$crap

I had a bit of an issue registering for classes this semester. (Coincidentally, this is also my last semester. One more round of public transit before I’m free from its frigid grasp.) I had 4 courses that required my presence before they would do me the honour of appearing on my transcript:

LING 330 (advanced phonetics)
LING 481 (experimental pragmatics)
CMPT 379 (compiler theory and design)

and…

CMPT 150!

Somehow between transfer credits and course scheduling, I managed to make it to my final semester as a Computing Science/Linguistics student without ever taking “Introduction to Computer Design”. Goes to show just how really useful it is to know what Von Neumann architecture is. I probably learned more about computer design by surfing Egghead than I ever would in that class. Side note: Amazon.com sucks.

Not the end of the world, though. I could use an easy course to counter-balance compiler theory. There are only two offerings of CMPT 150, and only one doesn’t conflict with my other required courses, so I register for it and I’m all set, or so I think. A week later I get an e-mail welcoming me to the Surrey campus. This makes me a bit confused, as I’m pretty sure I attend the Burnaby campus. Turns out the CMPT 150 I registered for is in Surrey. Crap. The new Surrey campus is pretty nice, but it’s 30 minutes or so to get there from the Burnaby campus, and I have a 10-minute class break to get there. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I actually spent a good deal of time thinking about how I could make this work.

Crap. I send an e-mail to my adviser to see if special accommodations can be made, i.e. distance-ed. Here’s the response:

Hi Anton
There is no problem with the CMPT 150 being in conflict so please do
register in whatever other courses you need.
As you have registered for CMPT150 already you will likely need
assistance registering in the conflicting course from Rita or another
advisor.
All the best
Margo

No problem? I officially beg to differ. Must just be a misunderstanding, so I reply with the request more clearly stated. 12 days later, I get the following response:

HI Anton
Have all the registration problems been straightened out?
I do not have a completed thread of the conversation here so I cannot check on what has happened ( I always need a student number)
All the best
margo

Maybe it’s more than a misunderstanding here. It took 12 days to come up with this? I reply again, re-stating the problem using all my linguistic chops. The response is finally reasonable:

Sorry Anton
I didn’t realize it was a two campus issue. There are two alternatives:
Does the Burnaby campus offering not fit with your schedule? If so, I suggest an arrangement with the prof of both courses be made so you leave early from one ( and get notes from someone ) and arrive late to the other. This will be your graduating semester won’t it. Let me know if you would like my assistance in setting up the split times.
An other alternative is to see if the course cannot be conducted as a distance course from the Burnaby campus- Tony Dixon has a distance version of CMPT 150 that may allow you to be registered in conflict with which ever courses.
Take care
Margo

Yes! Great ideas! Show up late! Skip class! Why didn’t I think of that?

Distance-ed - now we’re talking. But sadly no, the distance-ed version of the class is not offered this term. Crap.

I have one final card. I can appeal to have it waived, although my faith in the rationality of the Computing Science administration is faltering. I have credit for CMPT 250 (computer architecture) which isn’t being used towards my graduation requirements. If the powers that be are willing to grant favour to a humble student, they’ll see that 250 is basically 150 on steroids, and they’ll apply the 250 credit to my 150 requirement.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. Not only did they grant my appeal, but they didn’t use up my credit for 250. They just simply waived my graduation requirement for 150. Now, I can potentially use my 250 credit towards a Cognitive Science minor.  Hmmm, more school…

Heck no.

The sleek new Mozilla store is open (and written in PHP!), and along with it comes a host of new dud designs. I was impressed with how wearable the T-shirts are. Most of the time, geek t-shirts are… well, too geek for normal use. Mozilla’s done a pretty good job at taming the geekness down to the point where people can wear them without sacrificing their self-respect:

Gotta say, I like ‘em both. So much, in fact, that I figured I’d pick ‘em up. A steal at 15 bucks a pop, made by American Apparel. I went through the order process, entered credit card information, yadda yadda, set up an account, yadda yadda, confirmed charges. Whoa, hold on a sec. It’s an international shipment, and apparently we haven’t reached a point of technological innovation yet whereby we can automatically calculate shipment charges to Canada. I have to wait for an e-mail from a human like we’re back in the dark ages. I thought eradication of all human contact was the purpose of Web 2.0, but I could be confused.

A day later, I get an e-mail from a Tia Vandersnick. It is presented in its entirety below:

Dear Anton,

Your order is being held pending your approval of the international shipping charges. They are as follows:

Value of Shipment	30.00
Actual Freight	23.57
Duties	8.58
Taxes	8.04
Custom Clearance Fee	6.90
Total Freight Cost	47.08
Total Value of Order	77.08

Please let me know how you wish to proceed.

Thank you,

 

Tia Vandersnick
Customer Service
GatewayCDI
909 North 20th Street
Saint Louis, MO 63106
314-535-1888 ext. 301
tia.vandersnick@gatewaycdi.com
www.gatewaycdi.com
BUILD YOUR BRAND

How much to ship? Did I hear you say 47 dollars and 8 cents to ship two 15 dollar t-shirts across the border? WTF? How is that justifiable? Perhaps the shipping companies are involved in price fixing. It’s not like it’s without precedent. Maybe it’s celebrity week at FedEx and I’m in fact paying for Jessica Alba/Biel to deliver the package in person. Not a bad deal actually. I bet if I ship first-class she’ll cook me dinner.

I always feel like I should immediately make a post after creating a blog. It matters not that there is nothing on my mind worth writing about. I don’t care that the entirety of the post will be senseless and wholly meaningless. It’s just… necessary.

So there ya go. A first post

Now to figure out this WordPress stuff…