brouhaha

Nothing like brouhaha on a Friday afternoon! Brought about, of course, by the Computer System from Deepest Darkest Hell. I don’t think I ever mentioned how it went down again week before last – it’s been down twice now, for days at a time, during registration. Along with email. Things have been okay for a week or two, but now we’re rapidly coming up on the end of the semester, and nobody in the registrar’s office has figured out how exactly grades are being reported and what kinds of printouts we’ll get so that we can check all the gazillion December graduates and make sure they really are going to graduate. They can’t even print out transcripts, and that’s going to be a BIG problem when degrees are conferred and people start kind of needing a transcript so they can go out and get a job. And get out of our hair. Supposedly this will all be fixed, of course. Their motto is "We’re working on it!!!" That’s their code for everything from "This really should be operational by next week" to "Oh my god nobody realized we’d need to furnish grade reports/transcripts/academic suspension lists whatever!!! AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

So our motto has become, "They’re working on it! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"

The bad thing is this could conceivably have us here clearing the December graduates during the week of Christmas when we are SUPPOSED to be off. That’s the worst case scenario. Well, other than the entire system crashing again and going down in flames whereupon we’ll just all go home and forget about it. We’ve all agreed we’d way rather stay late every night the week before if that’s what it takes. So it may be just like old times, staying at work till 7 or 7:30. But it won’t be the college of ed!!!

Oh, well. The lack of communication between the registrar’s office and our office about people who have cleared up incompletes or gotten their transfer work in or done whatever else they needed to do to graduate week after next has caused us some major problems. Which I won’t go into since it would take waaaaaay too long and is not likely to be all that fascinating to anybody else on earth. We’re just a tad irked at the registrar’s office right now. But really, what else is new?

So I’m doing grad audits. These are for spring grads, and we are waaaay behind on them, (due to the computer system, no surprise) but we’re catching up impressively, so I’m taking a break. I can only do so many before I start getting annoyed and find myself muttering things like, "Ok, WHY are you taking this class?? You need THAT class!! What on earth have you signed up for all that stuff?? Do you have even one CLUE as to what your MAJOR is, dude???!!!??"

I had one fill out his request and on the line where it asked what your minor is, he wrote (and this IS exactly what he wrote – I’m not even exaggerating this): Phzlo and Relzgian.

It was either Philosophy and Religion or some sort of East European cooking minor. We don’t offer any East European cooking minors, so I went with Philosophy and Religion.

Oh, and speaking of religion, my coworker D made Franklin Graham’s daughter cry the other day. She is missing quite a few hours to graduate in summer like she planned – partially at least due to bad advising – and burst into tears in D’s office. Yikes – poor D,  she is SO going to hell. I’m sure that’s the minimum price you pay for making Billy Graham’s granddaughter cry. I’m just glad it wasn’t me! I didn’t even know she was in school here. Apparently Hulk Hogan’s daughter is here too. Don’t want to upset HER, that’s for sure.

Oh, and you know who else is going to be in school here next semester??

No, not Jimmy Kimmel – Miss South Carolina! The Miss South Carolina who, ummmmm, had a little bit of a problem explaining why people can’t find the US on a map. Because they – ummm… "U.S. Americans…" don’t HAVE maps. This Jimmy Kimmel clip is hysterical – he breaks down what she said. Or tries, since what she said pretty much didn’t make one drop of sense.

Okay, I do feel sorry for the poor thing. And I heard that she actually did go on other shows and redeem herself by having a sense of humor about it. Instead of never coming out from under her bed again for the rest of her life, like I would have done. And at least she’s not majoring in Geography.

And now I have to get back to my audits. How about cute kitty pictures?

Edgar and Cayce making themselves right at home in the spare bathroom at my parents’ house.

Edgar making himself at home on my MIL’s table in front of the window.

A not terribly clear but very cute picture of my niece and her son at Thanksgiving.

And fun Asheville pictures, from the Kress building which is now a nifty artsy craftsy place: