Adventures in Papersitting

Sometimes favours end up being much more than you ever thought they would be. Case in point, delivering a paper for Syndie this morning at the Faculty of Arts office.

I've encountered a lot of Britarded things here at UOP, but the fact that you can't turn your work in to your professor is one of them that chafes like wet leather trousers. Instead of giving any work to your professor in class, you have to turn them in at the faculty office by noon of the day they're due. One minute after noon, and you get a zero for any items being turned in.You also have to fill out paperwork to turn in with any assignments you may have. It's a huge hassle, and it drives me crazy. So yes, it's totally beurocratic, silly, and completely Britarded.

Anyway, I offered to turn in a paper for Syndie at the office this morning. I made sure that I was at the library at 11 this morning, so that I could have plenty of time to print, stand in line, and turn the paper in with a little breathing space.

Unfortunately, Syndie and I didn't notice that OpenOffice saves their files in an odd format, rather than as a Word or Rich Text document. I realized this after I'd been trying to open the document for 15 minutes at the uni to no avail. I soon realized I'd need OpenOffice on the computer to open it. But, since the computers there are AWFUL, and set up on the most ridiculous system I've ever seen, I couldn't do this. I asked the computer people, and they refused to help me. Not their problem. Wankers.

At this point, it's 11:20, and the only option was to run to my flat and pray that I could print it on my Mac. I've got OpenOffice on my Mac, but it's some weird program called NeoOffice (because nothing Mac is ever simple. Always better, just not simple.) Problem is, campus is a good 10 minute walk from campus at a brisk pace. So, I took off running the whole way, holding up my trousers that are falling off my butt since I lost all the weight here. When I got home, I hoped and prayed it would work, and happily it did. I printed the document, and ran out the door. (It's a long story why I didn't just print it at my flat in the first place. Just bear with me.)

I ran downstairs to the housing office, demanded they let me use the stapler, and ran out the door. As I neared the campus, I saw the stupid charity people. Here, they hire people to beg money for charities. One of their favorite places to do so is the major walkway to the campus. It drives me crazy. This morning, one overzealous bloke was deliberately getting in people's ways, and stopping them while he asked for money. I was on an island in the middle of the street when our eyes met. I knew he was going to block me. Without hesitation, I yelled across the street that I'd knock him out if he got in my way in my most menacing American voice. He conceeded.

Run, run, run. I get to the office with a little time to spare, but there's a really long queue of people waiting to turn stuff in. Even though there's this oversight with the policy, they'll still flunk people if they were waiting in line to turn stuff in. Like I said before, Britarded.

I quickly realized that people didn't have the proper paperwork yet, let alone filled out. Since Syndie had already done this, I stormed to the front of the queue, and turned in the paperwork with a few minutes to spare. Hooray! Against all odds, I had succeeded.

Walking past the long queue of icy glares, I felt elated. My morning adventure had been better than anything from the DaVinci Code, and I didn't have to look all jowly and bloated like Tom Hanks to participate.