bedlam central

I have so much stuff piled up on my desk that I can’t even see its surface, I have so much stuff piled in my “to do” box that it keeps falling out into the floor, and I have so many stacks of emails printed out that I haven’t stopped to file that I’m ready to just set fire to my entire office. I am just about to lose my mind. I know that’s quite surprising. I CAN’T GET ANYTHING DONE!!!!

All our student teachers have to have a health and academic clearance done before we’ll place them (okay, they have to have them done before we send them their Official Placement Letter; we TELL them we won’t place them but not placing them is not really practical. So, yeah, we lie. So sue us). Today is the day they are due. All I have done today is take forms from students. Because god forbid anyone turn a form in on anything BUT the day it’s due. They’ve had nearly a MONTH to get these things done, but of course all 350 are marching in today with them. And since they are due today, when I say, “I’ll have to fill out my part of this, so come back early next week and you can have your copy”, they all say, “BUT IT’S DUE TODAY!!!!”

I still can’t figure out how bringing a form to the office where it’s due and leaving it there on the day that it’s due equals it not being turned in on time if you come back to get your copy next week. But, whatever. Oh, and I also love the “Should I come back here to pick it up?” question.

Why, no. Don’t come back here, to where you dropped it off. I’ll just go wandering aimlessly around campus, waving it in my hand, until I spot you.

And of course there are the whiners that come in with all their multitudes of excuses for why, despite having had a month to meet with their advisor and get a TB shot, they still don’t have theirs. Or they come in with it only partially done, and start whining when I tell them they have to go back and get whatever’s missing before I’ll take it, and no I’m not taking it now and letting you bring that back later and no I’m not taking the academic part and letting you bring the health part back later and no I’m not taking the health part and letting you bring the academic part back later EITHER!!!

I’m going to start foaming at the mouth before this is over. Oh, wait, I’m already foaming at the mouth!!! You’d think that would keep people out of my office so I could get some work done.

And look, it’s taken me 45 minutes to write this, because I keep being interrupted by people giving me forms and whining. So I’m going to post digital photos, yay! I drove all over the place Saturday and took pictures of our not-terribly-pretty fall colors (what’s REALLY weird and a little scary is that it’s November 1 and we STILL have leaves that are GREEN) and of an old cemetery I happened across, and just anything else that caught my eye. I also printed some out at the Walmart Kiosk, and wasn’t overly thrilled with the results. The colors are kind of funny, and they look a lot better to me online than the print does, which was very disappointing. But I still haven’t experimented with most of the settings so I think I’m expecting too much too soon.

These were on the parkway. And obviously not the trees that still are green. Some are green, some are totally bare. A few are pretty fall colors, but not that many. What a weird season.

An angel at the cool old cemetery:

And, I discovered Saturday that it does sepia!!! How cool is that? I LOVE sepia!! I also love black and white and haven’t even tried it yet, I was so overwhelmed by the sepia:

These are from a really neat old church not too far from here. I think they’re a little dark, actually – but it’s sepia!!!

I realized later that my Saturday photos had an oddly religious theme to them – the old church, a bunch of this angel, a bunch I took of what I assume was Mary in the same old graveyard, and then I took pictures at a bar Baker B and I went to Saturday night to hear his friend’s new band, which included Jesus with his crown of thorns and Satan with a bloody horned mask. Being Halloween weekend and all.

Time to get out of here! Yay!