Usually loud screaming is reserved for Finals Week. There's a bi-annual (and by "annual," I mean the school year) group scream in which frustrated, stressed out college students gather together and make a whole lot of noise before finals start. I have never participated myself, but now I find myself wishing that there was a group scream for the first week of classes. Never before have I had so much trouble with textbooks. Sure, there have been some issues. For instance, the literary criticism anthology we ordered from Amazon last semester was in horrible condition and we had to send it back, but that was rectified before the semester began. I've never started classes without all my textbooks, and now the first week is almost over and I'm still missing three.
I arrived back from Pikeville on Wednesday, and we returned to Kirksville from Hannibal on Friday. On Saturday we went to Patty's Bookstore to buy our textbooks. I was able to buy most of them, but not any of my French books or my Linguistics book. It just so happened that neither of my French professors sent Patty the info for their assigned books, so we headed over to the campus bookstore. I was able to get two of my French books, but the other books and the Linguistics book were still M.I.A. This was very frustrating in and of itself, but I ordered one French book and the Linguistics book on the bookstore's website. For some reason, my list of textbooks said that the remaining French book was "Special order" and to contact the bookstore. We did, and no one had any idea where it was. We were told that it might arrive by Friday.
Guess who has an assignment due on Friday using that book? Moi. When I called the bookstore yesterday to inquire as to the status of said "special order" book, they had no idea. They could give me no information whatsoever, so with a loud "SCREW IT!" (not to them, of course), I ordered the book from Amazon. (This was not done originally because it looked like most of the books were from overseas, but then I found one in New York). I emailed my professor and told him about my find, and he forwarded the email to the rest of the class (there are seven of us) since they'll be unable to get the book from the bookstore, either. So hopefully that book will arrive soon.
But then there's the Linguistics book. We were told that it should arrive on Friday, which is fine. But then my professor sent out this email saying that she had been told that the textbooks were finally in. Again, fine. Except I already paid for my copy and received no email telling me to go pick it up. So even though it's sitting there on the shelf, I can't have it. Luckily the professor was kind enough to scan the pages for us so we could do the assigned reading. Hopefully she'll continue to do so if I'm unable to get my book by tomorrow.
Sorry for the rant. It's just. so. frustrating. None of these problems are the professors' fault. It's just a bunch of horrible mix-ups. But they make me want to bash my head against the wall.
So. Moving on. How has the rest of my 2013 been so far? Pretty okay. I'm liking most of my classes, it's nice to be back on campus, but still. I'm not at my happiest. I miss my family, for one thing. For another, not all of my financial aid has come in, so my Work Study paycheck goes automatically to my tuition and not my bank account like it normally does. For another, I need to prepare to fill out the applications for study abroad and the scholarships for it, but I can't do anything until someone else does something and DJFS:FJSLDFND:FHDL.
I really need a good scream.
