All of my professors have been unusually and unnecessarily punitive in their grading standards this year. This is awful. At this rate, how will half the class of 2011 graduate with honors like the previous classes?
Aside from being detrimental to my ability to graduate with an inflated grade point average under my belt and no real knowledge in my head, my bad grades are the mark of something more sinister looming on the horizon.
I have noticed that it is not just my professors that have been giving out more lackluster marks. These ugly red marks are a campus phenomenon, which can only mean one of several things: either the professors have raised their standards or the rest of the student body has gotten much more intelligent during the summer and left me behind.
But I believe the more probable answer is that the professors are under the dark influence of the year of the ox’s closing.
At this point, Whitworth's incredibly homogenous white student body most likely has no idea what I am talking about. Let me enlighten you poor folks living in darkness.
The Chinese calendar is governed by twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac. It really is nothing like Western astrology.
Instead of absolutely credible entities such as the centaur archer Sagittarius and the horned sea goat Capricorn, we have mundane farm animals and vermin to represent our birth years and regular years, such as pigs and rats.
There's also a tiger and a dragon, but that is beside the point. Unfortunatly for us, the year 2009 is the year of the ox, which sounds fairly ordinary, but has fatal consequences for most.
Oxen are governed by the element water. Water is associated with the north, winter, black tortoises, the planet Mercury, the color black, the kidneys, and the excretory system. Good to know in case a mystic ox come charging at you from the depths of the horizon.
In ancient Chinese lore, the end of the year of the ox will be marked with the shrieking and baleful wailing of four million Chinese babies, their glowing red eyes signaling the end of a world order while fiery sulfur and the wrath of five thousand purple dragons thunder from the sky.
Baal screams and causes simultaneous drought and flooding to occur in fertile deserts of Mongolia while fox fairies screech through the Daoist temples stealing the essences of men.
All in all, it is extremely unpleasant, but nothing to be exceedingly concerned about, save for the fact that they will affect everyone's grades this year.
Expecting a 4.0 this semester? Dream big, literally. The only way this frightful catastrophe may be avoided is if the rat and rooster constellations align at a 47 degree angle on a Tuesday.
According to the mysterious “Table of the Sixty Year Calendar,” and in keeping with the omens that accompany the close of an ox year, it is said that when Saturn aligns with the Red planet and the yellow dragon constellation, harmony will be replaced by strife and the qi of educators will be displaced until further notice.
According to the calculations I have made at home, Saturn is aligned with the Red planet and the yellow dragon constellation.
Everything becomes painfully clear. Dr. Anthony Clark, professor of history, is grading my papers harshly because his chi is misplaced, placed perhaps in a sock drawer or in a teapot for safe keeping.
I didn’t get a bad grade on an essay because I did it the night before; it’s because the heavens mandated that harmony will be disrupted and replaced by trials and tribulations.
This clearly is the most plausible answer. My presentation group in my comparative politics class didn't get a mediocre grade because we didn't read the syllabus; Patrick Van Inwegen's qi has simply checked out for the week.
I must make amends. A black tortoise’s kidney must be sacrificed to the professors in the middle of the loop for the good of the students. Only then can the qi of all the campus professors be returned to them.
I know what I'll be doing this Thanksgiving break. Instead of actually studying and working on my research papers to boost my grades, I must burn paper money to the ox spirits and my ancestors in an effort to harness the powers of divine intervention for my grades.
Everyone knows that's the best way to get an "A."
Contact Iris Wu at iris.wu@whitworthian.com.
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