time for a break

From clearing our darling seniors, I mean. Yes, it’s that time again. Already. Lucky lucky Mr. Organized is in Italy on vacation until next week, so Miss Artsy and I are tackling them by ourselves. Which is always a little scary, since he’s the most rabidly detail-oriented of the three of us, and the least likely to make mistakes. But he’ll be back in time to double-check, so he can catch all our mistakes then. 

Anyhow, it’s very tedious work and I am in serious need of a break. So hey, I think I’ll take one. For some reason the ones I have worked on so far have been a MESS. I’ve done 25, and I think three of them are actually clear to graduate in December. Provided they pass the classes they’re in now. The rest either (A) are missing stuff we already told them they were missing when we reviewed their graduation audit with them, and since they did nothing about whatever they were missing at the time, they are … shock! …. still missing it.  Or several ‘its", more likely; (B) were actually on track when we did the audit and reviewed it, but have since then dropped classes they NEED. Or conversely added stuff they didn’t need, or did BOTH, and it’s a real pain in the ass trying to figure out what exactly in the hell they are doing. I just did one who reviewed with me a week ago, was right on track, taking all the right courses… and then two days ago he dropped a class he has to have to graduate. Of course it’s possible he was not passing the class so realizes he won’t be graduating, although you’d think he would have mentioned that when I reviewed his audit with him a week ago and told him he was all clear. Since I clearly recall another student a couple of years ago who reviewed with us, was on track to graduate, and then went immediately and dropped his whole schedule, and THEN when it came time to graduate wailed, "you tooooold me I was okaaaaay!!!!", I tend to think the worst. As in, not the brightest bulb in the track lighting. We have numerous disclaimers on their audit saying that it includes WHAT THEY ARE ENROLLED IN. And we highlight that. And it’s all listed on their checksheets that they’ve been following for, oh, four years. You’d think it would be obvious. Sadly, nothing is obvious.

Oh, well. I do try to keep in mind that most of our students are intelligent and capable and will be fully able to run our world when they are released into it. I really really do. It’s just a hard thing to remember come graduation clearance time.

While I’m on this roll, I’ll tell a couple of Aggravation Receptionist stories, since Aggravation Receptionist has returned from her bunion surgery and is once again ripping my poor nerves to shreds with her sighing and languishing and perpetual draaaaaama. So, this is my therapy. And it will distract me from complaining about the poor students. 

We are now in a fairly large building, with three floors. Our mail is picked up and delivered twice a day, but our boxes are all on the first floor so we have to go down there to pick up incoming and drop off outgoing mail. Also on the first floor are more offices, one of which AR needed to send something to the other day. SO, I’m out there digging around in files when she’s packing up the mail to take it down to the boxes, and she says, "It seems kind of silly to send this through the mail to the HS department, when they are right downstairs!"

I just went "………" "…….." "…….ummmmm, yes! Yes it certainly does seem silly to send something through the mail when you will be walking right by the office that you’re sending it to in order to get to the outgoing mail box!!!!"

I still don’t understand the thought process behind that. 

And yesterday she was about 20 minutes late. She’s 10-15 minutes late pretty much every day, and lest you think it’s because she had bunion surgery, it’s not. She’s always been 10-15 minutes late unless it’s right before or immediately after our annual reviews. So anyhow, she’s later than ever yesterday, and when she gets here at last she asked me how I got to the parking lot, because one of the roads coming in around the back of campus is blocked off for a few days. We both come around the back way. I had done the, well, normal thing. I turned up one road towards the main street in town, turned back down the next road that heads back to campus and was planning to go into the parking lot beside our usual one that way. From there you can just jump on over to our lot without getting back on the main road. But to my surprise I didn’t even have to do that, because the second road actually went right back to the blocked road — it was open again on that end, so I could go on to the parking lot my usual way and didn’t even have to cut through other lots. Basically I did a big U. However, poor AR did not do a big U because AR could not figure out how to get to the cut-through parkinglot, let alone how to get back down to the usual, surprisingly-unblocked road.

So she ended up going all the way through town, and having to make a big circle, coming back to campus from the complete opposite direction. In all the hellacious morning traffic jams, because we live in a teeny tiny little town with one two-lane road going through downtown itself and another two-lane road paralleling it and going through campus, and a third very narrow partly pedestrian road between those two. And a couple of roads running perpendicular between the downtown road and the campus road. Which is precisely why I could not believe she was unable to figure out how to get back to campus after detouring off the first road she was on. THERE ARE THREE TWO-LANE TEENY ROADS IN TOWN. That’s IT. She’s lived here 25 or 30 years, yet does not know how to navigate through this teeny little three road town. You can make a loop of all the roads around town and campus and it’s a two mile walk. But she can’t figure it out and gets caught in the godawful traffic – and our traffic IS ghastly, since we do just have this teeny town and teeny roads for a gazillion people who live here.

ANYHOW, I should not be ranting on and on about poor AR. I know, I know. It’s just frustrating. And funny, I’ll admit. And therapy! 

So, guess I’ve whined long enough and better get back to work. We have had the most gorgeous, amazing fall colors, which only really appeared early in the week. And sadly they are probably going to be gone by the weekend since we had massive winds and rain yesterday. Right now it’s sunny again. Yesterday was bizarre- it rained most of the day, but occasionally the sun would blaze down. After work I went to our Harris Teeter grocery, which is in the middle of a huge remodel. It was already a big store, and now will be about three miles long. There may or may not be a Starbucks at some point — there are conflicting accounts. We are like the only town anywhere on earth without a Starbucks. But anyhow, it had quit raining right before I got there, then when I was leaving it was POURING rain— yet the sun was also blazing down. So I had to dig out my sunglasses and put on my rainhood at the same time. Rainbow weather!

Harris Teeter is apparently doing something right: 

<img alt="" src=”http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6174/6244261150_1ab87442ed.jpg&#8221; />

Unfortunately I could not get far enough away to get the whole rainbow in, and properly show how it was arched completely over Harris Teeter. It was even a DOUBLE rainbow-

The pictures do not do it justice. I didn’t have my SLR. But it was the prettiest rainbow I’ve ever seen in my life, and it had an amazing range of colors, which sadly don’t all show up here. 

And I could see it until I got home. 

McDonalds, on the other hand, does not get a rainbow because they have failed basic literacy:

Dinnig RM???? I totally blocked their driveway for that.