I have a few different email addresses, just like everyone else, I expect, and one of these is my student email I was given by my university. I graduated at the end of last year and nothing was said about the email being discontinued, so I happily kept using it … until this morning.

I went to sign in and was refused. Confused, I clicked the ‘lost password’ button only to be told that my credentials were invalid. Invalid? Oh oh…

I phoned the help desk and was told that your email account only remains active for six months after you graduate. That makes sense, I guess, but what annoyed me was that there was no warning at all that they were about to wipe my account. I was never told about this six months’ rule and I swear some of my friends still have theirs active and they’ve been non-students for longer than me! On a daily basis, I get three or four spammy emails from the university, telling me about guest lecturers and programs and university updates that I don’t remember subscribing to - yet they couldn’t send me one quick email saying “get your emails off because we’re going to delete your account”.

WTF. Not happy.

The (very helpful) guy at the help desk said it might be possible to reopen my account for a week so I could get all of my emails off, but he said there’s a chance they won’t do it. That means I have lost the last five years’ worth of emails. I never thought to have a back-up because I was at least expecting some sort of warning if they were going to delete it, so I could get my butt into gear and sort through what I wanted to keep.

Sigh. I guess I’m just waiting on an email to see if they’ll reopen the account.

So yeah, to my university: A nice little heads up would have been nice. Thanks.

Step 1: Look out the window. If it’s raining, go on to Step 2. If it’s not raining, wait until it is, then go on to Step 2.

Step 2: Throw open the door with great gusto, calling your cat to go outside. Get really excited about it so your cat runs over eagerly.

Step 3: Watch cat race out into the rain, realise it’s wet, turn and bolt back inside! And voila – pissed off cat!

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Haha, poor Puddy. It’s raining and I left the outside door open for her to go outside, but she’s spent most of the afternoon sitting by the door, waiting for the rain to stop. She did venture out earlier during a break in the rain, but it quickly started up again and I had to rescue a miaowing Puddy from one of the narrow window sils. I hate to break it to her, but I’ve just checked the radar and the rain is not going away any time soon.

I guess until it does stop, she’ll just glare at me occasionally, like it’s my fault it’s raining.

I guess it was a little mean of me to open the door and get her all excited, but seriously? It’s wet, miserable and cold. I needed a giggle. And to make it up to her, I let her knead my stomach for a full five minutes, even though her nails are desperately in need of a trim.

Rain, rain, go away!

I was trying to prepare some dinner when I noticed the banana on the bench was moving. Intrigued, I peeked over the edge and saw little blue beady eyes staring back at me. Puddy had her paw in the air, preparing to strike the banana again. As I watched, she pushed it and prodded it before letting out a little miaow and running off.

So strange.

Yup, you heard correctly – today is International Box Day, the day where we celebrate, uh, boxes. I guess Puddy is more excited about this than I am, since she uses boxes more than me. I don’t know what it is about cats and boxes, but as soon as there’s one on the floor, Puddy is over at it, sniffing inside and trying to squeeze in.

To celebrate the day, here is an old photo of Puddy in a shoe box.

She slowly chewed the box up until I couldn’t take it anymore – there were bits of cardboard all over the floor and I had to constantly sweep them up. I finally threw the box in the bin. I swear she didn’t even notice it was gone, even though she had lived in it for the past three days.

You may be seeing a lot of photos today of cats in boxes. It is rather strange. I didn’t know about International Box Day until I found it on the Cat Blogosphere. I guess it would make sense that they would be the first to know, since it’s all about cats there.  I wonder how dogs feel about boxes? Do they also sleep in them, sniff them and chew on them? I think maybe cats feel safer in there. Puddy seems to enjoy boxes more than the toys we buy for her, so we don’t buy her anything these days, except maybe the little toy mousies because I know she likes those.

Have a great weekend everybody!