Putting Out Fires

So much has gone on at work the past week that I feel the need to take a break from actual work and update. I honestly don't know if I have the energy to explain all that has gone on, but I'll try.
Last Thursday around 4:00 pm, I got a phone call from a student from Egypt who was waiting for me to move him into the dorm. As you may recall, the last I had heard about the Egyptian students is that they were not coming to USC anymore due to Visa issues. So I call the director of the program, who informs me that the student was 'not supposed to come until tomorrow'. This means he knew about it but didn't tell me. I swore that if he called and said that the students were coming now, I would give him the number to Housing so he could work out the details with them since I had been calling them on a regular basis and asking for more and more rooms, esp. after the deadline they'd given me for a number of rooms. He got angry, and said that I had 'orders from the Dean' to take care of all of this. From there, I marched up to Dr. Amiridis' office and told him what was going on. He said that the director had made the mistakes, and that it wasn't my problem anymore. He asked me to invite the student to social events, but not to worry about it beyond that point. I proceeded to go to the dorm to move the student in. It was at that point that I found out that another student was moving in this weekend. The director didn't know his name or anything about him, but luckily the Egyptian student did. I got things worked out with Housing. I also found out that the one person that I could always count on in the Housing department resigned that day. It was a crappy end to a pretty good day.
The other Egyptian student apparently moved in yesterday. I think I'll meet him sometime today. I found out YESTERDAY that there will be another student arriving on Wednesday. Again, the director doesn't know his name. I'll try to keep you updated on that aspect of things... I'm sure there's much more to come...
My car is in the shop right now. For the past month I haven't had AC/fan at all because the entire thing just stopped working. We finally got to take it to VW yesterday where we found out that they have to replace the entire system, which is going to be pretty expensive. They have to take the entire dashboard out just to fix it. Among other issues, getting the car back is going to be a pricey ordeal. The part won't come in until tomorrow, so I doubt I'll get it back before Thursday or Friday. Blah blah blah... ouch.
I'm in a slightly crappy mood today for various reasons, but I feel like I'm putting out fires everywhere I go. I thought I had gotten all of the transportation issues worked out for Friday when we go on our plant tour. All of my students had planned to drive themselves down there and come back on Sunday. Turns out that there was an issue with the hotel in Charleston, and now the majority of them want to come back Friday instead, so now they all need rides. It's too late to get a tour bus now for everyone, and it's way too expensive, so I think we'll have to either carpool and get reimbursed for mileage, or try to get two 15-passenger vans to get everyone there and back. I'm just stressed right now and I know it'll all work out, I just wish it wasn't all happening at once.
I guess that's all for now... more later, of course.

-Ashley