The Ways of the Cat

**About two years ago, Kate K. (the professor-to-be) decided that for any man to truly understand and appreciate me, The Cat, she would need to come up with a graduate-level course and a syllabus where he could learn and be tested before being passed on to final approval by me. Kate and I recently went all retro for some reason (do you remember how it came up?) and dug it up. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure. Oddly enough, it needed very little revision to be relevant two and a half years later.
********
The Ways of Cat 440

Required reading for this Independent Study/Course Hybrid:

The Three Sisters Stories (written by Cat)
Cat’s Adventures (written by Cat)
*Cat’s Blog, “The Indomitable Optimist” (written by Cat)
Selected novels at Cat’s discretion, including, but not limited to Mill on the Floss (by GEORGE ELIOTT)

Grading: Pass/Fail

Week 1:
Catisms and Catoglyphics: Learn invaluable terminology to facilitate conversion with Cat. Learn unique spelling rules and typographical error decoding skills in order to understand what Cat is saying.

Week 2:
Practicum: Given three-to-five samples of Cat’s e-mails, decode literal meaning of each.

Week 3:
*You should be leaving substantive, reassuring comments on Cat’s blog by this point. Minimum of 2 such comments a week.

Week 4:
Nuance of Catoglyphics: based on a series of guest lecturers’ perceptions of Cat as relayed via anecdotes, you will ascribe contextual nuance to writing samples that will be furnished at the outset of the lecture.

Week 5:
Practicum: In-class essay comparing and contrasting any two of the Three Sisters Stories. Thematically, you should address and discuss the evolution of Cat’s progress on the “I Suck Cycle Continuum.”

Week 6:
Practicum: Go on a date with Cat. (NB: Do not call excessively afterwards!)

Week 7:
Go CD shopping for an album you think encapsulates an element of Cat. Come to class prepared to share snippets of the recording and discuss relevance to Cat.

Beyond Week 7:

Independent Study Component to be comprised of intense, personal, quality time (including, but not limited to deft, thrilling, make out sessions). At this time, you should begin work on a comprehensive Thesis about Cat and your intentions toward her, given all of your research (ongoing).

Bi-monthly meetings should be schedule with Course Facilitator to help shape and guide research.

Completion of Thesis:

Marriage (at Cat’s discretion)