Figure: J. Spanish

J. Spanish

Most of my intimates in France are girls, but this guy is an exception.

J is one of my partners for group project. He seldom attends class. In total, he shows up less than 3 hours I guess. And the schedule of this subject lasts 4 days, 30 hours.

Principles of Purchasing is the strictest subject I have this semester. The professor, Isabelle, requests effective and accurate solutions for negotiation between buyers and suppliers. Students suppose to read additional articles and find cases about purchasing circumstances as assignments. Every time I’m under a lot of pressure in class.

On presentation day, every student was compulsory to attend class till the end of all group presentations. It were the first time and the only time that I talked with J in the classroom. We did a case study and an article reading in the morning and afterward reported each group project. Since then, I’ve spent time with him from 0 to 10 hours. We chatted with each other for whole day long, including lunch time and every break between the classes.

You don’t know the music that I’ve listened to. Few people know them.

I asked him what kind of music he like. Suddenly, we found how resembling our life experiences are. We have listened to similar songs and musicians at home. We showed our real homes on the street view of google map. And both of us had chipped front teeth due to falling down on bikes. I was so excited to find someone like me, as Columbus discovered America.

Surprisingly, Isabelle complimented us as one of greatest project teams on that day. Well, we have the least group members and we never succeed to have a group meeting before the presentation. You can imagine how inspiring it is!

Most of my real friends are Spanish.

“Real friends mean those who will get along with me after school,” J said.

Here is the strangest thing. ESC Rennes establishes the most international learning environment, but enrolls the most intolerant students; for instance, my classmates might come from more than 20 countries in a 40-student class, but everyone only makes friends with those who met in the beginning of the semester. All student seems to try to build a new comfort zone during exchange. And they stop to expand social networks after knowing a group of people.

Last semester I thought there was something wrong with me probably. Studying in an international business school, but I have few foreign close friends. However, now everything is getting better. I’m so glad to stay for two terms. Time will lead you into an unexpected and amazing journey.

I realize that it is never anyone’s fault resulting in closed social communities. J and I are exchange students staying for one year, but we haven’t met and known each other well until now. The truly great things are always worth waiting for.

By the way, I had the class called B2B Marketing last semester. The instructor is Philips Bloom, famous for his rigorous lessons in ESC Rennes. (He has a sense of humor sometime.) Anyway, the point is that our group is also the best team among all presentations!

J，西班牙人

採購原則（Principles of Purchasing）是本學期最可怕的科目，上課壓力大，每堂都必須課後閱讀和分享案例，教授嚴謹地要求準確有效的協商方案，總共四天三十小時的課綱，J鮮少出現在課堂，參與時數不足三小時，而他正是我團體報告的組員之一。

J是一個奇妙的人，而我們熟稔的過程很神奇。報告當天，由於課程的關係，J被迫與我綁在一起，上午作個案探討與文章閱讀，下午則是各組報告，於是我們從早聊到晚，包含午餐與課間休息，相處時間從零到紮實的十小時，那一天猶如坐上高速火車，亟欲衝進未知的對方，認真上課之餘，也瞎扯閒聊，J說：「我聽的音樂很偏門，你不會知道的。」於是，我們猶如發現新大陸般的興奮，重新認識彼此，原來我們都在家聽著同樣的音樂放空人生，我們在街景地圖尋找彼此真正的家園，我們小時候都太愛騎車摔斷門牙，似乎有永遠聊不完的話題，更令人詫異的是，人數最少的我們，從來沒約過課後討論與排練，竟是教授口中最優秀的組別。

J與我同是一年的交換生，我們卻在下學期相知相惜，去年的我總是想，自己是不是有什麼毛病，身邊全都是國際學生，卻沒有幾個外國朋友，「我真正的朋友多是西班牙人。」J指的是課後會玩在一起的朋友，這就是雷恩商學院弔詭之處，我敢說我們擁有最國際化的教室，比如一堂四十人的課，學生就來自二十個不同國家，而可惜的是，這裡卻聚集心態最封閉的學生，似乎每個人都在異國試圖重塑一個舒適圈，與自己最初熟識的夥伴膩在一起，社交圈從此停滯。我很慶幸選擇交換一整年，時間會領你前行，經驗出乎意料的人生，認識J之後，我發現從來不是誰的問題，只是有些人值得等待。

對了，第一學期的魔王課是工業行銷（Business to Business Marketing），而我的組別也是教授稱讚最棒的。