All Or Nothing

oooh, I am pissed off.

oooh, I am pissed off. Tech loves to screw people over. It's so aggravating, because state schools have the unique situation where they are able to make whatever decisions they feel like, whenever they feel like making them, just because the number of students it will affect will never be enough to make a difference. One pissed off student isn't going to change anything. Here is a copy of a letter (with all incriminating details left out) I just had to send, so you can see where the annoyance is coming from.


Dear ****(and no, that isn't to replace a bad word :)),

My name is Elise Foreman and I am an English minor. I am a senior with over 100 hours currently, and I am supposed to graduate in December 2003. However, I have encountered a major problem that I really need the English department's help with.

I made a **** on my SAT as a senior in high school and was therefore exempt from ENGL 1301 at my first university (Dallas Baptist). When I transferred to Texas Tech as a junior, I had the understanding that my exemption and credit would transfer as well. As soon as I found out (by looking at my transcript, not because anyone told me) that the ENGL 1301 credit did not transfer, I set out to get that credit. I met with my advisor, who told me that the exemption did not transfer but that I could take a CLEP test to take care of the class. I signed up for a test date at the beginning of the summer, for ENGL 1301, and when I came back from Tyler to take the test, I was informed that in an "overnight decision" the ENGL 1301 CLEP test is no longer going to be offered at Tech. That also means that I cannot take the one other CLEP test that I needed to take, which is for a sophomore level credit in English, because I have to have both 1301 and 1302 completed before I can take it.

****, I'm sure you can understand the problem I am facing. I have made either the dean's or the president's lists my last three semesters here at Tech. I made a **** on my SAT. I have taken the LSAT, because when I graduate I am going to law school, and I scored a ***, which is in the **th percentile, with a ***** score on the reading comprehension section. I cannot begin to understand why Texas Tech would not allow me to take a test that I was already registered to take, because of someone's "overnight decision". This is unfair. The CLEP office said that if I got express permission from the English department, then they would be able to administer the tests. I feel that it is imperative that the English department give this permission so that I can take the tests I was already registered to take, get the credits that I should already have, and be able to graduate on time in December.

I have left you a phone message, and if you could please call me back as soon as possible I would greatly appreciate it. I would also be more than happy to come in and talk with you in person, or meet with anyone else there who needs to hear about this situation. Feel free to forward this email to anyone else whom this might concern. I appreciate your time and your help.

Sincerely,
Elise Foreman


if any of you have some suggestions of something else I can do to fix this situation, let me know. Because right now, I think I'm about to drop out of school and move to Costa Rica and never ever think about Texas Tech again.

You'll Get Yours....Oh Yes...

ugh. I am not usually on this side of things, but now that I am the one sitting and watching someone else make bad decisions and yet get what they (and I) want, it sure does suck. I'm usually the one making all the bad decisions, and therefore having the immediate gratification and then subsequent consequences, but now that I have abstained for once, I am having to sit back and watch someone else seemingly come out ahead. Even though I know it's not really coming out ahead at all in the long run, it definitely is in the short run. anyway, ugh was a good sum up.

ANNY OY YED

ANNOYED. I am at a loss as to how to spell the noise I want to make because of just how annoyed I really am. Any suggestions?

A Comprehensive Listing of What Might Happen in a Bad Day

A Comprehensive Listing of What Might Happen in a Bad Day:

1. One might have an extremely realistic dream in which a close and personal friend absoultely goes off the deep end and says/does every terrible thing imaginable

2. One might wake up from the dream, feeling as if it all actually happened and also feeling suspiciously as if they have been run over by a truck during the night

3. One might go out into their living room, only to be asked if they have seen their somewhat weird but beloved cat lately

4. One might then realize that not only have they not seen the cat, but also that he is definitively missing

5. One might not handle the discovery of their missing cat well and go around the entire apartment complex in their pajamas, calling for their cat and receiving various sympathetic/disturbed looks from random neighbors, and still never find even so much as a hint of their cat

6. One might take a break from the cat search and get on the computer, hoping to receive and read an email from a professor saying: "Yes, of course you can take your final early so that you can go to Waco and watch your brother in the state baseball tournament" only to find that their email is "unreadable at this time, please try back later" even though EVERYONE else's email is readable on the same sever

7. One might try and prop the door open in such a way as to allow their cat to get in while they are at work even though it means that people could come in and steal anything their little theiving hearts desired

8. One might then go to work, and subsequently allow their face (yes, meaning face and head) to become the target for baby vomit

9. One might then come home from work, hoping and praying to find their cat, but instead finding that not only is the cat still MIA, but also the door is now broken in such a way that what little chance the cat ever had of getting in is virtually gone

10. One might then go to the computer, desperately hoping to be able to check email and read the coveted statemtent (see #5) from their professor, only to find that the entire DSL line to the computer is disconnected, and upon switching to dial up, find that the professor has written back, but his message reads more like: "I cannot change the time of finals, you will have to take it with everybody else", thus crushing all hopes of seeing the state baseball game or the brother's performance in such game


Man, that day would suck, huh? Good thing it's all hypothetical.....and my cat is still gone. If you see him, please reprimand him and then bring him back home.

The Dangerous Perils of Ice Cream Consumption

If you knew, without a doubt, that by eating a certain something you would become pretty sick, and then you determined to eat it anyway, you would then be placed in one of two categories:

1. Pretty stupid

2. Pretty dedicated

Now I like to consider myself in the second of those two categories, but hey, interpretation is open as always. The real point here is not what category I belong to. The real point is that yesterday afternoon, I decided to eat some Blue Bell Cookies and Cream, right out of the ice cream tub, too. Now being what some might call lactose intolerant, this is not exactly the wisest thing for me to do, unless I enjoy all sorts of stomach ailments, but as before mentioned, I am dedicated to my love of all things good, and Blue Bell fits right in there. So, even though it will be only for a few precious bites, I am determined to enjoy the ice cream to the fullest. Now you all know how it is when you get that perfect bite, and I really do mean perfection - it had almost a whole oreo, frozen of course, with just the right amount of ice cream clinging to the edges. Oh, my mouth is watering, I am bringing the spoon to my lips, and what do you know, Jack the freak jumps into my lap at this inopportune moment, knocking the spoon and the perfection it held onto the floor. This only momentarily deters me, however. I mean, if I'm about to make myself sick anyway, what difference does it make if I got it off the floor, right? We are not talking about a reasonable decision making process here. But wait. I will tell you now, I never got to eat my perfect bite, never got a chance to partake in that heavenly Blue Bell goodness, and would you like to know why? Hair. Few things make me want to vomit more than finding hair in anything, and to drop my perfect bite on the floor only to see it subsequently covered with my lovely albiet shedding roomate's hair was crushing. Not to mention that it was sick, and gross, and that is the point of this post. I hate hair unless it is firmly attached to someone's head, and even then it's iffy. So watch out, my friends, lest the same tragedy befall you or one of your own. You have been warned.

Attendance Policies: The Great Threat To America

Ok so....attendance policies: Si o no? I hear that academia is the only "pure" profession left. To this I say, uh, negative. Perhaps there are institutions of higher education out there who really and truly care about educating and bettering their students to impact the world in a positive way, but there are far too many that only care about the numbers and the bling-bling - YOU know what I'm sayin' yo. :) No, but honestly, this is ridiculous. In a class today, we got polled on what we thought was an acceptable number of absenses for a MWF class. Some put 5, some put 6, I put an essay on the insanity of having attendance policies altogether. I hope that's what my professor was looking for. I wonder what would happen if someone had the brilliance to suggest that the professors make the classes a little more difficult, teach information that the students would not be able to just get from the website or book at any later date, and abolish all attendance policies. Then, the students who missed class would - gasp - FAIL the tests, and then would perhaps think better of missing classes in the future. But then the student-based faculty evaluations would be bad, because students would actually be failing, and then that might make our university look bad, thus dropping the enrollment numbers, THUS dropping the all-important CASH intake. What was I thinking. (Pearce, I'm not sad, just a little annoyed :) )