A story about how I waited in too many lines today.

Today was a lesson in patience and determination for me. No, I wasn't a part of the East Coast Quake or the siege on Tripoli. Instead, I forged my way through several tremendously loooooooong lines to FINALLY get the last of my financial aid paperwork submitted. Now I just have to wait for them to do their magic, and I should be getting my award letter (hopefully) soon. Yeah!!!

So I've been trying to reach my advisor for a couple of weeks now after realizing one night that I needed to submit a three-year plan to the financial aid office to prove why I want to continue my undergrad schooling beyond the four years that I already have. I'm assuming he's either on vacation or just never checks his messages, because I never did hear from him.

Yesterday I sent a pleading email to the Counseling office to see if there was anyone else I could meet with to go over things. The financial aid office needed my advisor's signature on said plans, and since I hadn't heard from him... I was at a loss.

Turns out the Counseling office only counsels Undeclared majors (seriously??), but they did suggest that I ask the secretary of the Dean of something-or-other to see if the Dean could meet with me. So I shot her a message this morning. Within a half hour, a different teacher in my department had emailed me, saying that he also did advising and could meet up this afternoon if I wanted.

Yahoo!!! :D  *happydance*

I hightaled it down to campus as quickly as I could. I still needed to talk to the registrar first to know which general eds I needed to put on this three-year schedule. Three annoyingly-slow lines later, I finally had the correct office (for the record... the "Registration" office is NOT the "Registrar's" office - clear as mud?).

Turns out that the Registrar couldn't even really help me until after they'd "evaluated my transcripts", whatever that means. I thought all that was done already?? I've already received notices that I don't need to take Math and English. I just needed to know about the rest of the general eds.

So anyway, after griping at me for ten minutes about evaluations, the registrar lady finally just turned to her computer and fiddled around for like five minutes. Yes.... only FIVE MINUTES! This was all it took to evaluate my transcripts.

*facepalm*

The verdict was that most everything transferred, and that all I needed to take in the general ed. department was science. My previous undergrad had only required science or math, and I'd taken math, so... now I have to take the science. No biggie. It's better than having to take speech class or college algebra again!

Then I was off to see my advisor. Finally! Well, to see this secondary advisor anyway. I'm still not entirely sure which one is my official advisor... or if it even matters.

Anyway.... this guy was way more helpful than the lovely people in the Registrar's office. He rearranged my schedule a bit, added in that science class that I now knew that I needed to take, and... presto, chango.... I have my three-year plan mapped out!! Yeah!!

So back I went to stand in yet ANOTHER line to submit all this to the Financial Aid office. Everything looked good. Then they handed me back three of the pages and said, "This goes to Admissions." Right... wherever that is.

Two more lines later, I figured out that Admissions is at the same unmarked desk that the Registrar's office is at. Why are things not clearly marked at this school??

The Admissions lady looked at my forms for like two seconds, stamped them "Received", and said, "Okay, looks good. I'll turn these in to Financial Aid for you."

Seriously?? They go back to where I just was? Oh for the love...

I smiled sweetly and said, "Great, thank you!" and got the heck out of Dodge before anyone made me stand in any more lines!