The Beviad–musings, mutterings and myths

Well, I have to accept the fact that my being able to access Moodle is a sometime thing. Today I had to start up the computer again, the second time I wanted to access it, since I kept being told my password was invalid. Only then did it work like a breeze.

Meanwhile, I am very much enjoying the two courses that I am taking at Concordia University: Greek and Roman Epics, and Greek Drama. In the Epics course, we mainly listen to a lecture, although we are beginning to get the prof to discuss things—or answer questions, anyway. He was asked to teach this class on a week’s notice when its regular prof was made into a dean, so he is barely keeping up with us in his reading, but he does know the things to consider, or point out as he lectures. And the Iliad, which we are now reading, is a fascinating work, which I have read before, but don’t know much about. I still think that Achilles is like a highschool football player who is pouting on the bench, refusing to play even though his team in losing, and all because the coach stole his girlfriend, but I am amazed by how Homer makes each of the many deaths that are described accutely a personal one, and not just another death, ho hum. Each man, as he dies in some graphic way, is described in terms of his name, his birthplace, who his father was, what his situation was before he came to Troy, and so on, as if each man is considered important in his own way.

In the Drama course, we sit in a circle, about twenty of us. (I am clearly the eldest, but since this is a 330 level course, the other students seem very mature and knowledgeable. They have probably already studied at least one other Classics course, possibly my professor’s Greek Mythology course.) And he either puts us into groups of four, or we answer questions informally. The prof, Sean Gurd, is a young, boyish, enthusiastic man who really gets us to think hard and read the text of each play carefully. It is so wonderful to finally have a place to discuss with other adults on matters concerning literature that isn’t unfamiliar, but is still something that I have never studied formally before. I have looked at no secondary sources, either, for a change, so it’s just me and the text. And he’s the one who wants us to use Moodle to send him our homework and essays.

Yesterday I used the metaphor of Brigadoon to explain my feelings when I finally accessed Moodle, the site at Concordia where students can find their homework question posted and can ‘upload’ a file containing their answers to that question. The trouble was, I had yet to answer those questions, so I had nothing to upload yet. So I had to leave Moodle, hoping that I could find it again once I’d done the work.

Today, after hours of re-reading the play, completing the homework, putting it into a file, etcetera, I tried again to find Moodle. I couldn’t get my current password to work. I kept being told it was invalid. This has happened before. In fact, I’ve been given three new passwords over the last three weeks because my current one was deemed ‘involid’. It was so frustrating!

I kept carefully typing in my password, saying the letter aloud as I did so to ensure it was correct. But of course, all one sees are dots as one types, so there’s no way of knowing if you are somehow doing it incorrectly. (And by the way, what’s with the dots, anyway? It’s not as if I’m a spy and some nefarious enemy agent is reading over my shoulder. Why not show the letters I’m typing?

Finally, discouraged, I phoned the tech assistance line at Concordia, and was talked through the whole procedure by a very nice woman. It seems that I have to click ‘Preferences’ under my ‘Edit’, wherein I get a site that allows me to empty the ‘cache’ of my computer’s memory, which probably contained my previous passwords in it and was confusing to my computer. In any case, as my old iMac struggled through every stage of this procedure, and I again typed in my password, then got through the ‘Portal’ at Myconcordia, then found Moodle, then clicked on Homework Notes for today, then uploaded my file and sent it, I felt like someone in The DaVinci Code going through a long and coded procedure to get into a secret room, or to obtain some hidden casket that contains the Secret of the Universe.

I know, I know. It was only handing in my homework. But I’m a tyro when it comes to all this, and I really was happy when it all worked for a change. Will it happen next time I try? I can only hope so.

‘Moodle’ is the odd name of a computer system that is supposed to let me access online my Classics prof’s assignments for each next class. Until recently, it eluded me. Try as I did, I could only go so far. I assumed at first that this failure was because I didn’t have High Speed Internet. So I signed us up for it. No luck. It wasn’t even faster in letting me know that I couldn’t access. In fact, it told me very knowingly that I couldn’t do so because my computer couldn’t ‘accept cookies.”

Now, that is a lie. My old iMac has accepted cookies enough, over the course of its 8 yr. life, to have a teaparty for 10 with lots left over. Nevertheless, my computer, which I think of as Deus Ex Mac, said I couldn’t do it, so I accepted that. Instead, I asked John to do it on his computer out at Vanier. Funnily enough, he couldn’t do it either. Grrr.

But yesterday, dying to know what the assignment was for our study of “Agamemnon,” I tried to access it again. And lo, it appeared, like Brigadoon. I was so shocked that I almost lost it. I treated it like merangue as I tiptoed around on it, clicking this and that, looking for the assignment. (It’s not just a message giving the assignment, but also a bulliten board for future big assignments, like essays and tests).

Finally I found the ‘template’ that I was supposed to use while reading the play, then fill out with answers and somehow mail back to him. I tried to print it so as to have it with me as I read, but of course, my old Mac immediately froze in indignation at being asked to do such a thing. So I was forced to copy down the questions–and exit the site. I may never find it again, but there’s hope that it might appear again. Remember how Brigadoon reappears at the end of the movie, even though it shouldn’t do so for another hundred years, just so that the lovers can be together? Maybe I will be similarly lucky.

When Paze phoned on Wednesday to say there had been a shooting at Dawson College, I immediately thought of a student shooting a teacher over a bad grade. I don’t know why, since that has never happened at Dawson or at any other college as far as I know, but it seemed possible. It wasn’t until she explained that it was a Columbine-like shooting, and reminded me that her daughter Devon was there in daycare that I suddenly realized this was a Big Bad Event, with all the horror,blood, injuries, and no doubt lasting nightmares and psychological scarring that such a thing like that can bring.

Devon and the other little ones in her class were evacuated by the police to the church across the street, where they had fruit juice and sang songs to a piano. As a result, she thinks it was a ‘fun’ emergency, as she calls it, something like a fire drill mixed with a party. For everyone else, it was a much more serious experience I’m sure.

By yesterday, three days later, there were shrines set up at various places around the college. In the mistiness of yeserday morning’s light, little tea-light candles flickered in front of the many bouquets of flowers, taped notes and cards, even teddy bears that people had placed there. Regarding Anastacia DeSousa, the girl killed, there were signs that said things like “God needed another angel, so He called Stacy home to Heaven.” Very sad, but I suppose religious people have to have something to assure them that there is a logic, a meaning to senseless killings.

As for me, as an atheist I see in this event the very randomness of life. One minute these kids were talking, eating lunch and enjoying life; in the next, they were ducking bullets and getting shot, sometimes seriously. No god was deciding who would be shot and who wouldn’t be, or who would be killed. Even the killer seemed to have no particular logic in who he shot and who he spared. That is scary, but less scary than thinking that some Omnipotent Being is watching everything and allows this to happen, like some kind of emotionless monster, in order to test certain people, perhaps, or to sagely decide that it is time for some of them (currently in intensive care at hospitals around the city) should, after much sorrow and pain die.