ESC: Work hard, play hard

 “The word invasion itself is a good example of this.

A French ironmaster says: "We must protect ourselves from the invasion of English iron!" An English landlord cries: "We must repel the invasion of French wheat!" And they urge the erection of barriers between the two nations. Barriers result in isolation; isolation gives rise to hatred; hatred, to war; war, to invasion. "What difference does it make?" say the two sophists. "Is it not better to risk the possibility of invasion than to accept the certainty of invasion?" And the people believe them, and the barriers remain standing.”

Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms

Pizza Party

We had a little get together at the church. Emre got us pizzas from Dominos. (Noe on the left, Thibaud on the right).

Skull

After eating pizza, we played my new copy of Skull. As it turns out, I'm not very good at this game. Thibaud won three times in a row... (From left to right: Emre, Marrau, Soeur Raheri, Souer Spigarelli, Noe)

Hot Pot

This is the favorite meal of all the Chinese students. It's tofu, soybean paper, and meat. I chose to add a zucchini and Xining chose lamb for the meat. This was the first time having tofu, as far as I can remember. 

Lunch with Xining

Badminton with Xining and his friend

Loup-gare (Warewolf)

We played some party games at the church one night. I actually won twice which kind of surprised me, especially considering my losses in Skull. It helped that Thibaud was leading instead of playing.

Study Party

(Almost) everyone in the house was in the living room studying, although some appear to be doing other things.

Unhappy traffic light

All the traffic lights in Clermont are waist high for the first car in the lane to be able to see them. City officials did not take into account the opportunity that such a design presents to draw faces on every traffic light in the city. A simple cage over the front would have been a good solution.

Strike Parade

Strike Parade Up Close

Strikes are in full force this spring. Don't travel on Thursdays.

Max finding his quiet place

Église Saint-Pierre-des-Minimes

This church in Place Jaude is wrapping up renovations. Xining and I decided to take a look inside.

Blaise Pascal

To my surprise, I found a tribute to Pascal who was born right here in Clermont! I did not know the man, but I knew his measurement. 

I apologize for not posting in a while. These last couple weeks have been very busy with school and I figure no one wants to read about final projects and exams... That being said, my cross-cultural management class has forced me to reflect on many of my cultural interactions from the past. Understanding culture is probably not that important for someone who only interacts with like-minded people, but it is important to developing the human family. Everyone is so different that it's easy to judge and act in prejudice, but cultural understanding opens the doors of friendship.