skysenshi.com

AY2009-2010 classes have already begun waaay waaay back, but it’s only now that I’ve managed to deconstruct what has been happening in my UP life.  It all began when I was pre-enlisting. I could only pre-enlist 2 Mass Comm subjects since I’m required to take the Qualifying Exam before I can proceed with the rest of my coursework. (After that, it’s Comprehensive Exams…*shudder*)

So to fill up the last three units (I always take 9 units load), I decided to take my first cognate. In UP, cognates are the electives you take outside of your college. PhD Communication requires 9 units of cognates. So if I’m majoring in interactive storytelling, I should be taking up cognates in UP College of Arts and Letters. But no. The moment I saw this: “WD 227: Gender and Sexuality”, under the UP College of Social Work and Community Development, I just had to click on the link and pre-enlist. LOL!

It’s a master’s course, but the only reason I’m allowed to take this is the fact that:

1. There are very few PhD cognates to choose from.
2. The professor is a doctor. She’s an MD, PhD.

I was aghast at the class size, though. 24 students! That’s triple the size of a regular graduate class. The prof had the same reaction. She joked that next time, she’d add “Sexuality” to the other subject titles as well.  She wanted to divide the class in half and have the rest transfer to another subject, especially the Mass Comm students (since we’re not WD majors). Unfortunately, the PhD students couldn’t budge because we cannot enroll in masteral courses if the professor isn’t a doctor. I also had to come up with an excuse about my dissertation being connected to the course just so I could stay put. (Well…actually, I really was changing the slant of my dissertation to involve women and sexuality since video games are a land mine for this kind of study.)

Of course, the subject was one major KALOKANESS. We were asked simple questions, but everyone — except the Mass Comm students — just seemed to be either outing someone or saying really personal stuff (which I’m not going to post here because I’m supposed to be under oath of confidentiality).

So what were the Mass Comm students to do? Well, I don’t know if the prof noticed it but we sort of ask the other students more questions while divulging very little sexual information about ourselves. It’s either we’re just really curious or it’s just Mass Comm’s habit of being scientific about everything. The course itself has very strong emotional ties and it’s taking us a while to immerse ourselves instead of acting like research scientists on a mission.

Another KALOKANESS. When the prof was distributing reporting assignments, the Mass Comm students were the first to volunteer.  Chitchat and Milflor immediately took dibs on “Beauty and Self Image”.

When she announced, “Ok, session 14, Pornography. Who’s taking this?”  I was already waving my hand frantically even before she got through half her sentence. Ei, I can use this thing. There’s a theoretical framework here and I want to discover it. Besides, I used to run a hentai site so this turf should be relatively easy to wade in.

I do know that this subject is a far cry from the grueling pace we have at Mass Comm. Everything in UP-CMC is just so cerebral. Reliability. Validity. Quantitative. Qualitative. Measurements. Chi-Square. It’s all so mathematical that you’d be shocked we’re talking about Communication. But at the UP-CSWCD, I find myself a bit more relaxed…if a bit nervous about all the estrogen emanating from the classroom.  I’d call it Lesbianation, but someone might say I’m being politically incorrect and tear my head off. 

(Ok, so what am I supposed to call it? It’s a building full of lesbians. It’s not like I didn’t live in The Providence Tower before…yet another Lesbianation. The Providence was scarier. There’d be overly macho butchessas brawling over flirty femmes every Saturday night. At least UP-CSWCD is full of intellectuals and pretty ones to boot.)