…Our hapless viewers were left in the clutches of the evil RAMMS, a course selection system so vile that it massacred a group of 213 first-year Ryerson students upon sight. Those that survived were left with mangled schedules, missing courses, and a mixture of depression and rage that could only be matched by the protective instincts of a motherly bird. All of this combined simply confirms my long-standing assumption that universities are instruments of both Cthulu and Satan, intended to cause as much pain and hardship to idealistic, innocent students as possible.

I can still remember what I was doing last year when the course selection window for first-year Ryerson students went live. Of all the places to be, I was on vacation. The time was 4AM. A rainstorm like no other – the lightning and hail dancing darkly – lit up the sky. I sat in my van, about twenty minutes from the cottage we were staying in, borrowing wifi off a lakeside surf shop. Thinking back, I’d love to know the reason behind placing a surf shop beside a lake devoid of any waves whatsoever. However, logic be damned – the fact that I was forced to determine my first-year fate in such laughable conditions was already illogical enough.

RAMMS, to me, seems to be the product of a programmer who forgot that computers were supposed to make our lives easier. We can map the human genome, render photo-realistic worlds not unlike our own, and yet, you’re telling me that we can’t delay the launch of a course selection system? Apparently not. The system still taunts us, of course – the enrollment appointment is said to start at 8AM. But anyone who’s been through this madness before knows that such times are just a formality.

So, if it makes the creatures of Hades smile and dance at my displeasure, I imagine I’ll be up at some ungodly hour this morning once again, my eyes as bloodshot and red as the netherworld from which RAMMS was forged.