In Soviet Russia, Job Works YOU!!!

Title comment: Don't ask. For your own good, just don't ask.

As today, I had no classes or exams to take, I simply worked in the LAC all day. (And I do get paid for that extra time!)

Oh, my. Had a lot to do.

First I printed my April timesheet and signed it. Easy. Then I went to get Ms. Martin an ice tea out of the Pepsi machine. Not that easy, because the machine ate her dollar at first, but eventually the problem was solved.

Then she said, "Will you go clean out those filing cabinets in the back?" and told me how to file the papers I would find there.

Of course I agreed, because I'm a good noodle.

Wow. I swear if you took eighteen oversize-print Bibles and stacked them next to the stack of papers I had to file, the papers would be taller. And most of them weren't stapled, paper-clipped, or sorted into manila folders. Most of them were just loose papers that I had to put in the appropriate drawer. Ever thumbed your way through a stack of papers that was as high as your chin? I'm amazed I never got a paper cut. I started the job at 9:15 and wasn't finished until lunchtime. It would have been so much easier if the papers had already been sorted, but no, as it was, I was bouncing from place to place with papers, something like this.

This one goes into the Commas drawer. This one into Misplaced Modifiers. Ms. Martin, do you want this email from the NCTLA that dates back to 1995? No? Goes into scrap paper. Oh, no, wait, it's double-sided. Goes into the recycling bin. This one goes to Subject-verb agreement. This one is about semicolons? Ms. Martin, there is no Semicolons drawer. (I had to create one.) Recycling bin. Subject-verb agreement. Scrap paper. Subject-verb agreement. Commas. Quotations. Scrap paper. IF I SEE ONE MORE BLOODY PAPER ABOUT SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT I SWEAR TO GOD -- Oh, wait, it's old. Recycling bin. English 070 tests? We have an English 070 course? No? Then how did this get here? Recycling bin. Oh, look, more Subject-verb agreement...Whose file is this? Mr. Brandon's? Then shouldn't it be in Mr. Brandon's office? Recycling bin. Subject-verb agreement?...No, this time is Subject-verb identification. Sigh.

Anyway, the rest of the day was easier. I emptied the closet and the bookshelves, and I microwaved Ms. Martin's lunch in the faculty lounge. That's the first time I've been in the faculty lounge, and probably the last time too. It smelled like wood varnish, had a fridge, a high-tech microwave, and a clunker of an oven that looked like it dated back to the early 1960's and needed cleaning. On one wall, there was a collection of mailboxes, each labelled with the names of the professors that work in the Humanities building. There were two or three letters in the boxes, but it looks like their main function is to serve as a shelf for coffee cups. Curious, I looked for all my teacher's coffee cups. Hopefully I didn't find Mr. Brandon's - in his box was a pink coffee cup that said, "I'LL START MY DIET TOMORROW," and I really hope that wasn't his. Mr. Drake's was absent, as his coffee never leaves his hands. Of course Mrs. Harden, the Earth Mother and Advisor To The Underworld, had not coffee, but tea, a pretty box of herbal tea in front of her teacup. Mr. James's coffee cup was nondescript white. They still have a box set apart for jolly old Mr. Davies's coffee cup, though he retired last semester.

So, yeah, I had to move around a lot today. My feet hurt.

I wish I could get to my writing. But the power adapter for my laptop has busted, and I can't order a new one until next Thursday. Grrr. I guess I can write without my material, but it's complicated. Reading a little of what I've already written is what gets me ready to write more.

At least my laptop is my own again. Mom and Sarah just bought brand new Dell laptops, so they have no need of mine.

Thank God for flash drives.