Registration Post-it

My NAIT program sent me registration information in the mail on Friday that said I need to show up Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursdsay or else. The letter was dated Wednesday, and postmarked Thursday, and arrived Friday. Today someone from the program office calls me during a funeral to inform me that I have to get down to the registrars office today or else they revoke my registration. I go and guess what? I stand in line. Boo!

For a half an hour or forty minutes I stand listening to silly teens complain to their dads about how hard college is going to be, to little punks talking to their friends about how lame class was last year and which girl was hot. I stand in line some more only to be confronted by a registrar office lady who has no clue. At all. She had no idea you could pay online. No idea you could register online. No idea at all. Eventually she figures something out and she sends me down the hall with a POST-IT that says "Registered KS Aug 27-07" to the student ID card picutre people who send me away, since apparently the registration system takes a day to update. I should come back tomorrow, or if possible next week. By way of goodbye the student ID card picture lady says "make sure not to lose that post-it."

OK that's so awesome: I have a post-it as an official piece of registration.

Remember when?

Remember when that German man in the airport picked his nose for five minutes and at the end of it hid some treasures behind his ear?

Ha!

out of the blue my dad says "who is this Ofra woman?"
me: who?
dad: ofra!
me: never heard of her.
dad: ofra? famous lady?
me: ofra?
dad: yes ofra. Or opera. or something.
me: Oprah? you mean OPRAH? hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

German Ordnung

Germans have an interesting outlook on life -- Ordnung! is the highest of German virtues. Forests are orderly. Branches may not lie about on the ground, and all the trees are lined up in rows. You come out of the main terminal in Frankfurt and your soul sighs in relief to see sidewalk bricks aligned perfectly as far as your eye can see. Not only are they straight at the airport but in the rest of the city too. And not only that -- they have the exact same pattern on every street, in the entire country. You're asked to keep your kids in line and behave in an orderly fashion every where you go.

But maybe in a country of 86 million crammed into half the size of Alberta being orderly is the only way the people preserve sanity?

I drove up to my house yesterday evening and I had no idea where I was! All my bushes and shrubbery look European... neat, rounded off and very short! A German visitor of my renters was busy all day yesterday it seems. His soul must have just been crying looking at my yard.