Category: Job

A big fish

I had an interview for one good near-research, administrative position last Wednesday. The very fact that they noticed my CV and INVITED me for the 1st interview is significant. The salary is 30-35k euros per year, and the person should work really hard, and start straight away (adieu, summer!), making sometimes difficult decisions.

However, they chose another person. Disappointed as I got the decision, I should be perhaps rather happy that it wasn’t me who was chosen ’cause I’m really not sure that such a kind of administrative highly responsible and emotionally hard slavery has any monetary equivalent, and I am not sure that I would be able to endure all the challenges of the job.

At the same time, we had a really wonderful conceptual conversation with the employer. Wish him every success in his missions!

 

Tired

4 apartments per week to clean, it’s too much for me. I’m tired. It’s a hard physical work that should be paid double. Instead, the intellectual work has a priority to be paid five times more. I don’t have enough time and energy for me and my private needs such as doing nothing, dreaming, walking, being bored, writing… Right now I’ve come back home completely exhausted after 3 hours of cleaning and 2 hours in transport.

A lazy mathematician

I made an nice acquaintance this Saturday. It’s a guy from Algeria. He looks completely like a French, at least not like a Muslim. His slight accent, though, betrays his foreign origin. He’s a painter but he cannot make money as an artist so he, mathematician, works at the same time at a famous French gas company. He loves blue colors and all the time makes jokes about his ‘manias’ and about everything around reacting vividly to any comment or phrase of mine. His and our manias concern everything in our everyday life; I think the way we organize space we inhabit is marked to a great extant by our phobias and manias.
I came to his perfectly clean flat in a close South Parisian suburb, and my mission was to clean it even better. “Don’t you regret of coming here?” he asked. “Of course not. I’ll always find what to do even when there’s nothing to do”. He explained meanwhile his philosophy of the “fainéant”, of a lazy man: “I hate doing a lot of job, so I prefer to do it gradually, in small portions. For example, it’s better to wash a cup of coffee right away, as soon as I finish my coffee. I never leave an unwashed dish for the next day, I can’t sleep if I know there’s something not done. I wash it, only then I go to bed and my mind is zen. I iron all of my chemises in advance because in the morning I only have 30 seconds to put one on.”
When I came he first made me coffee, natural, strong, tasty, not in a capsule coffee machine, offered some chocolate fait maison. As it took some time I wondered, “Am I going to work today at all?”
His womanish manners (is he gay?), his laughter, his jokes… I had an impression to have met a very educated person, generous, attentive, with his mind open… So this visit was not really cleaning someone’s apartment but like a good friends’ meeting.
I also learnt something important: amour, love in French, is in singular a masculine noun, but mes amours (plural) becomes feminine…

Ancient Greeks on a visit

Wow, gods, I appreciate your sense of humour! Are you kidding me??)) How come that Penelope calls me as Ariadne has recommended me to her? Ariadne, Ariane, the Cretan princess and – a comic actress. What a ridiculous, divine comedy: a comic actress who’s name is Ariadne and who lives in Montreuil passes a word about me (a house-lady, a servant) to her friend Penelope living in Montreuil too!

I live in a Greek mythic and comic world. Thank you so much, this made my day!

Eternal return

On my favorite French site, leboncoin, I post the same announcements. And – what can I expect? – all the same people are responding! The freak who lives in the 18th arrondissement, the one who wishes that a serious lady cleaned his 2 rooms flat while he’s naked, wrote me again. A Macedonian father of twins wrote me again as I propose “creative babysitting”! The eternal return, greetings to Nietzsche!

Hi, I’m back

Hi, I’m back to Paris from my Ukrainian winter holidays. There’s no winter this year in Kyiv and elsewhere: seems like Ukraine has become Europe, as there’s no snow in Europe too.

I’m back to my search for a better – financially – life. Got an annual stay permission allowing to look for a job during one year and to start working full-time but according to my education, or to create an enterprise (be self-employed). Got some ideas, but too lazy to start working on them… I also have to prepare my post-doc thesis for publication, but I’m not capable yet to return to the text. If they say I’ll not obtain my diploma if I don’t make the necessary corrections, there’ll be a good stimulus.

Meanwhile, I continue cleaning houses 🙂 I wish I had more work to do. Absence of work is demoralizing.

End of Studies

One week ago I defended my diploma. My studies are thus officially over. The defense procedure took place at Sorbonne, just in the middle of severe strike with heavy public transport disruptions. The procedure was hard, unfriendly, kind of a Kafkian process. The people engaged were rather from two different planets. One can merely imagine  h o w   d i f f i c u l t  life and studies can be for an ultimate foreigner in Paris.

I still haven’t any job. I’ve got only 35 euros earned yesterday cleaning a house of an Azerbaïdjan family in Enghien-les-Bains, 15 minutes from Gare du Nord.

The good news is that my diploma is ready in several months and that I’ll be in a regular situation in a few days as I managed to visit Prefecture de Police these days. There’s also a chance to visit Kyiv and see my beloved.

Страйк в Парижі

як Парі переживає страйк

восьмий день хаосу. багато ліній метро не ходять, але мені пощастило і моя, сьома, ходе вранці та ввечері, єдине шо тіки один потяг, а не три, на 10 хвилин

6.45. метро Кріме. влізти в метро в напрямку центру вже неможливо – тіснувато… доїжджаю до кінцевої і там разом із натовпом заробітчан штурмую порожній потяг, що їде в центр і далі на південь і який вмить заповнюється так, шо ледь дихаєш. затискає мене між двома українцями (у вагоні їх було ще кілька), арабом, індусом і африканцем якого мені не видно. просуваємося від станції до станції ледь-ледь. піт починає струмити по спині, животу, ногам. араб із гарними мигдалевидними очима їхав чемно, тихо, старавсь не страждати. індусу було важко і він закривав час від часу очі. африканець очевидно був в екстазі від проісходящєго і теревенив без упину і голосно, єдиний на весь вагон

– рот не закривається, – приречено констатує один з укрів

мені хочеться реготати
піт тече. шапку не зняти, куртку не розстібнути

на одній зі станцій жіночка прагне залізти. як і всі, конєшна. очевидно, на роботу тік вона поспішає, командує наступним чином:

– ей ви там, всередині, трохи посуньтесь, нам же ж теж треба їхать

ми, що всередині, озираємось навколо, посміхаємось гірко. вільних місць нема. нема де й плюнуть. жіночка психанула й пішла геть від потяга, мабуть, рішила пішки

– обідилась на нас, – коментує укр. – плюнула й пішла

я хіхікаю. досі хочеться реготати, але тре обережно, шоб без істерики. я просто рада, шо я тут і шо в мене є шанси потрапити на інший кінець міста у справах, які неможливо вже відкладать

о 8.00 ми, нарешті, на Шатлє. за той самий час, думаю, я би пішки вже туди добігла…