DUDE! So not funny!

Classes didn't start this week! Can you fucking believe that?

Of course, it's ONLY the classes in the linguistics department that have been delayed. And the notice that the start date had changed was ONLY marked on one small, teeny, itty bitty piece of paper where they had scratched out the 6 in "Classes begin Monday, October 6" with a pathetic little pen and instead written in a 13. We're talking 10pt font here folks. Scratched out and written over with a pen.

But even worse, they couldn't have put this pathetic attempt at notification in a place where linguistics students might find it. No... they had to put it on the board that no linguistics student checks because it's NOT THE LINGUISTICS BOARD.

So yes, all of us students went to our French linguistics class this morning (which has students from other departments who had apparently been notified), and we wondered why there were so few of us for such a huge-ass lecture hall. Finally, we gave up and decided to come back to class tomorrow.

Then I went to Arabic (not a linguistics class), which was a nightmare! The professor is scary and mean in the way only elderly French women can be. Her mouth is in a permanent frown and when she laughs it looks more like she has just eaten a lemon than that she has actually found something funny. She also has those old lady things hanging off her glasses, in case she wants to take them off and hang them around her neck. Scary bunny, for sure, that old hag.

After Arabic, I literally had to run to my Linguistics class - down three flights, over two hallways, and up three more flights. Worried I had the wrong room, I stopped the young man on his way in and whispered, "Sorry, what class are you going to?" and he answered "Semantics" and I said, "Oh, great, just wanted to be sure."

He tiptoed into the room (we were late... or at least late by my standards, which meant that we were only ten minutes early) and he said, "Oh, huh. Apparently we're the only ones here." We sat down and started chatting a bit (he's a nice guy and despite the fact that my day sucked donkey balls, I can console myself with the fact that I made at least one friend today). Gradually, more students arrived, but after twenty minutes there were still only seven of us and no professor. It was then that one of the girls said, "Well... I thought I saw a note about linguistics classes starting late. Maybe they really do start late."

And sure, the note she had seen wasn't even for the Sorbonne (two universities are housed in the same building), but at least it convinced us to go looking back at the boards outside our department. But after scanning all 423 papers posted, we still couldn't find any sort of notice and we so we instead stood around in the hallway awkwardly saying, "So, wait... what should we do?" and "Do you think we'll have class tomorrow?"

While everyone else was discussing other possibilities - should we go back up and double check? Should we ask at the office (it was closed)? - I climbed up the stairs that lead to the French department's doors and checked the postings there. For some reason, that's where the note to linguistics students was posted. In ten point font. And then the number 6 was replaced with a 13. On the FRENCH board.

The funny thing was that I had looked at that same sheet last week and it wasn't scratched out. And even last week, I had wondered why the hell that paper had been on the French board instead of the linguistics board. But still, the changed date on the paper means that sometime between last Thursday and today, they decided to push back the starting date of our classes. Which would be fine with me, if they would have made SOME attempt at letting us know that. Maybe posting a note on a board we would actually check. Maybe posting a note in big, highlighted letters on the department door. Maybe even going so far as to (gasp!) tell us when we came in to ask questions about classes last Friday or this morning.

So anyway, I'm a little bitter. Oh, and I lost my student ID card. I had it one minute, and then I looked for it ten minutes later and it wasn't there. I think it fell out of my pocket in the bathroom. That's the only place I could have lost it. I went back to the bathroom but of course someone had picked it up. Sigh.

But, on the upside, in the end I have yet another week of vacation on my hands. This means I can concentrate a bit more on a new project that is starting up, and maybe I can get all my classes figured out.

The good news is that the little episode today gave me the occasion to meet several people I'll be taking classes with, and we all had a good laugh together when we realized how absolutely absurd the situation was/is. Afterwards we went out for coffee, and at least now I feel like I'll have a few people to say hello to in the hallway. Oh, and I feel a lot better about the fact that my enrollment is all ass-backwards because two of the people I met today haven't even gotten their student ID card. And sure, I had one and lost it, but at least I had one. At some point. That must count for something, no?