Unbelievabilitiness: The Absolutely True Tale of the Last Three Years of SEK's Life (as Pitched to an Uncaring Suit with DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(This post is inspired by my sincere desire to answer adjunct whore's question and the not-undeserved-ribbing I took at an another online locale when they learned of my latest run-in with absurdity.)

In the year 2004, SEK was diagnosed with cancer.  Being an idiot, he decided to hide his cancer from everyone—his wife, his parents, his friends, his advisor.  After four brutal (but successful) months of chemo, he outed himself as a "cancer survivor" and everyone was mad at him—his wife, his parents, his friends, his advisor.  SEK was mad too. 

Mad at the world. 

So he started a blog about random shit to outlet The Anger he couldn't control.  (His body had turned against him cellularly.  SEK felt betrayed.  "You are my body!" he said, shrugging his shoulders.)  Venting felt good.  It relieved his incomprehensible rage ... until the morning of November 30, 2005, when he walked in on two undergraduates bumping nasties in his office.  For it was on that morning SEK's Fate revealed itself to him:

"You are to be the blogger to whom everything improbable will happen," Fate said.  "Except unlike all those liars out there, my deeds will be documented in Official Campus Records and Police Reports."

"You're upset because I beat your cancer," boasted SEK.  "Now I'll beat you."

SEK continued living his uneventful life.  He garnered mild acclaim for purportedly hilarious posts and experimental shit of no merit. 

Life was sweet.

Then Fate struck like lightning in the guise of the Troll of Sorrow.  The deranged military sharpshooter/analytic philosophy-fiend threatened SEK with legal action (for plagiary? really?) and his wife's life.  (The latter threat he took seriously.)

It was distressing, but Fate hadn't fazed him.  So it sent a Honda Civic to do its dirt.  That hurt—as did the six months of rehab—but SEK survived. 

Now Fate was really upset.  "Cancer couldn't kill him, civics neither," bemoaned Fate.  "Marine sharpshooters and horny undergrads couldn't slow him down.  If I can't kill SEK himself," Fate thought, "the least I can do is kill his career." 

"Casper," Fate cried, "I need you to teach this fool a lesson.  Read this reasonable post he wrote, and attack Attack ATTACK!"  And so Casper attacked, with the aid of his friend, (the ostensibly liberal, but in fact fascist) Jesus' General.  (Who, when you think about it, is "funny" in the same way Bill Hicks is, i.e. because you agree with him.  Unless you like your jokes ideologically flattering and ungrudgingly predictable ... which SEK doesn't.) 

Try as Casper might—to this day—Fate's accomplice could no more harm SEK than his master.  So Fate tried one last scheme.

"Why didn't I think of this before?  SEK loves books!  Why not use the Library against him?"  This time, he was successful.  The Library stole all SEK's money, gave it back, honored him for his generous donation, then expelled him ... two days after he'd paid his filing fees and two days before his yearly checkup with his oncologist. 

Fortunately the X-rays, MRIs, probes and attendant bloodwork wouldn't cost SEK a dime ... if he had health insurance, which he currently doesn't.  (Because he's not a grad student anymore.)   Things may look up tomorrow, but for tonight, SEK concedes victory to Fate.

"I have been bested," SEK said.  "Commence my hilarious penance."

(And an update.)

Comments

[Chris]

wine, rather.

[Gene]

Hi, Scott. I'm sorry you're having to sort out such a ridiculous mess.

I'm no expert, but as far as I understand from my own limited experience at the same institution, the fee that a graduate student would ordinarily pay for a quarter of continued G/SHIP coverage--during a formal Leave of Absence or during a filing fee quarter, for example--is about $850. Have you tried paying this fee directly, or does the health insurance administrator at G/ottschalk perversely require that you demonstrate some official form of continuing student status first? It's a lot of money, especially all at once--trust me, I know this personally--but I believe you'd have to pay it to continue your health coverage through a quarter on filing fee status anyway, even if your Fall fees had been processed normally by the library and the rest of the university.

Also--and again, I'm neither a lawyer nor a health insurance professional--it seems to me that the university can't have it both ways. Either you've been expelled, and the university can't, therefore, accept your filing fee--in which case your Fall insurance should extend through the end of the quarter, at least; or, the university can accept your filing fee, and thus concede that you haven't been expelled--in which case your Fall insurance should lapse, approximately, at the moment the filing fee is paid. In this second case, paying for continuing insurance coverage--like any other student on filing fee status would--should be a fairly speedy routine procedure.

Anyhow, I hope this helps. Take it or leave it, but I wanted to fill you in on what (I think) I know about G/SHIP coverage based on my own recent experience.

[Gene]

My previous comment, by the way, presumes that at some point the university will recognize that you paid your Fall fees on time (A huge presumption, I know.). I was trying to focus on how to ensure that you have health coverage from the moment you paid your filing fee at the end of Fall quarter forward.

Much shorter me: Don't assume that getting the university to recognize that you paid your Fall fees on time will also resolve your end-of-fall-quarter and winter-quarter health insurance issues. It may resolve retroactive fall-quarter health insurance issues, but you're likely to have to pay for end-of-fall-quarter and winter-quarter coverage on your own, anyway.

[SEK]

Thanks for the support and advice, all. In the end, I took the advice of the grad rep to insurance:

"Go to your appointment. Pay the co-pay. Give them the finger."

As to the rest:

Gene, I'm going to pay the fees for Winter, then strike out on my own afterwards. The thing is, while I say I'm "cured" of cancer, the insurance companies insist I'm "in remission," meaning the estimates I've received for personal coverage are nothing short of insane.

Chris, no, you were right the first time. I'd like to do something that required them to consume as much whine as is humanly possible. I'm just not sure how to do that, or if it'd even be prudent. (I suspect not.)

Emily, the thing is, I've already had to reschedule this appointment once (when the library first stole my pay-check, and it's taken me this long to get another, so I really had no choice.

adjunct whore:

how can you be expelled for library fines?

Because they paid my $12 fine with my $2460 registration fee, and after it was all worked out and I'd re-re-registered for classes, my re-re-registration "didn't take." No one knows why.

i also think if you dabble in satire, especially of race relations, you should prepare for shitstorms or blog anonymously

Excellent advice, and that's why I don't discuss race so much anymore. (Despite it being one of my central academic interests. I just don't feel like talking about it on the blog anymore.)

are all of these things related? i mean do you think you were expelled because of your high-profile, provocative positions?

No, I don't think one thing has to do with the other. From everything I've heard, the university loves what I'm doing -- I'm raising its profile. (Granted, this particular incident they probably won't like, but generally speaking, I've received nothing but positive responses.)

Rich and Timothy, yes, I've contacted a lawyer, but mostly because I want recompense for all the various late fees that have accumulated in the wake of this. (And revenge.)

Scath88, Sisyphus and adjunct whore, as for how I hid the cancer ...

HOW SEK HID HIS CANCER FROM HIS WIFE (TO WHOM HE IS STILL MARRIED)

During the summer, SEK got very depressed. Then very happy. Then very depressed. He was, as they say, "moody." Eventually his throat starting swelling, so he went to a doctor. The doctor felt SEK's neck, then sent him to another doctor, who ran some tests.

"You have thyroid cancer," the oncologist said.

"Can you fix it?" SEK asked.

"Yes we can and it will make you happy."

"Happy?"

"Well, you won't be PMS'ing all the time anymore."

"I don't understand."

"You see [insert overly-technical explanation of how the thyroid regulates hormones, and how SEK's manic-depressiveness was the result of his body being flooded, then drained, of hormones], and so when the chemo's finished, you won't be depressed anymore."

"But when I'm doing the chemo, I'll still be depressed?"

"And really sick," said the doctor.

SEK returned home and saw his wife diligently working. Still depressed, he decided not to tell her anything. To bear it alone.

A few weeks SEK got really sick. Not chemo-sick -- he had dealt with that alright -- but different sick, like he had a hangover all the time. He went back to his oncologist.

"I'm really sick," he said, "like I have hangover all the time."

The doctor poked SEK's liver and declared, "You have an invasive liver fungus. You must take these medicines which attack your liver. They will make you feel like you have a hangover all the time, then you will be better."

SEK went home and, in a fit of inspired stupidity, told his wife about the liver fungus, but not the cancer, thinking he could use the liver fungus to hide the cancer. (From his wife, not in his body.)

This is how SEK hid cancer from his wife.

(Until he got drunk one night and told her.)

THE END

[Sisyphus]

First,

I have a feeling they'll be kissing your Honda-imprinted ass very soon

this is a brilliant phrase. Kudos, Chris.

Second,

what did the little womedievalist do when you finally told her? Did she find a suitably non-cancerous body part upon which to give you the whupping you deserved? 'Cause worrying is bad, but post-crisis worrying feels even worse and makes you feel even more powerless.

Third,

I hope your appt. went well and things are returning back onto a more even keel over there. I'd tell you to cheer up, that there's always a light at the end of the tunnel, but I'd worry that in your case it would only mean that there was an oncoming train.

[Jennifer Lynn Jordan]

Wow, you get a JLJ Academic Purple Heart. Or something. I'm sure I can actually make one if need be.

[Karl Steel]

I don't have anything to say but wow.

[Karl Steel]

I don't have anything to say but wow.

[adjunct whore]

wow. i really am sorry....my work is also on race, and i teach "it" quite a lot, so my comment was one based on some serious experience and reflection.

so it sounds as if this will get worked out, no? and then you can be the proper ph.d.candidate that you are....

[Timothy Burke]

Ok, wait wait. The library overdue/tuition bill thing was worked out? E.g., the library gave back your money and/or properly applied your payment to tuition? I thought this was still about that being unresolved and thus, you being non-registered.

This is making a little more sense to me now. This is not to say that it's not horrible and stupid and aggravating and someone owes you a big apology, but the thing that was really blowing my mind was an impression that the library was still trying to hang on to your money.

This reminds me a little of a family member who was an early victim of identity error back when credit card data was first being systematically computerized in the 1970s and 1980s. Someone with the same name as them had a store credit card with a big department store, ran up a big bill and then dropped out of sight, etc. The store searched its primitive database and decided that the recurrance of the same name at different addresses meant that they were both the same person, and that the household which was still answering the phone, mail, was the place that the deadbeat was now living. So they attached the fraud record to the wrong person and deleted the other entry.

It took about a year, but my relative was able to get the store to fix the error--it took some legal nudging to do that. But this was back when these databases were just starting to talk to each other through telecommunications networks. So by the time they'd stamped out this entry, it had spread to other store entries. It took about eight years to eliminate the false reports from all credit card and financial databases, and that was only because some of that data began to be centrally shared in new ways and so could be corrected from central sources.

But this is one fucking institution. I know big universities have big, complex informational architectures, but this is not an acceptable excuse for not having your re-registration "take". Still, this is a less psychotic kind of error than the library claiming that it doesn't matter what the money was intended for, they've got it now and you're never getting it back.

[SEK]

Sisyphus:

what did the little womedievalist do when you finally told her? Did she find a suitably non-cancerous body part upon which to give you the whupping you deserved? 'Cause worrying is bad, but post-crisis worrying feels even worse and makes you feel even more powerless.

The response was pretty universal: anger, relief, anger, relief, anger, relief, anger, relief ad infinitum.

adjunct whore,

Yes, I believe this is all going to work out. I've had people in four different offices tell me it's going to work. Granted, four different people in four different offices told me it had already worked months ago ... but we'll see. I remain optimistic. (I'm not that bright.)

Timothy,

the library gave back your money and/or properly applied your payment to tuition? I thought this was still about that being unresolved and thus, you being non-registered.

They're related, I'm just not sure how. The library thing was settled at the end of October, with them finally sending me a check. By that point in time, I'd already been dropped from the dissertation hours I'd registered for, so I had to get departmental and university approval to add those hours in October. I did, took it to the Registrar, and re-registered for classes ... only the library thing hadn't been completely resolved then, so I got dropped from those classes too.

The Registrar told me to pay my combined late fees -- about $270 -- come back to them, then I could register again, and then they'd tell the Cashier to return the $270, since technically I turned in nothing late. (I even had to sign this thing Graduate Division had written declaring my on-time payment of $2460 indicated that I'd intended, in good faith, to pay my fees on time.)

So I went to the Cashier, who told me I couldn't pay lates fees because I wasn't registered and thus no fees had been assessed.

I went back to the Registrar, told them that, and they sent me back to the Cashier to tell her that it'd be alright if the fees went into my general student account. The Cashier then accept my money and printed out a receipt, which I then took to the Registrar, thereby unlocking my account and allowing them to add my dissertation hours.

(This story is funnier if you know the layout of Aldrich Hall: If you stand where the guy who took this picture is standing, the Cashier's "office" is a bank of windows to your left, the Registrar's a bank of windows to your right. I was crossing the photographed space back and forth and back and forth, in plain sight of all the people I was dealing with.)

I did all that and still, somehow, somewhere, my registration didn't stick. Don't know why. Nor does anybody else.

[Jonathan Dresner]

But Tim, you have to fully appreciate the differential in time lags: debts are handled immediately; credits are handled slowly, if at all. The library took his money in a click; returned it with reluctance and brow-beating. The registrar took his money and claimed he was registered, but never completed the transaction. The library, faced with the deregistration of a person they've already wronged once or twice, immediately issued overdue notices, which will likely take at least a visit or two to resolve. Insurance is dropped at the whisper of a missed payment, but getting it back even when the whisper was a vicious rumor is like applying all over again from zero.

Penalty is automatic; appeal is conditional. The customer is always wrong. Errors propogate at the speed of byte but corrections go like a memo flows uphill in January.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Jonathan Dresner has it right. But this can probably be generalized further. What I was trying to get at before -- with the bit about the "bounce" -- is that momentarily going to near zero money has all sorts of weird, delayed effects. Sure, the library thing was supposedly over in October, but the effects were still propagating.

Here's an example. Scott refers to having gone off meds during the money crunch period. I'm sure that people can make up all sorts of fun catastrophes from going off synthetic thyroid for a couple of weeks and then back on. Luckily Scott seems to be a nice guy, so he's probably fairly resistant to these, but for a generic person, I can easily imagine a range of hormonally-fueled flip-outs, slow speech incidents, sleep-deprived reactions, etc. that disfavorably impress future job prospects or even disrupt long-standing relationships.

This is just basic left-liberal political stuff, not even yet "leftist" in many senses of that word. There is no reason why society should work this way. Everyone would be better off if everyone had some kind of low-level guaranteed income and broad-based social insurance that protected against these kinds of crises, no matter what the cause.

[Americaneocon]

Geez man! You're in Irvine? So close but yet so far...

[Timothy Burke]

Yeah, the time frame is disastrous, as are the consequences. Definitely still a horrible, unjustifiable situation which in just world requires all sorts of correction.

[Fritz]

Normally,

The beatings will continue until moral improves.

SEK's world:

The beatings will be increased in frequency, intensity, and duration until moral ceases to decline.

[THE LIBRARY]

Worried about gods, or one that you are particularly keen on, karma or fate? Fugetaboutem. Government, school bureaucracies or the medical profession giving you a hard time? They are our mere bagmen. When you are the Library, you control information! Capish?