So after a busy month getting my Cambridge CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults), I have finally gotten around to writing my research proposal for my graduate program. I am swimming in topics and banal academic bullshit and find it quite strange that I am required to include a proposal of 8 to 10 pages as part of my application, but that at the end of January, I have to turn in another proposal of the same project that is 5 to 6 pages. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the more detailed proposal come after my first semester and not before? Well, French education has never made much sense to me.

I also discovered while wading through the vast amounts of wangling that are included in the programme brochure, that my proposed project will not actually be carried out this year. The 100-page dissertation that I will be defending next year will actually just be preparatory work for my doctoral thesis. And so, through lazy reading and desperation for a visa to stay in France, I have found myself entangled in deep academia. But hey, getting a PhD will certainly allow me to stay here for as long as I want. I can't imagine finishing this one quickly. What a funny world we live in.