Formation Civique Experience

Last month I was at the L'OFII Convocation and they booked my "Formation Civique" or the French Civics Training. After getting my date and location, I made a little note in my Outlook calendar to remind me of my appointment with the location being "20eme arr." and then forgot about it. So at 7pm, the night before my training, i'm on the RER on the way home and i see the reminder on my phone. The first thing that came to my mind was, "crap, i have so much work to do tomorrow!" and then continued my merry way home. By the time i got home, opened the outlook appointment and saw that i didn't write down the address, I realized all my paperwork from l'offi was at work....i had no idea what i needed to bring with me nor where the place is. I tried googling for the information, but nowhere on the websites gave me anything. No address, no what you need to bring, nothing. This meant that I had to travel an hour into the office at 7am past the west end of paris, grab the stuff, and travel to the very very eastern tip of paris. I was miserable. Later, after some investigating, I found out that these types of training are ran in various community centres that are available for booking and not in any set locations so nothing is online.

After I got the stack of paperwork I was running behind on time. I didn't get on the train until almost 8:30am and I saw on the appointment papers that I just needed to bring  a piece of ID and that was it and that I was supposed to arrive at 8:45am. There was no way I would have made it on time and I was a bit concerned that they were not going to let me in on the training and reschedule it for another day despite my efforts of waking at 6am to do this. Nevertheless, when I got there at this community centre at 9:15, the class was nowhere near to getting started, she hasn't taken the attendance nor could she even get the projector started (no power or something). It was a rather informal classroom where you have a trainer at the front with a projector and a laptop running Windows XP. Every time the slide changed, you'd be watching it in slow motion. We got started at around 9:30am: she passed out three pieces of paper for us to sign our name next to the attendance sheet while she came around to collect our appointment form and our ID.

The lessons began with the history of french, starting from the roman period that goes all the way to present and then there was french values and french laws, etc. Although the slides were in bullet points, the woman loved to talk. She did not skimp on any point at all and went deep into every bullet point. It didn't help that the smart alec next to me who thought he didnt need to be there kept interrupting the class with stupid comments or show-offy questions. The training was supposed to have ended at 5pm but because she loved talking, there were stupid interruptions, and we had really really really long breaks, the training went 30 minutes past the mark. We had a break at around 10:30am, and coffee, tea, and water were brought into the room. The break was almost 30 minutes. Lunch was even worse. She gave us 1h30m but she didn't start the class again until 1:45pm and then the same thing happened at 3:30pm when she gave us a break that lasted until almost 4pm (at this point she still had more than 20 slides left). The lady was so slow that i felt like having to sit through her class is the real training, not her content. By 4:45pm, when she realized how late she was, she would click on her computer really fast, so all the bullet points for each slide would appear all at once, which made it seem like she was trying to hurry, but then she would still go through each bullet point for 10 minutes, so her fast clicking really saved us 1 second for each slide.

Since everything was in French, I had a bit of trouble keeping my focus and i literally realized what being bored to tears was. By 3pm, both my phones completely died and i kept yawning and tearing and the girl next to me thought i was crying. Lunch made me realize that if anyone ever had to depend on the government for providing meals, this would be the type of food one would be eating. A tiny portion of food that is ethnic and meant for you to be healthy, but they'll stuff you with starch. It was some sort of tiny portion of curry chicken with a bit of carrot on the side. We were filed into a cafeteria and these boxes were waiting for us. The food didnt taste bad, but there were so much rice and very little chicken. I ate the little chicken that was in there in 2 minutes, grabbed the apple, and went wandering around the area looking for more food to eat. On my tray I still had a heap load of rice left, carrots I ended up having another meal at an Asian Traiteur (fast food). By the time I came back at 1:15, the class room was still locked and the trainer was still having her lunch (she didnt stay in the caf to eat the crappy food).

At the end of the day, while she was handing out the certificates, I found out that they had this course translated in six different languages and I don't know why I had the French version - although i don't remember them asking me what language i wanted, i wouldn't be surprised that it was probably me being stupid and picked the french version because i thought that it would be good to immerse myself with the language.

At any rate, the course was done and I got my last of the four certificate. Hopefully I'll remind myself in time to renew my Visa for next year.

"Foodie" Rant

I think I will start out this entry, before I even put down any content, by apologizing. Generally when I begin a blog post, I don't actually plan out what I'm going to write. I have very specific stories I want to tell, but I never know how i'm going to tell it and i just write. It's the same for this post, but i'm still going to apologize, because I have a feeling whatever that comes out hereafter may sound haughty. So I apologize if I sound like a snob or have offended you.

The other night, while we were sitting at Figlmuller, a famous schnitzel restaurant in Vienna, I started to talk about the type of food I want to try in Vienna. Out of the left field, Caleb asked me why I hated the word "foodie."  I have mentioned to him here and there about how I don't want to be called a foodie when the word is being used on me, but latest event in which the word came up was not that long ago. About a week before we headed to Vienna, he and I were at a casual Yelp event in Paris. I met this pretty cool girl from California and we started chatting about living in Paris. And then we started to talk about restaurants and food in Paris, and she told me about the various places she likes. That got me pretty excited, which prompted her to ask me, "are you a foodie too?" I played it off casually and joked, "I don't like to use the word foodie, but I do like eating a little too much." Somehow she caught on to that, and consciously avoided using the word throughout the conversation.

"Why do you hate that word?" Caleb asked me, "You are clearly a definitive foodie."
I cringed. Hard. And then I gave him the two definitions of foodie for me and how I fall into neither of the categories. Now, there are many various definitions that are out there if you google the definition of the word foodie, but the following are the two that i subscribe to. The first being what I called the denotation of foodie (the definitive meaning of the word), the second being what I call the connotation of foodie (what the word means to the mass public).

Definition one and how I dispel my association:
The first definition is its original definition, as stated in Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodie),

"The word was coined in 1981 by Paul Levy and Ann Barr, who used it in the title of their 1984 book The Official Foodie Handbook. [...] Foodies are a distinct hobbyist group. Typical foodie interests and activities include the food industry, wineries and wine tasting, breweries and beer sampling, food science, following restaurant openings and closings and occasionally re-openings, food distribution, food fads, health and nutrition, cooking classes, culinary tourism, and restaurant management."

According to this definition, a true foodie is someone who enjoys food a lot so they study it, they learn to cook it, and they try restaurant that make good food. They try to figure out all science that surround food. That's not me at all. Yes I like cooking and yes I do sometimes read about food, restaurants, and cooking, and I like trying new things. I even  fall asleep reading menus because I like planning what I want to eat the next day or next time I'm craving a certain type of food. But I am not a connoisseur at anything, not even coffee, a topic in which I am quite interested. But I don't study anything like it's science and there's no bible for me on what good food is. I would never turn my nose up at something or tell someone they're doing something wrong when it comes to food, e.g., "oh, you should only drink your coffee black" or "you shouldn't eat at this restaurant because the chef uses Vietnamese basil instead of Italian basil."

For me, eating is personal. 

It's what I like and why and it's what you like and why. My opinion of a restaurant does not supersede another person's opinion of the same restaurant. I don't keep a food blog and I've never been to a culinary class (although i'd like to one day). I like flavour and I like spice. IMO, anything with a dash of garlic tastes better - in fact, the more the garlic and chili the happier I am (a big faux-pas in culinary etiquette). I don't really like lobster not because it's a poor man's dish but because i find it rubbery and I like yam leaves not because it's considered a poor man's dish and I need to be different, but because i like the flavour. If I don't like something, it's because it doesn't suit my personal palate, if i like something, it's because it does suit my personal palate. I will never like or dislike something because everyone else likes it or dislike it. I'm not too cool for popular dishes, nor am I going to like something because it's the current fad. In fact, most of the time, eating at a Fine Dining restaurant is like playing piano to a cow (a Chinese expression): I simply don't get it. I have no nose for refined flavour or subtle nuance of tastes. Most of the fine dining restaurants I've been to don't compare to anything from the street  (which I LOVE). In fact, I have an unhealthy obsession with street food, but that's probably not something that I'm going to get into today. So by this definition, I am not a foodie. I dont not analyze my food and try to figure out the science behind a great restaurant or a great dish and I do not go around telling people what I think about food unless the topic comes up naturally and it's a part of being in the conversation.

Definition 2 and how I dispel my association
This brings me to the second definition I provided for Caleb, the connotation of the word foodie, as verified in Merriam-Webster: "a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads." 

The thing is, I've met quite a number of people who call themselves "a self-proclaimed foodie." They posts pictures of food, calls trying new restaurants "food adventures", are always looking forward to trying out the latest restaurant in the scene, follow celebrity chefs because it's the untapped niche of cool, and/or posting every dish they cook or eaten at that new hip restaurant on Facebook into a "Food Album" just to show people how much they love food because that's the cool thing to love nowadays.

Look, the reality is, I do like food a lot and I spend a large amount of time reading about food and where to eat them (who doesn't like eating?!). I like cooking. I like trying new food, especially in different parts of the world, and I do want to try that restaurant everyone is raving about. But I don't do any of the things above because I want to be cool but because I derive pleasure from eating food I like and I want to know what in this world gives me pleasure so I can keep obtaining it. It's really quite simple. So, no. By this definition, I am also not a foodie. I do not have "Food adventures" - I don't like raw food, and I won't try things that I think are weird or disgusting. I like intestines, but I won't try deep fried insects. I'm only starting to know some celebrity chefs only because people around me talk about it, and I do not have a food album on facebook, or do i get food-gasms, whatever that means.

My disposition with and on Yelp
A lot of people know now that I am an avid Yelper, a site that allows you to review businesses, especially restaurants) although I don't really like to advertise that fact, which begs the question, "You claim that your opinion on a restaurant is not better than another person's, and you claim that you don't have food albums, but then why do you write so many reviews and posts so many picture for your reviews? Do you not advertise it because you'll sound like a hypocrite?" The short answer to the latter question is no, but I cannot expound on it without answering the first.

Here are the reasons why I like writing Yelp reviews:

• It's like a journal - I document all the places I've been to and all the food I've eaten, what I like and what I don't like, and I can often go back into it and remind myself of the day I ate at a specific restaurant in a specific city.
• I like writing and I like expressing myself. I don't think my opinions really matter, and I don't think anyone actually cares or should care about what I think, but I like doing it, and Yelp is the perfect medium.

My absolute favourite thing about Yelp is the sheer fact that each restaurant's rating is aggregated. On Yelp, my personal opinion matters and it doesn't matter.  I do not have to rate a restaurant 5 stars because they've done everything right and I think people will love it, even if I don't and vice versa. I can rate the restaurant on my personal preference and I can explain why. Yelp will take my opinion, mixes it up with everyone else's and form an average score. There can be hundreds of written reviews for a single restaurant and no one has to read mine. And if someone does read a review of mine, and find it helpful, they can just vote it up by electing it as useful. If they really enjoy reading my reviews in general, they can read all my reviews on my personal page and then subscribe to me by following me. The truth is, I don't even write very good reviews on the site. I write them with the understanding that i'll be the only one reading them. They're generally written quite quickly, unedited and full of grammatical mistakes, documenting what I think is interesting to me, because it's my freaking journal and it will just get submerged into everyone else's. This is also why I don't like advertising about my Yelp account - because my reviews are not written for you to enjoy. Just because I gave this restaurant a five star, does not mean you should try it. I am not an expert food critic and I have no ambition to be one. You could take my layman's opinion into consideration, but you should also go read more reviews on the restaurant and not just mine to get a better idea, like what I do when I research on what I'd like to eat next.

My philosophy on eating, travelling, and writing
Labels are stupid. You know it and I know it. So the label of a foodie need not to exist to begin with, but I can't control the fact that there are labels out there. I probably at times label myself various things, because I can be stupid (who isn't sometimes, or all the time?) But the label of foodie just doesn't jive with me and what I believe in.

Yesterday, I noticed that Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations is on Netflix, so I started watching the episodes of the places I've been to. I have no prior knowledge of this guy or what the show is about, but the more I watch it, the more I am enjoying his philosophy. He travels to various cities, finds a couple of locals to take him around, and tries whatever the locals tell him to try (not always just food!). Ever since I started to travel, I have started realize that you can never really fully know a city, no matter how long you visit, because everyone's perception of that city is always going to be different. There's always the tourist view of a city, which is sadly a similar experience in every city. And if you want to get to know the city from a local's perspective, then you may get a few perspective, but there is no one local perspective. As he says in his show on Vancouver, "it's not what you know about a place, it's who you know" and who you know will define what the place is for you.

If I wasn't so lazy, I'd be writing blog entries on my travels so i can record my findings and my thoughts. But I am lazy, so my reviews of restaurants, local or international, is, in some way, serves as an attempt to capture what defines that city for me. These are the things I ate, here is what i like, here is what i dont like, here is what i learned.

To me, food is simply just food; eating is neither a science or a self-expression, it's an innate pleasure. I enjoy the context that surrounds it, including the cultural connotations, when it exists or is in my face, but I don't go looking for the cultural connotations. There's no doubt that food gives insight to a culture, and it's often a by-product for me when I want to try local food while I travel and thus i record it in my reviews. I like food, but I am not a foodie, just like I like travelling, but i am not a traveller. I also like writing, but I am not by any means a writer.  At the end of the day, I'm just another person who likes eating, writing, and seeing world to the best of my abilities. There are a ton of personal blogs out there based on eating and travelling, but i put mine on yelp with the half-hearted attempt at effacing some amount of that self-importance which comes from any form of self-expression.

Little Girl's Vanity

This was shared on my Facebook feed with a picture of Jada Pinkett-Smith and her daughter Willow Smith:

"Jada Pinkett-Smith is aware of the critics that stick up their noses at the way she raises her daughter, Willow. Willow cuts, dyes and styles her hair as she pleases, a fact that bothers many who feel girls shouldn’t have that much control over their appearance at such a young age.

Jada decided to address the criticism in a Facebook post:

“A letter to a friend…This subject is old but I have never answered it in its entirety. And even with this post it will remain incomplete. The question why I would LET Willow cut her hair. First the LET must be challenged. This is a world where women, girls are constantly reminded that they don’t belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit and her mind are HER domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It’s also a statement that claims that even little girls have the RIGHT to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother’s deepest insecurities, hopes and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be.”"

- Have a Gay Day

When I was growing up, my mom never let me do anything with my appearance because she said that I should not be so vain. Nevertheless after turning 16, I started to sneak things, like taking the bus to go dye my hair and then couldnt get back home. When I was 17, I got my cartilage pierced. By the time I was 22, I had four piercings on one ear, and one on the other. I didn't get my tattoo until I was 26. I can't tell whether or not I am what one would consider vain. I also cannot tell whether her prevention of my vanity made me less vain than I could have been. But either way, I did appreciate her for keeping my narcissism in check.

Provided that that the post is real, I think Jada Pinkett-Smith makes a valid point, but she doesn't actually address the point of whether or not she thinks it's important to keep her child's vanity in check. Perhaps when you let your child have control over everything, the child must also understand what type of responsibility comes with the control, which is often something a child is incapable of comprehending. I guess these type of things are contextual and the pull and release has to be different for every child. And in the case of Willow Smith, the understanding of vanity is likely more difficult. I mean how can you explain what vanity is to the child who is the product of  a superstar power couple and  who has made the billboards at age 9 (or however old she was)? On the other hand, maybe it's much easier for her to understand what vanity is because of that?

Don't Date a Girl Who Reads

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

-Charles Warnke 

From Thought Catalog

L'OFII Convocation Experience

Not counting my grade 8 graduation, or my high school commencement, I've had two convocations, both of which I have chosen not to attend. Looking back, I'm not sure what I had against convocations, but perhaps the idea of me parading down some aisle to obtain the paper that depicts my "achievement" of finishing courses with no one who really cares being there for me kinda kills the idea. I mean, my parents, never for once, asked me when there is a ceremony for my graduation.

At any rate, I had to attend a convocation today. But this convocation is not a graduation, but merely "a group of people gathered in answer to a summons; assembly." I was summoned by "L'Office d'Immigration et d'Integration," otherwise known as OFII, to:

• Learn about the values of the French
• Get my French skills assessed
• Get my professional skills assessed
• Obtain a medical examination 

Umm...let me restart by providing you with the pleasure of understanding the complex, yet surprisingly effective system of the French immigration system. 

Around June 2012, our HR office in France applied for a working Visa for me. The process was somewhat uncomplicated, due to the fact that it was an interoffice transfer, as opposed to a new hire. Within a month or so, my Visa was approved and I had to wait for an invitation to the French Consulate in Toronto for the process. There was a little bit of complication there, as I had no idea when the invitation was going to come, or by what method. After a couple of weeks, I received an E-mail, in my Gmail address (to this day, I'm still confused as to how they got that address) asking me to arrive in the consulate office at a specific date and time (about two weeks from the email being sent). I will not burden you with the detail of what I had to go through before and while I was there, but the visit was short and I went back again in a week to pick up my passport with the new Visa on there.

Towards the end of August, I arrived in France. I was told that upon my arrival, I needed to mail out my OFII form with a list of document to the Paris OFII office because I need to validate my Visa within 3 months of my arrival, or else my Visa will be invalidated altogether. All right, so I have until December. Thus, the first month of my arrival was filled with things like getting a bank account, finding a place to live, and figuring out the odds and ends of moving to a country in which the culture and language is completely foreign, oh, and, um *cough*, going to Stockholm for a week.

At around the one month mark after my arrival, right before I was about to go to Singapore for a week and a half, I realized I haven't taken care of the OFII form, and I really should. I start going through the form and researching on the Internet and the form literally told me that I needed to do this AS SOON AS I ARRIVE, because the French administration may take up to months to process your form. Shit. Okay, well, I still have two months, it should be okay, right? Either way, I could only hope for the best. I mail in my form with all the documents required, and then I patiently waited (in Singapore) for the invitation to come.

Two weeks later, I'm back in town - nothing. Another week goes by, nothing. At approximately the four weeks after I sent my info and I was about to head to London for two weeks, I started to look up the information because I'm worried that my invitation is going to come and I'm not even going to be here. Let me tell you this, when it comes to getting information about immigration (as I did this also when I was going to Boston), the internet is the most resourceful place, but it also provides you with the scariest information. Throughout my research, I was told that:

• You need to send the form by registered mail (even though the form doesnt specify this) - i did not.
• It can take longer than three months for OFII to organize your convocation - i'm already two months in!
• The convocation will probably happen the minute you go home for xmas - which happened to a lot of people
• If i don't have a validation on my passport, they might not let me back in Paris from london!

So I started to freak out and tried to call OFII because I read that someone had called and it made their process go faster.  After several phone calls and getting various people to help me, I was told that they did receive my mail and that they are in the middle of processing it, and sending it by registered mail is not necessary (unless you want a peace of mind). At any rate, I headed to London feeling a little bit better, and during my second week in London, I received the OFII invitation by Gmail (seriously...) for my interview to be in two weeks. HURRAH!

I got back to my apartment in Paris, and I actually also received a physical copy, which was nice. I got all my documents they asked for prepared (the list is long, including purchasing a "stamp" for €349), and arrived at the Paris office 15 minutes before my 8:30am appointment.

L'OFII Paris, 48 Rue de la Roquette

At 8:15, the office was not opened and there was a loooong line outside. The door opened a little after 8:30 and the security guard checked each's person's bag before allowing them to enter the door. The reception at the door checks each person's OFII form and students go directly up, and others gets different colour placards. As a salarié (worker), I got a little blue placard and went up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, a woman is there directing you where to go. Everyone with a placard goes to line up outside a room, while the students go to another section. At the door, there is a woman with a checklist for attendance, who also speaks to you briefly, asking if you speak French. If you do not, they give you a printed powerpoint presentation in your language (English, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, etc.), summarizing the events of the day and send you inside the room. Once everyone gathers in the room (about 15 ppl) they ask you what language you speak, and provide you with an audio guide (those things you get in the museum) for the video on French Value, they're about to play. The video is approximately 30 minutes and then a woman comes in to talk to you about the events of the day. First you will see a social worker who will assess your skills to see if you need to take all the three classes for integration:

1. French language
2. Everyday life of France
3. French Civics

The compulsory class you have to take is the French Civics class - full day, 9-5, with lunch provided. At this Civics class, you are supposed to sign an integration contract. At the meeting with the social worker, ,s/he will provide you with a date for the class. Luckily, I was exempted from having to take the first two classes. 

Once the interview is over (depending on the social advisor, it can take anywhere between 15m to an hour), she will take you to the medical area to get your medical examination. Basically almost everyone lined up outside the OFII door in the morning are waiting in this room. You are eventually called up to get your heigh, weight, and eye-sight measured, go into this closet room to take off your top and then from the other end of the room, a woman tells you to come out, takes a quick x-ray of you, and you sit back in the waiting room until a doctor picks up your x-ray to give you an medical interview.

I was literally the last person in the room to be called by the doctor, who was extremely friendly and made a couple of jokes about my lungs being as pretty as me, and asked me to be his wife...He took my blood pressure, asked me some questions on my vaccination and diseases, and passed me. He personally brought me to the reception that's processing the validation stickers, and the lady asked me for most of the documents on the list and put a silver sticker on my passport - et voila! I'm validated! I left the OFII office about quarter after 1pm - so the process (and remember I was the last one out) took about six hours.

That would be my ribcage...

• I got to keep the x-ray of my chest (they're checking for TB)
• Everyone in the office was extremely friendly (surprisingly)
• There was a raucous while I was waiting of a man who kept saying in a heavy accent "Je ne suis pas francais" and something else (drama!)

I got back into the office at around 3pm (OFII is on the East end of Paris, and my office is on the west!), in time to go to my HR, give her my documents and have a chat with her about the process, and then getting some work done. 

I really liked the experience, which surprised me. It almost feels like they actually want you to succeed in living in France and ensuring that everything will work out for you - who knew?