"1OB - The Michigan Daily - Weekend, etc. Magazine -=Thursday, February 4; 1999 tc Weekend, etc. Column O. 0 The Michigan Daily - Weekendet. 1 AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY I am trapped here. Here, in this squalid square room, I sit, trapped by convention, by habit, unable to move- save to nod my head at irregular inter- vals. Above me sterile fluorescent lights hum and crackle malignantly, interrupt- ing and dispelling thought before it reaches an acceptable level of coheren- cy. The lights hum and crackle, hum and crackle and illumine the room with sickly beams, giving to the faces of my fellow prisoners a cadaverous pallor. All of us sit with shoulders hunched, slaves to an inarticulate purpose; coats and bags and books are strewn haphaz- ardly around us in a weak testament to our academic determination, weak evi- dence of reason for our self-incarcera- tion. Up at the front of the room, sitting. impressively before the grimy black- board, a severe young woman goes through the motions, attempting stub- bornly to extract from us answers to the banal questions she repeats over and over in the dead air of the room. The small light of desperation shines as through smoky glass in our eyes as once again silence K+ meets the severe young woman's queries. We would escape, I'm sure; but in entering this room, in mildly admitting we are enrolled students, ANDREW we have given up MORTENSEN our free will. No BiG IDEAS longer do we have (DON'T GET freedom of choice. ANY) Collectively we've disdained the right to determine our fates, and enslaved ourselves to the almighty grade. By the pedagogical reasoning of the University, we gather weekly in this room to enhance our under- standing of material presented in lecture. Here, theoretically, we are gaining a firmer grasp of crucial. course concepts, hashing and rehashing overarching themes, themes which will reshape the very way we look at life. Theoretically. "Discussion," these impotent gather- ings are named; but a discussion by def- inition demands a constant flow of speech. And here we have no speech, no sound but the toneless drone of the GSI. My eyes begin to cross and the GSI asks again: "How many people have heard of the Civil War?"A light, almost imperceptible shudder passes through each person in the room. In some, as in me, this shudder is a feeble response to the idiocy of the question; in others, who wouldn't know the Civil War from cat litter, the shudder is nothing more than an unconscious protest against the ridiculously low temperature of the room. The GSI misinterprets the shud- der as a show of enthusiasm and decides to risk another question. "Does anyone have any reactions to yesterday's lecture?" she asks, smiling brightly at each person in the room. One girl, evidently on speed and possibly missing large sectors of her frontal lobe, throws her hand in the air, waving it until at last the GSI says through smiling lips the girl's name, whereupon the girl exclaims, "What's up with that Buddhism thing? Is that strange or what?" The GSI, who is a patient, if somewhat dull person, points out gently that nothing in the lecture yesterday was related to Buddhism, and in fact nothing in lecture will ever be related to Buddhism. The mention of Buddhism arouses smaller intellects in the room: slow gears begin revolv- ing, faulty wires begin to spark, and after the passage of long seconds, the misfiring vehicles of their minds cough to life. One young man blurts out, "Once I read some of the Tao Te Ching," to which the girl sitting next to him responds with "Isn't that some weird poetry or something?" Admiring eyes turn to consider the source of this singular insight, and modestly she adds, ducking her head, "I like to read." I panic, and over every inch of my body the dreadful heat of adrenaline spreads. Not 15 minutes of the hour I must spend here have passed. The GSI seizes on the elemepts of the previous comments which, by tor- tuous convolutions, may be applied to this particular course, a literature sur- vey. "Okay, good!" she says, scrawl- ing on the pad of paper she keeps close at hand. She continues: "Okay, I think we should try to focus real close now and take a good hard look at the text itself. Has anyone noticed anything about this book that they thought was interesting?" The energy level in the room increases slightly, and another young man, thoroughly unaware of his own relative unimpor- tance, puts his hand in the air, waits impatiently until he is called on, and states, "Well, for me, I mean, I do a lot of reading, because I'm Pre-Law I mean, and so when I read something I look for like, you know, the para- digmatic aspects (paradigm means, like, the sort of like, well, you know). And so it was weird because this one character just doesn't fit the para- digm of a woman. Where was it, it was in one part, this character, she's U IVERSITY? like doing some really weird stuff." On the heels of this outburst fol- lows the reedy voice of a nonde- script woman, saying, "Um, I'm in the B-school, and I'm really only taking this class because I need it to fulfill one of my requirements" (sleepy heads nod in sympathy) "but I just wanted to say: What the hell does this guy think he's writing? Like in conversation, I mean that's just unbelievable, because no one talks that way in real life. I mean, how often do people actually use the word 'coherent'?" Struggling to keep my head above the raging floodwaters of her inco- herency, I feel my cheeks sag and grow flabby; I clutch at my ear pur- poselessly; I let my lips slacken and through them I exhale. "That's a very good point," the GSI says. "What can we say about the lan- guage in this book? Does it make it obsolete? Can it still be read today as a work of literature or is it now just a quaint part of literary history?" The question catches the class off-guard, and momentarily the dead silence is res- urrected; but fortunately someone is up to the challenge: "I don't know about that," a stout guy sitting next to me says with full obnoxious voice, "but ,God this is one long book!" People laugh at this insipid comment, and he adds, "I mean, this thing is more than two 200 pages or something!" More laughter; he raises his book in the air with an expres- sion of disbelief on his face, in the process knocking his appallingly dirty hat to the floor. It lands in a puddle of spilled Coke and starts to soak it up. The stout man stoops down, picks up his sopping hat, and replaces it on his head. "Well," says the GSI as people begin shutting notebooks and folders, "we didn't get as much done as I'd hoped we would, so next week be prepared to real- ly dig in!" I collect my things, shrug into my coat, listening with idle ear to some genderless voice remark to a friend that the "heaviosity" of the class is almost overwhelming. Almost. - Andrew Mortensen's fantasies are unlikely, but beautiful. admorten@umich.edu -JERUSALEM 1GARDEN! I$1 OFF any falafel sandwich: ! Limit 1 1 Per Person Per Order I 307 S. Fifth Ave. 1 Phone #: 734-995-5060 I 1 exp. 12-31-99 BASKETBALL Continued from Page 66 because the team coming out of the locker room is going to feed off the crowd," Brooks said. This year, the half-time show that seemed to strike a chord with fans was the Mascot Classic. The game, which involved mascots from a variety of teams and organizations, showed fans that cheering skills and a good jumper do not necessar- ily go hand-in-hand. The game included representatives from the Detroit Lions, Elias Brothers and Belle Tire fighting for respect on the hardwood. The Mascot Classic is just one of many new half-time shows that has captured the interest of fans this year. "We're really striving for variety with basketball and each game will have some type of enter- tainment - either an actual show or a shoot-out or we tried to really tie our students into a number of the contests," Brooks said. "One of the things we're doing with Michigan is striving to bring some of the top national acts to our venue." Basketball fans can look forward to a few more exciting half-time shows as the regular season winds down. A shoot-out between Michigan and Michigan State fans is sched- uled for next week's tussle with the Spartans. Fans interested in partic- ipating can register online at the Michigan Live Website (www.mlive.com) if they're inter- ested in embarrassing a few Spartan fans and winning tickets to next year's Michigan-Michigan State football game in East Lansing. And at the year's final home gameagainst Penn State, fans have the chance to win a 1999 Mercury Cougar by sinking a half court shot. Those interested can register for the big shot at the remaining Michigan home basketball games. So as the season winds down, stop by Crisler for a little basket- ball, Maize Rage and quality enter- tainment. There are many prizes yet to be claimed, and a lot of fun to be had. Besides, you never know when Roary the Lion and the Belle Tire man might be in the house. Want to s and storie Ann Ar boi A n r oetc. Lite , Call 7 63- i It will help you survive college - and it's here now! Versity.com is your new source for top-quality lec- ture notes on the World Wide Web. Notes on Versity.com are always convenient, always up to date, and ALWAYS FREE! Updated daily and archived for the entire semester, you now have instantaneousac- cess to any class lecture from any computer on or off campus. So get on the World Wide Web and intro- duce yourself to Versity.com... You can thank us later. Get Your FREE LECTURE NOTES -Vo Hiring Freshmen & Sophomores The Michigan Daily will give you the opportunity to gain valuable business experi- ence in display advertising. As an Account Ex- ecutive, you will sell advertising to local and na- tional businesses, manage your- own account territory, create ad copy and layout, and earn commission- based pay. Application DEADLINE: Wednesday, February 24 Stop by the Student Publications Build- ing at 420 Maynard or call 764-0662 for more information.