CHAPTER TWO
The Flow of Paper
``Yeah, the flow of paper be the first of the two great forces which do hold the Universe together. Though it be hard for mortal minds to comprehend how paper may hold the Universe together, yet it is so. Ask thou anyone, if thou donst believe. Without the proper paperwork, stamped, signed, certified, and produced in quadruplicate, nothing shall get one and the Universe will collapse. Yeah the Sun shall darken, the rain shall stop, the ground will break with dryness and the bones of man will crumble. Yeah Verily, this be how the very world shall end. For even the Sun must pay its electric bill and thou thinkest thing own is high! Behold, without paperwork, the Universe will collapse to a singularity and then we'll all be out of jobs.''
--James the Divine
Bureaucraticon, Book One 3:7-8
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During Jim's first week at the University, he gradually came to meet the other forty residents who shared the dorm with him. They could be divided into four separate categories:
The Drugged Out New Age Hippy Wanna-Bes
The Roll Playing Militaristic Space Cadets
Those Who walk the Paths Between
Normal People, including Jim
Amazingly, the first category had been placed in the southern half of the dorm and the second category inhabited the northern part. The middle somehow got the third, and I lived on the border between the middle and the North. In the first week before school started, I discovered that the only person I knew from my High School that went to the University was also in the Honors Program and lived in my dorm. His name was Jack Lotterman, and lived in my suite on the other side of our adjoining bathroom.
I was shocked to see him enter my suite and he said, ``Hullo,'' when he saw me. ``You aren't in this dorm are you?'' he asked fearfully.
``Yup,'' I said with a smile on my face. Jack had written the following epitaph in my yearbook. ``Please, Mueller, please don't come to my school.''
Jack moaned and motioned for me to follow him to his room. ``Do you know who your roommate is?'' I asked him as we walked through the bathroom.
``No,'' he replied, ``he hasn't got here yet. I've got all my things in though.''
We entered his room, and I saw a small refrigerator, a microwave, and a set of books and magazines on the shelves above his bed. He even had an ancient Commodore computer, which immediately drew my attention. ``Got any games for this,'' I asked. I was on the verge of the second category after all.
``Not yet,'' he said. ``The monitor is crappy and makes all the games look fuzzy. I just use it for word processing. Well,'' he said, ``I'm going to McDonald's for lunch, so good bye Mueller.'' He pushed me abruptly out of the room and shut his door in my face, showing his lack of courtesy and social skills common to many in the dorm. I stood there a moment amazed by this sudden reversal of friendliness and then shrugged and went back to my room.
The rest of the week flew by. I met the aforementioned groups, and I waited to meet my roommate. All the while, my money and food supply dwindled, but I was not concerned. My scholarships would soon provide plenty of money. My roommate still had not bothered to show up by the end of the week, and the hope rose in me that he would not, leaving me the room to myself. School began Monday, and I only had the weekend left to rest and prepare. I planned what I would do with the promised money, making out a budget. I hoped that my classes would be informative and useful. I hoped that everything would work out smoothly and that school would go along easily, and that I would meet lots of people.
The first day of school dawned, and I awoke, showered, dressed, and headed out into a bright new world. It soon managed to become overcast. I went to the registration offices and waited in line. When I got to the front of the line, an older black lady in a frumpy dress asked the line, which was becoming all too familiar, what she could do to help me. I asked if I had received credit for my high school work and upon her looking up my record, I discovered that my advance placement test scores were high enough to grant me thirty hours in various courses. She told me that the school had granted me credit for Calculus I and Freshman English, but I had already enrolled in these as a precaution of not getting credit, so now I had to drop these courses and enroll in others. I had to enroll in the next series of courses, which was Calculus II, as well as make several other changes. I asked how to do this, and the lady told me to go to each college for their approval stamp. I had to go to the Math and Physics building to get their approval for the calculus course. I left the office, consulted my map of the campus, and plotted a course to the right building, and off I went. The building was on the other side of the campus and I started walking in that direction.
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The building was one of the older ones on campus and was a pale brick building with few windows, of the same style and age as the dorms. I entered the building and saw a staircase around a glass-enclosed pendulum swinging back and forth, but not really getting anywhere. A long line of people waited on the stairs, and a sign hung on the wall next to the stairs read: Mathematics Course Approval. An arrow next to this legend pointed up the stairs. I joined this line and slowly made the progression up the stairs around the pendulum, swinging slow upwards to the top from first to second to third floors. On the floor, I reached the end after two hours and stood before a table occupied by two ladies.
One asked, ``Your social security number?''
I handed her my registration form, which had the numbers written along the top.
She glanced at it and said, ``You want to register for Calculus II?'' I nodded and she responded, ``You should be in that line over there. This is the line for pre-calculus courses.'' She pointed to another line at another set of stairs which ascended that stairwell.
I picked up my form and headed off to the other line. This line only took twenty minutes to get to the front, and I was approved for the class. They stamped my form and I was off to the next building. The rest of the day was spent doing the same thing for the other classes I needed to change. Registration for each college had been placed as inconveniently as possible so one had to run around the whole campus for the privilege of waiting in two hour long lines at each place.
When finished, I walked back to the Registration Office and again waited in its line at the tables outside the building. I moved slowly to the front and turned in my form at the front. The black lady from before had been replaced by another lady and I gave her my form. She took my form and ID card and entered in the changes one by one into the computer in front of her.
Halfway through she looked up at me and said, ``The chemistry class you wanted is full. Do you want the 7:00 A.M. class? That has room in it.''
``I guess so,'' I said, dreading having to get up that early in the morning.
She gleefully entered it into the system and I believe she even laughed. Then a frown came to her middle-aged face. ``Hmm,'' she said, ``our records are pulling your social security number up as James Mullen. Is that your name? Your form reads Mueller.''
``My name is Mueller,'' I said. ``You have my ID.''
``Hmm, I think you'll have to go into that office over there and get this straightened out first,'' she said and pointed inside the building. ``Just go in and go to the desk that says registration.''
I went inside the building and saw a wooden counter with glass above it, much like a teller's window. There were only two people in front of it, so I walked up and joined the line.
FINANCIAL AID
I ( James
1ST CLASS
James walked back to his dorm after a long day, got to his room, and fell into bed. He fell asleep instantly and slept till the sound of 300 watt speakers in the adjacent room woke James up. The walls vibrated and his bed slowly inched toward the other side of the room. He banged on the wall till his fist hurt, but his neighbors apparently could not hear over their stereo.
He sat up and waited as the bed slowly transmigrated across the room taking him with it. The thought that tomorrow was his seven o'clock class did not help his mood any. After half an hour, the music shut off, and he collapsed back into his bed. He quickly fell asleep again, and the long day of registration and paperwork had ended.
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