Early Thursday morning Julie started her long voyage, first to Paris and then a long flight to La Réunion, where she will finally begin her brilliant career as a university prof.

Réunion is an island east of Madagascar. It is an outer department of France, and is geographically the extreme edge of the EU. The population is over 800 thousand, and the island is roughly 2500 km2. It has been a part of France since 1649, older than our own republic, the States.

Julie was a precocious child, who had a book published at the age of 11. She was a gifted student and achieved the highly coveted agrégation. As a highschool teacher, she cared passionately about her lessons and the progress of her kids. Last year, she completed her doctoral thesis on Nieztsche. Her doctor mentor was none other than the most prominent Nieztsche scholar in the country. I was a witness to her defense in Paris last winter, and I’ll never forget how those in the audience practically leapt out of their seats as she faced her jury and paried their objections as if they were slow motion flies.

She’s now in a place that could be described as a paradise, where winter doesn’t exist. It’s also a place with a fair share of poverty, and I don’t think you can drink the tapwater. She’s facing all the challenges one normally faces when starting a new job in a new place, but she’ll be going completely alone.

I think she’s going to be fine, but even the pro ballers love a good crowd cheering them on. If you’d like to send her a little message to let her know that we are thinking of her, this is her email: juliedumonteil, then the “at” symbol. Yahoo.com.

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