Step on the gas and wipe that tear away

Still a lot of lands to see
But I wouldn't want to stay here
It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here

-Joni Mitchell, singing about Paris

Believe it or not, the vast majority of my HEC experiences were very positive. The trouble is that the negative ones were extremely negative, and they were also disproportionately recent. For that reason, I am confident that once some time has gone by and I've gained more perspective on the whole thing, it's going to be a good memory for the most part. In fact, that has already started happening since I got back from Luxembourg in January. I think now about how stressed out and depressed I was during that week when I suddenly found myself headed back for yet another class, and it's hard to believe that was barely two months ago.

Still, for the time being at least, there is nothing I'm going to miss about HEC. (Yes, that includes my friends, because I've already been missing most of them for several months now!) I've been almost done for months, and now that the Class That Wouldn't Die is finally over with, it's time to move on. Past time, actually! This latest big adventure, which began so quietly two and a half years ago in a bar in Denver when I realized I just didn't like political theory well enough to make a career of it, has been a good one. But the curtain has been ready to fall for quite some time now.

It is still not quite official, as I just turned the exam in. I am also painfully aware that I waxed so very poetic about never coming back here back in December. But I knew well enough when I didn't pass, and I think I can also tell when I did pass. So unless somebody in the administration really hates me, this quiet scene in the computer room overlooking the parking lots of HEC is the grand finale. I am feeling characteristically sentimental about the scene, recalling the morning I moved in not so very long ago, dragging my suitcases one at a time across that same parking lot from the hotel to the dorm, smiling awkwardly at the other new students and not sure whether to address them in English or French...and appropriately enough, now they're all my friends and for the most part they're flung to the four winds.

As I will be too, next week. Back in January I was offered a six month gig at a company in my beloved Singapore, but this latest and last academic hassle derailed that...but only temporarily! The company was kind enough to wait for me to get my academic head out of you-know-where, and I'm due to start there on the 24th. It is only a six month job for now, but it's in a good location and anything can happen next. All my belongings except for some clothes and books are soon to be on their way there, and I'll be following suit the next day. Meanwhile, there's some last minute tourist stuff to be done in Paris. Actually, in Paris, that is always an option if not an obligation!

Paris really is all that they say and then some. The people are far nicer than their reputation would have you think (although I do wish they would look where they were going on the sidewalks), the architecture and monuments are even more beautiful in person, and even the dirty streets have a unique charm. Since I've had little to do but study since January, I have caught up on a lot of things I never got around to last year, most notably a trip to the Louvre. It's true, the Mona Lisa really is smaller than you think. The Louvre isn't. It doesn't matter how big you thought that place was, in reality it's bigger. I've also had occasion to spend lots of quality time in various cafés and pubs and restaurants, and had a wild weekend with an old friend I hadn't seen in five years...hard to imagine a better locale for that!

In fact, it's hard to imagine a better locale, period. I'll miss the place. But just as the reason why I had to come back to this wonderful city was a really crummy one, the reason why I have to leave it is a really good one. I have always loved Singapore, and I've been ready to get back to work pretty much from the moment I quit the last internship. But I don't want to dwell on that experience just now.

And what of the immediate future? There's time for one last dinner of escargots and fondue, one last jaunt down the Champs-Elysées, one last aimless wander through the agonizingly beautiful streets...but there's another week yet for all that. Now I'm off to dispose of my finance notes in some creative way or other. And then, to paraphrase Michael J. Fox in The American President, "I'm gonna go get a big steak and have a bite for everybody that tried to F**K me!!!"

Yeah, it has been a tough several months. But if what I've been through since October hasn't driven me to despair, I don't think anything ever will. I lead a charmed life, sort of.