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Hopefully within this logo is a job opportunity

Random thoughts at the end of another work week.

Imagine the successes that would be possible if there were no technical difficulties. I shot a video using a borrowed OECD camera last Wednesday and have not yet been able to properly transfer the footage for editing on my Macbook. The main concern of course being that I am tired of lugging my damn laptop to and from the office on the outside chance I might finally get a functioning .mpg or.mov file to work with.

So far myself and a co-worker have gone through the following steps:

  • Try using the direct firewire dv out from the camera we used directly connected to my Macbook. (nope)
  • Try using the firewire dv out to a PC (no dice)
  • Try routing the camera via HDMI through a TV and then recording to another camera (produced .avi)
  • Taking in the .avi but having to transfer from PC network to a USB hard drive and then to my laptop because there are no firewire ports on OECD office computers and then having to convert the file to a .mov which took two hours. (efficiency fail)
  • Of course when I got home the .avi had constant audio dropouts. (usability fail)
  • Try looking at the .avi file originally left on network, hoping the error was on my end, but instead find it also has drop-outs and the original conversion was bad. (major fail)
  • Co-worker who did HDMI routing transfer tries again, has same problem, but says the tape itself played back on the camera has no issues. (baffling fail)
  • It is now 10 days later and my co-worker is taking the camera to a transfer specialist, even video editing in France requires a middleman and some bureaucratic red tape. (French fail)

I also brought up logistical points to my boss this week regarding the idea that I cannot afford to live in France once my ‘stagiaire’ contract runs out in December making only 47€/mo after rent. He had to go out of the office for most of the week but said we will discuss soon and that he would like to keep me.

We shall see how that goes over, the reviews of my work are good, but the HR department also just threw out my French intern equivalent at the end of her first week, for not having her papers in proper order and has been told there isn’t room in the budget for a real employee. A perilous position, no doubt, but worth a shot, since I am really liking the job and beginning to get settled, but more importantly the loan collectors are demanding payments to start November 15. Happy birthday Stefan, from your friends at Citibank!

I also learned that the guy at the laundromat will in fact turn out the lights on you if you are there past 830 in the evening waiting on the dryer to finish. I had to finish drying my drawers on the heater… again.

The city is pretty though, and I think against my best efforts to shove my English-only iPod into my ears at all opportunities, I am picking up the language a bit more as time passes. Today in a meeting I was not the person who asked the same question in English moments after it had already been posed in French. Score! Plus, having finally made a French friend, I now have someone to practice speaking with and not fear getting a negative review at work. I have also been told the French are both not as difficult as I think, yet simultaneously more difficult than I think – notably when involving the trains. Luckily, I have avoided this particular pitfall. My interactions with RATP  to get my metro pass was actually the easiest transaction I have had in Paris.

Lots of balls in the air moving forward. The magazine hits deadline again next Friday, my least favorite day of the year is a week from tomorrow, and my first intercontinental visitor arrives in less than three weeks. Whoo-wee, and I still have to book my flight back to Cali for Christmas. Maybe by then I will have the Internet and won’t have to write these posts at the office.

~TGIF.

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