an exercise in sheer unabashed idiocy: registration; or the lack there of

That’s right. I just triple titled you.

You might not think this is funny, but today was so utterly ridiculous to me it drove me to drink and dance all night tonight in Dublin (so fun! yay for boys who can dance and vodka miracle mix). So while I’m doing my liver love aguathon, I’ll share this story.

The plan today was to get up at 8. To shower and experiment with what happens when I wash my new short hair. Ha. Plans. Cute. Getting up. Ha.

That didn’t really happen for various reasons, including but not limited to a great dream where I was Kafka and could will people into becoming giant cockroaches. That’s right.

So I was ready to get out of the door at like 9:40ish. But first I squinted into my computer screen trying to memorize the UCD campus map before realizing that not only do I not need to squint to see things directly in front of me (20/20 baby), but that they had given me one on the back of my little orientation folder. So. Then I left for another building besides the arts building which is pretty much the only building besides the one I’m in that I know.

The wind was fucking fierce. Seriously. I was actually leaning. Birds were pathetically hovering back and forth in the air currents. They must be so much butcher than the anorexic LA pigeons. I got to my destination and once again marveled at the Irish use of numbers and letters to designate rooms, but their seeming unwillingness to actually put them in chronological or numerical order. I guess I can respect that.

I arrived at the sociology professor’s door that I was supposedly supposed to talk to and he was not there. Next to his door was a slightly ajar one with an extremely nice and auntie (not in a creepy way) type woman who called a bunch of people for me to find out where I should go and even walked me outside to point me on my way. So I happily began my walk towards the now familiar arts building, thankful at least one authority figure on this god forsaken program actually had a little authority.

It was then that I met Danny. Oh Danny. Danny looked like Jack Black’s pasty, Irish, not-funny, younger brother. He’s supposed to be the Sociology JYA (Junior Year Abroad- aka ME!) coordinator. His “office” was a small room in which he and Suzie McCrankerpants sit across from each other and type and do..who knows. So I go in (because that’s what I was told to do) to ask about getting my sociology classes and ask if they have a course schedule list. You’d have thought I asked for Danny and Suzie’s lifeblood. NO! NO! they said, those are being worked on, and will be out very soon. Very soon? Classes started TODAY? And you don’t even have a course list for me? Mk. So I say, ok when can I come back? They say, maybe like…after 4? We’re having a staff party soon. Ok. Neat. As I shut the door I hear Danny say to Suzie, “Have you started on that list yet?” I don’t get Suzie’s response as the door closes.

At 10 am I was scheduled to go to a Psychology department “meeting”, which turned out to be me and two other girls in a professor’s cramped office. He had just gotten back from a vacation in Cancun yesterday, he didn’t know how to use the new website, didn’t know what classes were available, but said, with a jolly chuckle, that he was just there to make us happy. I was clearly not not not so happy, so he had the secretary try to print me a timetable, she told me to come back, sometime after 12. Apparently Cancun was lovely though, he was quite proud of his tan.

Beginning to savor the day’s flavor of complete cluelessness, my own and other’s, I went off to section J to see if the available list of English tutorials (small discussion classes that accompany big lecture courses) had been posted as we were told they would be at our English department meeting. The door was listless (ha) and so I went inside. A man and a woman sat close together in front of a computer debating over some list of classes, the man, a long silver-haired academic type, wondered aloud how they could keep JYAs (excuse me!) out of one of his sections which was apparently filling up fast. For 15 minutes I ahemed, smiled like an idiot, said hello…? smiled like an even bigger idiot and waited. And was ignored. Finally another woman came around the corner and told me to go to two other faculty offices to find the lists I sought.

At the English office a nice woman I recognized from our department meeting came out from one of the doors I had been sent to and told me there was no such list being posted (she had been, of course, the one to originally suggest it would be. I know, I wrote that shit down!) and told me to go Frieda.

At this point I almost broke down. Frieda is our program director; it is her job to manage over 100 international student’s schedules. I get that that is hard. I get that that is stressful. I get that she is understaffed. But she is a bitch. And that is just unnecessary, unless you’re Meredith Brooks. The website sucks. Registration here is confusing and ass backwards.

And I started thinking about going into the Scripps registrar’s office and meeting with the old crotchedy resistrar at my designated, special, personal, MY, time slot and getting it all done at one time and eating those stale sketchy orange slice candies they keep in a sparkly glass jar at the office, and I looked into the face of this beautiful, petite sympathetic Irish woman and almost started crying. Because I knew Frieda would be no help. She would wonder why I had no class lists, why I couldn’t access the modules online? Frieda told us we needed to go see all of these professors, program assistants and advisors, but not a single one of them could give me class lists, help me with the website or do anything but offer me tea. WHY? WHY? WHY? (Not the tea, I dig tea.)

So naturally I ran away.

And got lunch with my apartment-mate Erin and devoured some lovely tomato soup and had a delightful bitch fest.

After that I tromped through the cold cold meanie wind back to the apartment. If you know me at all, you know what came next. I had a small growl fest, put on some feisty tunage, put my then crazy, wind-permed hair in a pony-tail (seriously guys, I look like a cocker spaniel…hawt), put on my boots, smacked on some angry eye-liner and prepared to be winner.

My next stop was the bank. At orientation they had said, ” Oh, just go in with your passport and set up an account, really simple, grand, yes.” Lies.

After waiting in line for about 20 minutes I got to the counter where she asked for my “Housing Verification Form.” I had no such form. I mean I had keys, I had showered and I had a UCD id, but this woman needed this form, a form which basically says that yes, in fact I do live here. The form, was to be procured in the admin building. So I left and not knowing where said building was, I went into a friendly looking structure with happy, “What can we do for our students?” posters and found la-di-da! that is was in fact the admin building. Joy. Here I waited in line again, and actually got just what I needed quick and easy and straight forward. I might have actually proclaimed some love for the woman who helped me out.

Back to the bank, where I set up an account which may or may not be real by Wednesday. It’s like a little mystery!

After that I needed to register my computer to use AIM, Skype and Firefox for my various everyday technological (ayo…) needs. I had no idea where to do this either, but had some vague memory of other people on the program going to a room in the business school with their computers. This would probably be because it was a wireless study room. This became apparent after sitting inside it for 15 minutes with my computer out, waiting for one of the lunching students to magically morph into IT support. Then I texted a few people to find out where it actually was and went as I was directed. The guy who helped me was wearing a fuzzy green sweater that matched his eyes and knew many proxy numbers by heart, he also had a very manly way of using this thumb on my click pad, I was smitten, clearly. And now I have AIM and Skype. Rapture.

After those successful missions I was feeling prettay great about my supreme ability to be functional and headed back to my room to chill for 2 hours before my first and only class that day. There I caught up on emails, took a delicious nap and got ready to go. Getting my stuff together for class I realized I didn’t see my brown flowery happy papers folder. This folder, besides being adorable, also functions to house all my paper work for when I have to go register with the Irish police (another day o’ fun, I’m sure) including but not limited to bank statements and a notarized letter from my parentals saying they aren’t going to cut me off while I’m here, all painfully procured before I came here. The folder was not in my one bag. My one desk drawer. It was not in my bed (what? you don’t snuggle with your school supplies?). It was gone. Panic attack.

I had to be in class in 20 minutes to I ran from the apartment all over campus, retracing my steps- to the random building, to the offices, to see Jack Black-lite, to the bank, computer lab, to the lady I love at the admin building. None of them had seen it. So I went to class.

My class was American Society, a lecture in Theater L. I show up about 5 minutes late to an empty lecture hall, but I sat down anyway, thinking maybe it, like many classes here, started 10 minutes into the hour. I made a list of everywhere I’d been that day and looked up outside the lecture hall to see a man in a tweed overcoat and brown pants sitting eating from about three trays filled with packaged snack foods. He grinned and winked at me and munched on. I smiled, thinking, oh, the Professor is just grabbing some food, and he likes me! Yay. 15 minutes later I realize no one is showing up and my smiling hall buddy prof is actually a bum who had shopped random half-eaten foods from the caf. Nice.

I realized I hadn’t checked the fake IT office for my lost folder, so I walked back outside to the business school. They had it in the lost and found at the help desk, and for the second time that day I proclaimed my love for complete strangers.

Then finally, I raced around and attempted to obtain course schedules again and faced the inevitable trip to Freida’s office. There I waited in line with a large mass of other exhausted, frustrated, loopy JYA’s and when my turn came I stuffed my face with stale cookies she offered me and after being scolded for not being able to use the website, talk to the right people or be competent in general, I signed up for the few classes I could actually get times and numbers for.

I left satisfied and overjoyed to be done with it all, if nothing else. I went to a café back at the business school, ate an enormous chocolate chocolate muffin and friendly strawberry smoothie and sat down to make a little schedule of classes for myself. I realized I’d signed up for two classes at the same time.

I am a champ. It took me from 9-5 to sign up for two classes, at the same times.

I would’ve killed right then for some quality time with one bulk class booklet, ancient crusty registrar and stale candy orange slices. Instead I chose vodka and 90’s hits remixed at Citi bar, Dublin. It turned out to be a really great night and I decided to make like the Irish students and worry about it next week when my hangover subsides.

Up next…back into Frieda’s liar of despair…