Hate

I Hate the University of Oregon

Look no further for absolute proof of the scholastic vapidity, cultural emptiness, and general worthlessness of the UO.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In a rather lame attempt to strengthen this editorial's overall argument, neither a spell nor grammar checker was used during its composition or subsequent publication. To my knowledge, this article has not been copy edited. I, Brandon Hartley, have spent almost three years and $34,000 here at the University of Oregon in order to receive an "education." Prepare to be shocked at my inability to not only spell words such as "mediocrity," but my weak attempt at a producing a cohesive argument after nine terms of supposedly learning how to do so. Marvel at my poor grammar, nonexistent paragraph breaks and complete unwillingness to back up my statements with facts or even logic. I'm offering up my own ignorance accompanied by a list of contrived grievances in order to prove a point: the University of Oregon is a haven for frauds and dumbasses just like me. I'm three easy terms away from earning a degree in English and I still don't know what an "iambic pentameter" is. If I can graduate in good academic standing, anyone can.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We took Mr. Hartley's note seriously and respected his wishes. We also regret the "delusional" remark. We are bad, we are bad, we are bad, we are bad, we are....

Welcome to the West Coast's premiere apex of sub-mediocraty. If you're reading this on campus, take a look around. Doesn't everything suck? The chair you're sitting in: it's probably covered in 20 year old mocha stains. The building you're killing time between classes in? It's probably in dire need of several million dollars worth of repairs. All those smelly people standing over there? They probably just turned in papers stolen off the internet in order to spend more of their free time listening to Dave Matthew's Band bootlegs. In fact, when you give a little thought, this whole friggin' place blows. The professors, the students, the architecture, even the squirrels - everything. If you haven't already come to terms with the fact that the University of Oregon is far from the best place to get your degree, now is as good a time as any.

The following is a list of twelve things (out of an estimated total 22,435) that make attending the University of Oregon a complete waste energy, your parent's money, your youth and time that could be better spent figuring out how repair a '67 Buick Lesabre using only a weed eater and a handful of scratch and sniff stickers.

12. No other building in Eugene quite captures the mood of the city as a whole like the EMU. The student union here is as ugly as it is useless. The exterior looks like it was designed by incredibly depressed kindergarteners. Sure, a decent SU should offer more than mere asthetics but the EMU's interior can't divvy up good looks or anything of much use either (the building houses most if not all of the University's student organizations. Need more be said?). The whole place looks like it's being held together with rubber cement and Bubble Tape. Dispite years of problems with leaks in the main hall the same moldey rain buckets sit where they've sat since I enrolled. The "Whatever-the-Hell-It-is" thing that's been hanging from the top of the skylight looks like it'll collapse after another term's worth of dust. What would John Belushi do if he were still around to start food fights in the fishbowl? He probably wouldn't bother, considiring that the only things to toss are $6 dollar fruit drinks and stir-fried Holy Cow crapulence. He'd probably argue that his time and money could be better spent on blow and hookers. I have been to Oregon State University. I have learned their ways, studied their habits and shat in their Student Union. Did you know they've got a bowling alley up there? A real, 3 dimensional bowling alley complete with shiny balls and pins! All our pathetic EMU has is an empty pool hall and a lame-ass coffee shop filled with Elliot Smith wannabes.

11. The professors? Most of them likely received their doctorates from universities not unlike this one and it shows. They probably had to defend the bloody things in front of panels consisting of tenured hacks not unlike the ones they've gone on to become. When was the last time you found yourself enspired by a professor at the University of Oregon? Probably never. Why? Because the faculty doesn't give a shit. Every instructor I've taken a class from have seemed as unenspired and beaten down as an aging circus elephant . And they've really got no reason to be so damned banal. What do these people do all term? They spend at the most 4 hours in the classroom per week and, if they feel like it, an additonal 2 hours in their offices. You're average profesor can't spend all that much time grading papers. Every essay I've ever bothered to pick up had maybe a few incoherent sentences written in red ink and accompanied by a dozen incoherent squiggles in the margains. At the most these people work 10 hours a week, 20 if their really zealous and willing to teach two classes a term. To add insult to injury, the average professor probably takes home $40,00 a year for working only part time (Research? Bah, that's no excuse). And on top all this most of the ones I've come across have proven to be hypocritcal morons. Last week I found myself being chewed out by an English professor for sleeping through a class. Given the man's piss poor teaching skills and inability to back up his profound conspirecy theories with anything resembling a fact, he probably spent his own undergraduate years doing the same.

10. The students? Well they suck too. It seems that the huddled masses here at the U of O primarely come in one of three breeds: the Greek, the Stoner and the Activist. The Greeks are a harmless bunch. They tend to keep to themselves over there on Frat Row. They're hardly the Alpha Beta-types that scared the apple juice out of me when I first saw Revenge of the Nerds at the age of 6. Every once and a while they poke their heads out of their cute little houses in order to elect ASUO execs and to look for new recruits for their zenophobic herds but other than that, you never hear a peep out of them. The Stoners, are harmless as well but they're about fifty billion times more ennoying. They're all over the place and there's no escaping them. Every nook and crany of the dorms and the outlying east university neighborhood is filled with the little bastards. But they too tend to keep to themselves and only come out into daylight for Cheetos and of course, more pot The Activists, on the other hand, are more than willing to make enough noise to make up for the apathey of all the rest. While I'm all for civil disobedeince, these kids just aren't very good at it. They got off on the right foot with the WRC protest but completely blew it after they ran out of people willing to get dragged out of Johnson Hall. Sure their 2 week sit-in successfully brought the WRC to the U of O but where was all the violence and tear gas? Sitting around in tents, drunk on your own sense of self-rightousness (and overpriced berry beer) does not make for a very entertaining protest. In the future I sincerely hope these people are willing to get shot with rubber bullets for what they supposedly believe in.

9. Towards the end of winter term, one of my professors brought her adorable puppy to class. In the middle of the lecture, the poor thing's bladdar began acting up. My professor let the puppy out of its carrier, unaware of its intentions. The puppy proceeded to hop around for a moment before urinating all over the place. If this anecdote doesn't prove this University's lax attitude towards a offering proffessional, conductive learning environment I don't know what will.

8. The whole university is falling apart and needs something like $92 billion trillion dollars to keep several of its buildings from falling down like so many Jenga towers. I don't know about you, but there's nothing I love more than spending $4500 a year in tuition to sit in a cramped, decomposing classroom unable to hear a professor's droll lecture because the radiaters are screeching like a thousand drunken soccer hooligans.

7. This one is sort of a epiloge to number 6. The U of O places its athletik programs on a pedestal while pretty much ignoring its acadamecs. Don't believe this indefensible and equally vague statement? The university doesn't have money to fix up its acadamec halls but is there any doubt that the administration will scrap together the cash to continue work on Autzen stadium?

6. There's a rotting cemetary in the middle of campus. Talk about the perfect reminder of one's mortality. Nothing says "you're wasting your life" quite like a poorly mantained graveyard. The broken headstone covered in red graffeti is especially inspiring on a rainy Febuary afternoon after a grueling midterm.

5. The University of Oregon is or rather was way, way too relieant on Phil Knight's handouts. But does anymore really need be said about this? Didn't think so.

4. 3 words and a blank: I AGREE WITH ______.

4. Here you're nothing more than a number. This a cookie cutter university that treats its students more like cattle than...

Hold that thought. I just reached 1,405 words, a good 5 words over the standard length of a given Commentator article. That means I can stop here and go watch the Powerpuff Girls. Sure, I've got three and a half more diatribes to go but I've complete the bare minimum of what I was asked of me. What more do you want? Like you'd keep going yourself, you little hypocrite. Shouldn't you be half-assing a chemistry assignment or smoking a bowl? That's right, bucko, turn the page and keep on "procrastinating."

Brandon Hartley, a junior majoring in English (!), is Associate Editor for the Oregon Commentator