{"id":3354,"date":"2012-05-28T21:40:29","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T02:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=3354"},"modified":"2012-05-28T21:40:29","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T02:40:29","slug":"major-achievements-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2012\/05\/major-achievements-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Achievements – Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, 24 May 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

My major achievement today was finding out I got an A in my recent college course. Yay for me!<\/p>\n

Actually, though, I have to confess: this was an easy course. It was a history class, for one thing, and I’m pretty into history. I’m the kind of guy who reads history books during summer break. Oh – look at that – on my shelf right now are three history books I am plowing through! Also, it wasn’t just any history, it was American history. And of the 196 nations on Earth, I believe I am most familiar with the one that I’ve spent 99% of my life in. And it didn’t cover just any time frame, either…it covered the 20th Century. I lived through nearly a quarter of that century, raised by two people who lived through nearly half of it. So, yeah, not much new in the class.<\/p>\n

In fact, this is a thing that has irritated me about Hamline lately: In looking at my transcript of class credits I transferred in, I recently noticed they counted my two Lab Skills courses as worth exactly zero credits. I wrote to the Grand Lord of Transferred Credits (or maybe her title was “Transfer Articulation Coordinator,” I don’t recall), and told her that, since the two courses – which totaled 9 credits towards my last degree, should count for something at Hamline. After all, they were writing intensive, and I learned a whole heap about writing clearly, specifically, and succinctly. In fact, in comparing them to the course I just took, they were far, far more educational.<\/p>\n

She said: “While the writing components of these courses may have provided excellent opportunities to hone your skills, as occupational science-based lab courses, they would not be able to fulfill English major requirements, per se.”<\/p>\n

…So, basically, she’s saying that because the information and skills I learned in the classes had some sort of use in the real world, that they therefore can’t could toward my requirements at Hamline.<\/p>\n

Yeah, that’s fucking messed up.<\/p>\n

Friday, 25 May 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of messed up, I tried to pay my spring tuition with Hamline today. In fact, it took all day, and I never succeeded.<\/p>\n

Did you know that if you pay with a credit card at Hamline’s online tuition payment center (where you have to put your tuition in a “cart”), that you have to pay about $25 per $1,000 for a convenience fee? I’m not sure what’s convenient about getting screwed out of $100, and I don’t know when Hamline started running their shop like TIcketmaster, but I think it sucks.<\/p>\n

I called the tuition office (or whatever it’s called) and asked if I could just come to their office to pay in person. “Sure!” they said, “But we only take cash or check in person.” Oh, isn’t that convenient! I can pay for a 75 cent candy bar in the gift shop, and they’ll take a credit card, but two blocks away, the tuition people are still living in 1955.<\/p>\n

Anyway, so I type in my credit card number and – get this – my card gets rejected because Hamline won’t take Visa<\/em>. Yep, you heard that right: Visa is no good at Hamline. Visa, mind you, is good practically everywhere else on the planet – including online sales and even some garage sales I’ve been to, but at a major University in the middle of The United States of Consumerism? Sorry, no can do. And, nope, it doesn’t matter if it’s a credit card or check card.<\/p>\n

This is all the more frustrating since I don’t even have to pay for the class – my employer does that. But my employer only reimburses me, so I do have to pay up front. So, basically, I just need to put it on my Visa, then turn around and submit the receipt for reimbursement, then deposit a big old check back into my account mere weeks later.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Hamline, if you’re reading this: I have $4,000, if you’d like it. Let me know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, 24 May 2012 My major achievement today was finding out I got an A in my recent college course. Yay for me! Actually, though, I have to confess: this was an easy course. It was a history class, for one thing, and I’m pretty into history. I’m the kind of guy who reads history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3356,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions\/3356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}