Rarely has there ever been so much drama associated with turning in a test. I mentioned that we had to submit via email; I finished early and hit 'send' about 13 minutes before the end of class. Then I powered down, packed up, and headed home. Somewhere between a celebratory stop at btb and Huron Towers it dawned on me that it might take longer than a few seconds to send an email and attachment - had I allowed enough time for the message to clear my outbox? NO! There it was, like a bloated email exam thing, sitting in Outlook. I hoofed up to Art & Architecture and resent, hoping for the most lenient and understanding response to my now 19 minutes late exam. The response came in about six minutes: "No problem. Have a good break."
Yesterday during my studying I distracted myself with the funniest of Michigan's student publications: The Every Three Weekly. In the editorial section, where they usually slam people for writing and asking "why do you make fun of uGg boots?" there was, instead, a rather serious piece about the b-school's pesky habit of throwing away the E3W stack as soon as it arrived, apparently because it was offensive to some students. This makes me sad; for all the drama we've had about diversity, for all the school's emphasis on variance of opinion, for all the talking about embracing everyone's views, to reverse field and throw away a satirical newspaper is pathetic. Everything that has ever been printed is, by definition, offensive and discriminatory to someone. Maybe if it is offensive to you there is an alternate point of view to consider? My SES was lampooned on those pages, what can you do? Yes you get angry, but in fact perhaps there is some truth to the stereotypes that are published there - get over it. Even more troubling is a request, in the anonymously forwarded email chain, to keep campus "family friendly" and that includes E3W and football programs because they featured an ad for Deja Vu (you may be able to guess what type of business is conducted at Deja Vu... I'll give you a hint: I'm not going to link to their website). In all fairness, if we are going to cleanse the campus to the point that 3"x3" ads featuring women in bikinis are too offensive, then we all might as well have chosen Ivys and put on our sweater vests. (And lock ourselves in well-lit rooms with no windows or media, safely away from those cretins from LS&A who want to destroy our little community with their filth.)