Well. Today was interesting.

The day began with Yours Truly blearily sitting up in bed, switching on his computer and TV, and catching up on the morning's e-mail and the morning's episode of Sesame Street. The latter had been recorded earlier by his VCR. Such is the daily ritual at Chez Shmuel.

(For those wondering, today's episode featured Gina reading her zoology textbook, while Zoe read her Zoe-ology book. And the letter C, and the number 1. Thank you.)

Anyway, eventually I got up and went to college, for my Rudiments of Music class. Where I and my classmates discovered that, oh, the course had been cancelled. Nobody had bothered to inform us students of that, of course, as that would have spoiled the surprise. Oh, those wild and crazy music professors, and their amusing little pranks...

Or, as I put it on Erin's mailing list:

There once was a student in Queens,
Who was told "I'm afraid that it seems
That your course is no more."
He exclaimed "I abhor
This; I'll have to complain to the deans!"

Seriously, it's not a course I'm especially interested in, but it did have the virtues of being on the one day open on my schedule (given my "no days with two classes" rule), and of filling my last remaining core requirement (not including physical education). Better yet, it's an evening course, which is much to be desired, so I figured I'd try it out.

A little while later, I realized the flaw in this idea. It's an evening course... on Tuesday nights. That is, it takes place at the same time as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Horror gripped my heart as the implications of this sunk in. I'd record the show, but given my reception of the local WB affiliate, it was far from given that it would work. This week was a rerun, but the rest of the semester... not good.

Or, as I put it on the mailing list:

A lad left adrift in N.Y.
Found himself cut adrift by and by.
Could he really miss playing
Tales of vampiric slaying,
Or should he not bother to try?

(My disturbed state of mind can be seen by my accidental repetition of the word "adrift.")

A Texan had a good laugh
At a New Yorker's apparent gaff.
"What's the dilemma?
"Get a better antenna!
"Just don't cut your credits in half."

It might seem just slightly absurd
To quibble on one tiny word.
I don't mean to pout,
But I still should point out:
The reduction would be just a third.

(Actually, I was wrong: it'd be 30%. But that's close enough for jazz.)

Of more concern was his overall attitude. Several warning bells sounded, but, again, I'm not sure they're loud enough to matter. Mixed signals, on the whole. If the course is really going to be the way he describes it (rather than the way the first session went), it could be decent. But while I'm pretty sure he believes he's going to be running the course the way he says he will, I'm not convinced it'll really work out that way.

I'm not being very clear here, but I haven't quite worked it out myself yet. Anyway, it seems that I'm going to be taking this course after all, but I'm still kinda worried. But we'll see, I suppose.

The one bright side is that what I'd thought was a typo in the course catalog wasn't a typo after all; the class really is only two hours. It turns out that it's crosslisted as a graduate course, which generally have shorter class times. So I can make it home in time for Angel, at least. But getting back to the overall class:

A student, returning from school,
Said, "I hope I'm not being a fool.
The signals are mixed,
But the class won't be nixed;
Let's just pray the results aren't cruel."