Thursday, October 29, 2009

How many CASB students does it take to work a printer?

Answer: Unclear - we haven´t fully gotten there yet.

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I´ve determined that a large amount of the reading I have not done while here is simply because I cannot figure out how to print the documents.

Early on, we all encountered some minor traumas trying to print at UPF or UAB. First we were told we needed to apply for printing cards. Then we had to put money on them. Then we had to find the computers that permit printing. Moral of the story: I have yet to encounter a CASB kid who has successfully printed anything at any of the universities.

The solution to the problem - within the CASB office are four computers hooked up to two printers. So every Monday and Wednesday, during the ten minute pausa in the middle of Guerra Civil, we all race to the office. We discovered early on that we needed to bring our own printer paper. After having my mom bring me a pack from home, we also discovered that they use a different size here. (This resulted in Paige and I Wikiped-ing "paper size" for a good 10 minutes while we tried to reformat the printer.)

So now we have the right paper size. The dilemna is that we STILL cannot figure out which printers are linked to which computers, and how to get our boarding passes and hostel confirmations onto the right queues. (Conveniently the printers have the same name.) Generally, we all just put paper in, hit print, and wait for the chaos to ensue.

This morning, I ambitiously set off for CASB on my way to UAB, hoping to print the readings for Contemporary Political Institutions. Armed with a packet of paper, 45 minutes, and serious determination. Finally I got the computer/printer hook going and I started manually doing double-sided printing (the pages were flying everywhere). A couple pages in, the ink ran out. So I switched computers and switched printers. And then the paper jammed. And then the ink on that printer malfunctioned. And then I had to go to UAB.

I´m going to read the first 9 pages very thoroughly, because that may be as far as I get.

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