This Could Make Things Interesting....

Today I was looking around on my school's website, trying to familiarize myself with the school a little bit (I can't decide if I'm just not looking in the right places or if French websites simply aren't as interactive as American ones)and I came across the academic calendar. It has a very confusing thing on it; it says the second semester starts January 18th, however, all my paperwork from Blaise-Pascal says I'll be studying February 1-June 30, that my room and board goes from February 1-June 30, and that my insurance starts February 1 as well.
So, I'm still mostly confidant that I'm planning on getting there for the proper dates since the university itself sent me papers with those dates on them, however, it's still a bit concerning I think.
I emailed the lady in charge of my program, but she is out of the office until after New Years, so I guess I'll just wait and see!

19 January 2010:
Brigitte Meilleroux emailed me back and my flights are safe! My classes don't start until 15 February, so I will be there in plenty of time for classes to start.

Time for a Visa!

Getting a visa has been more difficult than I anticipated; I have a little more empathy for people who want to get American visas or become American citizens now! First of all, I had to get approved through campusfrance.org (www.usa.campusfrance.org). The web site was pretty confusing for me, but I was happy to discover that they don't actually care how detailed and specific you are on the form. I was a bit worried when I first started filling out all the different sections but I just tried to use common sense and it let me complete all the sections just fine!

One of the weird quirks about CampusFrance is that they don't take any sort of online payment. So, I sent them a money order, but I sent the first one for the wrong amount. So that was a bit of a hassle because they had to mail me back the original one and I had to send them a new one before they could process my application. But, it all worked out and I got approved through CampusFrance, so now I'm half-way to having an official long-stay visa!

Now all I have to do is go to the French consulate in Chicago and give them a mountain of paperwork and hopefully get approved for my actual visa!