Big Brother's Watching

So my Music in American Cultures class is basically the most boring class I have ever taken. I would rather take Math, or Econ, or pretty much anything else out there before signing up for this class again. But alas, I have to take it to satisfy my American Culture requirement.

So for the past 3 weeks, for 1.5 hrs every Tuesday and Thursday, I have had to sit and listen to him ramble on about the importance of Appalachian folk music. He spent an entire lecture explaining rhythm. RHYTHM. It's where the down beats are placed guys, IT'S NOT HARD. I don't care if you're not a musician, you can't possibly be ignorant enough to need a 1.5 hr lecture explaining that. In addition, we have listened to the song Barbara Allan about 300 times. If you don't know that song, go listen to it on iTunes once and I promise that you will never want to hear it again. Now play it 299 more times.

So anyway today he finally switched to talking about the importance of African-American music. Joy of joys! I don't care how culturally significant the stylistic renditions of these songs are, because every single recording we have listened to has featured a terrible singer. I don't care if that's the original version, it still sucks. So now I have 2 more weeks of that to look forward to. For those of you reading this who know Ms. Lomax, you know that she taught us about African-American spirituals every year in chorus. It's not a concept I feel I need to review.

So today in class, I whip out my Mac and start playing a video game. Now, this is a lecture of about 500 students, and I'm sitting in the very back. I am making no noise, and disrupting no one. The kid next to me is asleep. About 1 hr later, some furious GSI comes and taps me on the shoulder and says, "DO NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES!"

I was stunned to say the least. I couldn't believe I had seriously received a reprimand in a college lecture. Most teachers stop caring if you pay attention your Senior year of high school, so why the hell should this grad student care? I'm 18, you can't force me to pay attention. Regardless, I guess I had missed the professor's entire speech about not doing things on our computer during class other than taking notes. But seriously, why the hell does he care either?! He has his GSI's sit amongst us and watch what we are doing during class which is seriously creepy and controlling. He needs to get over the fact that his class is boring and STOP WATCHING ME. If I want to go on Facebook because I can ace the class without doing any of the reading, or taking any notes on the stupid lecture, that's my prerogative. Until I start disrupting the learning process of other students, no one should care what I'm doing during class.

Oh and by the way, the kid next to me slept through the entire class.