Cursed be the technologies

I got this in an e-mail this morning. JAT 399 is the course designation for an internship.

In addition to needing JAT 399 in summer, you also need your second LINGUISTICS course for the BA."
- C.H. (my adviser)



I blinked, stared and immediate felt my heart launch itself into orbit.

No. No! NOOOOOOO!!! NOT STUCK HERE FOR ANOTHER SEMESTER!

I ran upstairs (C.H.'s office is right above mine) and practically erupted into her domain.

"Linguistics course? What? Huh?"

She explained to me that she had run me through on APEX, which is the university's bug-ridden degree audit system.

"But... I tested out of Spanish using my Advanced Placement courses in high school. It got me through Spanish 202."

It also saved me from having to endure Spanish III. That class was pretty much the worst thing ever, taught by a subhuman neanderthal of a man with Coke-bottle glasses and hair growing out of his shirt up his back like the ivy at Keeneland (this is an honest-to-God stand-up comic line used by a friend of mine after he had the same prof). This guy also had the most horrific habit of mumbling. I live with two native Spanish speakers and even I couldn't understand this guy. He also had a no-help-from-anyone policy on our papers and was aware of my parents' linguistic past and he just absolutely could not believe that my writing was that much better in Spanish than my speaking. By the time he got around to insinuating that I was cheating, I knew it was time to make like a baby and head out.

The next year I learned that the AP exam credit had been expanded to cover third- and fourth-year Spanish, so it was all good anyway.

Anyway, C.H. pulled my transcript at my request (which was really a well-disguised NO-WAY-IN-ALL-THE-FLAMING-SANDS-OF-ARABIA-AM-I-STAYING-HERE-FIND-THE-TRANSCRIPT order).

Sure enough, there was my Spanish credit.

With that brush fire out, I returned to my desk where the e-mail was still open. Now able to laugh about it, I replied to her e-mail.

April Fools was a week ago
- D

Her reply was:

This was a test of the emergency heart-failure system....this was only a test.....
- C.H.

Four more weeks...