You may recall my last struggle in this saga resulted in the revelation that this is the first year of a new graduation application protocol, wherein it's done through the online course system (AKA the bane of every student's existence). Upon learning of this, I follow the directions, filling out the online application, and when I finish I'm rewarded with the cryptic message, "Be sure to fill out the supplemental form for your major department. Thank you, and get out." (Okay, I took some liberties with that last part.) And that's when I send the aforementioned e-mail to the Spanish department inquiring on this issue, to which I receive no response whatsoever. So I decide to take a more proactive approach and head over to the Spanish department's office, and who should I stumble upon on my way there but my "advisor" in his office. (That would be Number 5, who just returned from a semester on sabbatical, during which I was under the advisement of Number 6.)
I figure, what the hell, I might as well pop in, so if anyone asks I can at least say I tried asking my advisor. I knock, greet him, and he gives me this bewildered look like, "I should know who you are, but I don't." I am neither surprised nor offended. I ask about the mythical form, and he confesses to me that he doesn't really know what the new graduation system involves because (wait for it...) he hasn't done undergraduate advising in two years. I struggle to contain the laughter howling inside of me. I know all too well that he has done nothing remotely close to undergraduate advising for two years, because he has been my assigned "advisor" for the past two years. (At least they had the decency to assign me a substitute--albeit equally inept--"advisor" for one of those years.) I smile politely, my suspicions of his cluelessness confirmed, and continue on my way to the Spanish department, where I am hoping someone actually knows something.
No such luck. I ask the secretary of the department (to whom I sent the initial e-mail) what I have to do to graduate (perhaps giving them one of my own limbs would do the trick, or the blood of some first-borns), and she seems almost more perplexed than I am by the situation. She gives me the whole spiel about the new graduation application process, and tells me I'm in the "guinea pig" group. Fantastic. I resist the urge to flip out and start shouting, "Look, I don't care what forms I do or don't have to fill out, or whether they exist, or that you guys clearly don't have your shit together. But let me put it this way: I am leaving this place in December and if I don't receive a diploma in the mail, I will send my robot T-rex to come collect it." (The robot T-rex thing is just a bluff, I don't actually have one. Yet.)
To top it off, just as I'm about to leave, this woman says, "If you send me an e-mail, I'll check on it and see what I can find out," and she hands me a piece of paper with her e-mail address on it. I don't have the heart to tell her that I ALREADY TRIED THAT with absolutely no success. Instead I do what she says and send her an e-mail almost identical to the last one.
That was two weeks ago. I haven't heard from her since. I have, however, achieved a new level of apathy on the subject, something I didn't think was possible. I have a feeling this is not the last obstacle on my path to becoming a college graduate. And if they think I'm coming back here for the ceremony, they've got another thing coming.