29 CommentsUPDATE: REGISTER HERE
From a super-top-secret email sent out to only French majors, Bwog has learned that Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, will be gracing Low Rotunda next Monday, March 29. Registration for the event starts online at 9:00 am tomorrow, and will probably end at 9:01 am. The email gave no address for registration, but we’ll keep you posted.
The email doesn’t specify what Sarkozy will be speaking about, but Bwog highly doubts his speech is going to include a discussion of the subjunctive mood. So who didn’t tell us? Why didn’t we get invited?
Update: A similar email was sent out to the general population tonight, and now the registration site is up!
Here’s the full (original) email:
Dear French Majors,
This is to let you know that Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic, will give a talk at Columbia next Monday at 10am in Low Library.
You will receive an official announcement via email later tonight. If you wish to attend, you must register online tomorrow starting at 9am.
Registration will be on a first-come first-serve basis.Cordially,
Pierre Force
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29 Comments
@It may be draconian but I think they should have done a ticket lottery, like they did for Ahmadinejad and the Obama/McCain thing.
@got a ticket! i had to use the internet on my phone because the columbia network was insane
@Anonymous I am beyond incensed about the whole Columbia server inadequacy. A few thousand people logging in at the same time, and the website basically crashes. The perversity of the entire situation is actually kind of sickening: we pride and trumpet this whole World Leaders Forum initiative as evidence of us being a global educational brand and a commitment to educating the student body outside of the classroom setting, but we conveniently gloss over the fact that actually securing a seat, as a student, is based completely on the speed of one’s Internet connection and some fortunate clicking.
@Woah now, Correct me if I’m wrong (looking at you, nerds) but I don’t see any way around the bottleneck that happens for events like these other than buying a ton of expensive server capacity that would sit unused at every other time. Bottom line is, there’s just too much demand, what are they supposed to do? Sure it’d be great to have a fast website, but if anything it would mean an even smaller window to snatch a ticket. Good idea on putting talks in Lerner though, limiting access to us students just because Low looks pretty speaks pretty poorly of the admin’s priorities.
@Anonymous My main issue with it is that Columbia gives away so many of these tickets to administrators and other campus staff, many of whom don’t even deem it worthy of their time to attend (for example, at the Czech president speech, many students who were on the waitlist and showed up weren’t allowed in, yet there were at least 20 or 30 empty seats from administrators, who had registered for the tickets, who had chosen not to attend).
@Anonymous i really don’t see why they couldn’t have used Arledge Auditorium for the speech. sure, it may not have alleviated the server problems, but it definitely would’ve given more students and staff a chance to attend
@registered I got in at 9:05AM after trying the page in IE instead of Firefox…
@Riven I had IE, Firefox and Safari open at the same time and got the same error messages on all three browsers…
@registered I guess it was just a coincidence then…
@Anonymous I think there might be some merit to the IE > Firefox thing. I refreshed on firefox for half an hour getting various error message and blank pages, then tried once on IE after seeing this comment and got on the waitlist immediately.
@Riven awesome… gotta love those registration protocols… why can’t Columbia use proper servers and software to be able to get things working. Nobody can tell me that a rush at 9 am sharp was not expected…
@Anonymous that. is. LAAAME. I definitely went to register at 9:0o exactly. Kind of pissed off that it was already somehow “full” by that point.
@Anonymous must have been rigged.
@MelC It’s full. I’m on the waitlist thanks to the website problems and frequent error messages.
@Anonymous is the registration not working for anyone else? I’ve filled out the form, but when I press “submit” nothing happens!
@cram-and me, baby still not open for registration, but authentication is busted from load: Authentication failure. The authentication service responded with the following message: WIND returned a “no” response.
@lol i love how the registration website got 100x slower when the clock hit 9:00
@Jim Events like this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Any member of the Columbia community can log into Sundial, the university’s calendar. You can see the hundreds of events going on every month on campus.
@the very fact that hundreds of events happen on campus can make it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, which makes notices like this much more valuable.
@more importantly will carla bruni be in attendance?
@... $10 says the registration site explodes into a million pieces tomorrow morning
@so is this a first come first served registration
@hmm i’m not a french major but i received the e-mail as well…fact check?
@agreed This was sent out to everyone…..
@tip just got the e-mail:
Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum
invites you to attend an address given by
Nicolas Sarkozy
President of the French Republic
Monday, March 29, 2010
10:00 a.m.
Rotunda, Low Memorial Library
535 West 116th Street
Columbia University in the City of New York
Please note that due to security measures, you must arrive by 9:00 a.m. Check-in will begin at 8:00 a.m. No bags will be allowed into the venue.
Online registration is required.
Register Here
Presented by:
Maison Française
Alliance Program
World Leaders Forum
your welcome!
@Anonymous The subjunctive is not a tense, but a mood.
@Hans Fixed, thanks.
@that is just straight up embarassing. Get your bidness together bwog
@French prospective major Oy… I just know this registration process is going to end in disappointment for me :(
Even if I can’t get in, I’ll camp outside Low for a glimpse.
This’ll be the first time I wake up before 9AM in a long time.