Apart from getting my blog going (which still needs an enormous amount of organizing) and taking care of offspring full time, I have also been pursuing some career options. One of them being an international PhD scholarship to the one place I am certain I am connected to in some cosmic way. I got all the documents done on time except for my Masters supervisor's reference. You see in the academic world this becomes super important, it is often not about what you can do but what someone else says you can do. Well, I guess it is pretty much the same shit everywhere. Anyway, as per usual, he disappears on me and when I finally get a hold of him on the phone he apologizes and says, "as you know I prioritize based on deadlines" whatever the hell that may mean! What it meant this time was that when he finally completed my reference and tried to upload the document the website was down and so he did the next thing suggested on the instruction sheet, email it to a general information address provided. He just forgot to mention that was what he did.
I kept checking everyday but his reference did not show up. So finally I email him after Hubby convinced me even super smart academics can screw things up for us. That is when he told me what he had actually done. So I email Heather XXX at my cosmically connected Uni (or so I thought) and forward my supervisor's email asking what could be done. She writes back saying she is no longer with the graduate office and that I must contact the office directly. So I write to Dr ZZZ (sort of the Goddess of the office) and get an out of office message saying I should contact Heather XXX. Since Heather XXX wrote saying she is not with the office anymore I shoot off an email to the Girl in all my frustration. Thank God I did.
The Girl then wrote me saying I ought to write to Ms ABC and explain the whole situation, which I did. I once again get an out of office reply saying I ought to contact Ms DEF or Ms GHI. I forward the email to Ms DEF and cc the Girl. The Girl writes back saying it sounds desperate enough for someone to take action and then asks Is Heather XXX the same as Heather YYY. Because in all my emails I refer to XXX while it was YYY I should have been writing to. XXX is at U of T, while YYY is at my cosmic Uni in Australia. Oh God! I feel like shooting myself. Trust me, I for a minute had no idea what to do. So I write to Australia explaining the error and wrote to Heather YYY saying I made a stupid mistake and had got her name mixed up with someone else. I also wrote to Ms DEF explaining the error.
All this happened over a period of 12 hours. I have two Heathers in my mailbox and just did not pay attention to the last name when I hit enter as I sent the messages out. Lessons learned - 1. Pay close attention to names and email addresses, you'd think I would know that by now; 2. Never do anything with the Offspring rattling off his story about the jungles; 3. Check, double check, triple check emails to anyone of consequence, especially if they don't already know you are an idiot and you don't want them to think you are one!
I kept checking everyday but his reference did not show up. So finally I email him after Hubby convinced me even super smart academics can screw things up for us. That is when he told me what he had actually done. So I email Heather XXX at my cosmically connected Uni (or so I thought) and forward my supervisor's email asking what could be done. She writes back saying she is no longer with the graduate office and that I must contact the office directly. So I write to Dr ZZZ (sort of the Goddess of the office) and get an out of office message saying I should contact Heather XXX. Since Heather XXX wrote saying she is not with the office anymore I shoot off an email to the Girl in all my frustration. Thank God I did.
The Girl then wrote me saying I ought to write to Ms ABC and explain the whole situation, which I did. I once again get an out of office reply saying I ought to contact Ms DEF or Ms GHI. I forward the email to Ms DEF and cc the Girl. The Girl writes back saying it sounds desperate enough for someone to take action and then asks Is Heather XXX the same as Heather YYY. Because in all my emails I refer to XXX while it was YYY I should have been writing to. XXX is at U of T, while YYY is at my cosmic Uni in Australia. Oh God! I feel like shooting myself. Trust me, I for a minute had no idea what to do. So I write to Australia explaining the error and wrote to Heather YYY saying I made a stupid mistake and had got her name mixed up with someone else. I also wrote to Ms DEF explaining the error.
All this happened over a period of 12 hours. I have two Heathers in my mailbox and just did not pay attention to the last name when I hit enter as I sent the messages out. Lessons learned - 1. Pay close attention to names and email addresses, you'd think I would know that by now; 2. Never do anything with the Offspring rattling off his story about the jungles; 3. Check, double check, triple check emails to anyone of consequence, especially if they don't already know you are an idiot and you don't want them to think you are one!
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