A hellacious week

Perhaps calling this week hellacious is a bit much.  After all, no one's died, there are no additional life-threatening illnesses and no car accidents.  Of course it's only Wednesday, so who knows what the rest of the week holds (knock on wood).  Personally, I'd rather not find out...unless the rest of the week holds me mysteriously winning oodles of cash and getting a nice vacation to make up for the beginning half of the week.

The week started on Sunday, as weeks are wont to do.  Shortly after midnight, early Sunday morning, Honey heard running water.  This was odd because we were all getting ready for bed and I didn't have laundry going, so there shouldn't be any water.  After a few minutes of searching we discovered the problem.  A pipe burst or broke underneath the concrete in our garage, causing the garage to flood.  We turned off the water to the house and went to bed -- after I sent a message to Bestie #2 saying "We're coming over for showers in the morning!"  Thankfully she lives nearby.

The broken pipe and lack of water did not seem to adversely affect the cats, who continued to sleep and look adorable as Honey and I cleared out the garage and tried to get things ready for a visit from the plumber first thing Monday morning.

The Teenager also didn't mind -- he just moved his sleeping spot from our house to Bestie #2's house.  She has been kind enough to let him stay there until we get this issue fixed.  I can work without water, but I don't want kids to do that.

So the water issue is interesting.  If all goes well, it will be fixed by tonight -- so four days without running water.

It's apparently time for things to break around here.  Last week, my car's CD player finally bit the dust.  It was ready for retirement, but I tried convincing it to hold on a little longer.  We won't replace it because we're planning on getting a new car within the next year anyway (as long as things like broken pipes stop surfacing).  My baby car has over 215k miles on it, all courtesy of yours truly.  It wants a break.  I want it to hold on a bit longer.  And I want it to play CDs again.

I've been stressed by a bazillion things that are due, but that's life.  This week I was supposed to handle things but I feel rather derailed by the pipe issue.  And then yesterday I received bigger news: I am apparently 1.065 elective credits short in my degree.  WTF????  Yesterday, as I was sitting in a meeting, I received word that Oh, BTW, even though you graduated and thought you were done, you're actually short an elective credit.  Short by 1.065 elective credits, to be precise.  (Originally the email said 3.5 credits but I found an error in their calculations.)  WTF?!?!?!?!?!  I graduated and you're telling me this now???

Words actually cannot begin to express my level of frustration and anger.  The registrar sent a credit audit in February that showed I just had to complete my dissertation and I'd be done.  I completed the dissertation.  I went through the hooding ceremony.  If I had attended the commencement I would've received my diploma -- three weeks ago.  Perhaps one of the most frustrating things is that my credit audit in February said I was done.   

After speaking to my advisor, I realize I have no real recourse other than to take a class over the summer, wait for the whole long process of transferring credits/credit review/credit approval/degree conference, and then be done.  And one good thing is that I had already signed up for a free workshop as part of my job and I can just pay a state university to get enough credits for the workshop so that I can be done.  I am not giving any more money to my alma mater (which should, perhaps, be termed conculco mater; forgive my inexact knowledge of Latin but hopefully I conveyed my point).

The horrible thing is that I have now heard of two other colleges that have done this to friends -- wait until they've graduated or are graduating and then say "Whoops, we miscounted!"  I am continuously amazed at the level of incompetence in the education system.  One would think that after years of dealing with it I would no longer find it surprising.  Part of me hopes -- each and every time -- that it's just a fluke.  The rest of me -- the experienced me -- realizes that the world is full of idiots.

In times of frustration and stress, all I really want to do is sleep.  I want to go to bed and hope to wake up in a peaceful world.  Since I can't do that, I am trying to content myself by looking at cute things, like pictures of Lotus and her newest toy from Bestie #2: a stuffed bunny.

Normally, Lotus rips up any new toy immediately, but this one she has carried with her the past few nights.  I think it's adorable.

In a rather apropos moment, as soon as I was done with the post -- and before I had a chance to save or post this entry -- my computer crashed and wiped it out so I had to re-do everything.  Really, computer?  Really?

I would like to go back to bed and wake up to no more problems, please.  I am stress eating and that is really not a good look for me.