Anyone who says differently is selling something

[Ed. note: This post was inspired by an email I just received.]

I am mad. I am mad. I am mad, mad, mad. I am so mad I have steam blowing out my ears and I’m going to punch somebody’s lights out. * BOOM * BANG * POW * See? Somebody just got their lights punched out. It’s a good thing I try not to don’t swear in public (I mean really swear), because some of your browsers might start exploding if I typed what’s in my head right now.

There are two possibilities as to what took place here. Either, a high-ranking departmental official told me, twice, during the last 7 or so years that I was not going to have to take a comprehensive exam in order to get an MA — or, I misunderstood something this person said (no I didn’t). So there is a 50% chance that I’m the one who screwed up, and there is ALSO a 50% chance that this other person screwed up. Both possibilities are equally likely.

So, with a 50% chance that I was told the wrong thing, by a very high-ranking departmental official, and have been working on that assumption for 7+ years, guess whether or not I am going to be forced to take the comp? Yes I am.

Life is not fair.

I am livid. I am so livid I don’t know what to do with myself. Perhaps I’ll cry and break things, and/or go pick up my parents at the airport (their plane lands in half an hour. Heh). One thing I know I won’t do is start reading the 20+ books on the MA reading list. I don’t even have the freaking time to read the freaking newspaper. I have a toddler and three grade schoolers, one of whom has serious academic issues as well as medical complications, and I do not have the money for additional child care. My days begin at 6:45 and end after 9, and that is assuming nobody shows up in my room wanting to discuss death and homework and reading groups and how they feel so bad for Gaston. The only thing I can sometimes read at that point are the program descriptions on my TV screen. You want me to read 20 books, you can show up at my house around 8 PM every night for 10 days, and you’ll hear me read 20 books. Or on Friday nights, when you’ll hear me read a chapter of a Ramona book, but we won’t have finished 20 of those in 10 days.

*^%$#@

Gotta go leave for the airport. Insert copious amounts of vile drunken sailor curses here.