so what's new?

I was trying to think about what's going to be different this year than last year and I couldn't come up with much because basically, things seem the same. But here's a short list of what's going to be different and my thoughts about each of these changes -- with my attempt to spin them in the best possible light so that you understand that I'm planning to be much more positive from now on:

• The school year now ends two days after Thanksgiving instead of the day before. That makes sense. Good idea to make the year end later when in all likelihood we'll have to extend the semester once we end up missing days because of hurricanes (especially now that they plan to cancel school at the first sign of rain over the Bahamas).
• They fixed up the student lounge. Fantastic! I didn't go in but it looks like they got rid of the couches and desks and ripped up the carpet. So it's a sterile room with more space for setting up chairs but nowhere to actually do the lounging.
• Westlaw added more options to "buy" with your research points. That's cool. I have lots of points -- more than 20,000! (I know this proves my nerdiness).
• Now we can only print a set number of pages, then after 1,200 pages, you have to pay. That'll work great. I'm sure no one will have any complaints about things like oh, I don't know...how on any given day at least two printers are broken, which means you send something to a printer and it just disappears into cyberspace, meaning under the new system you'll still get "charged" with having printed it.
• Some of the classes, including Trusts and Estates with professor Elements, were suddenly cancelled. I know several people who are angry about that because it threw off their schedule. I assume the reason is that Professor Elements is not doing well. I knew he was sick but have no idea how he's doing. Here's hoping he gets better -- if in fact the reason for cancelling the class is that he's sick.
• Remember all those parking spaces that were supposed to open up this year because students were going to move into the new University Village, an on-campus apartment complex? Guess that'll take a little longer since anyone who had been planning to live in UV now has to spend the first few weeks of the semester in a hotel. Yeah I was really confident that this would alleviate the parking crunch. Not really. Parking will never get easier here. Despite the improvement to the parking lot this summer (re-painting the white lines on the too-small spots) they failed to actually address any of the real problems like that one third of the first row is flooded and therefore unusable after heavy rain (which happens at least twice a week here) and there are no clear markers identifying that each lane is one way (on the row closest to school there is not a single sign indicating which way people are supposed to drive), so people who aren't regular users of the lot are always going the wrong way, creating huge jams. Awesome -- another year of scratches on the car, frustration maneuvering around the lot and - hopefully - shuttles that never run when you need them.
• Did I forget anything? Any other changes?