Carnaval de Lausanne/ More Bureaucracy

Well despite Anigers (rumors abound about her alias, does it come from ANimal tIGER, as opposed to stuffed tigers? Or, as critics note, she might be one of the feared Amoral Nihilistic tIGERs, who still roam the forests of Europe... ) cries in the comments of yesterdays post, there are no pictures of the carnival yet, because I inadvertently left my camera at home which makes uploading difficult. But I will have some tomorrow for sure!

The carnival was, well, I now know what Guggenmusic is. Frankly, I could have lived without that. It's - I hesitate to use the terms band or group - hordes of people playing deliberately false. Which could be post-modern or something, but at least the hordes I heard do it in a less than skillful way. It makes your ears bleed. At least they are funny to look at, which I will prove tomorrow.

Also, I finally might have gotten my application for the ecole doctorale through. Deadline to apply was the 30th of April. You need three recommendation letters, which have to be sent by snail-mail, signed and sealed and wrapped in the skin of unborn infants. No fax or email allowed. It says so at least three times on the web-page.

Well, one of my recommendation letters came from Australia, and was eaten en route by the evil mer people, who, as everybody knows, always have a hankering for bureaucratic nonsense, especially if wrapped in the skin of unborn infants. (By the way, it seems that after 2000 Years the catholic church has stumbled onto the fact that unbaptized babies might go to heaven, after all. News sources that say that this was a decision taken by the church because people in developing countries with high infant-mortality have been converting to Islam in droves are misguided, evil and will certainly burn in hell.) So I went to the secretariat of the ecole doctorale with my ceremonial obsidian dagger, fully prepared to throw a temper tantrum and/or sacrifice everyone in my way. I barged in, stated my problem - and the nice lady there looked at me with doe-eyes and asked me why my professor couldn't send the letter by fax?

I snapped for air, my dagger slipping from my suddenly slack hand and shattering on the harsh granite below. Then I took a deep breath, said: "D'accord. Merci bien!" and left, my head held high. You have to savor the small victories they give you.