I think I'm dumb

Last night was the first day of the new semester. Notice I did not say it was my first night of class. Boy am I dumb.

I didn't really make much of a concerted effort to prepare for the semester starting. Sometime yesterday late afternoon, I logged onto my school's website to get the location of my class. I simply wrote down the classroom and building I was to attend. Assuming I could just show up and figure out the actual class name, instructor, etc., I wasn't too worried about the details. Oops.

Seems boy wonder here actually mixed up the Monday class with the Wednesday class and showed up in the wrong room. I figured out I was in the wrong room in the first 10 minutes of the class. The problem is, I didn't know where in the hell I was supposed to be. Nor did I know even the class name, the instructor's name or the course number. Last semester, there was a problem where the campus online system actually provided the wrong classroom #. I figured the same thing happened this time. So, without knowing what other classroom I was supposed to attend, I sat through the entire session, thinking that if the class I was in was part of my program, I'd just drop the class I was actually enrolled in and enroll in the class I sat through last night. 2 1/2 hours I'll never get back (although I must say the discussion about Socrates' Parable of the Cave was pretty interesting).

So, I get home and fire off a couple e-mails to figure out what was wrong. Discovered this am my moronic mistake. Fan-freaking-tastic. The class I missed last night was one I couldn't initially enroll in because it was full. I very courteously e-mailed the professor to see if there was a waiting list process or she would allow me to enroll in the course above the class limit. Here is the word for word exchange:

"Professor X,

My name is Y and I'm a graduate student in the English department working on my teaching certificate. I was attempting to register for Class Z in spring semester on Monday nights and found the class to be full. Is there a waiting list or any way to get permission to register my way into the class? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Y"

The response:

"Y, I am the instructor on record for the course, but I cannot arbitrarily give permission to overload my class. Please e-mail Z (graduate advisor) with your request. Thanks, X"

Sheesh, overreact much? How about a just "contact the grad advisor"? Freaking fire-breathing dragon.

And now this same sunny day professor is busting my (ahem) chops about missing the class, you should have just come in late, you missed very important blah blah blah. I CANNOT WAIT to meet this bastion of brotherly love and compassion. What a great start!!!

Until next time.

Ace