Take heed, academia!
Classes I would like to see next year (some legitimate)
Ben Poggemiller, Staff
The U of M course catalog always takes a torturously long time to come out for the next academic year. I feel this is a conspiracy against me. They wait until I’ve started my full-time summer job before releasing the class schedule. Then I have to take time off to go down to the Arts office to prove to them that I’m not screwing up my honours degree. I have to sign out my course sheet, which is attached to a chain, which I’m only allowed to have for about 30 seconds before they turn the crank and drag me back to the Arts office via the chain. Then the English department, working in tandem with the Arts office, gives me a one hour window per week in which I can go up to the tower of Fletcher Argue to have the course sheet approved. This is how the honours program works. This system usually has the desired effect, namely to make me not want to go to school ever again. Since the course catalog won’t be available for weeks, here are some suggestions that the powers that be should take into account.
ENGL 4242 — Studies in Douglas Adams
“Don’t Panic.” It boggles me to think that Milton gets a steady class every year and yet the greatest writer who ever lived gets resounding silence from academia. Imagination is hard to come by in literary canon, let alone living mattresses from Squornshellous Zeta that eat humans, rock bands who die for tax-evasion purposes and the inner thoughts of a doomed whale as he comes into existence, only to be another victim of gravity. Adams’ subject matter is life, the universe and everything, and his genius needs to be appreciated. Students will learn that, after all, humans are only the third smartest beings on the planet Earth. Prerequisite: a grade of “C” or better in six hours of English at the 2000 level, and student must be able to be able to drink several Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters.
ELVE 1000 — Introduction to the Reading of Elvish
Picture this: you walk into a comic book convention or a Lord of the Rings convention at a Marriott hotel, only to find that you have no idea what anyone is saying! This is the nightmare of not knowing at least rudimentary Elvish to help in situations like this. This course will teach students how to speak conversationally in Aldarin, Eldarin and Quenya (time permitting). Students will learn how to get directions and order hamburgers in several dialects of Elvish. No prerequisite.
ENGL 2782 — Oscar Wilde
Because my girlfriend said so. Yes, dear.
BURU 1010 — Introduction to Bureaucracy
This course is especially helpful to students at the University of Manitoba, but expertise in dealing with bureaucracy extends to all areas of Canadian society. Students will be expected to fill out forms appropriately, find things to do while being made to wait, and argue semantics with uninterested parties. Students may not hold credit with the former 191.100 or 191.120, unless credit is held for both BURU 1020 or 191.130 (not the former 191.125) or BURU 1030 and 191.120 and 191.125 or 191.140 (or the former 191.150) plus three credit hours of 2000 level POLS courses (excluding POLS 1040), and/or written consent from the department head who is available from 10-11 a.m. on Wednesdays or 9:30-10:30 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays on the third Monday, second Tuesday, fourth Thursday and first Friday of each month, not including February and June.
FAAH 3200 — Flannel Studies
This fine art survey course follows the development of flannel as an artistic medium and as quintessential Canadian clothing. This course is designed for students unsatisfied by the hard science found in textile science course TXSC 1337 — Introduction to Flannel. The course is designed to study the symbolism of flannel, usually in the form of “hoser-itude” and the history of tartan adaptation from the Welsh Drapers Company of Shrewsbury through Red Green and Canadian literature professors who wear flannel shirts composed of various parts of other flannel shirts.
