Nobilarity Redux

Today was very busy at work. The kind of day that you feel good about because you gave it a good effort, were mostly competent, and at the end, got the work done at a high level. At any rate, I took a few minutes out of my day to ring the university office to see if my loan check was in. See, the process works like this:

Bank gives money to St. Louis (home campus). St. Louis wires money to Regent's (satellite campus). Regent's deducts tuition from funds. Regent's cuts check. I get check. There is much rejoicing.

This process takes just under a month if things are working smoothly and it's anyone's guess if your number is up or if you'll luck out and get the money on time. In the first semester, I got the money really fast, so I was a little fearful of a karmic swing.

When I rung the nice lady who administrates the grad program, she told me she would "look for it". After some rummaging noises in the background followed by a pause and more rummaging, I was expecting the worst. And I was rewarded.

"Sorry Stephen, I don't have a check for you for this semester. The funds that were sent were only sufficient to cover your tuition, nothing else...."

I'm like, uh, great. Let's see, I have 60 pounds to my name and I don't get paid for another 3 weeks.

"...I do, however, have a check dated September 24th that I don't quite understand..."

After some discussion and negotiation, it appears that Webster disbursed an excess of funds to me in September in two separate checks. I got the first one, but was never notified about the second one (Par). Fortunately, the 2nd check is still good until March, so I now only have to wait 5 days for it to clear (the same time it takes terrorists to purchase a handgun in the US, but not an assault rifle - they can get those at the KMart without a wait).

So, to sum up, minor heart attack + sweet relief in the form of 1400 pounds = nobarriffic excellence on an unparalleled scale. Of course, I'm not really complaining because if they had done things the right way, my check would have been for 900 pounds. Or, if they had given me that check in September, I might have spent some or all of it and been totally screwed now. I just thought the whole episode to be surreal.

Anyway, someone at work showed me the coolest thing the other day. Maybe they have it in the States, I don't know, but I love it. They sell Vitamin C tablets that you dissolve in water like an Alka Seltzer tablet, except they don't taste like fetid ass. Instead, they taste entirely delicious. But that's not the best part. The best part is that you get a shot of 1000 mg of pure Vitamin C infused directly into your body. I'm telling you - I feel like I'm getting high when I gulp down a glass. What a rush. (Ok, I'm clearly a dork.) Still, good stuff. Much more fun than just popping a horse pill every day.