Thursday, February 14, 2008

good morning... a rant with an irrelevant picture



I've got a rant.

So I call up the Ministere de l'Education (ahem, et du loisir et du sport) to ask them if they'll partly fund my excursion to the US for my PhD. So the dude asks me: "C'est quelle Universite?" and I say "University of Washington", then he says "OK, W-A-C-H-I-N-T-E-N.... hmmm... non je ne le trouve pas". I politely correct him and then he asks me what program it is, so I hesitantly say "Epidemiology" only to be met with "Quoi? Hein? C'est-tu de la danse, ca?". Granted, it's not a word you see every day, but dance? Wachinten? He works at the goddamn ministry of EDUCATION! fuck.

Then I get a phone call from the University of North Carolina telling me I have to take a test called the Test of English as a Foreign Language. I try and explain to her that English is actually my mother tongue and blah blah blah and she says, "I'm sorry ma'am, but it says here that everyone from the PROVIDENCE of Queeeebec is French and has to take the test".

I wonder if these people have discussions about the appropriateness of the words xenophobia and fremdenfeindlichkeit in different contexts. fuckers.

5 comments:

Dementor said...

Le gars du ministère was clearly affected to the loisirs part.

The american receptionist was clearly an american.

Everything seems to be in order, moving on to next rant.

Barbarosa said...

Well, I wanted to comment on your rant Woodsy, but Shipwreck`s comment was so precise and pertinent, as well as reeking of the truth that I am left rather textless or commentless; literally without a comment.

A conversation concerning commentful comments on commentlessness does appear on the conceptual horizon though.

Karl Hungus said...

Regarding your rant: I am shamefully not surprised by either account. Also, I'm pretty sure that idiot at the Ministere who decides whether or not to lend us money makes more than we do yet has the intelligence of the shitsmear left on toilet paper after the third wipe.

Anonymous said...

make sure to write wachinten in your english test.

Master of the Craw said...

Considering my constant uphill battle to convince the Canadian government who granted me Canadian citizenship 20 odd years ago that I am in fact a Canadian citizen and therefore entitled to a nice little student loan so I can eventually get a decent job and then make less money because I'm taxed more I'm not exactly surprised at this person's antics.

I got a letter recently from them asking me to demonstrate that I have been in the province for the passed 12 months. I have already sent them my transcript from school. Somehow they believed I could be attending a school in Montreal and living in South America. I then replied that if I had invented a magical transporter device I would use it right now to transport into his offices and punch him in the nose.