Packing. More packing. Until my arms fall off.

My visa finally came, yesterday.  How typical of the Frenchies to wait until just the last minute, heightening the suspense until that jouissance of relief, exhaling a sigh of, "thank God they didn't fully fuck me over."

Indeed, if the French are the World's Guinness Best at anything, it is bureaucracy.  And with the inefficiency with which they process anything, I am truly proud of them.  It's one thing to be inadequate, it's another thing entirely to be proficiently incompetent to such a degree that showcases one's expertise at Epic Fail.

I am increasingly convinced that the French have a trade school for perfection of bureaucratic ineptitude. I challenge anyone to prove me false.  In fact, l'ENA (l'École Nationale Supérieure for those fortunate enough not to be intimately familiar with the French government) is considered the highest school in the country, and what do they produce? Professional, top-notch, award-winning bureaucrats. 

Tangent-- The terrible part is, the French really do have an excellent education system.  The reason they get shat on in the international academic community is because they try to funnel all their brightest minds into the career with the most national prestige: the French Government.  Clearly a waste of IQ points.  If only French society pushed its best and brightest into fields such as engineering, agricultural advances, and the social sciences, France  would be up there with the U.S., Germany, and Japan in terms of most highly esteemed intellectually.  Do not yet despair, fellow francophiles, for the Millau bridge and the Eurostar are the beginnings of a new dawn for France.  Not to mention the nuclear fission/fusion/whoojamawhoppel (sp?) reactor being built outside of Marseille.  End of tangent.

Oh who are we kidding, I know nothing about the sciences.  But History Channel and expert sources tell me France is making a comeback.

If the New York Times Magazine says so, it is so. Rule #1 of this blog.

I often find myself asking, if the French are so good at making my  life miserable, how is it that I still love them?  How is this possible, that I like la peuple française despite their Frenchness?  It would seem, in that case, that I like the Americans more than the French, because the Americans do not have the handicap of being French. Au contraire, my dear Watson!  The French have that added weight dragging them behind that makes them so endearing to me.  Take the Sealyham terrier, for instance.  Ugly as fuck, but adorable precisely because of the visual offence.

We shall test my hypothesis over the course of the next 6 months.  I hereby proclaim hypothesis number 1: We like the French precisely because they are awful.

note: we will inadvertently occasionally slip into the royal we, a bad habit that I have picked up from a certain someone, no names of course. Anonymity is key to this blog.  I will replace any names with code names, primarily due to keeping my friends out of deep shit, but also due to common courtesy and/or avoiding libel suits et cetera.