So this is by far the crappiest reason I've had yet for not posting enough to Mandounette. It is rather difficult to type when your arms are bound to your sides, wrapped tighter than Jesus in his swaddling clothes by rolls and rolls of red tape, provided nearly free of charge by the French bureaucracy.

We used to joke about the administration at Cornell, calling it the Big Red Tape, but oh, how I long to go back to those days. The days when websites were updated more frequently than once every four years; the days when you waited in line for a reason, not just to be told to go wait in another line. I have a list that takes up 2 full pages in my planner with the names of people I need to talk to, the documents I need to photocopy, the places where I need to "present myself", and the questions I have that no matter how many times they are asked, are never answered.

I leave for New York tomorrow to get my visa. Hopefully that will go smoothly. And having my visa is the cake, whereas school and work are simply the icing. My concern is staying here. After that, I will worry about work and school.

But speaking of school, I started classes yesterday (without visa) and I understand a little bit better what I have gotten myself into. It's very interesting, a sort of combination of political science and communication, so I have classes in both communication theory and political science theory, as well as technical workshops in digitial design and publishing. Basically, I am preparing myself to become a cog in the huge bureaucracy that is really pissing me off. This could either be cruel irony, or my calling, to clean up the crumbling French bureaucracy one office at a time. I will be the Johnny Appleseed of French institutions spreading the seed of efficiency and the pesticide of laziness.

Or perhaps I will just sit back like the rest of them and benefit from my 5 weeks of vacation, militant labor unions, and universal health care.