Warm guy

Élodie Jaubert

Élodie is my Doudou. The Love of my Life for over 3 years (03/20/2002). She's my better half, my companion, my sweet little heart, my baby… Alright, enough with the pile of sweet names.

We met around January 2002, through a common friend named Sarah (whom I hereby officially thank, there, it's done!). On the night of February 7th, we spent our first evening together, which ended with two hours in the very cosy Bar Hemingway, the main bar at the Ritz Paris hotel, on place Vendôme. We were then to spend most of the following evenings together, which we used to cruise on bâteaux-mouches, go back to the Bar Hemingway…

On the 20th, we officially kickstarted our relationship.

Fresh out of a Bachelor of Arts in History, Élodie now studies at IESA in the “Heritage and Art Events Management” department. Her past is filled with diversity, from Scouts to numerous historical monuments restoration gigs (sometimes as a manager), to nautical competitions, to a Teaching Assistant position with Jean Tulard (undoubtedly one of the most respected Napoleon specialists worldwide) at La Sorbonne. And this is just some of it.

Well-read and well-traveled, elegant, smiling, mischevious, Élodie has a lot on her side. Not only that, but she's very much in love with me, which I think is quite the perk!

Élodie and I have been living together since August 14, 2004, and moved in our current apartment (570 sq.ft. downtown Paris) on March 12, 2005. The first place we chose as a couple.

Tasneem Ahmed

Tasneem and I share a most peculiar friendship.

We met on December 1997, in Cape Town (South Africa). I was there for a week, as a member of the French team for the International Olympiads of Informatics (IOI).

Tasneem, who despite being freshly 17 looked 20 (it helps to be of Indian descent), a high-school student on holidays, was the group leader supervising the guides for all Western European countries.

Let's just say what happened to us was pretty close to lightning striking. I almost burned my return ticket. Since then, time and distance gnawed at this and turned it into a very fond friendship, as we try and maintain a good communication through (some) snail mail, (and more) e-mail and phone. And every chance I get, I fly back there to spend some time with her, her friends and family.

I went back in July 1998, but a last-minute unavoidable change of plans prevented us from spending much time together (barely 5 hours on 13 days!), so I made the best of it by visiting friends from my first journey there. In June/July 2002, I went back for two weeks, and this time around it was great. I spent almost 100% of my stay with Taz, her sister Nasreen, their parents (homemade Indian food just tastes fabulous, but I found myself bringing home 11 extra pounds), their friends… Great vacation, man!

Next time, I bring Élodie along (which will be her farthest journey to this day!). The two of them are a bit anxious to meet each other.

Tasneem is now (November 2005) in her very final weeks as a student medical doctor in the prestigious University of Cape Town, and will start her next three years as an intern next January.

Erin Odenweller

Erin and I could have been nothing more than former colleagues, and even then, more acquaintances than actual co-workers.

When I worked at Borland (Scotts Valley, CA, USA) in 1998–99, Erin was a brilliant element in the C++PSO division, while I worked at Delphi PSO, then with the R&D: we worked about 60 feet from each other, and that's accounting for corridor constraints.

When I came back from the US, I found myself regretting not to have spent more time with Erin, whom I had really “discovered” on the very last days of my internship, and who had seem a very interesting person then. Fast forward to April 2002: I'm rooting around my hard disks to find a random JPEG image so I can test an image upload form I just finished, and I find myself staring at Erin.

It takes a few seconds for realization to dawn upon me. When it finally kicks in, I decide to try and track her down. The family name makes it easy to home in on her through the internet, and indeed I quickly get on her personal website. I send and e-mail, and three days later, I get a delighted reply.

During the next two months, Erin and I finally got to know each other much better, if those 180 mostly lengthy e-mails we swapped are any indication. Among those, two large ones (with subjects “A crying shame!” and “I need a larger rib cage”) aren't about to vanish from my memory.

Erin came over for a few days in Paris in April 2004, which was a great opportunity to get Élodie and her together (which proved, if needed be, that Élodie's spoken English had been steadily improving), and to be her personal tour guide through the City of Lights. A chance to spend some time together as well, after hundreds of e-mails.

For Erin is one of a kind: she holds a B.Sc. with a double major in molecular biology and computer science (if I remember correctly), manages tests automation at cutting-edge network- and/or storage-related companies, races sailboats pro-am, is a Morris dancer, a gifted costume-maker, a definitive geek, an occasional model for professional photographers, a well-known figure in some BDSM circles, a Synthpop fan… A character of fascinating diversity.

Anyway, when Élodie and I get around to flying to California, we kinda know where to crash.

Thomas Chédeville

Thomas, formerly nicknamed Cochise, was my best friend for many years. We met in September 1995, while he was attending catch-up classes at EPITA, and I was just hanging out in the computer labs, hacking away and waiting for the first regular class day to come up.

We were prom comrades for 3 years (instead of 5, since Thomas switched college after his senior year). This brought us pretty close, and I have been privileged to watch his relationship with his wife-to-be mature and grow, until their current situation: Sophie and him are now married with two kids: Gabriel and Lisa. I actually have the honor of being Gabriel's godfather, a position I miserably fail at since they now live in the countryside and we barely manage to keep in touch.

Thomas has a very big heart, is very honest and true, a loyal friend, a generous, funny guy. Barely six weeks younger than I, he sometimes makes me feel way too old when I ponder the relative lead he has on me: being a husband, father and a home owner, he looks like his life is pretty settled; while I'm not married yet, nor a father, and still paying a rent. This is all highly debatable, but when I'm in a gloomy mindset, I really feel like I should get up and start catching up.

Family

I'm very fond of my family, at least the close members of it: mom and dad, my twin brother, my sisters and my grandparents.

With the exception of my father, who still lives in High Normandy, the remainder of those now live in Southeastern France (still, my father also will move in this region by the summer of 2006). The good thing about this clustering is that when I take a few days off to visit them, I make a tour of it: sisters, mom, granny, nephews and nieces!

Around Sisteron, you'll find my mom Claude and my granny Andrée (her mom).

Going down towards Aix-en-Provence, we find my sisters: the older one, Christine, 11 years ahead of me, elementary school teacher, with her husband Georges and my niece Kelenn; her sons Rémi and Martin live a bit farther away, with their father Patrice (who happens to have offered me my first compiler…)

Farther along in Marignane lives my younger sister Claire, 9 years ahead of me, bookseller, with her son Jord.

In Toulon (when not at sea or on duty overseas) lives my twin brother François, high-class chef in the navy, who's just 20 minutes older than yours truly. Since the summer of 2005, he's on post in the island of La Réunion (Indian Ocean), as the personal chef of the regional commander, and it's going to last for three years. So I guess I just won't drop by for a while.

Now that everybody is more or less in the same area, the family gathers much more often than in past times. When I get over there for Christmas, I find many faces around the table again. And this, pal, is just priceless.

“My” students

At the risk of shattering rules of deontology that I find too rigid, which may be relevant in other campuses, I sometimes turn students into good friends. It is actually made easier by the very nature of what I teach, and of the IT college in general: technical topics produce assignments that are often gradable through automation, thereby killing claims of favor. While a fair dozen of names comes to mind, I'll just point out a few ones.

Amir Jaballah (blog), who's about to get his Masters as I write this, has become a good friend of Élodie and I, and we often get together, especially now that he's settled in Paris with his bride-to-be,Aurore.

We also see, outside of INSIA, Al and Anne-Julie (whom we keep hoping we'll trick into attending a Cranium party!).

Finally, this shortlist would not be complete if I failed to mention Gaëlle Langlois, who was a student of mine for just a year, but became very dear to me since.