“A, A, A, A, A, A, A,” said one affected professor.
Photo by Amit Roth
At the beginning of the winter quarter, second-year student Eva Graveller learned that VIS 153: Film Study in American Comedy requires participation via iClicker. She recounts, “It was, I wanna say, 11 p.m. on the Sunday before classes started when I found out. I ordered mine from Wish.com, ’cause I’m sure as hell not paying full price for anything in college when I can find a fix online. I was lucky that the guy was desperate or something and responded quick, saying he could deliver it to me in 10 minutes. Well, next thing I know, I’m manipulating the flow of spacetime!”
Graveller’s iClicker can reportedly pause, rewind, and accelerate the passage of time. “Comes in handy when Teach goes on to the next slide too fast,” Graveller explained while describing her newfound powers, “and parts that were a bore before just fly by now … honestly every class should require an iClicker.”
Her use of the remote has persisted outside the lecture hall and is “pushing the buttons” of students on campus. An anonymous protester remarked, “Eva thinks she’s bulletproof. She has over 50 ‘first tries’ at everything. She stole gum from Chuck and Larry, copied Jack and Jill’s homework, and Billy Madison … I think she was testing the iClicker delete button on him.” Many people have attempted to explain to Graveller the alleged “consequences of playing God,” including her roommate, Paula Dart, who commented, “I tried telling her what happens to Adam Sandler by the end of the movie Click, but Eva said she doesn’t watch ‘kiddy’s first PG-13 movies,’ even though I damn well know she was assigned to watch that movie for VIS 153. Anyways, then she just mutes me. Mutes me! We can’t ever settle anything like grown-ups.”
“Eva does not seem to be taking the situation remotely seriously!” exclaimed Graveller’s mother. “I heard she was having trouble at school. I try to help her, but she answers my texts with A through E responses. Sorry, this is all very confusing.” Graveller’s mom continued, “Even more disturbingly, the only thing I got from my Eva was that she was planning to hold down the forward button on her iClicker and fast-forward through the quarter to be done with finals. I told her she can try, but you don’t mess with the chronon.”
Only hours later, Graveller returned from the future. “After I skipped to spring break, I thought to skip to when I get my degree. Then to when I get a nice job. But then I thought about it more — why would I want to work? So I kept going, trying to find when I can stop having to work and worry,” Graveller said. “There was nothing,” she continued solumnly. “I have met face to face with the self-perpetuating cycle of suffering and with my own mortality. My power-hungry id has been overtaken by hubris,” she stated. “It then clicked: Teach was right. We have a lot to learn from movies.”
Now that Graveller’s “eight crazy nights” of godhood are over, the fate of the infamous iClicker is up in the air. Afraid that “breaking it would create a black hole,” Graveller decided to donate her magical remote to the professor of her film studies course, who can now fulfill his dream of pausing time and watching every movie ever made.
Amit is a cog in this machine. But doesn't everything run on optic cables or something?
