Power Down

Right towards the end of the work day, I was basically killing time before I left and all of a sudden there was this big hum and then everything in the entire office shut off for about two seconds. I had mixed emotions over it because on the one hand my 217-day uptime went down the tubes, but on the other it was sadly comical hearing everyone in the computer lab go "OOOOOooohhhh..." at the same time. (Those computers re-image their drives when they turn on so even a local save is just straight gone and never coming back.) It also served as a good first real test of the UPS I've had my home computer hooked up to for a while now; it was fine so that's cool. Apparently it was a big outage, though, because the space was hit too (thankfully UPSed) and that's like a mile away.

Then I had to do my student loan exit interview. I almost killed myself. It would have been barely tolerable if I had just had to sit there for an hour, fill out a form, and then wait until next semester until to tell them I'm in graduate school so they can't start billing me yet. The fact that the PA system blew chunks and wouldn't stop either cutting out or producing major feedback made it absolute torture.

Also, the amount of information they want on those forms is crazy. I realize it's because so many people stiff them on things but still; nothing I have ever done in my life has required that amount of information. My favorite was the 3rd and 4th references, who should be "Relatives who will always know your home address." A close second was "Your plans for the next two years." I wanted to write them a book about getting an apartment, maybe a cat but definitely not a dog, maybe one of those cool lamps that you can touch the base and it turns on, etc., but I just wrote "Work so I can pay off this stupid loan. Also, graduate school." So I'm sure they'll love me for that.