 |
 |
feeling: GRWAAAAAAARRRR
listening to: nothing
Settle in, kids. It's rant time. Now now, no pushing... there's room for everyone.
Ok, this rant is about stress. But it's not what you'd expect. I'm not whining because I'm under 50 tons of pressure and just want it all to be over. That's true too, but that's not what this rant is about. I'm used to stress. I'm used to having ten million things to do in two weeks or less. I'm used to deadlines and being under the gun. I even make it worse for myself by putting everything off until the last possible minute, so I don't really have room to whine, not that that stops me. But yeah, point is, I'm used to stress. Whatever.
No, this rant is about unnecessary stress. You know, when you're scrambling around moving the stars themselves and tearing your hair out in a race against the clock to meet a deadline, only to find out that that deadline has been pushed back by a significant amount of time that could have saved you a serious truckload of stress. THIS is the kind of stress that I can't freaking stand. And this is the kind of stress that I have found myself under more than any other kind of stress.
What brings this on now? Well, first of all, my geology final is on Monday, right? And I have a HUGE amount of material to go through in order to prepare for it. We're talking, like, 25-30 pages of notes, front and back, inside and out. I wouldn't complain normally, because this is what college finals are all about, right? But here's the thing: the professor gave us his estimation that it should take us about TWENTY MINUTES on average to complete this exam. Which basically means I have to spend essentially every waking minute of the next 3 days cramming all that material into my head, when only about 10% of it is actually going to be on the final. But we don't know WHICH 10%, so if I don't know everything from the notes, I might as well not even show up for the stupid test. Unnecessary stress. And it's compounded by the fact that I also have a final lab assignment to complete, a Japanese final to study for, a 10 page paper to write, a sequence of autumn-themed uta (like the ancestor of haiku, with a couple extra lines) to compose, and a 10 minute presentation to prepare, ALL within that same 3-day span. There was also a book to read, a report to write about it, a concept paper to write, 2 quizzes, a psych final, and an oral final, and although over the past 5 days I've gotten all of those out of the way, they still added an extra ton or two to all that stress while they were pending completion.
Oh, but that's not all. Remember how previously I ranted about the crap I've been through trying to meet my department advisor to complete my major program form, which I finally got done on Wednesday only after trying to chase down a nonexistant advisor for about a month? Well, with that out of the way, I was finally free to complete my application to graduate in spring, which I have always been told is to be done no less than one quarter before your desired graduation date. (Which is why I went insane for weeks trying to find my dept. advisor.) I had an appointment to do this today at 3.
Let me tell you how it went.
So I get in there, I sit down, I fill out what I can of the application while the honors counselor lady goes through my honors contract and transcript making sure everything's in order. We're chugging along, all is cool. Then she tells me she needs to see my completed major program form before she can approve my application. But I didn't have it. So I had to run back to the dorm, get it, and run back there before her next appointment. I handed it to her, along with the form I had to fill out to make a couple small major-specific changes in my honors contract. We had discussed this already, so I didn't expect difficulties. And boy, was I wrong. As it turns out, despite the fact that my dept. advisor signed my major program form including those two small changes, she was also supposed to sign the change form before the honors committee could approve it. And all this also is to be done before the application to graduate.
Long story short, I am forced to take another step backwards - I have to arrange to meet my advisor again to get her signature, then take that back to the honors counselor, THEN finish my application to graduate. And all of this before the end of this quarter, which means in the next 2 business days, just like I've known all this freaking time while I was chasing my advisor down, right?
Wrong.
Honors counselor chooses that particular moment to inform me that I don't have to submit my application to graduate until SIX WEEKS BEFORE MY GRADUATION DATE. So all the time I spent this week actively hunting down my advisor, finally finding a new one, completing the paperwork, filing the paperwork, making another appointment, and filling out the next 2 forms - not to mention all the time trying to establish indirect contact with that nonexistant advisor - could have been put to much better use working on my papers, poems, and presentation, or studying for my finals, or working on my lab. But no, life can't be that simple. Just when I think I've barely made it in under the gun, I find out all the stress I've been through has been in vain because 1) I missed a step anyway and 2) my deadline is six freaking weeks later than they originally told me it was. Unnecessary stress.
God, I want to go home.
"Show me the way to go home! Everybody! I'm tired and I want to go to bed! Just the women!"
~Stewie of Family Guy leading a rousing musical number in Peter's basement bar
comment! (0)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 3/12/2004 04:18:00 PM
|
|
