ah the wonders of modern education

so i spent most of this weekend being domestic and all that fun stuff... dishes... grocery shopping... dishes... cooking [pancakes from scratch -- no box mixes in MY house thank you! and spaghetti with meat sauce -- yes the meat sauce was from scratch too. no, i did not make the pasta from scratch. its just not cost effective, or time efficient. and yes, those were two separate meals. please people, remember, you're talking to (erm... reading?) someone who went to culinary school!]... dishes... gads, dishes. i'm sick of washing dishes. i need a frigging dish washer. i had my son though, so that was fun. he helped me with the groceries, picking out which type of salad we wanted, which kind of dressing to buy, which apples to get, that kind of thing. admittedly he was severely dissappointed by the stores lack of "car carts" but what 5 year old boy wouldnt be? [car carts -- shopping carts with playskool ride in cars in the front. ingenius design in my opinion. i mean gosh, what could possibly make taking your kids to the store easier than letting them ride in a race car while you do your shopping?] i was a little dissappointed myself, cuz instead of riding in the cart where he was safely out of the way, he wandered around getting into all sorts of trouble [okay, not really, but hey... its the potential that i was worried about, not the actual]. dont get me wrong, KG is an angel [KG -- see The Kindergeek Chronicles for more details about KG] most of the time, but he's hyper as all get out, and frankly, mom just cant keep up. not after running on 4 hours sleep a night for the past... oh... semester. hah. but he's really growing up... to the point that i can send him to get stuff for me in the store without much in the way of supervision. case in point, the cookie aisle was just next to where i was in line for the check out, so to keep KG active and unbored, and not crashing our cart into the poor woman in front of us, i sent him on a mission to pick out cookies while i stayed put. took him three tries to find something that wasnt sugar free or fat free, but as always third time's the charm, and he brought back some double fudge sandwich cookies that are now sitting in my cupboard calling to me even while i'm here at work. [i resisted their wiles and temptuous ways all weekend dammit, i'm not about to give in now!! no cookies for me! bad carbs, bad carbs! LOL].

sunday however was relegated to me doing a research paper for Geography. [Geography?? yes... geography is a college class. let me clarify. Physical Geography -- Earth Systems. reminiscent of the "stupid" science in high school, aka earth science, only much much harder. no, we are not learning about states and capitals. we are learning about weather systems, and earthquakes and volcanoes, and how fog forms, and what causes errosion, and shit like that.] it took about 10 times as long as i thought it was going to [meaning i thought it was going to take me an hour, and it took 10 instead], but i did finally get it done with the help of about a half a bottle of a really great australian shiraz. [Black Swan, for those of you who care to know, and for those of you who have no clue what i'm talking about, thats red wine. yeah yeah, doing homework while tipsy does not guarantee one an A, but it does guarantee one a lot more fun at least!] and yes, i'm finally getting to the title of this post. guess what? i don't have to print it out. i took my .wpd, published it to .pdf, and burned it to a CD. woohoo! [why not just email it? dont ask me, i didnt make the rules. but i AM asking about that for the next one] goodness. i remember a time when to put graphics into a report, you had to cut out the paper they were on, and glue them to the pages of your report, then type around them on a type writer... man. i must say, not turning in something hard copy does make me a little bit nervous. but i'm so not gonna print all those color maps and legends... talk about a waste of ink... and so not worth my time, or my money. besides, this was my first time using the CD burner on my new laptop... wow. [yes, i am awed at my own technical proficiencies. can you blame me? come on. you know i deserve applause... ] hopefully i successfully awe my instructor with my desktop publishing skills to the point that he doesnt notice that the content of my paper is complete and utter drivel, except for the part where i totally kiss ass... [i'm getting all together too skilled at kissing ass... its starting to scare me. will i wake up one morning to find my nose a lovely shade of burnt umber?? oh god i hope not, that would totally clash with the rest of my complexion]

anyway... i'd better get back to these damned invoices. you know, i really hate how these things never seem to go away. just as soon as i think i've paid everything, more things show up to be paid for! thank goodness i get to use someone else's money to take care of it all, or i'd be having a triple by-pass by now!

i suppose here's a good place to explain kinda what i do [for those of you who dont know already that is]. i say kinda, because, well, if i told you everything, you'd be staring at me with a blank stare on your face, your chin on the floor, and drooling from lack of comprehension. we all know by now that i work at a university. i fall into the class [yeah... class... sure... the invisible class...] of employee called "clerical" or "administrative support". personally, i prefer clerical, cuz, well, it just sounds... less like a bra. anyway. so i work for UC Berkeley. but i work in the accounting office of a research lab. [i'd say which one, but well, you might be able to figure out who i am, and come pester me or stalk me or something else equally horrendous of that nature] the fancy way to explain my job is to say that "i administrate research contracts" which, while true, isnt all together accurate. i am accounts payable, accounts receivable, a cashier, a file clerk, an auditor, an accountant, a janitor, and a baby sitter all rolled into one. yeah most of that is self explanitory... janitor and babysitter though, well those are interesting, and the ones i spend most of my time doing. janitor -- i spend my entire day cleaning up the mistakes and messes that other people have made, accounting wise. babysitter -- i hold the hand of my "superiors" whenever something simple comes up, and take over completely when something complicated comes up. i clean up after them, play games with them [big bureaucratic games -- and only because they require it of me, i.e. winding my way through the maze of red tape they have laid out, or jumping through hoops that they hold up for me], read them stories [basically tell them things the way they want to hear it, and in essence, kissing ass some more *sigh*], and try my best to get them to sleep [the hell out of my hair] and keep them that way when ever humanly possible. I handle, on my own, over 275 active accounts. that doesnt include the accounts that are supposed to be inactive, but for one reason or another, have some long overdue problem which causes them to become active again. i work directly for 9 people. [yes, you read that right. i have 9 overlords. do you SEE why i contemplate suicide??]. one of those people is my official supervisor. the other 8 are people who are higher ranking on the buraucratic totem pole than i am, and hand work to me to do. generally their work. i am of course required to do said work, as they are higher up than i am [note, these are the same people that i spend all day cleaning up after and babysitting]. i do the job of 3+ people. and i do it better than anyone else here. i know more too, which bothers me sometimes, because i end up doing yet another job that is NOT in my job description -- playing help desk. [got a tech problem? call tess. got an accounting problem? call tess. got a medical problem? call tess. cant figure out a basic level report? call tess, eventhough you make about 4 times as much as she does, and have been in your job longer than she's even been alive... GRRRR]. oh, and while i work at one of the most prestigious technological universities in the WORLD, i am relegated to hardcopy files. yes. HARD COPY. stacks and stacks of paper, 4 filing cabinets worth a year, thousands and thousands of trees a day. is there something wrong with this picture?? no document imaging equipment? why are we not doing everything by .pdf? hell, if i can turn in my homework on CD, why the hell cant i have last years invoices on CD?? oh the idiocy.

anyway... welcome to my life

[not that i'm complaining or anything... *ahem*]