Got those lost passport blues

For those of you not already "in the know," I lost my passport over the weekend. Did it fall out of my pocket? Did some thieving scoundrel pick my pocket? Did I sell it in the medina for a kilo of hashish? The world may never know.

Attention Security Clearance People: that last option was just a joke.

Anyway, I seem to have the situation under control. After two days of running around like a chicken with its head cut off who had also just lost an important official document, my replacement is being printed up in the States as we speak and should be in my hands in ten to fifteen days. I'm supposed to be leaving country on the 19th; it's cutting it close, but I should be okay. Moral of the story: never, ever loss your passport overseas.

Also, I think I'm losing any desire to join the foreign service. The consular affairs officer who helped me out was very professional and understanding, but man that job's gotta suck. It may have a certain Graham Greene-esque bureaucrat-in-a-foreign-land romance to it, but that probably doesn't make up for the fact that you spend your days stamping paperwork in a barely air conditioned office full of hot, angry people.

Other news from my life: I'm going back to school! Not real school, of course...internet school! The University of Maryland University College, to be specific. Considering that I have, let's see, roughly 126 credit hours to my name (86 from Reed College as a philosophy major, ~40 from DLI in Korean), I should be able to get my degree in a year or so. Well, maybe a bit more, because I don't have time to take a full course load. But still.

The downside is that I'll have a BA in "Humanities." Humanities! That's what people study when they can't cut it in philosophy but still don't want to get a job when they graduate.

Also: happy 63rd birthday, Dad!