Welcome to Nowhere

Or if nothing else, their disability department did. I’ve been working at getting myself situated so the geekness that is me can exist on paper with a minimal amount of fuss. Which, in turn, would hopefully result in somebody not paid by the government signing my more generous than present paycheck. All would have been absolutely awesome as well, except somebody somewhere who won’t speak up is dragging their feet.

In September, I started the ball rolling with algonquin College to get me set up with the one and only course I didn’t end up actually taking in highschool. It was math, which on a good day is probably my worst subject–maybe second only to science, and only because it’s not science fiction. Everything was in place. The folks doing that course were about ready to bend over backwards to work with me. There was just one problem. You ever tried doing math on a computer with your eyes closed, listening to something electronic trying to explain fractions to you? Yeah, if you’d like brain damage, I’ll give you an hour or so to give that a shot. Go on. This’ll wait.

I already knew exactly what was going to have to happen–they’d need to get their hands on materials from the course. No problem. Within a week of them knowing for sure I was taking this course, they had those materials. Step 2: get them into a format I could actually use. Huge problem. Still on-going problem. I could write a novel.

As I said, it started in September. Step 1 was get me in for an assessment so they’d know where I placed. Awesome. I can do that. They were thinking I could do the assessment then start on October 15 of this year. Turns out no not quite–they ended up pushing me back to take the assessment on October 29, which meant I’d be starting on November 12. Still, not a huge deal, if the Center for Students with Disabilities was on top of things. So I ran with it. Did the assessment, got the results, knew where I was going, yada yada blah. Then it imploded.

By the time a week passed since I did the assessment, the CSD had at least some of the materials I’d be needing. Not all of them, mind you, but it was a start. Problem. They still didn’t have the foggiest idea who’d be transcribing those materials for me. We’re into the first week of November, and they were still waiting on an answer to that question. So, naturally, they also couldn’t tell me when those same materials, in a format I could do something useful with, would be in my hands. Awesome. So I’m sitting here, occasionally prodding the college, and occasionally getting a “we’re still waiting” back. It’s next Monday. I have no texts. And I’m supposed to be starting this course. To say this is unpretty is a mild understatement. So I get a hold of the ones actually doing the math course, let them know the story. My start date’s officially on hold until the CSD eventually, uh, wakes up a little. I let the CSD know this, and–you guessed it–they still don’t have an ETA I can hand to anyone in charge of actually getting me into this course.

Actually, they still don’t have much. And cruising into December, that remains the case. So after hearing absolutely nothing from the CSD for nearly a month, and the deadline for applying to the program I’m taking this course to try and get me into being in february, and with the CSD spending the next few weeks primarily–and rightly–concerned with aranging people’s end-of-semester exams, I knew there was no way I was getting anywhere near finishing this mess before I’d be able to start the program next year. So, eating the $10 I paid to apply to the upgrade program, I withdrew, citing CSD issues. That’s fine. I could deal with that. It was only $10, anyway. It more annoyed me than anything else–and it wasn’t even the fault of the ones running the course.

So fast forward to the day before yesterday. I get an email from the CSD saying they were told I’d withdrawn, and they would continue to work on the materials for me in the event I changed my mind. Wanna know what they didn’t tell me? If anyone was even working on what I’d asked them to work on yet. Or, if not, then when. And when the materials I needed so I *could* change my mind would be ready. Or, really, much of anything. I responded to that email, escentially saying as much. And, again, telling them at this point, they were the only thing keeping me out of that course–and the delay in that department was largely administrative. Much as I had before, I got nothing back from the CSD. No appology for taking 4 months to pull their crap together, no indication their crap was even together, no ETA on when their crap would be together. I’m in the same boat with the CSD now as I was at the beginning of November, except now it doesn’t much matter.

Granted it’d been a few years, but when I went to the college before, they were dipped in awesome. Even last year, according to sources, they were still pretty much the definition of awesome. This year, for whatever reason, I have no earthly idea what up and sucked out all that awesome. But in the span of 4 months, my college, or at least my college’s disability department, just quit me. And we didn’t even kiss goodbye.