Toute les monde Cesev - A tale of courage, discipline and strength

In the famous words of one of my supervisors a certain Monsieur Jean-Jaques Royer  “Cesev is an elite class, once you are in you will be respected and held in high regard, however to get in you have to work for it”. True to those words the last 15 months or so have been the most stressful, tiring, nerve wrecking, sleep deprived, joyful and wonderfully bizarre moments of my life. It was a rollercoaster that had its share of thrills, spills and “I’m gona puke” moments. They were physically and emotionally taxing but yet beautiful moments that can never be taken from me and that I will cherish forever. 

Obviously I would not have had any fun if it was not for my 14 classmates (refer to photograph), I can hear the little voice in my head going “That bunch of misfits”, a true example of the term “United Nations”, with two Colombians, two Senegalese, one Gabonese, a Malian, one Guinean (Conakry), one Mexican, Two Kazakhs, one Indonesian, a new Caledonian and one Frenchman thrown in for good measure. I feel as though I have forgotten something, hmmm, yes, two Namibians. Even though it was challenging raise my work to the high standards set for us by Absai Vatuva, Paulina Pokolo and Rudolf kushokosha, I can honestly say that I had fun and if I could I would register this year and do it again.

(L-R) Audrey, Aime, Pablo, Fansisco, Oumar, Moumar, Bamara, Sebastien, Guy, Helena, Diana. Kneeling; Annas, Adil, Prof Philiphe Marion, Zhuldyz, Filemon.

 

Before I came to Cesev I thought long and hard and I realised that It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn skills that would prepare me for the job market, a chance to use my passport, and another chance to”chop Oshimwenyo” in Europe. Sure I was nervous at having to learn French but oui, bonjour and sacrebleu! Are not that hard to learn, one can never achieve anything in life while constantly giving in to fear and selling themselves short by letting opportunities go by because the let fear hold them back.  If my friend Aron could survive in Russia for five years then France would be like a holiday.

And now that it’s over and my mission is accomplished I can look back on good times, with new friends, crazy escapades and stories no one is going to believe no matter how many times I tell them, but I will tell them anyways. We were in class in the middle of winter; the work was piling up and the director of the Masters program who also in an expert in Mineral processing walks in to announce an exam for Mineralurgie 1. He goes on to say preparation is key, so Helena (ever the entertainer) asks “Monsieur, will this exam be easy”. Filipov looks up, rubs his moustache and goes “We are not searching for simplicity in life at this moment”, why she even bothered to ask crossed my mind a few times. Later in the spring we were on a field trip and at dinner Helena (there she goes again) is sitting next to the head of Cesev Prof Marion, so the prof gets up to pay the bill, Helena says “Monsieur, please sit down, I will pay tonight with AREVA money, Uranium money”. So the Prof sits down, at which point Helena goes “Monsieur, you do know i’m joking right?”.

My friend Sebastian (sole Frenchman) was nice enough to put his Nokia N8 to good use and spent the whole year recording all the funny moments, even the ones which we did not really want to end up on camera, all those moments are all on film, only a previleged few will get to see (too large to upload to the blog).

So as I begin the next chapter in life I am once again faced with new possibilities and potential adventures, so if thought I would suddenly become too grown up to blog you’re sadly mistaken. I would never deprive my readers of their weekly fix. I actually enjoy this as much as you guys enjoy reading it (I’m just assuming that you guys read it out of enjoyment and not because I constantly hassle you to read it). So if you will excuse me I have some packing to do.