A few months ago I got a letter informing me that as an international student, recent changes in state law required me to get a bunch of extra and expensive immunizations. If I didn't comply before the new year, my registration at my university would be voided, and I'd have to pay a hefty fine to be reinstated. Naturally, with something this serious, I procrastinated and decided to follow up on this today. My hatred of needles, and lack of desire to deal with expensive health bureaucracies made procrastinating just a little bit too easy (incidentally, chocolate cake would trigger the opposite reaction, as I could not procrastinate partaking in something fun like that even if I wanted to, and I'd devour it even if I was busy or not hungry at the time).
After explaining my plight to the friendly receptionist, she referred me to "Requirements", meaning I'd get one of the bureucratic head honchos at the clinic. Predictably, the woman in question was stern and efficient in nature in informing me that there's no way out of having to get these extra inoculations (even though she admitted that they've never had any problems from my particular country). However when all seemed lost, I noticed on the fine print of the letter that the new law only applied to "full time students taking six credits or more." As an "advanced" graduate student, I don't take any classes, so I'm not technically taking
any credits. When I pointed this out to the bureaucrat, she looked like a deer in the headlights.
"But...you're going to be on campus?"
"But...are you actually a student at this school?"
"But...what are you going to get from this school when you're done here then?"
My answers were yes, yes, and a degree - in theory. However, she couldn't get around the fact that I'm not taking six credits. Having lost just about every valiant battle I've ever fought against bureaucracies (Weber was right, it's almost always futile to try to beat them), I did enjoy watching the bureaucrat realize that she (as opposed to me) was locked inside the iron cage. It's remarkable the the state legislature, or whomever is responsible for implementing these laws wrote the requirements in such a way that gives someone like me a massive loophole out of having to comply (which is ironic, since whomever came up with the law in the first place was trying to get as many people as we could). Or, perhaps they figure that anybody not taking many courses isn't likely to meet people to kiss and give the mumps to.
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