The end as we know it

It's the end of the world as we know it. Wait, no -- it's just IU. \nEveryone has a prediction. Most people who make predictions are kind of crazy. I'm not crazy because I have evidence. \nIt's just like the Bible says, an IU apocalypse is coming. Think about it, the semester is a little more than halfway finished, and so many strange and horrible things have already happened.\nIt's written that before the Apocalypse, four horsemen will appear. And IU has seen three. \nThe first horseman rides a white horse and represents conquest. This horseman obviously represents the Office of the Registrar. It's housed in a white building and determined to conquer and destroy every student's class schedule. \nThis year has been a little different, though. The registrar's office is insane. Registration is messed up this year, and OneStart has problems of its own. \nMany people haven't registered yet, even though their date was weeks ago. A friend of mine is in this position. Her registration date was a week and a half ago. She immediately called the registrar's office to see what was wrong, only to find that it had lost parts of her record. Her Free Application for Federal Student Aid was lost. Then the registrar's office blamed it on her and told her she didn't turn one in so she can't register. Now she and others like her have no choice but to wait for the registrar's office to solve this problem. And so far the answer has been, "absolutely nothing." But I'm sure they're trying.\nThe second horseman of the IU apocalypse represents war. And wars have two sides, just like e-mails. I'm talking about the great October e-mail disaster. Who can forget when Webmail's Ariel server was down for almost a week? I'm sure it still haunts the dreams of some of the veterans. \nPapers were lost, appointments were missed and people were mad. E-mail is the life blood of the IU student, and for those four or five dark days, our veins were slit. Wow, I'm getting a little too deep with this. It's best to just leave it in the past.\nAnd on to the third horseman. He rides a black horse and represents famine. This one definitely is the Office of the Bursar. It's the demonic force on campus whose primary goal is to suck student bank accounts dry. \nThe bursar's office added some fees this year, but that's normal for them. The horrible part was they also messed up people's financial aid. Some people got less aid than usual and others got more. \nRefund checks were weeks late and students were living on scraps, resulting in a campus-wide famine. I was on the losing end of the stick, but thankfully not by much. \nThese three strange occurrences are clear signs that IU is crumbling. I'm afraid to see what will happen next. Will the Indiana Memorial Union begin sinking into the ground? Will locusts attack the campus like the cicadas did? One can only imagine what horrible things are to come.\nIU needs to get it together and do something before it's too late. This semester has been a disaster. Pretty much everything that can go wrong has. Hopefully the second half of the semester will go a lot smoother. If one more thing happens, then it all could be over.\nThe fourth horseman is the only one left, and he represents death. I can't imagine what it could be. \nAll I know is that if all the squirrels on campus drown in Jordan River, I'm changing schools.