  Mood: Excited :-D Yá. Se acabó. My study abroad grades are FINALLY processed!!! No, I'm serious this time. I have a new degree audit and everything. After being shuffled around between 3 departments all over campus for over a year, my grades from Cuba have at long last been processed into their proper place for my degree requirements.
Liberal Arts had to do a few over-rides, but in the end I was shocked at how amazingly simple it was to fix this mess. Took about 20 minutes. Why the heck didn't Liberal Arts do this earlier?! I've been there God knows how many times, and they would just send me back to study abroad, or to Latin American Studies, who would then send me back to Liberal Arts, back to study abroad, ect ect ect.
I felt like UT was playing ping-pong with me. Heather, who does credit processing over at study abroad, had to call the Dean's office and speak with the person responsible for issuing degrees. She did that last week, but had to put her foot down again today and call the office again and DEMAND that someone rectify this situation ASAP--there have been people who didn't graduate on time as a result of this bureaucratic bs. I was determined not to be one of those people. I don't think there has been ANYONE who has had to deal with more bureaucratic red tape as I have in college. Try me. Try having one of your study abroad grades lost, stuck in the Atlantic for a year. Try having 3 departments fighting over whether or not you get credit for those study abroad courses.
Try having the GRE people lose your application and money. Try having the Services for Students with Disabilities demand that you have your psychiatrist re-write a letter verifying your disability. 3 times. Try running around campus getting Fulbright signatures at the last minute, with professors in 3 different departments, when they told you in the beginning it wasn't necessary. Try arguing with Latin American Studies that it's stupid to require that the 1st reader of your honors undergraduate thesis be in the department of your "concentration", regardless of what you're actually writing about.
Try having UT fail to inform you until the last minute that you can't be enrolled at ACC the semester that you plan to graduate, despite the fact that every advisor and their dog in Liberal Arts knew that you still needed to finish the ACC science credits your last semester. Try running between Liberal Arts and the Rio Grande campus at ACC, b/c in order for ACC to release a "request form for an early grade release", they need a letter from Liberal Arts verifying that I am indeed graduating in December.
Try having all this happen in one semester, when you're trying to graduate, taking 15 hours, a thesis class, and a correspondence course. Did I mention I should have died Sunday in a car accident, but didn't? The next person who comes up to me and tells me that they are stressed is going to get an earful from me. But. I have persevered. 
