Who says bureaucracy is inefficient?

I swung by campus today to drop off my application. The application to go to the school I was at. I feel it is important to emphasize this point, because I want to make clear that I have not yet been accepted, and am not yet a student at this university.

Anyway, I drop off the application, and the required statement of my reasons for pursuing a second degree, and the nice lady behind the counter says, "Great! Now all we need is a transcript from your law school and we can send this right over to the biology department to see if they want to accept you." I have not yet become a student here (again; this is the same place I got my last degree), and already they are badgering me for more forms. They just jump right in, don't they? It's like a free bureaucracy sample, just for thinking of becoming a customer.

I know what you're thinking now. I really do; I'm psychic like that. You're thinking, "What's wrong with a university asking for a complete academic record?" Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "What's right about performance at a law school affecting my ability to get into a biology program?" It simply doesn't make much sense to me. Fortunately, I have talked with the bio advisor, so I don't think my godawful track record at the law school will kill my chances at a second bachelor's.

After I got out of there, I called my old law school, who told me simply to fax over a request for an official transcript. This would be an extremely simple matter, if I had a fully functional fax machine hooked up to a standard phone line. Like most people, I do not. Unlike most people, the missing component here is the phone line. My printer is also a copier, scanner, and (I believe) fax machine, but my roommates are of the opinion that, as long as the average inhabitant of the apartment has 1.667 cell phones, a land line serves no purpose. I would beg to differ, but I'm still a little nervous around them.

So the plan is this: print out the requisite paperwork tomorrow morning, swing by Kinko's, fax the stuff over, and hope and pray that everything sorts itself out. Also, drink; I'm probably going to need it in the coming years.