This is going to be hard to explain without slipping into profanity or completely confusing all of my readers. But I'm going to try anyway, because I'm a believer in the therapeutic side of writing - I feel better once I've "talked" about it.
Basically, today sucked. More than most days even. I have reached my maximum level of frustration and anger in the same day and the result is not pretty.
I was pissed off from the beginning because I have a class on Saturday. And not just another Russian class, but my one regional studies class, the only class I can't skip. Well, my schedule had no room number written on it. If this had been at UTD, I would have logged onto SIS (well, if the timing was write - we all know that SIS doesn't always behave) and found out where the class was located. Or gone to the registrar's office. But things just aren't that easy in Russia. The room numbers for the classes are written down only in one location - the board with all the schedules for each faculty. So basically you have to look for your course on this huge board at the same time as everyone else in the university.
So I tried this approach. No luck - for some reason the lesson I was supposed to be attending (in t-minus 20 minutes at that point) was not on the list. So I tried to find someone to ask. But because it was Saturday, all the main offices were closed - only the sub-offices and such were open. Try finding someone to answer such a specific question when you don't know how to say phrase it in their language. After about 10 offices, I was told to go to this one classroom. I went, and after about 5 minutes of the lecture, I realized I was in the wrong class. Of course, there wasn't much I could do about it at that point. Get up and leave immediately? And piss of the professor without being able to properly apologize? I didn't even know where to go anyway or who to ask next. So I sat through an hour and a half of straight lecture about environmental problems (I think), getting dirty looks from the professor the whole time because I wasn't taking notes like the rest of the class. AAAHHHHH! Afterwards, I went and explained my situation to her as best as I could and she was nice enough to walk me down to the office where they distribute keys for the classrooms before lessons - an obvious place to find an answer to my mystery, right? Not exactly. The lady there had no idea about this course I was asking about and told me to go to the dean of my school. Of course, it is Saturday and the dean is not here on the weekend. So where do I go. Home. No other choice. I missed the first day of class in a course that may or may not exist, and now I have to go back to Natalya Alexandrovna's office on Monday and tell her about the problem - for which I will probably take the blame in some way.
What am I doing here?
At least I don't have to be anywhere tomorrow. I just have about three weeks worth of dirty clothes to wash. By hand.
If only I could find something besides vodka to drown my sorrows in.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
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