The Joys and Trials of a UA Graduate Assistant

On the bad front (I guess I'm doing the Joys and Trials in reverse order): Rebecca, on attending her first class of Spanish 102 yesterday, found out that she had to take Spanish 103 instead. The reason given was that since she had taken Spanish 101 at Shelton State and not UA, that she needed to take a course that would go over both the 101 and 102 material in order to make sure she was on the same page as the other students.

Problem is, the only offering for Spanish 103 conflicts with the math class that she's already taking. I spoke to the dean on this issue, who said he would see if an exception could be made. Some mouths were likely wagged as a result of my call, but in the end Rebecca arrived at class only to be told that she still had to sign up for 103. This, despite the fact that Rebecca had in fact used the very same book and covered the exact same material in her Shelton 101 class as she would have in a UA 101 class. Once again, the stiff and unyielding rules of course registration prevail over common sense.

Fortunately, she's been able so sign up for a communications class that she needed to replace the Spanish class. So, unlikely as it seemed before, all is well with regard to her classes.

Now, for the good news: I learned today that my stipend at UA would be increasing by a significant amount. This could not have happened at a better time, what with our recent marriage and our bills having increased. So...huzzah!

Despite my complaints about UA's other departments (especially Satan's Den...I mean, Parking Services), the math department has really treated the other graduate students and me very well.