Today I lived out my worst nightmare. DARTing (the way we schedule for classes at Notre Dame) is one of those things every advisor tries to be super ho-hum about. Like, “oh it’s just DARTing. Don’t you worry.” What they don’t tell you is all the classes fill up in scary seconds, if you have second DART day you might as well transfer because your semester is hopeless, nothing about the system is pleasant, and even when they say they’ll open more spots in classes throughout the day they’re LYING.
So today was my DART day. A day like any other. I patiently awaited 2 o’clock Rome time aka 8 o’clock Notre Dame time, and by patiently I mean I watched the seconds tick by for hours while I sat in the library all day. 1:59 and a few seconds rolled around and I was ready. Numbers in front of me, I knew what had to go down. But when 2 o’clock hit, I couldn’t get into the system. I refreshed once. I refreshed twice. I refreshed thirty four times. Nothing. Panic hit, disaster erupted, stress consumed me. Desperately, I emailed every person in the entire Notre Dame business school for help. I would have emailed the custodial staff if I had their info. For every email I sent to an office worker I sent one to my mom too, usually in all caps lock like “ARE YOU IN THE OFFICE?” Or “HELP ME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GOD PLEASE”. I didn’t know how to deal with this; I couldn’t get up off my chair and walk 50 feet to Mendoza Business School and beg them for help. I couldn’t put in a hair bow and look desperate for classes. Despite my worst thoughts, I got a scary number of emails back, most unsure of what to do or why it wasn’t working. Panic continued.
As I was starting to accept the fact I would have to change my major and four year plan, graduate a year late, work long and strenuous hours on a farm to pay back my tuition, and sell my soul for a spot in a foresight class, a shining light hit my inbox. An email with a PIN number; a key into the scheduling world. To this moment I don’t know why I received emails all month ensuring me I wouldn’t need a pin to register and received one thirty minutes into my scheduled DART time, but whatever. Keep on keeping on.
It really put me behind, getting into the system a whopping half hour late, and my schedule isn’t ideal, but four hours of DARTing later I figured out a way to make things work and have 18 credit hours. So no farm work for me. All is right in the world. I never knew picking classes could bring me so close to fainting or cause my blood pressure to rise so drastically. Some kids have nightmares of clowns, I have nightmares of watching spots in classes vanish while I stare helplessly outside the DART gate. And that was today.
Major shout out to my mom for not deleting her email account all together after today as well as my index finger for being a trooper and hitting the refresh button enough times each hour to set a record.
A couple other things:
• I had the best gnocchi in the world today at Da Luigi.
• Yesterday there was a huge strike or demonstration in Campo di Fiori right next to our hotel and a massive riot squad (aka SWAT team) was running around under our windows all afternoon.
• The CowCat let me hold him yesterday.
• I’m leaving for Barcelona in eight hours.
• I had pear gelato and its easily top 5. Official standings coming soon.
I’m out for now. I hope you all dream happy thoughts tonight and not of yourself desperately clicking on a computer screen with the words “Failed Access” in your face. Ciao!
I'm still I'm still Haley from the Bend 