whirlwind of a week

I feel mentally drained this afternoon. Much like I'm in need of a nice long nap to restore my human powers... hehe!

I was out on Monday, and I don't know why it seems that one day is actually a week away. Yesterday we did 2 additional hours of cleaning up our shared drive (and 2 more today) - which entails looking in every folder to determine if we want to keep the files. I normally keep quite during these meetings, as I'm not the one with the problem with the shared drive.... but it will be much nicer once everything is finished.

I've also been trying to meet up with 3 clients about requests they have put in for our department. I finally met with two of them today, and have the other tomorrow. One is going to be very difficult, as it's springing from a racial compliance complaint from a former employee. Ironically they are linked in (at another office) with my current problem child client, so this is going to be fun (note the sarcasm). Luckily the new applicant starting next week has Diversity training experience, as none of us are currently versed in the breadth of the topic.

I got my registration information today from AU/NTL, so I'm ready for my first 2 classes. I should be getting a huge package in the mail shortly with my books. Luckily they are included in the pricing. I've been trying to figure out the financials for paying for this. I have accepted my financial aid loan offers, but my company also gives money on a calendar year basis for tuition assistance. But my company is non-profit, and not cool like other companies, so what they give annually barely covers the cost of one class. So, I have to give my company the bill, they cut a check for their share, and then I get a refund check back at the end of the year from AU for that part of my loans not used. Which will probably just be put right back into the school bill.

My advisor had also suggested paying some sort of insurance fee with the student affairs office, so my account is not frozen while waiting for financial aid to pay money. I spoke to the Student Accounts office about that and they had no idea about what I was talking. The woman had never heard of such a thing, and frankly neither have I, but I'll call my advisor back to verify that information.

Also, I am registered for a week long NTL class in Potomac, MD in October - which is part of my program, and my boss is paying for. The issue is that they had mis-typed the location, and this class is actually only being offered in San Jose. They have a replacement course with a different subject matter in the same location as Potomac, the same week. So I had to scramble to ensure my AU/NTL program would accept that substitution. Then when I was speaking with NTL to get registered for the replacement class, they mentioned that they have not received payment yet from my company. I had to call our AP department, who couldn't help me without knowing what the general ledger account number was on the request. I'm very diligent about keeping records, but we were in such a rush to get the request sent over by EOY that I didn't make a copy. I finally tracked down the possible ledgers, got mean looks from my boss because I didn't give a copy to the admin, but finally found it. Luckily the check was cut, NTL just hasn't received it yet. One more thing off my mind that I don't have to worry about.

Tomorrow I'm in a whole additional set of meetings - one with the MAs at my problem office. This is a follow-up to the first session where we lay out our plans, and pretty much the law. Then we start meeting with the various MA/Doc teams in August. Hopefully this will go well!

I really need my vacation... which is coming this Saturday. Thank God for small favors.

An additional small favor is that we bowled against the best team on our league last night and manged to hold our own. We had a 248 point handicap - yeah, they are that good. They literally beat us by 1 point in the first game, we took the 2nd game, and they beat us by about 20 points in the last. We decided that we weren't going to win to begin with, so we got some pitchers of beer, and just played like we were having fun. I think we played our best set ever. I actually bowled over 100 in all 3 games, and I had some coaching from a visitor of one of my teammates. We came out strong in the 3rd game, and after they lost to us in the 2nd, they looked really pissed. I'm proud of us!

I don't know if I'm going to go to the gym tonight or mow the lawn. But based on some of the buzz I'm hearing around me, it's storming outside... so I'm thinking I have a date with my ipod, a stationary bike, and 16 miles of long lonely road a head of me.