arrrgh

I found out today that in order to take an instructional music course with the university, you have to audition. Isn't that the point? I've been playing guitar for seven years, but I'm pretty bad and sound like I've only been playing for ten months. That's why I want instruction, so I can stop playing the same Alkaline Trio and White Stripes songs over and over and over again.

It's kind of sad how U of I lacks viable electives. I took Horticulture 106, "Home Horticulture", this semester, because the course description said that it was a survey class for non-majors who want to learn about decorating with plants and growing their own vegetables. It sounded informative and interesting. What do I get? I get some guy who doesn't care about the course literally reading every word off of every slide for an hour and twenty minutes, with little worthwhile explication that can't be reasonably inferred. He said, "You want to make sure you mow your grass. Grass grows," today. There are between 8-10 pages of single-spaced notes every day (we can print them off, thank God) and any banal piece of minutiae is up for grabs on any one of the fifty-question exams. One of the questions was "what makes sausage spicy," which the instructor tossed in as an afterthought during one lecture, and I only remembered because I knew the answer previously. It's fennel, in case you were wondering.

Then, and here's the kicker, there are the random quizzes. Six quizzes throughout the semester, during random lectures. You're allowed to miss one, since your lowest grade gets dropped. So I dick around for a couple weeks and attend maybe only half the lectures. I miss class the first quiz day. Big deal, I say. There's no way they'll have two quizzes back-to-back, right? So I skip the next class, AND THERE'S A FUCKING QUIZ! THEY PUT TWO OUT OF SIX QUIZZES THE ENTIRE SEMESTER IN TWO BACK-TO-BACK LECTURES! What is this chickenshit? Is that really necessary? Is that checking my understanding? What the fuck is the purpose of instruction if all we care about is grading whether or not we show up? I'm so sick of this system that defines part of your grade on attendance. Let me fucking sit in my apartment, watch a three-hour marathon of To Catch a Predator, eat a bowl of popcorn and then go to bed! Don't force me to come to fucking class! I don't need to! I can read a fucking book! If all you're going to do is read the book to me, is it really necessary that I'm there?!

Even when I get A's, it's like it doesn't matter anymore. I got an A, hooray. My life is exactly the same as when I woke up this morning. I got a D, oh no. My life is exactly the same as when I woke up this morning.

Don't take horticulture.

Reading that back over, I sound kind of angry. I probably was, but it's all dissipated now and I just want to go to bed. Here's something funny to break the tension.