Emily vs. France take 1,900,001

I had my physical for work Friday morning, it was interesting, as usual. First, I thought that it was on Thursday, but when I showed up the receptionist was like what are you doing here and then I showed her my letter and she’s like, um, yeah it was yesterday. Oops, apparently I had a moment of numeric dyslexia and mixed up the dates. We rescheduled for Friday morning, and I got hassled by security, because the guy was like weren’t you here yesterday. So, I had to explain that I’m an idiot and I came on the wrong day. So, he had to call around and confirm that I wasn’t a terrorist using medical visits as an excuse to break into the animal health company. The new lady at reception in the infirmary was a total jerk to me. First, when I came into her office to tell her I had arrived, she shooed me out and told me in a not so nice voice to go be patient in the other room.
Jerkface: Have you been vaccinated?
Emily: yes.
JF: Do you have your little card
E: no.
JF: Do you know the dates of you vaccinations?
E: no, my doctor in the US has them, though.
JF: (irritated) Well is there someone you can call?
E: I guess, but not right now, it’s 2am there.
JF: (annoyed at stupid American) Here in France we have cards. Everyone must have a card. How am I supposed to know you are vaccinated?
E: Well I have my carte de sejour and I had to be vaccinated to go to school, so that’s what I got. I’m here for three months lady, lay off.
Ok I didn’t say that last part. But I should have she was all annoyed and huffy with me. Then the doctor spoke no English, so it was a little difficult to give him my family history since I didn’t know how to say I don’t have a gallbladder and my mom has high blood pressure. But he was really nice and would be excellent in a game of medical charades. It still weirds me out that you strip down to your underwear and have to sit there without a gown. Ah well. I was pronounced fit enough to do a three month stage. Yes!
This weekend started out frustrating. The france telecom guy didn’t show up because he tried to call my cell phone and he had the wrong number. When I tried to call Friday night to reschedule, the guy basically said he didn’t know what to tell me and that I should call Saturday morning. So then I called Saturday morning and understood only enough to know that I would not be having someone else come out to my house, but I didn’t understand enough to know why. Then I went to the store to talk to someone and the girl had to explain to me literally six times what had happened before the light bulb of understanding flickered above my head. I wanted to quit around the fourth explanation because I was so frustrated, but I figured now or never or rather, I would have to go to yet another store to ask since I would be too embarrassed to return to this one. Finally, near tears, I figured out that the guy who tried to come to my house transmitted my file to another technician who was going to fix my problem from a distance sometime this week. Ah, why are things so complicated? Other than that, though, I had a good weekend. I went to the parc tete d’or which is basically awesome. It has a zoo and paddle boats and softserve icecream. It was very fun. In other news, I got asked to go out for a drink twice, once by some kid with a big fake diamond earring and the other time by two drunk guys. I turned all of them down. The first kid I felt kjnd of bad about and came to the conclusion that turning people down was not the way to make friends. The second time I really didn’t feel bad, because I had just bought a ticket to go see a movie and because it’s pretty much a terrible idea to go off by yourself with two drunk French guys or any drunk strangers for that matter. Stranger danger people, stranger danger. So the new plan, is the next time one, sober person, who seems nice approaches me, I will go to drinks with them in a well lit, public area. In hind sight, I wish I had done something other than see 88 minutes because it gave me nightmares and it wasn’t that good.