Flashes of Panic

Since some time Thursday, I’ve been watching a package-tracking page from another country.

The Olympic media credential form, apparently, includes a fifty-page instruction booklet. I’m told that the credential itself “acts as a visa,” so I won’t need to go through the process of applying for a Chinese visa, but the accreditation process is the most elaborate application I’ve encountered since applying to grad school, and I haven’t even laid eyes on the paper yet. Part of this is the unavoidable bureaucracy of the Olympics, but part of it is because through my IAAF.org work, I’m not going through the usual USOC channels.

Instead, the IAAF is sending me a form “by courier,” and I am sending it directly back to them. Along with several others, it gets endorsed by the IAAF’s General Secretary, and then sent to the IOC; in essence, the IAAF is acting like a country, and it has adopted me as a citizen for this event. The form is on its way to me now; I have to turn it around next week.

It’s not clear to me exactly what “by courier” means in a literal sense; the phrase brings to mind images of the Pony Express or airline passengers handcuffed to their briefcases. (Try taking that through the security screening!) It seems more likely that it’s almost synonymous with DHL or FedEx. It does, apparently, mean that someone has to sign for the package on arrival (and not just sign a slip that says “leave it on the porch.”)

The French-based service which is handling this credential was quite brisk about getting it from Monaco to trans-Atlantic departure from Roissy, but it looks like they’re at something of a loss when it comes to getting from New York to Boston; there has been no new tracking message for about thirty hours.

Now Playing: Night Time (Bonus Track) from Let’s Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later On Tonight by Marah

Technorati Tags: credentials, iaaf, olympics, postal