Thursday, January 10, 2008

See the mice in their million hordes, From Ibeza to the Norfolk Broads

First off, thank you to everyone for letting me rant about the stupidity of electoral politics. It wasn't pretty, I know. Even worse, as the Chicago punk band Screeching Weasel once put it, more poetically than any of us could:
"Politics are boring
Politics are fucking boring
Philosophizing propoganda spewing
Teenage armchair revolutionaries..."
etc. etc.

No kidding. Talking about politics is as exciting as hearing about what sports teams are "looking really good this year." Anyway, so long to all of that. It's time to get back to more important matters like weird sex, horror movies, drugs, glam rock, bitching about academia, and the rest of it. Also, I'm off to France on the 16th for six or seven months. So there's that.

11 comments:

Holly said...

I actually have been driveling on about politics too (in my LiveJournal, Part 1 and Part 2) and I thought about posting it here, but really it's just rambling about process, it's not much about the actual candidates. Also, I figured you had it covered...

Won't your visa expire after six months? Or do you have a study visa? Are you taking a computer? Inquiring minds, and all that. Also, if you desire additional contact information from us (beyond our email addresses) we can do that. Unfortunately, we probably *won't* be able to get you out of a French jail, that's notoriously difficult.

Rufus said...

These could very well be famous last words, but I don't have a visa..

My plan is to research in France for two months, travel to Morocco, return to France for two months, travel to Vienna for a few days, and return to France for two more months. According to my immigration lawyer, this will be okay, provided that I am neither working for money, nor attending a university in France.

Again, I could be totally wrong and wind up in jail. But one thing I know about immigration is that you can visit countries for a fairly long time, provided that you step out often enough. I've been visiting Canada for about four years now.

Greg von Winckel said...

You are so fucked

Rufus said...

Really? I visited France for two months in 2005 without trouble. I plan to basically tell them next to nothing and hope that they don't have the will or the resources to trace me.

Rufus said...

Okay, I've now been through the French consulate's website and I still don't think I need a student visa because I'm not going to be studying there, nor am I working. Also, my visits are going to be for less than 90 days.

I really do wish that my department had some idea about this though.

Rufus said...

One last thing- I think this is why people who rant about "illegals" piss me off so much. They just have no idea just how complex and labyrinthine the system is and how easy it is to unknowingly do something wrong.

I do plan to visit the American embassy in Paris as soon as I get there. But, it's still a bit of a gamble.

Greg von Winckel said...

I'm just messing with you. You'll be fine.

Rufus said...

Ah, I had told Claire: "Greg's probably just messing with me." But then we started worrying.

Holly said...

I told him he was a bad person. You'll be fine.

Greg von Winckel said...

I don't know if you heard or read this story, but I was similarly angstreich about coming here with no visa. I was really nervous getting off the plane with the prospect of going through passport control, answering lots of questions about how I intend to be here a long time without a visa and probably great bureaucratic wrangling with customs officials.

What actually happened is that we got off the plane, a blur happened, and then we were standing outside the airport asking each other what the hell just happened. The Passport control and customs inspection were beyond perfunctory to the point that I didn't think we had gone through them yet.

Rufus said...

Yeah, the thing I have to remember, having crossed the US/Canadian border at least a hundred times now, is that most of the guards are completely normal people who are bored at their jobs. They really don't want to review everything about your life and future plans, just get you through and get to lunch. I'd say you only get a bad border guard about once out of every fifty times through.