So here's the funny thing:
(or several funny things)
1. Classes start tomorrow at the Sorbonne. But, of course, in order to enroll in the master's program, you have to have an advisor. This means that I haven't enrolled yet, as in order to have an advisor, you have to have an idea as to what your thesis will be on. Well... me, not so much. The tricky part is that as I am not enrolled, I don't have an ID card yet, and without an ID card, I won't have health insurance and I won't be able to renew my carte de sejour (one year residency permit). So the irony here is that I'm going to have to propose some crappy topic just to be able to sign up for school. Now, is that really logical? Oh, the joys of French bureaucracy.
2. I have been in correspondance with a woman who was supposed to give me a job last June.
She didn't, because "the rules have changed." Fine, so could she give me one in October? Yes, she said, provided I send in all of my information again via snail mail. I did, the day after she informed me of what I needed to send and to whom. After not hearing from her for a few days, I wrote an email just to check in. No response. Then I did it again. No response. Then I did it again. No response.
Finally, she emailed me - on a Sunday - and asked if I had sent in everything because "we're in a big hurry" and so on. Yes, I responded, I had, and if someone lost my paperwork I would be happy to stop by the office myself on Monday to hand it over. No, she wrote back, I'm sure it's in our office's inbox. (Ok, I thought, so why didn't you check before accusing me of not having sent everything in?). On Monday, I sent an email requesting confirmation as to whether or not she found my paperwork. I sent another one on Wednesday, and then again on Thursday. She emailed me on Thursday evening and said the paperwork indeed was there, but that there was a problem with my visa that would have to be regulated. She suggested a solution.
Great, I emailed back, and I asked when I could pick up the piece of paper that was key to the solution. No response. I wrote again. No response. I wrote again, after a few days. No response. I wrote again, being a bit more forceful, saying, "I really need to get going on this because if this job doesn't work out I will have lost a month of searching for other possibilities." No response. So I get fed up enough to write to her superior, saying that this is the third time this woman has screwed with my application (once in June, twice in September) and that she simply hadn't responded to me for two weeks, and was there any way he could inform me on the status of my application? He didn't get back to me, but a few hours later she wrote me back. Her email was, and this is truly wacky, "Where is your paperwork? I told you three weeks ago that you had to send it in!!!" She also informed me that she had given the specific job she had promised me to someone else because, "if [I] can't get [my] paperwork in on time, there was nothing [she] could do about it!"
a) she was totally at fault in the situation
b) she was blaming me for the problem
c) I now have no job because of her!
I was effing livid. I wrote her back and told her to scroll down on that very same email, and she would see that she herself had confirmed reception of all of my paperwork. I also pretty much reamed her for accusing me of not being on top of my game when she was clearly the one at fault. I have a feeling she will never give me the pleasure of a response.
So now I don't have a job and I'm pissed because she just made me sit around and wait for her incompetent ass to get stuff done, and it ended up just being a a waste of my time.
Again, the joys of French bureaucracy. At least this puts a positive spin on my recent decision to leave France eventually: I'll get out of this administrative hellhole.
3. I'm sick, and school starts tomorrow. Was I sick during these four weeks of vacation? No. But I'm sick today.
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