I haven’t blogged much lately, but it is solely because I have been learning so much in the wonderful pixie-laden realm of university.

Learning. Lurning. Lurrrrning.

And so, I sit here in yet another HIST class, and learn. Mostly, about the state of education. And particularly, the state of my university professor’s voices, who sound like they are straight out of Ferris Bueller’s day off. I believe, on this day of January 27, 2011, that it is time to change the way we approach learning. And so I offer my incredibly depth of wisdom that will revolutionize higher education. We will change it by offering Voice Training for University Professors.

Train Your Voice: The University Professor Edition

1. If your voice blends in to the hum of a vacuum running the background, or a coffee grinder in the morning, or escaping a life-threatening confinement by cutting your arm off (see 127 hours…about the length of a one hour class), you have many university options available. Firstly, put “droner” at the top of your academic resume (that’s a tip, just pay me $5 when you can).
Training Tip: If you are serious about your career, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. You will need to purchase fourteen different types of vacuums. Arrange them in an orchestra-type fashion, leaving room in the middle for the “conductor”. Turn them all on, and practice lecturing in tune with your “orchestra”. If you are tone deaf, don’t be discouraged. Just pick a note and stick with it.

2. If you find yourself in conversation, observe the person you are talking with. If they continually move away, chances are that you’re probably really loud (or bad breath, but that’s #3). You are going to be great in a first year University course, because the lack of interesting dialogue will be covered up by the fact that no one can sleep with someone who sounds like an intelligent buzz saw.
Training Tip: Pavarotti. Celine Dion. People on cell phones on the bus. What do they all have in common?

They’re all really loud. Your job is to be louder than all three. So in your preparation, play Dion on the tv, Pavarotti on your ipod, and have a heated conversation with a randomly dialed person.

3. Bad breath man. Chances are everyone around you knows that you have perpetual bad breath but you. Ask them.
Training Tip: Your job is to inhale echinacea with garlic three times a day until it seeps from your pores. Not only will it keep you from getting sick, body odor becomes your friend. Supplement your diet with a healthy dose of Curry Chips too. I ate a full bag once, and felt that my pores became biological pits similar to that of the seating area in a taxi cab.

4. If you’re angry and you know it, clap your hands. If you’re angry and you know it clap your hands. If you’re angry and you know it and you really want to show it…then feminism literature is for you. (One more time, and really sing it out this time!)
Training Tip: Go out and rent Rocky IV. This will inspire you to run through the snow FASTER than the imperialistic, colonial, oppressive picture of man (Rocky) and beyond the limits of the dogmatic, sexist, authoritarian Russian to reach to new limits (Think Girl Power! Tell me what you want, what you really really want!) Win at all costs! Take no prisoners!

5. If you speak in the middle of a room, and notice that people within 15 feet of you are cringing, you should consider becoming an English professor.
Training Tip: Find random objects in the room to get excited about.* Show your excitement by saying different words in a sentence at different octaves. Now practice: “YELLOW cheese!” [Remember, yellow should be said at a high note, cheese at a lower octave. Try again. “a WONDERMENT to behold that she sees a PIXIE over dust.”

Beautiful. One more. “A brick WALL” (likely representing THE MAN)!

*If this does not work, revert to Shakespeare.

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Hello geniuses.

You’ve managed to log on the most incredible blog of wisdom you will ever encounter. As a self-proclaimed Doctor of University, having spent (or wasted) 8 or 9 years in some form of higher education, I am here to help you, dear student, to survive (perhaps even thrive) your university classes. Today I am experiencing one of the driest history classes in the record of dry history classes (coming to a university near you: HIST 976 – The History of History Classes…WATCH as the professor uses a dry erase marker at least once every FIVE classes…and then TRANSITIONS back into the drone of history…all in ONE class! YOU as a student are NOT PREPARED FOR THIS! Because the lectures will be interrupted by students exclaiming shouts of “GASP!” and “INCREDULOUS!” and “HALLELUJAH, bless you sir!”).

It is little wonder that students are not engaged in any sort of learning in history classes. If a man (or woman) stands on a street corner and rambles on about an event for 1 hour, 20 minutes, most of us will leave him be. That’s called insanity. However, in university, students pay over $500 to listen to the crazy-street-corner standing man (or woman). That’s called tragedy.

So, I want to equip you with the most updated, technologically savvy tips that you will need to to survive your next University History class. Prepare to have your life changed.

Surviving History 101


1. Ask yourself, “What would Chuck Norris do?” Not the current day Chuck Norris, but the one who was able to defend himself from at least seven different types of ninjas in Missing in Action 2: The Beginning.  Chuck ran over bridges without fear.  He sensed ninjas in the trees behind him.  Look around the classroom, there are ninjas everywhere.  And prepare to defend yourself.

2. Wear a sweater. If nothing else it’ll make you feel comfortable. I’m wearing one today.  Chew your collar.  And then, for comparison, chew your sleeve.  Does it taste different?  (if it does, it’s time to do a wash)  I’ve just burned 2 minutes of your time.

3. Buy a guitar tuner. Try and match the guitar tone to the professor’s drone. See if he’s in tune and, if not, suggest that he try a different key.

4. Have a favorite number picked out, but don’t make it a single digit. Your professor is about to expect that you will be aware of irrelevant statistics of how many people owned small dogs with intestinal problems due to overurbanization in 1968. I’ve chose 98, and I’ve managed to say it three times this class.

How high was the divorce rate in 1950 in Canada?

98!

How high was the birth rate in Canada on Tuesdays of 1943?

Ninety-eight!

You’ll look like a genius.

5. Bring an audio translator.  Lift it high in the air, and allow it to translate your professor’s lecture into Arabic.  Hand in the transcript after class for bonus marks.

6. Bring at least five bags of potato chips, preferable the really noisy Sun Chips bags.  Pick out four other students beside you, making sure that they can keep rhythm.  Distribute the bags and pretend you’re in a band.  The person with the rhythm is on drums.

7. You’ll need a pair of glittery red shoes.  If the prof calls on you, close your eyes and click your heels three times repeating, “There’s no place like home.”  Sit near the aisle so you can show off your shiny red shoes.

8. Bring a day planner!  Remove the binder ring/phone cord thingy.  Fold each page in half and see how many levels you can make on your tower.  Current 2011 record – 4 levels!

9. Be environmentally friendly.  Instead of buying a big binder to take notes in, buy three colors of post it notes.  Green means important.  Yellow is for factoids such as the minute that the last bullet of World War II was fired from a gun without dust on it (hint: think Monday).  And pink is extraordinarily hard to read from, so use those on your fellow student’s foreheads at random moments during the class.  Throw the green post-it notes away.

10.  Haikus are crucial to learning.  Make statements in class structured only in haiku. The rhythm of such wonderful poetry will lull the class into bliss, making them appreciate your input and vote you as “most likely to succeed at therapeutic counseling, working on CBC Radio 3 or hypnotizing Celine Dion and suggesting that she appear on the next Teletubbies movie.

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The problem with history is that there is no warm up. No stretching exercises. You warmup for gym class, right? Algebra? What about French literature?

But never for History. Why is that?

You end up going to class and being lulled into oblivion with no warmup. No wonder it hurts! So let me save you the pain and agony of your slide into semi-consciousness. Consider this your warmup lap.

You’re welcome.

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…are necessary. And fun.

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I’m in my thirties now. I have moved beyond the complaining years of my twenties, where I found that “something that sucks” related to anything I wasn’t interested in or didn’t want to put the effort into. I should be mature now. Right?

Since I’ve gone back to school, I’ve found (and shared) my thoughts on “higher” education. So if you’re a faithful reader, expect a few more sarcastic offerings on my perspectives on university (of which, you’ll remember, I have a self-appointed doctorate of university). Which brings me to my experience in this last semester. I treat education as my job because, in the end, it will hopefully get me a job. And while I sit here, in my first class of the semester, I have listened to a deeply monotoned professor talk about toasters and ice boxes in the 1940s for 43 minutes. Deeply passionate, I suspect. But nothing is translated into words. Or perhaps too much is translated into words, and that is the problem. The drone of the lecture is the favored format in University circles, as if by expounding on the greatness of suburbanization and how it affects my ability to eat a three-year old cheeseburger will change my eating habits as an individual.

Or perhaps it will. Perhaps I’m just complaining, and when I listen to slow speaking droning, it is much the same as when I listen to CBC radio – in the background, as filler, while I go about my day. For now, allow me to bless your day with a quickly crafted desktop freebie containing an important life lesson. Enjoy.

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