oedipus was one bad mother fucker.
it’s true!
#4930 – it's all good, it's alright
got my study guide all typed up so i can use it for easy reviewing of what 25% of the exam is going to be about, now to read over what’s going to make up the other 75% of the exam…
going to be staying the night here in annapolis, and then getting up early in the morning to go to the apartment and get ready for work. i should keep a pair of work clothes here at the house and my badge in the car “just in case” for future use, maybe.
#4929 – how things went from good to bad to worse to not so bad
i looked online to see if umuc received my faxed form so work pays for my tuition… turns out that they did, but they only applied payment for two of my three classes, saying that they still need payment of $735 ($690 tuition + $45 fees, and i’m only liable to pay the fees). that’s kind of weird considering all three classes were on the same form, so who knows why they still think they need payment for one more class?
anyway, so then i went to study for my final exam for my history class. the syllabus for my history class says that the final exam is administered between december 10 – 18. since today is only december 9, you’d think that i’d be fine, right?
turns out that the exam schedule for umuc is from december 7 through december 13. i thought i had registered to take my exam online, and i sorta did… online, but on campus in a proctored setting. the best part is when i was scheduled to do this: december 8 from 2 to 5 pm. YESTERDAY.
cue “CRAP” mode. i figured i’d have to email my professor and schedule a make up exam and that’d cost $60 and i’d have to jump through all sorts of hoops. my parents asked me tonight at dinner how school was going and i could only groan and tell them about this startling revelation.
after some poking around i found out that the $60 fee and the make up exam registration are only required if i want to take an exam at a time outside of the final exam week. i also found out that if you missed your exam time then you can take it at the same location at any other time during the final exam week, and if you can’t take it at your requested location at some other time during exam week, then you can take it at any of the available times at the adelphi or college park locations.
lucky for me there’s one last college park time period available, 7 to 10 pm tomorrow night. now i just need to cram my ass off to prepare for the exam! 😛
#4928 – 2008 vacation plans
today it was my turn at work to request my days off for 2008 — i’ve got 7 “personal” days and 15 “vacation” days to use (the difference is that the personal days don’t carry over to the next year, while the vacation days do).
i was able to request off for all of the days that i wanted:
– dentist appointment in february
– orioles’ opening day in march
– minis on the dragon at the end of april and the beginning of may
– rollercon at the end of july and beginning of august
– the day after my birthday (and rollercon) in august
– a vacation at the end of august (aug. 26 – 29, plus the labor-day weekend after that, so a vacation from tuesday, august 26 – monday, september 1)
i was even able to take off for the second half of the day before the 4th of july and the day before thanksgiving so that i could leave work early those days for 3.5 day weekends. halloween is on a friday so i don’t have to worry about taking that day off, and i figured i might as well take the day after my birthday off since it’s on a sunday, and i can either relax that day or use it as a day for travel back from rollercon. of course, rollercon will depend on whether or not my classes will conflict with it.
but the thing that i’m pleased the most about is how i was able to take off of work from august 26 to september 1 — 7 days!. i don’t know what the summer schedule is like for umuc, but last year it went until august 19 or so, so there shouldn’t be any classes interfering with these days off and i should be freshly graduated by then! plus, the timing is perfect for people who have been with the company for at least the last 3 years (i’ll be with the company for 5 years next year, wow): we were granted a long-term incentive that was scheduled to vest after 3 years on august 1, 2008 — depending how the company did during those 3 years we’ll get anywhere from 50% to 150% of our target bonus incentive (meaning i can get anywhere between $750 to $2250 when that’s granted). i’ve pretty much got a free flight thanks to my frequent flyer miles, so i just need to figure out where should i go to celebrate my graduation… i’ll have a little time to save up some money for the trip, and there’s two paydays between that incentive vesting and the vacation so that should give them time to pay that incentive out to give me some extra vacation spending money, i hope! if not, well, like i said, i’ll have time to save up a bit, and then i can just use the incentive money once i eventually get it to treat myself to something nice once i get back. 🙂
now i just need to figure out where i should go. i’d really like to go back to japan to visit, maybe i could get to meet homodachi! or maybe i’ll go somewhere else? i haven’t decided yet.
i also waitlisted a day off on august 25 just in case. if someone drops it later on then i’ll get that day off too, and then i could be on vacation from saturday, august 23 to monday, september 1 — 10 days!
and just think, i’ve still got 8 days or so (it’s 7 days if i end up getting august 25th off) left to use if i want!
#4927 – delayz
over the last week or three i’ve had issues with receiving emails, they’ve often been delayed for no apparent reason. i just found out why. *annoyed*
it snowed today. a lot. well, not a lot lot, but a lot more than what i was expecting and a lot earlier than i expected as well. i woke up about 5 minutes before i was supposed to leave and called in to use 30 minutes of flex time to get ready for work. spent a little too much time getting ready and taking my time and i had to call back into work and have them change it to 45 minutes of flex time. the drive back home from work was slow and kind of spooky, you couldn’t see the lines on the road because of snow on the road, and when there wasn’t snow you couldn’t see the lines because of the snow that was still falling from the sky. i slid downhill through part of the parking lot once i got back to the apartment and i bumped a curb. i hope that any snowplows that go through the lot in the morning don’t do a repeat of last year where they kept the plows turned toward the rows of cars and got the cars stuck behind berms of snow.
i got an email from umuc last week saying that i hadn’t paid my spring tuition yet and that i had until 12/3/2007 to either pay up or set up payment arrangements, so i called in and tried telling them that my work pays for my tuition, but in the past my work has required me to complete the current semester and submit my grades for the semester before they would generate a new letter of credit for the next semester (which is pretty much why for a lot of my previous semesters i’ve had to register for classes last-minute and haven’t always been able to get the classes i needed when i wanted).
them: “well, you can go on a payment plan.”
me: “but can i go on a payment plan if i’m not paying? my work will be paying for my tuition.”
them: “no, then you can’t go on a payment plan. you might be de-enrolled from your classes if you don’t submit payment right away.”
me: “but they’ve usually required the grades from the current semester before they’ll pay for a new semester! is there any way i can get my account remarked so that this won’t be an issue?”
them: “no.”
so i submitted a tuition application at work after they told me that, and today at work i got the confirmation email, but my supervisor wasn’t in (most of the supervisors weren’t in because of some leadership summit) to give it the final ok so that they’d send me the letter of credit to fax in. would you believe that 30 minutes after i got that confirmation email i got another email, this time from umuc, saying that i’ve been de-enrolled from my spring classes?? once i saw that then i just went online, wrote down my class numbers, and enrolled for the exact same classes. well, the online technical writing class was full so it auto-assigned me to a new section. but at least (so far!) i’ve been able to keep my in-person classes the same, and i don’t have to jump through hoops in order to get a new letter of credit for different classes. i swear, once i graduate it’s going to be with a middle finger pointed right at The Man for all the fucking ridiculousness i’ve had to go through. my mental image is something like this.
speaking of one finger, they videotaped me at work yesterday too. in january we have our “kickoff” event where it’s a sort of pep-rally to get folks psyched up for the new year, and there’s all sorts of vendors giving out tchotchkes and free food and award presentations and stuff like that. one of the things they do is they show a video of different people in the department and they usually have the people in the video say something about their department. well, i’m sitting there at my desk during my 15 minute break, slouched down in my chair and reading the news and livejournal and email on my phone when i see this camera crew out of the corner of my eye. they’re standing right next to me, and i’m just trying as best i can to not look at them, when suddenly the one guy working the boom mic says:
boom mic: “…and turn…”
me: *turns* “uh…”
boom mic: “…and smile…”
me: *weak smile*
boom mic: “…great!”
they then went to videotape the guy in the cube behind me and i went back to reading stuff on my phone. that didn’t stop the guy behind me from tossing me under a bus, though:
boom mic: “is this the AOC?” (area operations center)
cubicle behind me: “no, this is the IRT.” (internet response team)
boom mic: “say ‘IRT is #1!'” *holds up index finger in a “we’re #1” foam-finger style*
cubicle behind me: “uh… get glenn to do it.”
me: “uh… ‘IRT… #1!’?”
boom mic: “great!”
me: “…”
i think i was blushing about that time too, i’m going to look ridiculous and not in the awesome way. :/
i got a (delayed) email about some updates that are pending for the metro collective webpage. i’ve been busy and haven’t really had time to do the updates, and when i haven’t been super-busy i haven’t felt like updating. i spend all day at work typing emails and writing stuff to customers, the last thing i want to do is more work on the computer. 😛 i’ll have to get it done after work tomorrow. all i really end up doing is poke around the internet and read blogs and tech news pages and such. i haven’t really felt like writing (and i’m surprised i’ve written this much already, actually). my computer is just feeling too slow when i try to do anything that resembles actual productive work, so i poke passively around the internet and sometimes i’ll look through texts and photos and sounds and videos and stuff i’ve saved just to see what i’ve collected since i’m a digital pack-rat.
and speaking of finding things, do you know what i found on my computer today? whammywah‘s drunken late-night chicken-strips escapade with the “3… 2… 1… chicken!!” quote that inspired me to go on and do “3-2-1 steak” and “3-2-1 red hots” and “3-2-1 red bull” and “3-2-1 in-n-out burger” etc., oh yes, what a cinematic masterpiece!
oh, and cynicalscribe: 
ok, time to make a quick sandwich for lunch tomorrow and get to bed. i can’t believe it’s still only thursday.