Exasperation

I was sitting in the front office waiting for my turn with the new secretary, missing the former secretary and accountant so very badly, thinking of the rapport of good people that we built with them which in turn allowed them to treat us super nicely. The new people... they are trying perhaps... but they're hostile and easily turn defensive, just because that is the way people are; they treat everyone as potential up-to-no-gooders. But anyways as I was sitting there, contemplating this, the other secretaries in the next room were sighing and grunting... This is our graduate secretary; like the former secretary, but to a lesser extent perhaps, she dealt with the quirky, absent minded grad students, trying to deal with our international student status, trying to explain to us, as patiently as they could. She let out several sighs... and I thought of the countless number of times she must have done this with regard to me, trying to get my paper work, health insurance, right... and my classmates. We got better with time, but 6.5 years ago, we were new, bright eyed, naive graduate students... A lot of us came from minimum bureaucracy countries... heck we were not international students in our countries... I bet she was as exasperated with us as she was this day... Suddenly I felt a lot of appreciation for what she did and then I thought of my class - so much has happened among us over the past 6.5 years, some of us hardly talk to each other any more... but I will take a piece of everyone with me... and I will miss them....