Wrong Answers and Everlasting Newspapers

If you don't know the right answer, feeding someone wrong information is about the last thing you should do, right? Funny how so many people seemingly missed that lesson in Common Sense 101.

Yesterday I called the health center to see if I could come in for a flu shot.

"We're all out," was the reply I got.

"Well, are you ordering any more?" I asked.

"Nope,"

Already out of flu shots? On November 5? This week we're doing a health/science story for my journalism class, and Prof said we could move out of our beats on this one and just find something on campus to write about. Bingo, I thought, this apparent flu vaccine will be my story for the week.

So I called the nurse in charge of immunizations today, and when I asked her about the shortage:

"What shortage?" she replied. "We've still got vaccines. You just have to make an appointment for the shot."

Huh? Really? I don't know who I talked to yesterday or why she told me they were all out, but there has to be a chink in the bureaucratic chain if you get two polar opposite answers to the same exact questions.

And though this may be slightly unrelated, it's the same with all the advisors too.

"So, I've met with you and fulfilled my advising requirement, right?" I ask them every semester before registration.

"Of course you have, your registration block will be lifted," they say every time.

But, lo and behold, every day before I register for classes, the block is still there and it takes a slightly frustrated email to have them lift it. Every single time. Really - I've got enough on my plate without having to do someone else's job thank you very much.

Anyways, this post isn't all ranting, I promise. I was walking out of the journalism building today and found a couple copies of the Washington Post. I picked one up and remembered why newspapers could never die. Because, call me old-fashioned, but I just can't read a newspaper on the computer. I'm sorry, I grew up reading the words on a real piece of paper and I don't plan on changing that anytime soon. There's something about opening up the fold, pulling out the neatly tucked-in sections and scanning the page, seeing what piques your interest. It's not even necessarily what piques your interest - I check the Post's website fairly regularly, but hardly read the front page stories because either they don't really interest me or I know I won't be able to stand reading a 35-inch story on my computer screen. But then I pick up the actual paper and usually skim each story (unless the headline says something like "The Fed...interest rates...mortgages....economy," then the story's got no chance whatsoever in my book.

See - there's more to me than just one big complaint after another.