of knowledge that I had earned this shave through hard graft as I left my mocha-stain of a moustache for a quick Movember photo (I realised I looked like a bit of a gay idol, so I thought - why not milk it!), the excitement to produce more kick-ass applications as I shaved off the excuse for a tache, and then the rush of fatigue as I realised it was 5 in the morning.

 Hello ladies......... (Don't worry, I shaved it off straight away!)

However, my joy was short-lived, because yesterday I had to complete the online assessments for PriceWaterHouse Coopers. There was a numerical assessment, which went well, a logical one (spot the patterns) which was okay, there was an assessment asking me what I would do in certain cases, which I guess was alright. But the final assessment was NOT okay. Not at all. These kinds of tests are evil, backstabbing and built to crush hopes and dreams (not that I dream of working at PwC, but experience there would open countless doors for me). BUT ANYWAY - this test is built to ruin lives and nothing else.

I am talking, of course, about the personality test.

Now this was not the first time I had faced this heartless adversary. I was defeated by the nemesis last year in my one and only non-penultimate-year internship application to HSBC, and it was presented in the same format. He appeared in a different, weaker, less harmful form on my Centrica application earlier this week, where I had to click a dot corresponding to how much I agree with each statement. At least in this form, I could be consistent, and hopefully I defeated him then. But Wormtail's been scurrying about again and ressurrected the bastard in his full form to block my way to what could have been a life-changing work placement.

What form is this, you ask? They give you three traits about how you work and make you click which of them applies the most and the least to you, hence ranking the three in order of importance. Often, all three of the traits applied to me, so my answers will look extremely inconsistent because it was kinda like choosing between your children. If comparing traits to one another didn't make it quite hard enough to be consistent, they gave me 104 of these soul-destroying tables to complete, so I wouldn't be able to remember what I said beforehand. The only thing I remembered doing consistently is putting 'I am quiet about my achievements' least (because it was comparing to things like 'I care about meeting deadlines' and 'I am good with people'). Now if this were a dignified interview, where a human would test my personality rather than a SHL system, then I would be able to justify my answers and explain that clicking 'least' meant just that, not that I don't do it at all. In this case I would explain that it's because I am a confident person who is proud of his achievements and strives for more or some shit... but NO! PwC are now gonna think I'm an arrogant dickhead, because of some dots.

I was so disheartened doing this test that I kept shouting at the computer (Itzel was with me, enjoying my rage, so I wasn't being totally schizo) complaining about how stupid this whole concept is.When you have 104 of these tables to plough through it is tough, but when your Internet connection takes forever to load each one it is HELL! My initial strategy was, of course, to lie. I didn't want to say what I really believed, that I am better at discussing abstract concepts than following the rules, because that wouldn't be what they want. But then it turned out that strategy was tough to keep going because the questions just got stupid. I had to choose between 'I like being in control of the group', 'I enjoy numerical problem-solving' and 'I am bored with routine' - this was like Sophie's Choice!

Okay I know I'm boring you with this, but I'm just warning you, because it seems we all will have to face this bastard test at some point or other. It seems no matter how good you are, no matter how hard you work at school or how much you partake in extra-curricular activities, you can't get the job unless you can read the minds of the HR department and pretend to be what they are looking for. Even Employable Ollie is struggling - and he's got the best CV I know!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003114301784

And then they say the most annoying and patronising thing ever - "There are no right and wrong answers". THERE CLEARLY ARE!!!! If you click certain dots, you're out! Game over! Those, my friends, are WRONG answers. On the other hand, if you click other dots, you could get the interview (providing, of course, the rest of the application - you know, the bit that actually is to do with your abilities and skills - is all good), and these, kids, are the RIGHT answers! So don't tell me that there's no right or wrong answers, because it could make the difference between an internship at PwC that could set up an entire career, or me stubbornly hoping that I pass the next personality test for another company, and then another company, and then another.......

Now the companies will try to justify this by saying 'we want to make sure that the candidate's personality suits the company's culture, otherwise they won't want to work there.' Firstly, you can't codify personalities! How can a computer program judge what a person is like, when people aren't even given the opportunity to explain their decisions. Personalities are complicated, fascinating things. They're not just 'yes' or 'no' answers!

And secondly, and most importantly, have a quick look at this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/16/young-jobseekers-work-pay-unemployment?fb_action_ids=10150377263619220%2C10150392635104765%2C1088037656394%2C2239042295870%2C2239034775682&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_ref=U-ynNKdGFcJHdn4uU4IsQkPz-CFCONX01FRS-33dy8XXX%2CU-Gv0LPwvMIjoV4dA8Ik0GwN-CFCONX01FRS-33dy8XXX%2CU-3tc_FkTxEkTl4ri6Jdag77-CFCONX01FRS-33d84XXX%2CU-KnENn4JJqd1g4oQOI7ootl-CFCONX01FRS-33e2mXXX%2CU-SFOGA0ClxOOg4OofIGE0Co-CFCONX01FRS-2fdkfXXX&fb_source=other_multiline

Graduate jobs are so competitive and hard to get these days, that young people are working for free! When slavery is the alternative, do you think I give a fuck whether or not companies prefer to work with data or talk about abstract concepts?! If someone is good enough for the job, then just give it to them dammit!  Just because a computer program states that I can't fit in with a company's culture now doesn't mean that I can't adapt to it when I work there! I'm applying to you aren't I? I spent 4-5 hours filling in an application and another 3 hours doing those tests! I don't think when there are over 70 graduates competing for each job, that they care about the company not suiting their need for a competitive environment!!!

So thank you, personality test - you've pissed me off and made me overly pessimistic. Now I'm waiting for my rejection email from PwC, because my answers were inconsistent and I doubt they'll want an emo arrogant dude.  Moral of the story, kids - don't waste your time with education. Fuck staying in every night at school to get the best grades you can get. Go out, have fun, and focus on something you enjoy. Maybe I could have actually been good at the guitar, or a novelist or something, rather than studying at business school, because it doesn't seem to matter how clever you are, or how much work experience you have, or how much money you've raised for Teenage Cancer Trust.

All that matters is that you tick the right dots.

Rant OVER!
Ollie

P.S. Don't forget, the next post will resume the normal report on the year abroad and is coming very soon, pessimism and internship free! It's out of my system now. Don't worry :)