On Human Rights...

I am knee-deep - no, I take that back, shoulder-deep - in research for this paper that I have to finish up and I am baffled. I feel like I am trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. My thesis was supposed to center around why Clinton changed his intervention policy in his second term, focusing on Madeleine Albright, an increase in international pressure, and embarrassment from failure in Rwanda. However, this does not seem to be the case. I have found so many other reasons. A select few:

1. We're racist, so it's cool to intervene in white-people genocide, but not anything in Africa
2. Clinton looked like a moron after the whole Monica Lewinski scandal, so he needed to redeem himself by bombing a bunch of Eastern-European people
3. Tony Blair is a good guy, and wanted to intervene, and since England is everything we WANT to be, so did we
4. Madeleine Albright felt bad about failing in Rwanda, so she tried to succeed in Bosnia
5. We had now fully embraced our role as the world's police, which we weren't used to when Somalia and Rwanda happened since it was right after the end of the Cold War.
6. There were more US national interests at stake in Bosnia...not sure what, but I guess so
7. American credibility was at stake (I think we blew that one, but whatever)
8. We didn't really change our policy, we just randomly thought we'd intervene in Kosovo.

See? Not really a valid thesis. I can't believe I'm blogging about this. It's a way of procrastinating from finding the real answer.
Suggestions are welcome...

Potentially Sleeping in a Bathtub for a Semester

Let me explain: I am searching for apartments in Paris, and so far, RIEN! We are trying to find housing that accomodates 3 people, in 3 separate beds, for under 2000 euro a month, in the city of lights. Impossible, it seems. Looks like the couch/floor/tub for me. While I did sign up for the experience of studying abroad, I did not sign up for this - it is so frustrating, and the most annoying part is that the IE office has not done ANYTHING to help us.

What gets me really worked up is the fact that the kids that go to Italy get an apartment in Alba and FOOD TICKETS!! THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR OWN ALCOHOL! Are you kidding me!? And me, I'm going to be paying thousands of dollars for an apartment, food (I'll be living off of bread, cheese, and wine for a semester), electricity, internet, etc. along with books, living expenses, insurance, train fare, gym membership, etc. Fuck this.

Pardon my French.