That could be the new slogan of Alberta Learning or Edulinx. I love bureaucracy. I love how over the holidays I spent more time on the phone waiting in queue for an operator at Alberta Student loan than I spent studying for my exams. I love how, even though *they* told me to send in the wrong form and I sent it, they still pulled money out of my account to pay back a student loan (which I am still in the process of spending on my education). I love that said payments, taken without my authorization, will not be refunded to me which means I am now over $100 dollars short on this month's bills. Oh, how I love student Loans. For those of you who are lucky enough not to have them please take a moment and thank the almighty...or your parents or whoever it is that saves you from the nightmare that is Edulinx.
So there you have it...today is clearly a day for ranting. I ranted in my last post about Newsmakers and critics of Canada and the bureaucracy and red tape surrounding Tsunami aid and now here I am ranting about the bureaucracy and red tape surrounding my student loans.
Hammers, you will be glad to know that for the next while I will not be posting incriminating photos on my blog because my computer crashed and I had to format the hard drive and lost everything on my c drive. That is what I did on my birthday...I was on the phone with (very patient) customer service agents trying to get my computer working. I've said it before and I will say it again, people like me should not own computers (and when I say "people like me" I mean those of us who are computer illiterate). Whilst speaking with 6 or 7 customer service agents at Dell I realized that if you call something a "thingamabob" or a "round doohickey" then you have no right to complain when said thingamabob or doohickey breaks down. My *holiday* has been filled with fabulous fun on one end of the spectrum and belligerent bureaucracy on the other end of the spectrum. It has certainly been interesting.
Once my computer is back on track I hope to be blogging again with more frequency. It is amazing how much I missed having my computer at home. There was a time when I didn't have a computer or a cell phone...and now it seems like without them I am lost. How the hell did that happen?
On a more somber note Lois Hole passed away yesterday. She was a very nice person and was always so gracious to me even though I only met her a handful of times. The last time I saw her was during the Kids Christmas party the SU held last year. She was our lieutenant-governor and when she came in the theatre the kids had no idea who she was and all the pomp and circumstance surrounding her arrival was lost on them.
The protocol dictates that she walks in with her Aide-de-Camp and then once she is at the front you are supposed to remain standing as the the Vice-Regal Salute is played which consists of the first six bars of 'God Save the Queen', followed immediately by the first four bars of 'O Canada'. The Vice-Regal Salute is not sung but it confused the wee bairns and they didn't know what the hell was happening. All they knew was Santa was up there and they wanted to get up on that stage and meet him. You could see from the confused looks on their faces that most of them wondered, "who's that lady standing with Santa?"
We waited for the kids to file along saying hello first to Santa, and then to 'Her Honour, the Lieutenant Governor, The Honourable Dr. Lois E. Hole.' What made me laugh out loud was this one little kid we had in our group, Tyler, walked over to me totally beaming after having met Santa, and he said, "That *Mrs. Claus* sure is nice, I told her I wanted a bike for Christmas and she said she'd tell Santa..."
Just Before Dr. Hole left I told her that little anecdote and she laughed and said how uncomfortable the pomp and circumstance made her feel sometimes and how she wished she could just enter a room and kick back and have fun...She was such a super lady. She touched my life with her generous nature and kind words and today I feel the loss of such an incredible individual.
Song du jour: Full Of Grace ~ Sarah McLachlan
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1 comment:
Weeds,
I too felt bad for Mrs. Hole. I lived right next to her greenhouse in St. Albert when it was just a couple of buildings and now it's an empire. She was also the one that shook my hand when I graduated. Great lady.
duke
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