Sometimes PTS really burns my buttons!

Exhibit A: The Library
As of Friday at 9am it is officially finals week. We have papers and exams staggered throughout the week except for on Sunday and Monday (MLK Day), although I do actually have something due at 5 on Monday. Does the Library extend its hours during this stressful and work-heavy time? NO! They close at 5pm (really they start kicking people out at 4:45) on Friday and Saturday, don't open until 3pm on Sunday (come on, even the Pentecostals are out of church way before then), and are CLOSED on Monday for MLK Day. The best theological library in the Western world (literally!) and we can't access it during the most academically rigorous week of the term.

Exhibit B: Computer Services
Our network was down for scheduled maintenance for 5 hours today. Now granted it's Sunday, so 9-12 seems like a safe bet to shut down the Seminary network. But it is still finals week, and I was one of many who opted out of attending church this morning. To top it off, it is now 3:20 and the network just came back up, but I still can't access the PTS website, including the Library catalog, which I need now that the library is open. Come on people, we have inter-semester break in a week and noone will have any homework at all. You couldn't schedule your maintenance one week later?

Exhibit C: Dining Services
As of Friday after lunch the dining hall is closed until the first day of classes, January 29th. For this week we have to get our own food, which wouldn't be a huge deal except that eating out is really pricey in P-town, and the two little kitchens available for student use are hardly equipped for preparing a decent meal. Not to mention, the meal plan is a ridiculus rip-off anyway.

Exhibit D: The Systematic Theology Final
Suffice it to say that noone has any clue what is expected of us, and the stupid terms that we have to define and turn in can't be completed without referring to books from other classes because what the professors lectured on was not systematic theology. I've used my college textbook and notes for most of my preparation thus far. I've spent a lot of time whining with my classmates about this one, so I'll leave it at that.

Exhibit E: The Registrar's Final Paper system
We have been told to turn in final papers to the registrar's office at certain times. For some people this time is during another exam. For most people, we don't trust the registrar to get our papers to the professor, and the professors don't trust them either, so we are mostly circumventing that system and turning things in via e-mail or campus mail or sliding papers under doors to avoid the disaster that we all fear could come of the registrar being responsible for anything involving our academic success.

But they're Princeton and they've been here for 200 years and they pay for us to go here, so they can do whatever they want (insert sarcasm here).