Back to school: Life gets weird again

So, in an effort to make my life more interesting and just finish up some of the older things on my Colosal Todo list, I’ve decided to go back to school. It’s a little known fact – until now – that I still haven’t finished my college degree. I was supposed to be done almost 10 years ago, back in 1996, but, well, it didn’t happen.
So, anyway, after discussing what I need to do to finish things up, I’m back at good old SCSU for one last class: Anthropology of Media. It’s a journalism class, lest you should get the wrong idea that I’m studying Anthropology or something. (Which is an interesting field, and how I met my wife – a story for another time, perhaps).
Anyway, the whole process of getting back into the college life is pretty interesting in it’s own right – let me share….


After finding out which course I needed – and thank goodness it was only one – I tried to use the schools online registration system. Too bad it’s been so long since I was in school – I wasn’t in the system. I managed to re-matriculate (that’s college-speak for re-enroll) over the phone and with a few faxes, then I tried to register again – only to find out that I didn’t have a crucial piece of the puzzle – my password. It turns out that one should have been assigned to me, but never was. And since it was supposed to be based on information only I would know, it meant a trip to campus to prove who I was. Since I already had the day off, and the kids were going a little crazy, I decided to make life more interesting: I brought Abby with me.
The day I went turned out to be senior citizen enrollment day – meaning that the registration department, even though it was in a “new” building (while the “old building” was being renovated) – so there were quite a few senior citizens about for registration, as well as people trying to settle bills and use the other facilities in this building – basically most of the administrative functionality of the school. I knew things would go well when the guard/information person and all the seniors hanging out by the door wanted to know which course Abby was going to be taking (for the record, SCSU offers some very advanced finger-painting courses).
Once I figured out where the records office was, I headed over, with Abby in tow – literally. She had decided, when we got into the building, that she didn’t want to be carried anymore – she was going to take the school by storm and walk it herself. It led to some odd looks at me while I coaxed her along past cubicles and partitions, and around corners – basically everyone until they saw the little person tagging along with me.
Records turned out to be easy – all my data was finally in the computer, because it turns out that I just needed to wait long enough for my info to get into the system. I logged in, registered for my class, and was about to pay when…. Abby turned off the computer I was using. At this point I decided to get going, since I had the class, I could finish up from home, and my life could be all complete and stuff. Or so I thought.
I decided to run across the street to Campus Police to get a parking permit and all that fun stuff. Too bad I didn’t have a student ID with me. Or a copy of my paid bill. I went back across the street and took care of the bill, then got my ID taken care of – only Abby decided, at this fun point, that she didn’t want to be at school anymore.
Oh, and it turns out her classes were full, so she’s gonna have to wait until next semester to start her academic career.