madness central

I sure will be glad to see 5:00 and the three day weekend arrive. Although classes don’t start till Tuesday and most students are still gone for the break, these last couple of days have been HELL. Not busy so much as just one bizarre situation then another bizarre situation then another bizarre situation then hey, look, here comes a bizarre situation! All of our heads are about to spin right off our shoulders. Well, except for Aggravation Receptionist, who decided suddenly that she was sick yesterday and went home, then didn’t come in today. Frankly that’s just one less annoyance to have to deal with, and Miss Artsy does all her work for her anyhow so it’s really a plus. I know she’s not really sick, because she is an Attention/SympathyMonger and when she really IS sick she will not consider staying home. Because if she is at home she cannot be here, moaning about how horrible she feels and detailing all her symptoms for anyone who will stand still for three seconds and spreading her germs with wild abandon. 

So at least I don’t have AR driving me round the bend. 

What I do have is an apparently endless round of emails between me, the Distance Education office, an advisor, and a VERY ANGRY STUDENT. I’ve been interrupted about five times just while writing this to throw my own replies into the whirlpool. The Very Angry Student is part of an off-campus cohort, and the Distance Ed office had us do audits for his cohort a couple of months ago. Very Angry Student is short quite a bunch of stuff for his core requirements — the basic general-education stuff everyone has to take. He’s short some stuff in his major too, but he knew about that and was planning on taking the rest of his major stuff this summer. He was not aware of the core shortages, and I for once do not blame him for being VERY ANGRY because apparently Distance Ed told him that the courses he has transferred in from his community college will count. Ummmmmm, no. No, they will not, and these are really basic things that everyone has to take and that the transfer work in question has never been accepted for. And ordinarily I’d blame the student for obviously not even glancing at his checksheet, but the off-campus cohorts are so weird that he may have never had a checksheet to glance at. In his last VERY ANGRY EMAIL he said he is scanning the program of study Distance Ed wrote up for him and emailing it to us. So I’m thinking Distance Ed has, honestly, fucked all up on this one. 

However, just got yet another email from the advisor saying this student does not follow instructions and gets frustrated at everyone else over his own carelessness. So, who knows!! I’d say six of one, half dozen of the other. I am very interested in seeing the scan of the classes he was told to take, though. 

I’ve also spent an overly huge chunk of time trying to figure out if a student has met her requirement of two basic history courses. Also for her core. All students have to take History A and then History B. Or Honors History A and Honors History B. This student took Honors History A, then took another history course that looked to me like it was the equivalent of History A. Meaning she had two History A’s and no History B’s. Thanks to our New CrazyAss Gen Ed program, all the history courses have changed numbers, and the course she took – History C– will sub for History A or History B. I THINK. I’m really not sure because our New CrazyAss Gen Ed program has this long list of History D,E,F,G,H,I that will sub for HIS A and then that will maybe ALSO sub for History B…. so finally I email the Core Expert in the department that handles approvals of the Core courses. He emailed back with a mathematical equation that went something like HON HIS A=HIS A and HIS C=HIS A, and HIS C = HIS B and…oh, hell, he doesn’t really know so I better check with the History department! Which did make me feel better about being so completely confused about it myself. 

Oh, OH and you know who else has resurfaced?? Well, not really resurfaced since he did apply to graduate in May but massively failed, oh, everything, so applied again in December and failed a few classes again and dropped way below the not-too-difficult-to-manage and totally required C minimum in both his major courses and overall, but emailed my boss to see if there’s anything he can do about those six F’s which "negatively impacted" his graduation and hey, he will get his diploma anyhow, right??? Well, after my boss gently told him that no, he would not get his diploma until he, oh, FINISHES ALL THE REQUIREMENTS FOR HIS MAJOR AND PULLS UP HIS GPA, the student emails him again. 

The student would like my boss to please mail his mom a letter telling her he has met all the requirements for graduation and is going to receive a diploma. He’s short two classes in his major because he failed both of them; he has a GPA that is below 2.0 overall and in his major, AND he is short the minimum number of earned hours for graduation since he failed two classes….. but sure! We can tell his mom he graduated! No problem! Oh, yeah, he also wants us to let the Registrar’s Office know that if his mom calls them, they need to tell her that he graduated! Hey, I’m sure they’ll be perfectly fine with that. We tell blatant and outrageous lies all the time just to help your dumb ass out. I know – we’ll send a letter to your prospective employer while we’re at it, telling them that not only did you graduate, you graduated with the highest of honors! 

I suggested that my boss forward that email to the professor who taught the Ethics class he was required as a Journalism major to take, and have them fail him retroactively in that one too. 

Today he emails my boss yet again. Asking if we’d please mail his diploma to him. Because his parents are going to be very disappointed if he does not get his degree and can’t afford any more tuition (he’s been here five years so far). My boss replied, telling him for the gazillionth time that, HELLLLLLLO, he will NOT GET A DIPLOMA TILL HE ACTUALLY FINISHES HIS REQUIREMENTS!!!!! Then he forwarded the email on to the dean of students because this has actually gone beyond being hilarious and has entered the realm of Creepy Disturbing Disconnection From Reality.

AAAGGGHHH.

Wow, I’ve ranted till it’s time to go home. And I’ve never posted any Charleston Pictures! Or Creepy Christmas Ornament pictures, and it’s getting a little late for that this year. Since we currently have several inches of snow on the ground and it is NINETEEN DEGREES out there, I will post a few Yearning To Be Back In Beautiful Warm(ish) Charleston pictures, and maybe I can catch up during our (YAY!!) looooong weekend (hahahahahahaha!!!) I was going to see my dad but decided against it since it’s not going to be above freezing for days and the mountainy roads between here and there may be icy and I can not wreck our shiny new car. I am more pleased than I should be about that. 

It wasn’t HOT, but it was in the 60s – and there are flowers everywhere of course. This was at Folly Beach:

<img alt="" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7016/6604337583_06fe96761c_z.jpg&#8221; />

  
The Historic District:

Wow, Flickr is being slow. More later. (And I was just interrupted again by CNN Breaking News telling me that John Edwards has been diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition. How ironic!)