France, Physics & the Sun
"It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing." Ernest Hemingway in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
At the start of this week I needed to acquire myself home insurance for my apartment, but I could not get it done because the insurance company insisted on taking money from a French bank account and I do not have one. Now this is where it gets real funny : for me to get a French bank account, I need a French phone number. I received my SIM-card in the middle of this week, but I just needed to point out how ridiculous it is that I could not get anything done without it.
This Saturday I had my first session of "supervised exercises" as they are called here. It was four hours long and during that time I went through four different subjects : engineering science, physics, chemistry and mathematics. The evening before, after a little studying I found myself on YouTube clicking from one video to another. After a few brainless videos I landed on "The Mystery at the Bottom of Physics" by exurb1a. It is an incredibly thorough and witty explanation of the situation we are in within physics realm. Needless to say, after a few minutes I was left completely speechless, and went to sleep.
About the Summer literature that I read : it was clearly stated when enrolling into HEI that all three books have to be read for the first day of school. The first thing the teacher said was something along the lines of : "If you did start reading the books this Summer good for you, if not you should start soon because there is going to be a test on it in a month and a half." Just for reference, the last two weeks of the Summer holidays I read 839 pages. Even though I am a little bitter about the deadline changing I have to say that I am better off like that. Otherwise I would have started reading even later on and managing simultaneously lessons and about 1200 pages to read would have been difficult.
This week's suggestion is more entertainment based, it is Ernest Hemingway's Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises. I found this book by browsing around in the famous Furet du Nord and it peaked my interests since I have always found the Roaring Twenties romantic and fascinating. Another reason for choosing this book was that I already really enjoyed Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, thus I did not doubt in his style.
I hope you enjoyed this week's Sunshine!