Life Without Internet, or How I Got Transported Back to 789 AD

I have the plague. My father and mother both perished in a swamp after being chased there by Moorish raiders, and the cow was eaten by a bear. On the plus side, only a dozen of my thirty siblings died during the winter. Yes, somehow I have been transported back to the Dark Ages. No one can read, half the people have the European equivalent of Jungle Fever, and the dogs eat better than we do. For the last three days now, I have been without internet. We are switching from one provider to another, and but the new service doesn't start until Friday. Therefore, I am reduced to going to the Macalester library to write this. I fear the worst.

In other news, I'm going to Duluth for the weekend with Andrew and Lea, and maybe Joe for the Fourth of July. Like any good nation, the United States was founded on the guiding principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of fireworks. It is after all immortalized in the First Amendment of the Constitution, "Thou Shalt Have Fireworks On The Fourth," and subsequent court cases have interpreted it as "Thou Shalt Have Fireworks On The Fourth, And Beer And Hot Dogs Wherever Beer And Hot Dogs Are Sold." This ruling of course overturned the previous landmark case of The United States v. Sucksylvania, which had banned all fun from being had in public. Thurgood Marshall, writing the majority opinion said, "Good, now I can drink beer, and eat hot dogs, and shoot off fireworks. God Bless America," after which point he and Potter Stewart had a Roman Candle fight on the steps of the Supreme Court Building. So, even if we don't have beer and hot dogs (because one is illegal and the other is of questionable sanitary status), we certainly will have fireworks. And, I've only been to Duluth like twice, and never for very long.

Also, I discovered last night that the house where my friends Kaia, Nelli, Patrick and Hannah live is being foreclosed on August 14th. They received notice by legal courier yesterday that the $560,000 mortgage on the house, taken out in July of last year, has apparently defaulted, and the house will be auctioned by the bank. They called their landlord, who is only the building manager and not the building owner and told him this. He then informed them that he had been trying to get a hold of the owner for the last two weeks, but hadn't heard back. Hmmm...

And my visa is still in limbo, which is bloody annoying since tomorrow is two weeks before I have to go to the consulate to ask for my visa, and if anything is out of order with Campus France, I might have to wait another two weeks before getting it processed again, which means I'd have to reschedule my interview at the consulate, which would complicate life just a little bit. And of course, they don't respond to e-mails, and heaven forfend that they should have a working telephone! I hate the French bureaucracy