grumbling and wondering

Stupid graduate school. I'm so frustrated with them right now. I've had classes canceled on me last-minute (REQUIRED classes), had them combined with undergrads to save money (and therefore dumbed-down to an undergraduate level... no offense to undergrads, but there is a big difference in the style, level of intensity, and courseload, not to mention your courses are cheaper than ours, at least at this school, but we're still paying grad prices for an undergrad education!), and now the latest in my saga... I signed up for a class and was billed for it, but I was somehow never added to the course list. What? Doesn't the computer do that automatically? So I missed the first class two days ago because the professor didn't have me on her list, and therefore didn't email me to tell me when the course was starting, and in the end I only found out that I'd missed the class because a classmate of mine was chatting with the professor and was surprised to hear that I hadn't been in attendance.

Siiiiiiiigh. Let me tell you... I'm trying really hard to be professional in a public journal forum... but this school really is a mess. I've never had to work so hard to do so many other people's jobs in my life. Honestly, I shouldn't have to call an office, ask them how to fix something they've messed up, have them reassure me that they'll take care of it... and then have to call back twice more to ensure that it gets done. Isn't that what they get paid for?

In other news...

I've been itching to clean lately. I've been spending so much time cleaning at my & M's new place that I've completely abandoned the house I currently live in... my parents' house. My room and bathroom here are a disaster. I think it pisses my mom off that I've been cleaning at the new place and not here. There's just so much to go through! I was searching for something in my closet the other day-- a guitar pedal to bring to my friend's house-- and I found half of my life from high school in a giant pile. I need to box that stuff up before it all either gets destroyed under the weight of everything else in there, or just thoroughly traumatizes me. High school was heavy stuff! I don't really want to come face-to-face with "REMEMBER HOW MISERABLE YOU WERE?! SUCKED, DIDN'T IT?!" every time I look for a pair of shoes.

I want to paint, too. And I want to buy more artwork! M and I hung a bunch of pictures the past few days. We have such a random collection, almost entirely from his dad... 17th century European sheet music, a Louisiana Jazz Festival poster signed by Dr. John, a YWCA "Our Second Line of Defense" poster from... the 1940s? maybe?, 6 fancy gold-framed wine labels, an autographed Tori Amos CD insert, an autographed Garbage mini-poster, an autographed poster from the movie Dogma, and an Edward Hopper "Nighthawks" print... and that's just two rooms and a hallway. We have a LOT of artwork. I want more of my own, though. I want to buy a few things to personalize it a bit. I love all the stuff we have so far, but it's mostly hand-me-down art from M's dad and then some pieces of M's, and I want to mix in a few things of my own to make it all feel more like ours, you know?

I'm trying to think of what to buy. I definitely want a Mark Ryden print, I know that much. I've loved his work since high school-- I did a study on "The Bunny Butcher" my senior year, and own a book of some of his work (just up through maybe 2002). I'd like some artistic interpretations of the women I referenced in an earlier post... maybe Eve and the Black Mary in particular. But it would be great to find a set of all four done by one artist in a series.

Hmm. Looks like my Christmas list this year is going to be all artwork and educational materials...

Edited to add: Ooh, I definitely want Allegory of the Four Seasons.