>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
Volume 99 – September 19, 2004
“Impressively Sequential“
Now Playing: “Ghost World” by Aimee Mann
This is it. The Ninety-Ninth Issue of Text-Heavy. Next week we're turning the issue odometer over to three digits. Some people say Text-Heavy isn't as funny now as it was back in, say, issue 43. Others say it was never funnier. Still more say it was never funny. And the rest say, “What the hell is Text-Heavy? And why do you keep emailing me? That's it, I'm calling the police.” Whatever camp you fall into, I'd just like to thank you for supporting Internet comedy through two years, and counting. Here's to many more! And here's what happened:
-According to my friends in teacher's college, one of the first things you learn when becoming a teacher is that you have to be very careful what you give students to read. You're not allowed to give them books that glorify drugs, sex or alcohol, because there's a fear that if you expose children to adult subjects, they'll go out and try it. This makes perfect sense to me, because I remember when I was a kid my history teacher taught me all about World War II, and the next week I went out and invaded Poland.
-At some point in your university career, you will be asked to formally “declare a major.” This isn't as exciting as it sounds. I thought I'd have to stand up on a stool in front of my professors and shout “I declare!” and then everyone would applaud and some attractive female professors would tear off their blazers, but apparently all you have to do is sign a form. Curse you college, you've crushed my perverted fantasies for the last time.
-Everybody knows the one guy who's always signing up for classes too late. While everyone else registers for classes sometime in the summer using the university's handy and efficient class registration system, there's always the one guy who waits until classes actually start in order to sign up for them, and then he's always shocked when he gets waitlisted. “Golly gee willickers, all the classes I need are full,” this student will say in the internal monologue that goes on in my mind. And he gets really defensive when you ask him why he waited so long to register. “I just did, okay? It's not a big deal. Leave me alone.” It's always people like this who suffer some tragic, yet comical fate, like falling into a well.
-A lot of people think they can tell how good a class is by how many people are waitlisted for it on the first day of class. They figure if that many people wanted to get in but couldn't, it must be good. This is not true. Your best bet is to wait until the second week of class, and then see how many people have dropped it.
-One of the saddest things in the world is watching someone who's waitlisted for a class you're in attempt to actually get in the class. They'll bring the professor candy, they'll attend classes and sit on the floor if they have to, they'll write an extra term paper, anything to get into the class. It's like watching an abandoned puppy sit outside its former owner's door in the rain for hours on end. It almost makes me want to drop the class just so that person could get in. But then I remember how much I secretly enjoy watching others suffer. Seriously, I could probably sell tickets to this.
-Quote of the Moment: I love to hear people complain about their class schedules. “On Thursdays I have six hours of classes with absolutely no break. This sucks. How could this happen?” The only answer I can possibly give is “Dude, you made your schedule. You know exactly how this happened. Watch out for that well.”
-It's getting to that point in the year when the people who live far enough away from school so as to move out of their parents' houses, but close enough to the school to go visit whenever they want, go home for the weekend (I'll give you all a minute to catch up to my highly advanced grammar). They claim they're homesick, but we all know that's just an excuse so they don't have to admit they still haven't learned how to do laundry.
-We're also at that point where it's no longer considered socially acceptable to ask someone how their summer was. Even if it's the first time you've seen the person since school started, you still feel like it's the wrong question to ask. It's too bad, really, because that's one of the few questions people can ask me to which I have a prepared response (“Good”). It's all right, though. By next week it'll be okay to start asking people what their plans are for Thanksgiving (“Good”).
-There should be a contest to name new buildings on campus. Whoever comes up with the most banal, unoriginal, self-serving name wins. I nominate the “E.E. Southerby Building.” Years from now freshmen will bitch about how they've got a “Quiz in the Witz” in an hour. Then we'll see who's laughing.
-Somehow word got out that I sort of know a thing or two about computers (I told people I single-handedly designed Pointsincase.com) and now everybody I know wants me to fix their PC. That's fine with me, because I love to help people and maybe find some hidden pornography, but the one thing I don't understand is why so many people's computers need fixing. To my knowledge, they're using the same computer they had last year, and it was fine then. And they weren't using it at all over the summer. Do computers just degenerate if you stop using them for a certain amount of time, like milk or plutonium? You'd think I'd know this stuff, what with me having designed Pointsincase.com and all.