« Dreams. Jail. Dreams of Jail. | Main | Bloody Hell! »
August 24, 2001
The Orientation Chronicles.
Well, I had my orientation today, and it was the absolute worst four hours of my life.
It all started at the crack of dawn; well, at about 7:20 since that's when I woke up. I ended up leaving a bit late for the school because I wasn't in any rush to get there, and by the time I got there, and found out where the place was, they still weren't finished with orientation check-in, so all was good, I suppose.
The first thing I did was start sifting through all of the useless crap they stuff in your orientation folder. Stuff about emergency contraception and "things to do while in the UP" have no real bearing in my college career, so I deemed these as junk. By the time I was done, I only had about four papers in the 1lb folder they had given me (seeing how I couldn't find any recycle bins and I didn't just want to throw out all of the papers, I ended up keeping them :P), and the lady started her speech. I didn't really pay attention; instead, I just fipped through the course listings and tried picking out classes in the short time I had to do so. I already had a rough idea of what I wanted/needed to take, it was just a matter of getting them all situated with specific times and dates that I didn't have, so that's pretty much what I did during her speech. Every once in a while, I caught what she was saying; the part where she talked about how friendly everyone was and how we're never afraid to stop and say 'hi' to a stranger we pass on the sidewalk prompted me to curse at her under my breath. Then she split us up into little power groups and sent us off to other rooms in the building with orientation leaders.
My orientation leader was an idiot. Plain and simple. I knew things that he didn't about that school, and I haven't gone there for about four years now (while I was still in high school). Oh well, instead of making him look like more of a moron, I left him alone and just let him talk about how friendly the UP is. He was from Detroit, and made a comment about how people actually stop for you when you're trying to cross the street up here. All I could think of was "you don't want to press your luck with me, pal." Yeah, I'm mean, I know. I just didn't want to be there at all, and was taking out my crabbiness silently on everybody in charge of the orientation.
After that was over, they sent us to find our department advisors. I walked across the campus to my building, and waited for the advisor to take the CIS kids out to talk to us. She talked to us; directed a few comments to me in regards to a couple of questions I had, and let me go off to register since I already knew pretty much what I wanted. I walked down to the secretary's office, told her my social security number, and was all set to go...or was I?
As it turned out, she told me that I wasn't enrolled as a student this semester. Wha?!? That's impossible! I just filled out the application and went through all of that junk this past summer to get admitted! Nobody even told me I had to do anything else when I talked to them about orientation! After explaining everything to her about how I was planning on taking summer courses, but changed my mind, she called the Re-entry office and they told her to send me back over there to fill out an application and re-apply to the university for the fall term. Since I didn't attend summer courses, I had to re-apply. Uh, ok, so be it.
I hiked across campus again, got a couple of lovely blisters on my feet in the process because I didn't put socks on before I left home, and felt the 'burn' in my legs since I was so lazy this past summer...which was all my own fault, but anyway. Got to the administration building, went into the payment room where they gave me an application and said "bring this to the third floor." Filled it out as quickly as I could, and brought it to the Re-entry office. After a couple of minutes, the lady came back and said "you need to bring this down to the office of admissions...down the hall." Ok, grabbed my application, and hauled ass down the hall to the office. Brought it to one of the secretaries in there, and she said "you have to bring this to the Re-entry office down the hall." Ugh, I explained that the lady down there sent me down here, and told her my lovely sob story about nobody telling me I had to reapply, I couldn't register until I went to orientation which I did today, and how I had my tuition check all filled out and in my wallet. She brought my application to the processor, and about five or ten minutes later, she said I was admitted and I could register. However, I had to submit transcripts from my old college and my high school. Oi...I told her already that I had just had my college transcripts sent and recieved notification that they had arrived there, but I'd get the high school ones there as soon as possible. She just told me to check back in a week or so when things have cooled down since my file was just skimmed. Then she directed me one floor below to the Office of Orientation in case I had any questions.
I went down to the orientation office just in case I missed something along the way. There, this girl whom I knew from high school that graduated after I did (grr :P...great way to make me feel cheap), registered me for my classes. I got into all of my first choices which was amazing, and ended that session with 12 credits (the only class that I really wanted to take that was full was Intermediate Spanish I, but that's ok; it'll give me a chance to brush up on it before I get back into it right away).
After that was done, I headed back down to the first floor to pay my tuition and orientation fee, and find out when I could pick up my laptop. Well, the lady I talked to (who was the same one that gave me the application and directed me up to the Re-entry office) couldn't figure out how to get me validated so I could pick up my laptop (she assumed it was because I had just been admitted as a student about twenty minutes prior to my meeting with her for the second time), so she directed me to the Dean of Students office in the university center which was across the steet. Ok, no problems there, either.
Got to the DOS office, presented the girl there with the reciept from my tuition payment, and she fiddled around with the computer for a bit. She then told me I could pick up my laptop on Sunday. I asked her if there was any possible way I could've gotten it today, but she said no (even though the lady at the orientation meeting said we could pick them up today if we paid in full...grr again). Oh well, I didn't put up a fight at all. I was just glad to have my classes registered and be pretty much set. I agreed to Sunday at one.
I can't wait to see what buying my books is going to turn into. If I end up the target for international assassins again, I'm going to be really pissed off...
Posted by ladyx at August 24, 2001 11:56 PM
Due to the proliferation of comment spam, we've had to close comments on this entry. If you would like to leave a comment, please use one of our more recent entries which you can find on the home page.