Isle Delfino take two

I tried yesterday to describe the events of January 15th, though the resultant entry (which I’ve made private) became something of a rant.  Accordingly, though it contained nothing I couldn’t back up with fact if I really needed to, the possibility of a link back bringing about such a situation just isn’t anything I need to deal with right now (or ever).  So we’ll try again, this time with fewer specifics (a name-and-shame could cause me grief).

On Thursday I awoke at around 4:00 PM and decided it was time to clean up my dorm room, as per Wayne State’s demands.  At the time, the most troublesome thing going through my head was how to work this event into a Nintendo-esque title.  I finally settled on “Isle Delfino is officially clean!”  The deed wasn’t without its complications.  I had exactly one trash bag, which once completely full would not fit down the trash chute, anyway.  Regardless, I needed to get the litter out of the way so I could organize the remainder of the stuff in the room.  And that doesn’t even include the 3,082 pop cans that had collected over the course of a semester, which all needed their own separate bag.

Sadly, a search of all the local campus establishments revealed that nowhere could one purchase anything even remotely resembling my quarry.  I mean, you can buy bloody condoms, but apparently nothing to pitch them into once you’ve used them (thanks for pointing out that bit of logic to me, Jamie).

Defeated, I trekked all the way back to my dorm room, only to discover that my next class (in about 15 minutes) was pretty much all the way back from where I had just come, in Old Main.  Ten minutes later I arrived and proceeded to entertain myself with drawing calligraphy until the professor finally staggered in (about seven minutes late).

This is where I must exercise restraint.  I had heard horror stories about inept or otherwise ideologically-biased instructors.  I had even had the distinct misfortune of sitting one such professor for a philosophy course I took in my freshman year.  However, nothing was to have prepared me for the man who stood before me for the next half hour of my life.  I could immediately tell that he was arrogant—it’s a bit like a cold breeze that emanates from his frame.  Nothing entirely corporeal, but definitely a presence that this man felt he was the most important object in the room.

Unfortunately, his arrogance was the least of my concerns, though it contributes in no small part, I believe, to the pure mockery he has made of a staple of the English major, American Literature.  His syllabus began with a quote by a German Marxist whose belief was essentially that history should not be viewed in context, but instead picked from and assembled piecemeal in order to form a lens through which modern-day people may view their actions.  Essentially, he is an apologist for a disturbing trend of the last forty years, which is the systematic rewriting of history to reflect and justify contemporary political ideals.  The professor took this quote as his mission statement, except that even he didn’t seem to really understand what he was saying.  He stuttered a great deal and beat around the bush whilst hacking through an explanation.  Bored with his seeming lack of command of the English language, I took the time to paw through the remainder of the syllabus.

What I saw both chilled me to the bone and angered me to a slow boil.  The list was void of virtually any classic American authors! In the place of anything even resembling relevance, we instead had everything from Allen Ginsberg (noted communist claptrap from the protest years in the United States) to a tremendous share of civil rights authors (who can hardly be considered appropriate to either the subject or the time period in question), to various Marxists, socialists, and communists; to Bob Dylan.  Scattered here and there, almost as an afterthought, were Emerson, Hemingway, and Dickinson (one work apiece).  Absent completely were the likes of Whitman, Lee, Fitzgerald, Poe, Steinbeck, Twain, Asimov, Faulkner, Bradbury, Frost, Miller, or even Vonnegut.  The list goes on and on.  Basically, pick your favorite great American author (who didn’t write about either black rights or socialism), and I guarantee your selection isn’t on the list.

But should they be?  Read on.  In his infinite wisdom, as the professor himself explained, he felt he could not adequately construct a decent microcosm of 500 years of American literature (point taken—but then, isn’t that kind of your job as an English professor?).  He also offered the rather lame excuse that many of his former pupils expressed boredom with or otherwise dislike for classic American literature.  So this professor’s brilliant solution to this conundrum?  Don’t teach any of it! Instead, this professor has filled the void with irrelevant selections that support his own ideologies and passed it off as a so-called “modern-day focus”.  He has furthermore framed all future discussions by discouraging historical context, thereby making his own views and interpretations canon and any dissenting views reprehensible.

My main issue with this disastrous setting of the course is that whichever graduate school program I choose to pursue isn’t really interested in hearing that I had an ideologically-bent (or merely incompetent) professor; they expect me to have a working knowledge of the material that was actually supposed to be in this course.  This is a required course for English majors, and since I am seriously considering switching my major, this is a big deal to me.  This professor has acted in a way that is irresponsible and which demonstrates he is not above taking advantage of a captive audience to spread his extremist viewpoints by passing them off as a legitimate setting of an American Literature course.  I will be filing a formal complaint with the university concerning this issue; this professor’s outrageous conduct is detrimental to anyone unfortunate enough to have to take his course, and a message should be sent that I and others like me will not tolerate this sort of garbage mucking up the academic path.

I walked out on this man an hour into his despicable caricature of a course and didn’t turn back.  I dropped the class five minutes later and replaced it with another required course, English Literature After 1700.  This, thankfully, seems to be taught by a very competent and conventional professor, an old favorite in the department.  Astonishingly, though the availability flag did not change on this course immediately after I registered, by the time I got home the course was full.  I wonder idly just how many people followed me into this new course from the first one.  I hope it’s a great portion of them, for their sake.

I do get one tremendous bonus (a SHINE GET!) in that, since this new class takes place from 3:00 PM to 4:20 PM on Mondays and Wednesdays, I get not only Fridays but also Thursdays off from school.  I had my parents bring me some supplies so I could finish cleaning Isle Delfino (er, my room), and I proceeded home from there.  All in all, an extremely trying week, but one I had conquered.  My escape from the rogue professor’s poisonous interpretation of American Literature—a more fitting title for his iteration thereof would be Survey Of Political And Social Protest In America From 1950-1980—marks my crowning achievement for the week.  Keeping myself from spitting on the professor’s shoes as I filed past him—an act of protest he no doubt should laud—was just icing on the cake.

Until next time, then.

So far, so…quiet?

I’ve been here at Wayne State for several full days now.  I arrived Monday evening, laden with stuff, and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with any of it.  Oh, I dragged out my computer, plugged that in, and raided the Grape Nuts.  They look suspiciously like sawdust.  My friend Saad helped me move my things in, though the current room arrangement doesn’t really afford me much room.  I had planned on lofting the bed as I did last year, and then putting the desk and dresser side-by-side beneath it.  No dice.  The lofting materials were not anywhere in the suite.  I have no sides and no pegs.  I’ll have to ask for those downstairs, and frankly, I kind of like the arrangement I’ve got now, anyway.  No more crawling up a damned ladder every time I want to get in bed.  I can sit and type away on my computer all I want from ground level, and when I want to put it down, the chair’s right there.  I can work lying down, too—something my habit of getting up and walking around to work through ideas never let me do easily if it meant crawling up and down a ladder every five minutes or so.

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August 21st, 2008—Wayne State Woes, and Let’s Play “Spot The Links!”

Here we are again.  Isn’t this familiar?  Why does this seem familiar?  Oh, wait—that’s it!  Right around this time last year I was ticked off.  I was livid.  Why?  The same reason, by some odd confluence involving a matter transfuser and time travel, all people who have ever felt annoyance have for their displeasure: Wayne State University.  I have long maintained that Wayne State—hereafter abbreviated as WSU—is not part of the known universe.  In fact, there’s a mural in the cafeteria that proves this assertion.  It depicts Old Main—the oldest building on campus—floating disembodied in outer space, with the Earth just outside the front door.  Additionally, space blends into a picture of the Ambassador Bridge, flanked by pictures of gigantic WSU hockey players and (for some unrelated reason) cheerleaders.  Since hockey games all have cheerleaders.  Anyway, matter does not act in this manner.  WSU is clearly part of another dimension, in an alternate universe accessible only whilst one is on campus.

But why really was I so ticked?  You see, WSU has perhaps the most disorganized administrative department in (or out of) the world, except for maybe Blue Cross.  They send out bills at random, and before the real amount owed is actually calculated.  At other times, they neglect to send out a bill or notice at all and simply hand you an eviction notice.  Supposedly, you were supposed to check your online WSU account—the “Pipeline”—each day with bated breath in anticipation of some new charge the college might invent on the spot discover you owe.  Last year, it was a bill in excess of $5,000 I was expected to have paid before the move-in date.  Actually, again there was no bill.  It was listed on the Pipeline.  The due date for the bill was some four days after the move-in date, so theoretically I had the extra time, but in reality my deadline was earlier.  What they failed to mention was that the date financial awards—scholarships and government aid—were disbursed was four days before move-in.  Wow.  That’s cutting it mighty fine, eh?  No helpful mention of this anywhere prudent, no E-mail reminder of this.  Nothing.  We had to call about the matter, at which point it was finally explained to us.  I get the impression I wasn’t the only one left in the dark because, a few days later, a new stock E-mail appeared in my Inbox with a line about this disbursal date appended.

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