I just got out of History Of Popular Music, and man, I am walking on air, because I am sure I am going to love the fuck out of this course.

So thanks, Glouberman. Your total incompetence led me to, like, the best course EVER.

Perhaps I should back up and explain.

Last night, I bit the bullet and De-glouberman’d my school schedule. That meant dropping two courses and finding replacements.

So essentially, I had to do the Fifth Course Quest TWICE. Oy vey!

After many dead ends, I came across this course called History Of Popular Music. I read the course description and it sounded too good to be true. A whole course about the history of rock and roll? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

And miracle of miracles, it fit into my schedule. Yay! The only catch was that it was on Fridays at 10 am. Oh well, I guess I will survive getting up earlier one day a week.

Only later, after signing up for it, that this meant I had to be up for 10 today. Whoopsie! Oh well, go with the flow. I set an alarm on my tablet (ended up not needing it… story of my life), got up, got there, and settled in.

And it was awesome. The prof is way cool. Totally a music nerd like me (except she has like 25 years of experience as a jazz bassist, dancer, and songwriter, and one of her songs got nominated for a Juno). I feel very simpatico with her. She rocks.

And she is adorkable. Kwantlen seems to have a never ending supply of petite, perky, adorkable lady profs. I must say I approve.

And as I suspected, the course is extremely groovy. She went to lengths to explain that she wasn’t interested in being the all-knowing authority figure we have to please in order to win the approval of the system. She said it’s an easy course and she is fine with that. She is more interested in “provoking” us into self-expression as we have fun while learning about the history of popular music.

So like I said… very groovy. I feel slightly stoned just from typing it. I wouldn’t want all my courses to be like that (I kind of like focus and discipline at reasonable levels) but for just this one course, it seems like molto fabuloso to me, compadre.

Something something PIZZA!

As if to cement how simpatico we are, she asked us to write down our five favorite bands, which would be impossible for me, but then she said it was cool if it was just five bands we thought were great, and that I could handle. In order to further cut it down to something manageable, I decide I would stick with Canadian bands. Here’s my list :

1. The Rheostatics – because of course
2. The Tragically Hip – Ditto
3. Moxy Fruvous – my furry namesake
4. Arrogant Worms – my Canadian comedy entry, and
5. Bourbon Tabernacle Choir

And she claimed she had heard of all of them… even the Bourbons! I had unintentionally created a five question hipness test, and she passed with flying colors.

And that led to us talking for like half an hour after class as she packed up and such. It was exhilarating. I don’t think I have ever had such a good discussion about music with someone I have just met in my life.

Plus, she and I are roughly the same age, I think. She talked about her parents playing their Steely Dan records when she was a kid, and that would make her a child of the 70’s just like me.

So I think I am going to really enjoy the course. Be at school for 10 am on Fridays? No freaking problem.

The other course I signed up for as a part of the de-Globermanification of my schedule is, oddly enough, the same Linguistics course that was the first one I dropped ages ago, after the first edition of the Quest for a Fifth Class. Somehow, this time through, I was able to fit into my schedule no problem. So I will be taking what amounts to Linguistics 101 this semester.

Oh, and I had the presence of mind to call up the bookstore and tell them to cancel my orders for the Gloubermanthing’s texts and add the one for my groovy new music course.

Relatedly, I ended up arranging to just pick up my books at the bookstore, no shipping, totally by accident. I got a phone call saying that my books were all at the Richmond bookstore (because I am only taking classes in Richmond and bookstore only stock the books for the courses taking places in their schools), and they could ship them to Surrey then ship them to me, unless I would rather just pick them up….

And of course, I would. I could have done it today, but I didn’t feel up to it. I will do it Monday.

One weird thing : on the phone, the bookstore employee assured me that they would not actually charge me for the books till I arrived to pick them up.

I didn’t say anything at the time, but it dawned on me later that when I ordered the books, the money left my bank account right away. So from my point of view, I’ve already paid them.

And I sure as hell ain’t paying for them twice. We are talking about $300 worth of texts here.

Oh well, the girl I talked to today said she will get it all sorted out before I come to pick up my books on Monday. And I believe her.

It could be that the money is still sitting there on my credit card. Due to the incomprehensible fact that the website for my credit card has been down for months, I have not checked out the balance lately.

So this could all me much ado about not much. (Psych!).

I am looking forward to my semester one hundred percent now. Assuming the linguistics prof is more competent than Glouberman (which is setting the bar so low you’d need ground penetrating radar to find it), the next four months are looking fabulous.

And what more can you ask for?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.