This is why I love my job...

lake ontario

Sunday night was interesting and eclectically fun. I spent 4 hours talking Alison online. Apparently I've sparked some curiousity in her. Our conversation started out about a debate I'm participating in, which, I agree, my opinions are unique given the fact that I don't subscribe to right versus wrong or good versus evil. She peppered me for details of my inner most thoughts and qualities, which was an interesting self reflection, something I'm usually not inclined to participate in.

Monday continued the hell that is Freshman registration setup and coordination for the big tomale on Tuesday (today). The boss pepped us up about the next two days and we returned to our alcoves to ready ourselves for the onslaught that afternoon and all day Tuesday. I spent a good part of the day upstairs directly interacting and helping folks with their problems, getting to know the new faces and making myself known to all.

I ended up, after work, selling my 3 baby birds into slavery. The store wanted them, and the parents wanted to get rid of them. Unfortunately, they are wicked hyper all the time and the one flew head first into the door window and knocked himself out cold for 10 minutes. I got $24 for the three of them and used it to purchase bird materials for the next couple of months and of course a nice dinner for myself. Gotta treat the bird-daddy to some pampering, right? It was nice catching up with the people at the pet store. They of course remembered me and "Willy" and were glad to spend 30 minutes catching up on the happenings in my life. Store is doing well, no stolen puppies lately, but someone keeps stealing rabbits. RABBITS!! For god's sake people. I can see stealing a candy bar, but what the heck does one do with a rabbit anyway?

I finally got a good 30 minute workout for the first time in a week. Tried to watch "Real Time" that I downloaded, but apparently my computer refuses to play the file. Ugh. I downloaded "Rome" from HBO, so I'm looking forward to this series. It has a lot of scandle and backstabbing thrown about, and the occasional affair and love scene. Hmm, soft porn while I'm eating breakfast? I guess.

Today was the climax of excitement and loss of control at work. My god, I've never had so much fun doing a job. Well, this is how is used to be when we did manually registration 2 years ago, but this was close enough. The freshman unfortunately get really excited and nervous about getting closed out of classes they must absolutely MUST have, and they clog the system minutes after it opens and crash the server 2 hours into it. This has happened every year since we launched web registration. Today was no different. But fortunately I was able to sneak it a great lunch with JB and Nola before we returned to hell.

I was upstairs helping people for 6 hours today. This is stark contrast to my usual 8 hours of solitude I have every day. Today I was the saviour of one boy (he even hugged me strangely enough), the hero of a gaggle of girls and the know it all for parents and children alike. Someone got wind I went to this school (well, I make it no secret when I'm helping folks out) and I started getting asked dozens of questions about everything from which BIO classes to take (don't!), to which HIS professors rock (Pierce) and to whether or not the history of war was worth taking (YES!). Was Creating Writing challenging and helpful? Yep. Did I find it necessary to have a computer on campus? Uhhh, yes! And when should...

Ugh. The power went out. In the middle of registration. The entire building went black, our terminals died, and we soon learned that 85% of the campus was dead. But hey, our phones still worked, and boy did they use em. And then we heard voices from people in the elevator! Poor souls. Sirens. Police. Security. Facilities. Soon our lobby was filled with folks with uniforms and axes and flashlights, trying hurridly to get the women out of the elevator. That was fun.

The rest of the day was hectic, hellish and downright a blast. I even stayed late to help the kids dwindling in after we closed at 5. My boss finally told me to close up shop and go home. Oh, but it was so fun. Oh well. Perhaps it will continue again next semester. Or not. We'll see.