Third day at INRIA (june 9th, fri)
Beginning to understand more of what's going on and what I am to do. Benoit provides a very helpful scheme of how the group operates: who's
working on what, etc. I ask for this because at lunch, it sounds to me like him and Pierre are working on exactly my project, ahhh! Turns
out it's more complicated than I thought, and there're at least three separate but overlapping projects taking place. He is also interested
in my project (also: Mila said it would help her project), which is encouraging. I start writing up the algorithm that I will implement (to
disambiguate parses of botanical text). In the afternoon, I finally betray(?) that I don't know what exactly all these LFG, HPSG, CFG, TAG,
etc mean - this is a bit scary, cuz Eric keeps mentioning my "expertise in linguistics" (where he got this idea, I don't know). I am
promised a good overview book next week, nobody seems too shocked; Benoit provides a short explanation of some basic concepts.
In late afternoon, some noise and screaming in the hallways turn out to mean there's a birthday party! It's quite a picnic - everybody goes
outside (the building turns out to hold about 40 people), where an admin lady is celebrating her 37th bday: a whole table is set with cheese
and baguette and cold meats and cakes and fruit, some guy is reciting a poem he wrote for her (didn't understand much of it, but it rhymed
well), some people come with flowers. I happily get some juice and chocolate cake; our group is the last to come out and the first to go
back inside (great...). Today I'm more able to participate in social chit-chat, both at lunch and during this break.
A chat with Eric seems more clean than the previous ones, things seem to be on the right track. I have no idea how often it's OK to go ask
him questions, so with my last set of them (4th or 5th) I send an email, to which he replies quickly enough.
I am sleepy as can be, so I look up how to learn to sleep less ... looks like exercise and getting up at the same time every day are the
ways to go. The ride home is much nicer this time, less traffic I guess, and at home again I find James by the stove, cooking up a great
supper.
Our busy evening consists of laundry (just around the corner), looking for batteries (all too expensive, damn touristy district), and some
other chores. I am tired and cranky, but happy I don't have to go to INRIA tomorrow. Setting the alarm to 7am in line w/ the tip of a
regular waking time, we pass out.