Add before I drop

Greetings from 22 latitude 164 longitude. There is so much to say. Perhaps because I have been remiss in logging a blog entry in awhile….hmmmm. My apologies…Life on the ship has been extremely busy and the internet connection of late is just painfully slow. I have grown to hate UVa Webmail. I know, I know, some people were already on record hating it. I know. As you might expect, I have been terribly busy fulfilling all of the duties that accompany the role of the reigning Miss Popularity title. While you might assume that my charm and diehard love for UVa football (let’s refrain from discussing that at the present moment—the pain is still too raw, so Joe, save the email I know you want to send for another day or two) were the keys to securing my spot in the cool girl hall of fame you would be wrong. It is the add/drop process that has won me the title (For those of you UVAers, think Bryan Hall computer lab with just one person on the computer…me!) On Thursday, I began add/drop at 7 AM, giving out numbers to students who were lined up and then anybody who walked up. Picture a deli line (“what the sub is?”) except I was giving away credits, not yogaville sandwiches or veggie sandwiches on pump with house dressing. I worked until 5 PM that day and saw 170 students that day, all of whom had been camping out (some since 4 AM) in the hopes of getting the class they wanted. Day 2 began at 7 AM simply with the students who had shown up “on time” the day before, only to find that they were #171 in line. We gave out 349 numbers to students, many of them came back multiple times hoping to try one more time to add a class that was full. It was quite intense, but I got to meet many, many students. For the most part, the students were fun and when all was said and done probably 98% of the people were pleased with their schedules. Two of the remaining three percent were disappointed, but still pleasant. The remaining one percent who came into the office bemoaning how unfair the process was, how they needed the class to graduate, and how nobody told them when the process was started (I had three meetings with the student body, posted the dates in the computer lab and outside my office, made announcements on the intercom) were put on my personal list of students to walk the plank. I borrowed the classic Gordon Stewart, gms7y line, “Help me understand how your actions got you into this situation,” combined it with the ever popular “a lack of planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part,” and added a dash of “don’t start with that,” a sprinkle of “I see how it is,” and finished it off with a dollop of “it’s generally not a good idea to speak like that to someone from whom you want something.”
Justin, who sailed to Honolulu from Mexico and who came to educate the students and the faculty on the UVa Honor Code, acted as my bouncer and doorman. He made sure that I was able to get lunch and leave at 5 PM. On the last day, I heard him say, “No, no. She’s closed. Add/drop is over” and “I’m detecting a lot of attitude from you.” To celebrate we went out on the deck and shot some glamour shots (Miss Popularity does have certain official duties after all) and then went to the spa and had a delicious massage. That evening the astronomy professor had his class out on the deck looking at the stars so I checked out Cassiopeia, before hitting the faculty/staff lounge for cocktails. Every night cocktails are available from 5-6PM and then from 9-11PM for faculty & staff. Justin is a fantabulous piano player so he played some tunes for the entire faculty/staff group, while I did not sing and the world was better for it.