Mortal Registration

From us, mere mortals.

The fingers are drumming, the water is boiling, and the anticipation is unbearable.
Reviewing the numerical orders on the keyboard that we have practiced the night before, we wait. We log onto Facebook and "like" a few statuses sharing common sentiments. We even Google the current time that is calculated down to the second, along with our watches and cellphones on standby. Not a beat in the harmonious symphony of class registration can be missed, or else, a dreadful dissonance and hatred (eventual jealousy) will result.

The laptop is warming up, and your "oh so cheerful" welcome screen welcomes you to agony as you prepare for the countdown.

I will never forget the horrible sounds of anguish, thus progressively following:
15 minute warning - you hear clamor in the surrounding rooms as the fragile students fight to retain their motor skills at such an hour in the morning.

10 minute warning -  you panic because it just seems like the most logical thing, and only thing to do at the moment, taking part in a collective upraise; it is what brings people together.

5 minute warning - you've fallen into a slumber on top of your paper, the ink smudged by your drool. You've lost all ambition.

4 minute warning - head hair is torn out for those who have forgotten to retrieve their PIN number. They give up - you soldier on.

1 minute warning - you intently focus on the countdown of seconds, and then there it is... 6:00am.

You hastily enter in the class numbers, forgetting all practiced methods of typing efficiency.
Curses and shouts and papers are thrown left and right.

And Portal shuts down. You give up, carefully close your laptop, and crawl back into bed. Thirty minutes later, you hear faint shouts, and then the shouts grow louder and louder until you yourself join in the chorus of barbaric clamor. You are now free to madly set about completing your original task.

And for some, the result is positive, but only for the select few. This is not a matter of the survival of the fittest. This is a matter of technology beyond the frail student's control. We are subjected to this torture.

Class scheduling is not a matter taken lightly at all. Now a days it is all done online - it is more efficient and beats standing out in the cold for days on end. But then again, I might have liked a nice camp fire outside of the registration office along with the other thousand students.

Thus concludes the rituals of the mere mortal...