CQM Episode 1

What you've all been waiting for... The first installment of the amazing Captain Question Mark comic strip series! (click to enlarge)



Yes, Thursday happened again, even though we desperately didn't want it to. But, even on such a horrible day, something wonderful happened, and that was the first installment of the great new comic by Dumbass Dani. jk, she's not a dumbass, but that's her name in the comic I guess.

This made evil Thursday much more bearable, as horrible as it was.

(stop reading now if you don't want to hear about how much I hate Thursdays)

I really wanted my internship to go well. Had a laid back and easy going outlook, strolled in without stress- I was going to be ok. Or not. My supervisor's first question for me was how the NEA grant is coming along... YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE EVEN ASKING FOR!!!! So, she knows very well that this is my first experience with grants and that I have no idea what I am doing... So what does she do? Expect me to apply for a grant from the NEA, one of the most ellaborate grants processes ever.

When I say I have no idea what I'm doing, that was really a lie. At my other (wonderful) internship, that's what I do. I help the grant director apply for grants, and all of the projects that are required with that process. Last week she walked me through an NEA grant that they are applying for- step by step- and showed me all of the crap involved. The difference with them is that they have all of the information already, and the people involved already know what is required of them. At my Thursday internship, not only do they not know what project they want a grant for (which is essentially the foundation of the entire proposal) but they don't have any of the registrations, special code numbers, and other crap that is required for NEA grants. So I have absolutely nothing to work with. GAH.

Also, they're having me make their first eNewsletter. By myself. Now, I might be able to use a computer and have general common sense about these things, but I am no pro with techie stuff. So, I'm making a newsletter with Publisher- it's actually looking pretty cool, I'm pretty proud of it and everything. So now I'm thinking ahead a little bit: how exactly do I send this over email without just adding it as an attachment?

So I google it, and apparenly you have to use Outlook. Fine. Well, the comp at my internship doesn't have Outlook apparently.... Crap. Ok, fine. Found a different comp with outlook on it. Neat.

So my superviser says- send it from something like info@potomac.com. Ok? Well, um I don't think it just works like that. We don't have our own email server or whatever it's called, so there is no "potomac.com" to send anything from. The best I could do is see if we can't get a George Mason email set up for Potomac? Well, too bad- cause GMU's IT website totally sucks and I have no idea how to actually do that, nor do I know if GMU emails are even compatible with Outlook.

OMG I HATE THIS. I'm smart enough to know that they are asking me to do impossible things, but not smart enough to figure out different ways to do it. Very frustrating. I wish I was more technologically savvy. Anywho, I think I'll call IT people later and ask them about setting up a new account and seeing if they can walk me through setting it up with Outlook. I'm sure it'll be fine... I hate working for people who don't know what they're talking about.

Ok, enough griping about that. Moving on to the next horrible thing about Thursdays: Budget. We had a midterm in budget, which was groundbreaking. I have never taken a test this poorly written. Ever. I really hope he gives it back to us so I can give actual examples. Seriously though, it was amazing how complicated Captain Question Mark made a stupid multiple choice test.

Hint: If you have to have four lines of text explaining how your question is structured and the appropriate way to make your selection ON EVERY QUESTION, then something is wrong with the way you set up the structure of the test. Seriously. It was really fascinating. I hope I can elaborate with examples later.

Lecture was on par with all of our other lectures. I am still unsure as to why this guy is teaching- I can tell that he thinks that the more words he uses, the clearer he must be, when in fact the opposite is true. He'll go on and on reaaaaaaaallllllly slooooowwwwwwly on things that we already learned in the prerequisite for this class, like the difference between cash and accrual basis (GOT IT, MOVE ON PLEASE) but when he talks about budgets, he'll just flounder all over the place- not clarifying anything. (Apparently ALL-O-CA-TION is important, but he's never showed us how to do it... thanks for pronouncing everything like we're retards.)

Okok, geez, I have a lot of pent up thursday rage. Sorry. So class after Budget is Fundraising. It is so amazing, especially in comparison with the rest of my Thursday. It was a little ruined this week cause I had a headache, but overall it was enjoyable and I am liking what we're doing and learning about. Hahah, Katie just reminded me about my new favorite adjective, thanks to a case example from class: OBSCENELY. I am obscenely excitied that Thursday is over.