This column is supposed to be about environmental issues. But not today.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to talk about the new printing quota or the national teach-in hosted by Campus Climate Challenge.

Yet, right now, my thoughts are occupied.

All I can think about is how irate I am that after the registration hell of clearing my holds and web check-in, the art department booted me out of class: very unceremoniously.

I mean, seriously? It’s my last chance to even use this amazing building that everyone has been waiting for, and I get kicked out? The nerve.

Since my first year, I’ve been plagued with horrible registration times that have left me with the proverbial “ass” of class selection. This is not a unique story. It is one that I have heard countless times from frustrated Whitties of all ages.

Every spring and fall, students everywhere on campus are tearing their hair out. Either a professor forgot to give consent to register, a hold didn’t get cleared, an advisor gave some bad advice or the waitlist on a crucial class just filled up and it has closed. It’s like clockwork.

I understand that the small classes offered at Whitman require caps on student enrollment. So, when I was a first-year, I sucked it up and played patsy for the registration gods, enrolling in whatever random classes my advisor said would fulfill distribution.

I assumed I would be rewarded my senior year. Wrong.

This spring all I wanted to do was get into that freaking art building. But, it turns out, everyone was too excited about it and every single class that fit my schedule was closed to me.

And, per usual, all the classes that were open conflicted with a class I had to take.

I was foiled at every turn, a problem I had before, in my youth, but did not expect to encounter as a senior. Damn you registration gods!

I asked myself ‘how could this happen?’ Honestly, I still don’t completely understand it. But to my knowledge there are only a certain number of slots available to people from each class-year and once those slots get filled for enrollment and waitlist, the class is closed.

So I couldn’t even get on the waitlist!

Then when I showed up for the class, a scheme I was sure would be rewarded, I and several other seniors were booted out! It was remarkable. I guess someone should have thought about hiring more staff before making a huge building that a lot of students are going to want to get into.

As you can see, it sucked. So I went and complained to the department office. Didn’t work. So, I wrote an e-mail to the booter explaining my situation and asking to make an exception for a senior who was losing her last chance to cultivate her artistic side.

I begged. No reply.

I guess I’m doomed to have bad taste forever. Exiled to study the potential emissions produced by the building from a distance rather than take advantage of the opportunities that lie within.
The bottom line is: I am paying way too much to be disappointed … ever. And have been disappointed way too much.

This college is advertised as a place that cares about its students, yet having complained multiple times about not getting into the art building for my last semester, I am ignored.
Just try to ignore me now.