It’s a Friday morning. Your alarm goes off for the tenth time. You look at the clock and realize you’ve hit the snooze button well into the first five minutes of your ever dreaded Friday morning class, which you’re only taking because it was the only thing open when you were finally able to register. You grab your shoes and your books, spend ten minutes in line for coffee — because, yeah, it’s necessary — and finally sneak into a seat at the back of the class just in time to hear your professor ask that you send your assignments forward.

Assignments?  What assignments? You think, you think, you flip threw your notes, and then finally, in the bottom corner of the page next to your sunflower doodle is your homework assignment. The one you totally didn’t do. Now what? Well, now you need a way to get out of handing it in today. Now you need an extension.  Now you need a really good excuse.

So be sure not to use one of these…

1. The dog ate it. The oldest excuse in the book. Teachers can see this one coming from a mile away. But it’s particularly difficult to pull off in college because more likely than not, you’re not allowed to have pets in the dorm rooms. So even if your professor does, on the slimmest of chances, believe you then you’ll be dealing with some much bigger issues.

2. My printer stopped working. Back in my high school days, I’ve actually seen this one work a few times. It’s plausible, direct, and clearly implies that the homework is done, but you just couldn’t get that paper printed in time. But that was all before the entire world went online. Now, not only would you have been able to send it to a friend to print, but you could also send it directly to the teacher. And they will ask you to — believe me, they will ask you to.

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So this semester I’m taking my senior capstone classes. The seminar focuses on literature itself and the reflective tutorial focuses on literary theory and literary criticism. They’re supposed to be the culmination of everything we’ve ever learned as English majors. They’re supposed to extremely challenging, hardcore courses that push our limits. And they are extremely challenging and they do push my limits.

But they’re also really, really annoying.

Because the over-analyzing and the hardcore literary theory and the pages upon pages of papers making a point no one even really cares about is all well and good when you’re spending your life in the world of academia, but when you’re outside of that world, what’s the point, really? Because I’ve been sitting in class these past few weeks listening to people deconstruct these novels I was never really all that into to begin with, and that’s all I’ve been asking myself. What is the point? I’m graduating in four months and I’m never going to think about this again.

For the first day of class, we had to read these New York Times articles, a collection of pieces called “Why Criticism Matters.” My favorite in the bunch was written by Sam Anderson, a New York Times Magazine critic, and a man who apparently fully embraces the art of Twitter. The piece discusses the fact that the rise of technology, the creation of the iPad, and the world’s obsession with social networking is not the end of literary theory or the end of literature. But it is changing the way people access their literature, providing readers with a vast array of options, and challenging writers to get the attention of readers.

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Must. Get. Out. Of. This. Hell.

By now your semester is in full swing. It’s early enough that you’re still optimistic, but not so early that you’re wishing you could still sleep until noon everyday. You’ve unpacked your dorm, caught up with your friends, and even gotten settled into all of your classes. But are you really happy with all of your classes?

I don’t know when Add/Drop ends at every college, but its quickly approaching at mine. And I don’t really have much choice with the classes I’m taking this semester but you might. So I ask you, do you really want to take that class with 100+ pages of reading a night? The one with the horrible professor? With the not-so-cute guy? Is it really worth it? Think about it….and then drop that class while you still can!

Which classes should you sprint, not walk/run/mosey/skip/saunter, away from? Read More »

The Internet is a place for everyone. Jocks, beauty queens, potheads, rockers, academia, criminals….you name it, there’s a site out there perfect for ‘em.Even the straight-up WEIRDOS.

Cracked.com has scoured the web for the 8 strangest, oddest and WTF-iest communities in Cyberland, and they’ve come up with some awesomely abnormal ones that are sure to kill some time and entertain you while you’re sitting there, bored in class.

Some highlights of the list:

#8: Icechewing.com. For, you know….all the “Ice Chewers” out there. One blogger writes:

Long time chewer, first time member. Read More »