Paris and Fashion, all in the same day

By now you can tell how much I'm procrastinating simply by how many articles I read today. You should see my office. I recycled about 10 newspapers and it barely made a dent! There are still papers everywhere, namely the Chronicles I'm busy not reading. Although that would be another good way to procrastinate. That and clean out all my coffee cups.

In any case, this first article reminded me of when I was working on my master's thesis and spent every day it was open at Pompidou. Known to most people as a museum, it also has a free library where all the great unwashed students go to do research. The queue would begin about an hour before the library opened (which was at NOON, people. Can you imagine how crazy this drove me? I hate getting to work after 8:30!) and people would cut in front of you continually.

Once you entered the library, things got a little better. I sat at my microfiche machine, reading 10-year old copies of Elle (don't ask), searching for truth by way of fashion. About four hours into my research, inevitably one of the unwashed Parisian students would ask me out on a date. The library is a well known lieu-de-drague, or pick-up-joint. This would terrify me and I would leave, scurrying back on the metro to my silent peach-carpeted apartment in the 16th arrondissement.

This article paints a different picture, but a poignant one.

"A Scholar's Paris." (Kaplan, A. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 9/14/07)

And now for fashion! There are a few professors in the business school who subscribe to the "LL-Bean-Jeans-and-T-shirt-backpack-one-of-the-students" look (I disapprove), but most look like they work in the dean's office. Or maybe that's because most of my interactions are with people who do work in the dean's office. Either way, it's a lot of Brooks Brothers.

"Frump and Circumstance." (Fogg, P. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 9/14/07)

Crazy name, that Fogg. At first I thought it was Frogg. That would be cool.