that time of year again...

... for all the Administration running around to do! Last Sunday I sat down with my MIL to do my French taxes (let's not talk about American taxes yet...). Normally French taxes are just about the easiest things ever, once you've filed once the forms come to you pre-filled out and all you have to do is verify the numbers and sign it, off it goes!

Buuut since Mystery Guest and I got PACSed last year it made things a bit more complicated. We each had to declare separate "single" tax forms from January 01 to March 11th and then a joint tax form from March 12th to December 31st. That meant breaking down the pay-per-day rate and hours worked per day and then calculating all kinds of funkyness for the month of March. Good news is we will probably get a refund for our combined low salary (whereas I probably would have paid taxes had I stayed single).

Then it was off to tackle my carte de sejour renewal. I had called the sous-prefecture in Cherbourg a couple months ago to ask if I could renew it there, if Mystery Guest was required to come with me, what documents were needed etc. He obviously hadn't delt much with carte de sejours so he was the nicest fonctionnaire ever and called the main prefecture for me! Then he called me back (I know! Gasp!) and sent me an letter containing a list of all the documents needed and a form to fill out and send to the main prefecture. I finally got the list together (needed special stamps to pay for it, new photos etc) and sent it off today. I figured since there was 70e worth of stamps on my application I would send it registrared mail, worth the extra 4e for a little piece of mind I guess...) If they except my meager list of documents (I swear there were only like 5 things to provide, non of them being proof of PACS or anything..) this will be by far the easiest carte de sejour ever!

After reading about Erica's experience, I think as soon as I get a job for next year I'll go ahead and apply for citizenship, that should be a fun paperwork treasure hunt...!

I also found out that I'll have to wait at least 3 months to pass the code again, oh well, more time to study...

Work went well today, I told those very badly behaved 8th graders that the crap they pulled was unacceptable and that all the work we would do today would be graded at the end. That snapped them into place (sort of, it was still amazingly noisy... couldn't hear myself explain something to one of the kids less than 1 foot away...) Tomorrow I finish up with 2 hours and my two favorite classes, the little tykes, they're so dang cute!