Road Trip!

Lisa had to take one more trip up to Bellingham to visit Western and sort out some final bits of info for graduation. She invited me along so she'd have company for the drive. So after a night of watching Angel, we set out Monday morning.

When we got up there, it was literally a matter of five minutes for her to take care of all her required business at Fairhaven college. After that, we had only to wander around campus and enjoy it a bit before heading home. We started at the university bookstore, which had changed some since I was there. There was a sale on Beanie Babies, which normally wouldn't interest me at all, except there were a couple of penguins. For a buck a piece I couldn't quite resist. I also snagged a small notebook of the type I enjoy writing in.

After the bookstore, we checked out the student union which had changed dramatically. I mean it really had changed. I didn't recognize it at all. Since I used to spend quite a lot of time there, it was a bit of a shock.

Our next stop was the registrar's office. I've had a recurring nightmare for a couple of years now. It got so bad that it snuck into my waking thoughts. For a time in my worst depression, I managed to convince myself that I had never actually finished school and that I hadn't graduated. Because I never went in for the formal graduation, never did the whole cap and gown thing, this thought was more pervasive than it should have been. I couldn't find my diploma and the Alumni Association has never harrassed me, so there were moments that I managed to believe I never got my degree. So I told Lisa that I was going to settle it for once and for all, and we went to the registrar's office and I very embarrassingly asked if I ever graduated. To my immense surprise, I even remembered my student number correctly. The lady who helped us pulled up my record and turned the screen to me: I graduated June 10th 1994, ten years ago today. There's no doubt about it, I got a Bachelor of Arts in English.

With that very heavy load off my mind, Lisa and I wandered to the Humanities Building next door and walked up to the third floor to visit the English office. As I walked down the very narrow hallways, I looked at the Prof names on the doors and pointed out the ones I recognized. We popped into the English office, and said hi. They were amused when I said I used to work there. Then we wandered out again, not meeting any of my ex-profs on the way.

I enjoyed looking at the outdoor sculpture collection while we were there. I think Lisa was surprised at how many of them I could name by their correct titles. My favorite has always been the Skyviewing Sculpture, but I also remembered the names of India, which lies between Old Main and the Humanities building, and The Man Who Used To Hunt Cougars For Bounty, which has a different name to most students. Unfortunately, I misidentified For Handel as "The Giant Mosquito That Is Sucking The Life Out Of The Performing Arts Center" and thus lost all credibility.

We visited the library last. There was a major remodel done a few years back, and Haggard Hall was turned from a concrete monstrosity into a more normal brick-facaded building that matches the rest on that part of campus. It was also added to the library with a skybridge connecting them. So the old entrance to the library is completely gone. Lisa and I went into the library through Haggard, and left through a door that was never once opened the entire time I went to school at Western.

We walked up past Old Main so I could step on my graduation year on the memory walk, then we headed back for the car and for lunch at Boomer's drive-in. After a yummy but messy lunch (yum, butterscotch shakes), we stopped at the grocery store to get stuff to take to Tent City, including the disposable camera. The results of that trip can be read about and seen here.

Once we got home, I had a couple of important errands to run. The most important was to get those issues of Scurvy Dogs in the mail. The next one was to get the film developed from the disposable camera. I took the camera in first, was told to come back in two hours for my one-hour photos (the machine was being repaired when I dropped mine off) and then visited the post office. Two hours later I was back at the drugstore to pick up my pictures.

I gave my name to the slightly-hard-of-hearing teller at the photo section, and he looked and looked and looked... but couldn't find them. Eventually another teller came over and discovered my photos in the not-yet-developed section under GYOVAAG. Sometimes having a weird name is a little annoying. I must have said "Gee Jay" a dozen times, but the teller earlier still wrote it "GY". *sigh*

Since they weren't developed, I had the option of either waiting or coming back in an hour or so. I chose to wait, since the teller figured it would only take about 20 minutes, tops. However, she was sadly mistaken.

While I waited, a man came up and started to use the digital printer. But his prints were coming out really odd, with red lines down the center. The teller, a nice woman trying her best, did some magic with the machine and the guy started over again.

Then another guy came up. He was angry, and you could feel it coming off of him in waves. He pulled out his pictures and loudly proclaimed that half of his pictures were from somebody else's roll, and couldn't possibly be his pictures! Just look at them, he snarled, they aren't from the same roll at all. The teller looked at the pictures carefully, then pulled out the negatives to examine them, and told the man that they were definitely from the same roll. The man could barely control his anger as he defiantly told her that she'd somehow messed it up, and that he wasn't leaving until he got his pictures.

About this time a young woman came up to use the digital printer, and she listened with me to the man's rants as she waited for her turn. The angry man insisted that the teller look through every single set of pictures she had to find his missing half-roll. She patiently did it, because there was absolutely no chance of reasoning with the guy. She tried to point out the roll identification numbers on the negatives and the pictures, tried to even show him the process, but he was absolutely sure she'd lost half his roll and was really steamed about it.

In the meantime, the man printing out his digital prints finished, and the second try looked much much better. He got his prints and left and the woman started to work on her prints.

The hostility pouring off the angry man suddenly stopped, and his shoulders hunched over oddly. He muttered something, packed up his pictures, and left. The young woman and I looked at each other, then looked at the teller who was somewhere between completely exasperated and totally bemused. The young woman said, "He recognized the people in the half of the roll he claimed wasn't his. He was wrong all along." The teller said, "A half an hour. I just spent a half hour going through every single picture we have printed because of that guy." I said, "He looked really embarrassed." We all shook our heads, and the teller got my pictures printing.

The teller kept apologizing to me for taking so long, and I kept telling her not to worry, it wasn't her fault, and I wasn't in a hurry anyway. She insisted on giving me 10% off. I told her I didn't care about how long it took, just as long as I got a couple of good shots. The young woman, apologizing for prying, asked what I had taken pictures of. I explained that I'd been up visiting Tent City, and she was impressed. I showed her the camping lanterns I'd found and she asked what kind of things they needed. I repeated the water request, then got my pictures and left. I spent a little bit over an hour waiting, thanks to mister These's-aren't-my-pictures-oh-wait-yes-they-are.

Ah well. I got more than a couple of good shots, and got a story to tell out of it, too. So I guess in the end I came out ahead. And, hey, I know for sure that I graduated now. Heh.