My folder

My folder is fixed!!!

Perhaps you guys remember mention of my folder about a year and a half ago? Either way, as you can probably see from the preceding statement, it was broken. Actually, the folder itself was fine. It was a trustworthy, valient folder. It did what it was supposed to do... It hung in a crate, it proudly proclaimed my name, but unfortunately, it remained empty.

This folder is my campus mail box. Yeah, my department is kind of (actually, really) ghetto, giving us folders instead of boxes.... But it gets worse. My department is pretty sucky, at least administratively. Apparently sometimes they give new grad students folders without ever adding them to the list of current students. So despite the fact that I had a valid campus mail box, and a valid campus address, since my half-assed department had never avowed existence of me to the mail sorters, all mail directed towards me was promptly thrown out. Ok, they might have recycled it, this being California and all...

Unfortunately, it took us a year to figure out why they were recycling my mail. I felt so unloved. It's not that I expected to get all that much, but there were certain things that I know I should've gotten, that everybody got, and yet I didn't. Things like my graduate group's newsletter: The EGG. Sadness.

Finally, something arrived addressed to the mysterious and unknown Margaret Andrew that looked too important to dispose of. It was fed-exed from NASA. And whatever you do, you don't want to piss off NASA, or people receiving fed-exes from them. So what did they do? They opened it. They opened my mail! Appalling, yes. They opened it, and read through it until they found a name that they recognized. Fortunately, it did contain my advisor's name, so they put it in her mail box (which is probably a folder too, but maybe they treat the faculty better. Who knows?). At this point, my advisor decided to fight the good fight, and get to the bottom of the black hole that was my campus mail.

So now my folder receives things! Sometimes... I still don't get that much mail to it. But I do receive the EGG now, whenever they feel like putting one together. And today I got something! Ok, actually, it probably arrived some time ago, but I know better than to check my folder very frequently... The disappointment would kill me otherwise. Today my folder was treasuring a letter from NASA. See, NASA thinks I'm special =D. Ok, actually they were just telling me they'd received my fellowship application. But I had the hardest time getting into it. Seriously! They must be using extra space shuttle glue on their envelopes. I mean, I know that sometimes envelopes can be difficult to open, but the flap just would not come off on this one! The paper peeled in half instead. I should apparently invest in a letter opener, especially if I plan to maintain regular correspondence with NASA...