Studying Law in France: over or just in need of a name change?

When I started this it was just a way to blow off some steam and keep a sort of diary so I wouldn't forget everything that I did here. Without Sheridan here to talk to everyday, sometimes several times a day about whatever happened in my life, I needed an outlet. As was astutely pointed out by Alice, most of my posts were in the form of a complaint, mostly about some bureaucratic nuance with which I wasn't familiar. I also posted about all of my friends and their visits and what a great time I had with them. As Mariah pointed out, however, most of those posts were short and picture filled, instead of being lengthy written pieces.

What do I do now? I have this blog I am at least for the most part committed to and enjoy writing but I am no longer studying law in France. I haven't been writing for a while and I am sure my thin readership has died off. Maybe I should kill this one and start another...maybe an anonymous one with guest bloggers that could talk about whatever they wanted without worrying about repercussions.

Why I haven't been writing very much.
Three things have happened recently that have limited the amount of posting I have been doing: 1) Sheridan's here so I am happy now; 2) the things that have bothered me have been too private to share; 3) I have been in exams.

While 1 and 3 make a lot of sense and while maybe 2 would make a lot of sense for anyone, I typically don't have any problem sharing what's going on in my life. Of course there are limits but the blog puts this issue in a different light. For example, if I am unhappy about Dauphine, I have talked about it and never thought about impacting negatively it's "reputation". In fact, I have never thought twice about whether or not my criticizing SLU Law would impact it's reputation because I figure SLU's reputation has little to do with my comments.

Interestingly, that is not the attitude here. For example, students in my Masters program don't even want to fill out teacher evaluations because at least in part they fear that someone might read them one day and take criticism of their professor as a reason that their program wasn't high quality. I guess teacher evaluations have been part of my academic culture for so long that I don't give them a second thought. As I understand them, they are for internal purposes only, forclosing the possibility that someone outside of the institution would read them. Plus, while the degree to which professors pay attention to them varies from professor to professor and from school to school, it is clear that they get read and that some changes are made. If nothing else, professors are aware that there are some complaints.

Here, without evaluations (and with applause at the end of the class, even with the least inspiring professor) I don't know how they could ever even figure out that thre are problems. There is nothing saying that they would change their comportement but it seems that they might if given the opportunity at least to know that there is a problem.

It's just one example of how something that I think could be a public criticism (the building is old, the desks are outdated, and there aren't enough outlets) wouldn't have anything to do with the quality of the professors, students and for me, the program. As I have said before, there are some really good professors here, some decent ones and some that should hang 'em up or never should have put 'em on. Same goes for the students. In any case, that's just like everywhere else, at least everywhere else I have ever been.

The concern about having something to say that you would like to say anonymously moves me towards shutting this one down and starting another blog where I would be freer to criticize in the way I wanted to.

But how do you invite people to read an anonymous blog? Maybe the rotating blogger strategy without any bloggers individually named? I have a feeling that my style is pretty transparently my style and I wouldn't want to change it. In any case, it's an open question.

For now, however, I am just going to wrap up the events of the last few weeks, including some great times with all the great friends I have made in the last three months.