Letters to University Administrators: John Q Pierce

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

After my worst semester in most regards, last week really fell into place for me. I had about ten things that could have gone terribly wrong before I left for the holiday on Friday afternoon, but none of them did. None. This was a semester in which everything went wrong for me, often in ways that would have seem contrived for a Vince Vaughn Christmas movie. But look, my crazy part-Maori professor actually liked my half-assed paper on Smash Palace. John Glavin actually liked my half-assed short film that was the opposite of what he asked it to be. Ray Danieli did me a solid on the "ten" work-sanction "hours" I "did" for him. And, somehow, I got all the classes for which I registered.

This is a travesty.

Thus, I turn my attention to University Registrar John Q Pierce. Who the hell does this guy think he is? He knows he's not supposed to give me the classes I want. He's supposed to give me the two classes I changed my mind about taking after submitting the pre-registration and not give me the classes I really wanted to take and ranked up near the top. This is the biannual tradition: I try really hard to try to guess which of the classes I want to take people will be interested in, but it doesn't even matter if I'm right because the registration computer finds a way to completely fuck up my schedule.

According to the directory listing for Pierce, the letter "Q" is his middle name. Not even a period; that's it. Who is he, Harry Truman? A secret agent? Well, this is the first result for a Google Image search:


So Q is a double agent now? Why has he betrayed James O'Donnell and Her Majesty (actually, the same person) to give me, Britain's enemy, a perfect, impossibly easy yet undeniably major-satisfying schedule? There's only one way to find out: Go straight to the top, to Q himself!

The following e-mail was sent to John Q Pierce. If he responds, I'll include it later.


Mr Pierce:

I have a major complaint about your registrarring. This upcoming semester, seemingly when I needed it most, I wound up with a perfect schedule. Everything that I wanted. Multiple classes that filled up quickly and now have people suffering on their waitlists, I got in.

I ask you: What is your angle, Mr Pierce?

I have always wound up with poor pre-registration results. I have always had to completely re-work my schedule with the classes that still had open space after pre-registration. I have tried to get the popular professors, the professors you are supposed to take in your given field before graduating from Georgetown, and I have always been stuck with some second-rate foreign import or inexperienced doctoral candidate. Mysterious, is it not, that you chose this semester to make everything perfect?

Mr Pierce, I managed to get the worst grades of my academic career this fall. I managed to have not one, but two, MacBooks of mine self-destruct, destroying precious notes needed for upcoming exams and academic papers and freelance writing that had not yet been handed in to their respective parties. And yet you decided to make things easy for me all of a sudden?

Starting to feel nervous, Mr Pierce?

Either you have a dark sense of humor, or you are working for the Russians. And if you do not tell me what the "Q" stands for, I will report you to the CIA.

Please remove me from all the classes I got into.


Jack Stuef


Also, let me note that there will not be another new issue of the Heckler before spring semester. Not that either of us cares.