After finally attending a lecture for POLI 227: Developing Worlds, Rachel Birkwire, a U0 student from “Toronto” (Oakville), said she is “actually really worried” about the current situation in Africa. Though she couldn’t be any more specific about which situation she was referring to, Birkwire said she thinks “we actually really need to tell somebody or have a bake sale or something.”
Birkwire explained that after attending the first lecture in order to find out what would be required of her to pass the class, she didn’t attend any lectures until the midterm. Birwkire said that her Bikram yoga class is “at the same time as the class, well, not at the same time, but [she] actually really needs to cool down after the class,” and decided that physical attendance to the class was not feasible.
Birkwire planned to get all the notes from WebCT, but began to encounter some trouble trading notes when her only bartering chip was a set of notes she took summarizing the content of the course syllabus.
“I actually really didn’t know what to do,” said Birwkire. “So my friends Michelle and Stacey told me to actually go to class and I was actually really excited to learn about Africa because I love The Lion King. I know it’s animated or whatever, but it’s actually really such a good movie.”
But all the dreams and fantasies of the Africa sketched out in the classic Lion King movie were dashed after Birkwire attended her first real lecture. Images and statistics of famine, disease, and general unpleasantries were revealed to Birkwire, who had a difficult time maintaining composure throughout the lecture.
“I actually really don’t totally remember what the lecture was about, something like trade or gold or something,” she said. “I couldn’t pay attention after they told us about how hungry people are. Right then and there I put down my Venti Moccachino because you might not believe me, but I was actually really not even hungry anymore. And you can ask Michelle, I love Starbucks.”
“Yes,” said Michelle Greenburg, a close friend of Birkwire who has been known to call Birkwire “kind of a bitch” behind her back. “She actually really loves Starbucks.”
Ralph Bonet said the course syllabus is roughly the same as it has been in previous years, with no alterations made to “scare” the students.
“Yes, I understand that Africa has some problems, that’s why I’m teaching the class,” Bonet said. “But I kind of thought everyone else also sort of knew about it too.”
Bonet also explained that the lecture Birkwire had attended was most likely on the lower end of the frightening spectrum and her attendance at some of the more “intense” lecture may have been very startling for her.
“Well, I’m not trying to scare them, but some of this [expletitive deleted] is pretty [expletive deleted] up,” Bonet added.
Birkwire said she has been spending the last several days on Yahoo Answers trying to learn more about the situation in Africa and plans to join “at least two” campus clubs that aim to help and provide support to people in Africa.
“We should hold a bake sale and have a party at a club,” Birkwire said. “I have this new dress I want to wear to a club and I actually really look so hot in it, and it would be good because Jimmy would see me and get so jealous about how hot I was looking. Also, we could give some of the money to Africa.”
