So you know when you're frolicking along marveling about how your life is going just swell, and as soon as you finish thinking that thought you stumble on an unruly brick, scrape your knee and are left with an unsightly scab to slowly pick away at while watching late night television?

Every semester I must venture deep into the bowels of the journalism school where my academic adviser resides in a stuffy room that is perpetually hot and smells of potpourri. Every semester she scrawls down what classes I need to take, I sign up for them, suffer through some and enjoy others, then repeat the process once more. Well now I'm down to my last three classes which I am taking over the summer so that I may graduate in August. I went to this woman a few months ago so she could tell me what classes I needed to take over the summer. When it was time to register for said classes, I was shocked to learn that none of them were available. This was because instead of looking at the course listings for the summer, she based her advisement off the listings for the fall semester. I went to her and told her this. Without offering an apology for her incompetence, she pulled out some classes from the database that I could take instead. Frustrated but relieved that it had worked out, I left her office and signed up for those classes.

Today at work I received an email from one of my summer school professors talking about how class starts tomorrow. Wait. We're in the month of May. How can I have a class which starts tomorrow? Alarmed, I quickly navigated to the school's web page where to my dismay I learned that my English class was really a May class, but had been listed under the summer courses. I have known for a year now that I would not be able to take May classes because of a wedding I was attending, so I had to drop the course. I then looked at the summer course listings again to see what classes, if any, I could take instead. There were none which would fill my requirement. At this point, I was on the verge of tears. I could feel angry hot water swell in my eyes but I forced it back, determined not to blubber in front of my co-workers. There's a real possibility that I might need to graduate in December if this issue cannot be resolved.

And now, for the rant.

Let me start by saying that I cannot stand my adviser. She has one job: tell students which classes to take. HOW HARD CAN THAT BE? Sure, everyone makes mistakes, but when her mistakes put off my graduation by an entire semester, that pisses me off. It really, REALLY pisses me off. Not only did she tell me wrong once, but she did it again, probably because she was thinking about sewing quilts or baking lemon meringue pie or whatever Southern hobby she drowns herself in when she's not clacking frivolously away at her computer and spewing out inaccurate information to all her victims. It's one thing if I had failed a class or something and deferred graduation. It's another if I merely followed what she had told me to do and it wound up being wrong. The only way I can graduate on time is if they allow another class to count in place of this course and I can just imagine her droopy jowels flapping ever so gently as she tells me she just can't do it. Well's she's going to have to, because if she doesn't I'm going to complain to the dean about her stupid ass and bitch and moan till I get my way. I mean COME ON. I'm not staying here another four damn months for ONE STUPID ENGLISH CLASS. I've already passed my portfolio, I've got a full-time job waiting for when I'm done with this college business, so clearly I've proved that I have enough intelligence to secure employment which is why I came to college in the first place. I swear a blindfolded gorilla could do this woman's job. Is it too much to ask that she perform her duties correctly so that I don't have to rot here for another semester? I'm not asking her to recite every number in pi. I'm just asking that she use her withered eyeballs to glance at the computer screen for a few minutes, do some simple thinking her brain, then look at at me, and without showering me in a bunch of bullshit that isn't true, use whatever saliva she has left in her mouth and merely tell me what classes would satisfy my degree requirements without me having to pound on her door and raise hell.

I left her a voicemail right after I found out that my classes were screwed up tonight. It was probably too soon to do so; when she listens to it, if she can figure out how to use a phone, she'll probably detect the parts where I was trying to reign in every fiber of my being from going off on her and calling her a dumb bitch who ruins lives. Well, she didn't really ruin my life, or at least not all of it. It's been awhile since I have told someone off. That might change soon, however.