Friday, July 2, 2010

All I Ask For is a Transcript and a Parking Place

So today I visited my guidance counselor for a copy of my transcript to send to my new school. She didn't have it ready. I called her last week asking her to write it, and again this morning before I went, to ask if it was ready. She claimed not to know how to write up that type of transcript. I need it soon, though, because it needs to be translated to Dutch by an "official Belgian translator." The administration has been getting in the way of every one of my efforts to meet deadlines. How can I be taken seriously by AFS if I don't get things done? And it's not like I can write up this transcript myself. It needs to be signed, stamped, and legalized by the school. It's only frustrating because I can't do any of this on my own. I've done everything I can so far, and the rest is up to someone else. It should be relaxing, but it's so stressful.
I went to Potsdam today to get more information on the class that I have to take this summer to cover my English 12 credit. I obviously can't take an English class in Belgium, because it would be a foreign language class. I couldn't manage to get a Belgian literature class approved by the school either, because I didn't know the name of the school I would be attending, much less the name of the class itself. As if I could have pronounced it. I need to work on that. So my English teacher and principal approved an extended education class in Potsdam. It's three hours a day for three weeks. That's not so bad, considering the work I put into my junior year English class. So I have an Internet account with the school, but it doesn't work. I've had to email, call, and visit all sorts of people and offices to figure out if I'm missing any important information by not having a functional account. No answers yet, but I'm hoping that someone figures out what I'm talking about soon. I really don't want to show up on the first day of class without the right books. It's not for lack of trying. I mean, I'm close to criminally harassing my professor. I email her twice a day and call her office all the time in hopes that one day she'll get back to me. So the initial reason I went to Potsdam was to get my parking permit for the summer. A it turned out, I had to visit University Police. The campus is in heavy construction, so I had to ask all sorts of people how to get to the police station. They all gave me worried looks because, of the many reasons to visit a police station, parking is not the most obvious. So I ended up finding it after an hour of intense searching. Ironically, I ended up having to park about six blocks away from the parking office. The permit didn't cost anything. In fact, the university owes me $10.05. I have no idea why, but I won't complain. Now I have free parking right next to my class, ten bucks, and a thorough knowledge of the campus from all the time spent looking for the police station. If I have this much trouble with my American schooling, how will I ever figure it out in Belgium?

1 comment:

  1. "She claimed not to know how to write up that type of transcript"

    Then how the hell did she do transcripts for the seniors? Incompetence, thy name is Ogdensburg Free Academy.

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