Bureaucracy is a four letter word

Hello,

I must preface this rant disguised as a blog with the statement that I really am having an amazing time here. I am leaving for a weekend long festival in Cape Coast, and will then be on my way to Kukum National Park to do the canopy walk. I succeeded in buying wheat bread and oatmeal today, and I really enjoyed my first Twi class today. Not all is lost. However, despite the good, today was one of the longest days of my life. It is only 7pm.

Soooo, one of the reasons it happened to be ridiculously long is that I woke up at 4:20 (in the morning) today. By choice. In an effort to get fit, hang out with new friends, and make more, I have decided to join the Volta Hall (my all girl dorm) cross country team. This week is training for all the Volta ladies teams, including table tennis. The training involves a 20 minute run and then some crunches, sit ups, and stretching. AT FOUR IN THE MORNING. After the workout, I was sweaty and awake, so after my shower I decided to do my laundry. At 6am. Ridiculous? Maybe. Because we will be in Cape Coast all weekend, I will miss my usual Sunday morning ritual of washing all the weeks clothes under the thinly veiled judgement of all the girls going to church. (They all get up at around 5 on Saturday morning to do their washing. No thanks.) So, I washed all my clothes, and then me and Elena went to breakfast, where I only had to wait about 5 minutes (instead of the usual 20) to get my oatmeal and coffee. I have realized that oatmeal is my only chance for fiber here, and I am willing to wait for my colon's health.

Moving on. After breakfast I went to my first Twi lesson. The class is special for the people in my group, and is held in our own special study center located at the top of campus. Today my orientation journal and my ridiculously brown-nosing essay on "What I Learned from Orientation" were due. Our orientation, which really was immensely helpful, has also succeeded in reducing the 60 of us college age men and women into children, not to mention has continually saddled us with innumerable spur of the moment meetings with a million random people, not to mention tons of ridiculous (Orientation journal?) homework. So, I go to my Twi class. This class is scheduled to be in two groupings. The first is Monday and Wednesday mornings at 9:30 and the second is Tuesdays at 11:30 and Thursdays at 9:30. I have a class during Mondays lessons, so the second option works better because I have my African Literature class from 8:30 to 11:30 on Tuesdays (no kidding. 3 hour lit class at 8:30. Gross) and no classes on Thursdays. So, I get to class and find out that not only am I REQUIRED to turn in my class schedule TODAY, before leaving for Cape Coast, but Twi has been moved to 9:30 on Tuesdays.

This is frustrating for several reasons. First, and more obvious, I have another class during the Tuesday lesson. And since I also have a class (African History to 1500) on Mondays, it is now apparent that I will be unable to take Twi. The more complicated, is that some of my professors have yet to show up for class. I am serious. Not to mention, the add/drop date is not until Sept. 7th, AND the exam schedule is still not posted. Let me clarify. I am required to turn in a paper that says, in finality, what classes I will be taking, and with who, when I have not even had some of my classes yet, and I don't know when any of my final exams are, so I am unaware as to whether the classes I have signed up for yet will be feasible when it comes to exam time. And then, to make everything just a little more complicated, they have changed the time of the class that I was working my entire schedule around. I hated everyone.

This is where the bureaucracy really kills me. I am suffering under the demands of this goddamn study center, who changes its mind all the time, and doesn't bother to tell me until the day before I have to drop something, or change something, and it is all because the study center that I am being screwed over by here in Ghana is being screwed over my all the different schools in the States that are making it turn in copies of our registration BEFORE THE ADD/DROP DATE OF THE SCHOOL. Is this ridiculous to anyone else????!!!!??? God.

Moving on, again. To make my frustration even more dense, I was also informed that I would have to do a presentation, complete with literary review, of my independent study project, next week. You may be wondering: "what is this special study project?" I will tell you. I am required to write a 30 page paper about a topic that I will individually research and execute, under the supervision of a campus Professor, who I must find. This project does nothing for any requirement at my school. I repeat: this 30 page paper, that I am required to spend AT LEAST 10 hours a week researching, DOES NOT FULFILL ANY REQUIREMENT AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY. Ahhhhhhhhhh! To make matters worse (yes, it gets worse) I had a project set up, and had found an advisor all on my own, but my ridiculous (and terrifying) orientation advisor woman who is in charge of all of us, told me I could not do my project, and gave me an entirely new one. Granted, her project is better that mine was. Unfortunately, I have to do EXTENSIVE background research, not to mention, find a new professor to advise me in a week. Oh yeah. I will be gone all weekend.

And, to top everything off, it starting pouring (we are talking torrential downpour here) in the middle of me crashing a new African History class that I am forced to take instead of African History to 1500, (as I must take Twi. Schedule completely fucked? yes.) so all my laundry, that I needed for the weekend will never dry in time. How are you expected to hang dry clothes during the rainy season??? How??!

In good news, I can hear again, I am finally done with my antibiotics, so I can actually eat without wanting to kill myself, and tomorrow is Elena's birthday, so its gonna be a 3 day party in Cape Coast. After today I really need it. I love you.