I cracked, yesterday. I had a pretty shit day and was not looking forward to my math class — I actually am kinda digging math class itself, but I hate the incessant whining from the whiners in my class with a blinding sort of epic, passionate hate — and I really just wanted a cup of coffee and after standing in no fewer than three queues over the course of an hour to drop my biology class (At one point, I had to go wait in line at the cashier! When I wasn’t getting a refund or having to pay any money! I had to wait so that they could rip a leaf off the three-piece form and hand me back the rest and say “You’re all set”! Oh City Colleges of Chicago, I do so hope you are not teaching any classes on business efficiencies.), I was feeling pretty crap and I really really just wanted the damn coffee and was feeling sad and pathetic about not being able to have it, when I thought, “hey, wait a second, the point of this exercise actually has nothing to do with making myself miserable” … and went and got the damn cup of coffee. $1.88 has never tasted so sweet, and not just because of the half-cup of sugar Dunkin’ Donuts put in. That said, though, I’m not giving up on the rest of the month. So we’ll see how that goes.

And in unrelated news, a DePaul student is niqui! — I’m officially registered for my first SNL class, which is a mandatory mini-course, sort of an orientation for the program. It only meets twice, and the first meeting is next Tuesday — for four hours. Then two weeks later, we meet again, after which point I get to go register for summer session, and pay up like $3500, plus books. Fortunately, next Wednesday, I have an appointment with the nice people at Financial Aid so they can tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be doing, beyond filing the FAFSA, because I haven’t honestly got a clue. Have to go get my transcripts, again (kind of now wish I hadn’t bothered going through all that rigmarole for HWC, for just one lousy semester. Ah well. At least I got math out of the way).

The weirdest bit of all this is, though … DePaul?? Really? A private school… a private Catholic school?? This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife! — I dunno… maybe I’m just too much of a prole at heart to be able to conceive of a situation wherein I would have enough privilege to afford a private school. And I’m certainly way too agnostic to have ever figured on choosing to attend a religious whatsis of any flavor. It’s a bit weird. I do not “feel” DePaul the way I used to (still do, a bit) “feel” UIC. That said … I’m wayyyy not able to deal with my fine colleagues at Harold Washington, so maybe it’s all a matter of degree. Or maybe I just need to lighten up — your choice.