oh UVic.

You know that saying: You learn something new every day? I believe it.

For example, the other day I learned that official application deadlines to graduate from university are very flexible.

The deadline to graduate this May was December 1, 2009. I applied two days ago. All I had to do was pay a late fee of ten bucks.

Since graduating is all the rage these days, I knew how it went down. I heard talk in the streets, you know, at the end of November, 2009, about how you go to the one building and fill out a form and then you pay sixty bucks for the honor of filling out that form or whatever? The 'application fee' which is just one last kick in the teeth from ol' UVic.

They're basically saying "whatcha gonna do about it punk?" *curbstomp* "you wanna graduate, doncha?" *ninja kick to face while I'm helplessly tied to a chair in a warehouse with a gasoline soaked rag stuffed in my mouth and duct tape is over top of my mouth so I can't even give one of my classic witty one-liners to the camera*

So yes. After already giving various schools fifty thousand dollars over the past seven and a half years...that's it!

When I went to fill out the form I was all nervous because it's like...waaaay past the deadline and the lady was scary and the place reminded me of the DMV you see on TV with the brown decor and Patty and Selma from The Simpsons smoking behind the desk and everything...even though I got an e-mail saying "oh yeah, you're cool, just come give us that money and everything will be okay"

I got my little crappy yellow application form from the grouchy lady and filled it out. I thought to myself "hey self, wouldn't it be a great idea to write everything out in capital letters, because that way it's super easy for them to read and they won't make a mistake and put an 's' instead of a 'z' in your last name like everybody always does?"
And then I thought "yes, that does sound like a great idea."

So I wrote everything out IN CAPITALS. My name, my major, my minor. My phone number. My home town, etcetera etcetera.

Then, after signing it, I noticed some teeeeeny tiny words printed at the bottom of the page, beside the signature box. It said "please turn over". So I did.

And there, on the back of the sheet, were the instructions for how to fill the sheet out. Okay, WTF. Why would they tell you to read the instructions at the end of the page?

And um...one of the first things it said was use UPPER and lower case letters so they know exactly how to print out the diploma.

AHHHHH DAMNIT.

So I got back in line and when it was my turn I shamefully confessed that I read the back of the page after already filling it out and I made a mistake.

So she made a few phone calls. Like, this was a big deal, apparently. I told her I'd just fill out another one but she's like "Maybe Mark will accept this".
But he didn't.
So she was like "okay I have to destroy this one forever, could you please fill out another one?"

And I did.

Later that day I got an e-mail from Mark...I forgot to write my Major on the second form.
AAARGH
But don't worry, he corrected it for me.

I was briefly relieved until I noticed in the subject line of the e-mail that...my last name was spelled with an 's'.

*sigh*

Bureaucracy.