Bureaucratic Update

Given that humans are generally prone to mood swings when sleep-deprived, that this is a really stressful time, and that I genuinely have had a lot of sh*t to deal with today, I think that I'm handling everything with amazing balance. In fact, I think that maybe me having been awake now for more than 30 hours without rest has made me just SO tired that I can't be bothered by things like the AUC mess that was today.

If you happen to be a corporate litigator with whom I am totally smitten (you know who you are and so does everyone else), and you don't have a lot of time to read my rambling blog, today, then skip to point 3 below. It's the most important and confusing in terms of my life.

But let's start at the top. The good, the bad, the inbetween. It's all about VC's struggle within the bureaucratic matrix that describes his current life (read: academia).

Let's start with classes: Turned in my importing democracy paper (hence me being up for 30 hours), and it was on time, and I already have an A in the class (she posted it like an hour after I handed the paper in). I really REALLY like the professor, and feel good about that class. The ONLY thing I have left, then, in terms of coursework at AUC is the completion of a paper from a spring course in which I took an incomplete. Enter the stress: there is no policy published about when to submit these things, so I'm submitting mine on the 22nd (the last day of finals), however for all I know there's a very real chance that I missed some unpublished deadline and will fail (with all the repercussions for update law school transcript requests, my thinking I'd finished my coursework but being wrong, etc. that come with failing). Will work to finish it the next two days and just wait and pray.

On to law school aps: So Stanford has this AWFUL system where you have to physically mail the a check AND a Dean's Certification, so my ap there is not complete, and Columbia has the most ridiculous Dean's Certification. Keep in mind that I went to Columbia, AND Columbia, as a college that send Certs to OTHER schools for it's own alums applying to law school REFUSES to use the forms of other schools (and instead sends out their own standard "Chunk's GPA is X and he was always in good academic standing with no disciplinary measures" form letter) -- Columbia law school's Dean's Cert that it asks other schools to fill out is INSANE. All these grids and boxes and the request of a "summary letter" describing the student! I got the professor from the class I just handed the paper in for, who is an Assistant Dean, to fill them out for me, and I FedExed them today (a good experience, my first time at AUCs FedEx, where we get corporate rates and only pay 25% of what I was paying down the street at the real office!). The thing with Columbia, and I know this because I emailed and called them, is that even though Harvard, Yale, and NYU all OBVIOUSLY accepted the informal transcript that I sent (it's only grad school! most people don't even go at all!), Columbia wants one FROM AUC.

Enter AUC bureaucracy: The Registrar *refuses* to hand-out transcripts until after the start of January, since right now grades are being input into the system. SO, if Columbia (and maybe even Stanford) won't consider me complete until I get a transcript from AUC, which will be after the first week of January, then I'm basically screwed, because NO ONE gets in to those places that late in the admissions cycle. So -- yeah. I emailed Columbia and explained to them that the Dean's Cert confirms my GPA, that other schools didn't require an official AUC transcript, etc. and let's see what they say.

AUC cont'd

Had my comprehensive exams moved to next semester, although they kept them on my transcript with a "withdraw" next to it (question: why is it not the goal of the Registrar to present the student in the best light possible while still being truthful to the situation -- I NEVER TOOK COMPS, what is the POINT of having it there??).

AUC cont'd

While at the Registrar, I checked on the winter Arabic courses, and of course no one knew how/when I needed to actually register, and no one knew about whether or not my fellowship applied. I sought advice form the magical woman do takes care of EVERYTHING for grad students if you actually use her, and this is what happened:

1. The winer arabic course is not for regular students but for visitors, and costs $2200 for one month, not covered by my fellowship, and includes things I don't need like city tours and a dorm room with a roomate, etc.

2. I can apply for (and just got, apparently) an Arabic Language Fellowship, which covers 1/2 the cost of tuition, and they were generous enough to count it based on credit points for the course (removing all the housing and other crap) which is $535 (or something) per point X 3 points - 50% (fellowship), so I pay like $850...which is a lot less than it would have cost to go home for winter. Fine.

3. While I'm there talking about my Arabic problem, the cat is out of the bag that I finished my required courses, and *GET THIS* my fellowship is therefore over. Not only am I not permitted to take any courses next semester, BUT even registering for my comprehensive exams, which are 0 points if you take them with other courses but 1.0 point if you take them as a stand alone course, I will have to pay for. So basically I finished all my courses early and got punished by HAVING to pay AUC to let me stay for the fourth semester in which I could have been slowly finishing my coursework.

I am NOT paying AUC to stay here an extra semester. There is NO way I will do that. I mean -- like not even when hell freezes over AND pigs fly would I do that. I'd just as soon go back to the US ASAP (if there's not AUC reason left for me to be here), study Arabic there, and try to take my comps in AUC's New York office.

This is my new plan: the reason that I'm graduating early is that I got certain courses this term to substitute for ones next term that I officially need to graduate. What I decided to PRETEND to do is just not have the ones I took this semester substitute, register for the theoretically-required courses that I would then "need" next semester, like I'm not ready to graduate (and my fellowship is still therefore on), and register for Arabic (which we can do for free on top of a full couseload, but not standing alone -- great logic, right?). Then, once the bill is paid by my fellowship, I'll drop everything but the Arabic and have the last laugh. They can seriously kiss it if they think that i will pay them a penny more than what I'm paying for the winter course (which is already insanely expensive -- $850 in Egypt goes an EXTREMELY X 10 long way).

So -- law school aps in the air, might fail a class from spring, might drop out of AUC. On the equally-likely side: law aps will be fine, the paper I'll turn in on the 22nd will be accepted, and my master plan for registration for next term will go off without a hitch.

Wanna place bets?

:) MUST SLEEEEEEEP

VC