post the hundred and first

Do you want to know what it feels like to be me?

Of course you do. Everyone does. Don't lie to yourself.

Find a hula hoop and a friend. Have the friend light the hula hoop on fire. Jump through the hoop several times, being sure that your friend kicks you each time. It might even help if your friend throws some clever insults in there, too.

I'm scheduled to graduate next April, and I've had to jump through an inordinate amount of hoops lately to get clearance to do so. (I'm still not all the way there, and I've been working on this for the better part of the last week.) I found out yesterday that I need the signature of my academic advisor from my college to graduate, so I headed up to his office at 9.15 this morning to get that taken care of. It was pretty clear that he really didn't want to be there, which had me a bit mystified. How hard can it be to look up a few things and sign my paper? Furthermore, how bad can it be if you're being paid to do so? Fortunately, I had enough cheer for the both of us, and I headed out with a signed form in my hand. Since I'm in the education program, however, I also needed the signature of my education advisor. I headed over to the education building to pick up that signature, confident that I was almost done with my work.

When I handed the form to my advisor, though, she looked a bit confused. She told me that I needed a similar form for my minor, which my history advisor should have given me. I've had problems with the history department before, so this was nothing out of the ordinary. I headed back to the history department, slightly irritated, but still glad that I was almost done. As you can imagine, though, I was far from it. The two secretaries at the desk seemed confused as to why they were even holding my minor form. They talked back and forth to each other about it for a while before they even realized that I was there to pick it up. Predictably, it was missing a signature that should have been on there months ago. Guess who got to go collect that?

So now I'm heading over to the Japanese department, more than a little irritated at the incompetence of the history department. Once there, I found out that I actually have one more class to take than I thought I did. I get to pile that on top of the classes I'm already taking, my licensure exam, preparations for student teaching, my senior thesis, and everything else I have to do right now. It's insane. I knew this year was going to be rough, but I had no idea just how nasty it was going to be. Assuming everything continues at the current pace (and I see no reason why it won't), I should finally get to breathe a little easy around December.

ick.