This weekend, a snafu caused a handful of Barnard seniors to receive an e-mail informing them that they would not be graduating come may. In the midst of finals and second-semester senior stress, those who received the e-mail (AT 8AM) were affronted with the possibility of having to eat at Diana for another semester. One Bwog staff writer fell victim to this registrar ‘glitch,’ and this is her story:

Since January, I have jumped right into expressing my nostalgia as a second-semester senior. Every time I contemplate skipping a class, I think, “I only have three months left of college classes ever,” which just makes me proceed to skip with slightly more guilt. Or I get misty eyed thinking about never going to 1020 again. Or I whine about a lack of dining halls in the real world, and so on and so forth.

So imagine my fucking surprise when I wake up to an e-mail from the Barnard registrar at 8 am

love waking up to texts from bae

casually informing me the following: “while you are slated to graduate in May 2018, you will not have enough credits to graduate on time. Let us know if you have other graduation plans or plan to graduate at a later date”

Honestly, why was I surprised; it’s a classic Barnard move to drop a bomb like that on Saturday morning, just to make sure you spend the entire weekend in anguish until they open their doors Monday at 9. After frantically calling my mother and my therapist (and my lawyer), I migrated to Butler to work on my thesis. But, as I found out, trying to work up the motivation to write a senior thesis is hard when you know, your collegiate life is in free fall.

How many cover letters have I written with a May 2018 graduation date? Fuck if I’m changing those. And fuck my nostalgia: there was no way I was about to spend another semester taking my standard history classes (which I love, but that’s beside the point). It’s like I had a taste of freedom; a taste that was sweetened by having my weekends free and infused with a plethora of graduation gifts I have waited four years for. Before I could even spend the day hating myself for being unproductive, I tried to translate my anger towards this university that I love so much. I contemplated taking a tire iron to the glass ramps of Lerner, sexting a TA, and–naturally–jumping the construction fence and peeing on the legacy of the Milstein’s multimillion-dollar donation.

Despite knowing I had enough credits–and pulling out some screenshots of past conversations with the registrar–my panic made me doubt my past courseload. Was it because of the class I withdrew from following an unfortunately timed foray with Dig inn-induced food poisoning the night before the midterm? Was it the class that I dropped because it was on the top floor of Hamilton? Was it the class with the hot guy that I only stayed in until the end of add/drop? Or, maybe this was all a con perpetrated by the person who sits behind me in my Tuesday lecture, who every other day has to see me log in to my friends facebook in order to stalk myself (and others).

At this point, we’re only at hour 4 of this saga. The next stage of my descent was calculating how much I could sue Barnard for, relative to the emotional damage I was incurring. I figured, $60,000 for another year here, another couple of thousand to make up for my post-graduation trip to Bali, approximately $2,000 to fund another year of Whole Foods groceries, 12 months of my rent, and then a year’s salary to make up for going to school instead of a (nonexistent) job.

I next proceeded to doubt all the decisions I’ve made in a senior mindset. Every time I do something questionable, I say to myself, “it’s okay, I’m never going to see these people after May!” WELL. I had to mentally revisit a lot of moments at Mel’s and JJ’s once I comprehended that I would indeed be seeing these people again come September. I then fled to a friends house for Thai Food and Olympic figure skating, because nothing solves a breakdown like crying after seeing the Canadian ice dancers. I spent the next four hours gulping down the rose they drank in Big Little Lies and lamenting how the registrar must be enjoying their weekend after, FOR SOME REASON, informing me of this life-changing news the morning after a Friday night with all too many gin and tonics.

I finally returned home at 2 am and spent a good ten minutes eating skinny cow ice cream bars and wondering how much Benadryl I would need in order to actually get to sleep. Then I  I began looking at my phone while brushing my teeth. SO ONCE AGAIN, IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I OPEN AN E-MAIL SENT TO ME AT 1:13 AM. Yup, it was my dear friends at the registrar again. Not sure why their weekend hours are solely before 9 am and after midnight, but here we are. As I opened it up, expecting to see a long response explaining either why I would not be graduating or why there was a mixup, I became affronted with two sentences: You are correct. Our mistake”

OH? Did you seriously just pull a “lol jk our b” in regards to my graduation? Maybe you realized delaying my graduation would entail putting up with me for another few months, in which case I don’t blame you for trying to get me out of your sight as soon as possible. You really played me, Barnard. Not only that but after looking at the Barnard Class of 2018 page, I found out no less than twenty people woke up hungover Saturday morning to find out they would not be wearing a nice blue gown this May. Barnard really had me there for a second–I thought I was going to have to send a lot of passive aggressive e-mails, but no, it was just a ‘mistake’. If this is what the registrar considers a fun Saturday activity, I want a restraining order right this second. Anyway, see you at Radio City!

E-Mail courtesy of the Barnard Registrar (ofc)