Aaaah, bureaucracy

I didn't post yesterday because I lost track of the week, and thought it was Saturday...don't ask, being at college has made things fuzzy.

I braved a hospital alone for the first time ever yesterday. I'm working at the psychology department's comparative cognition monkey lab this semester, something I mention at every opportunity. It's one of those situations where I thought I had only told a few people, but it turns out that I'd told everyone I know multiple times. I finally caught on when people started saying, "Yes, you already told me," and their eyes went wide like they were prepping for wider-ranging laser vision to eliminate me and my talking more quickly.

I have to get health clearance before I'm allowed near the capuchins. It's not for my own safety, mind you, but for the monkeys'. For the psychology department's purposes, I'm a disease-ridden threat, despite not ever touching the monkeys. I was instructed to get a TB test with the location "Innoculations Department" only listed, and waltzed over to the university hospital to get one.

It was sort of like a board game/labyrinth hybrid. The start is at the front desk. I rolled a four and ended up on the fourth floor at Student Health Services. I was sent back two departments to Employee Services and receive paperwork. Go forward one step and receive information about my last measles vaccination. Roll snake eyes, get sent to Immunizations desk. And then, enter the bowels of the Immunizations department to discover that the reason you couldn't find it in the first place, why it wasn't labeled on any signs, was because it was a sub-department of the immunizations department, something you just have to know. And if you don't, you get punished by being sent on an undesired tour of the hospital building. After 45 minutes of wandering through the bowels of the hospital, it took 30 seconds to get my test.

technorati tags:psychology, college, monkeys, health