D2L dot gives student actual heart attack

By Jill Girgulis, May 10 2016 —

Exams wrapped up a few weeks ago, but that didn’t stop one student from feeling the effects of the notorious red dot.

Third-year health sciences major Tina Lang experienced minor cardiac arrest on Monday evening after logging on to her Desire2Learn account for the 47th time to see if her BCEM 394 grade had “finally been fucking posted.”

“I’m feeling better now,” Lang said. “I had this crazy out-of-body experience. My life — mostly images of me studying the biological mechanisms of metabolism — flashed before my eyes.”

Lang is 21 years old with no previous indications of heart disease.

“I think it’s a fear conditioning thing,” Lang said. “For the last three years, I’ve unintentionally trained my body to seize up whenever the little red dot appears on my D2L page.”

Taylor Family Digital Library staff member Suzanne Greenfield discovered Lang sprawled on a desk in front of the Student Success Centre around 4 p.m. Greenfield initially thought Lang was just taking a nap. She determined she was unresponsive when she poked her with a pen.

“At that moment, she didn’t really look like a successful student,” Greenfield said.

Lang’s phone, tablet, laptop and smart watch all displayed the UCalgary D2L homepage.

“It was pretty terrifying,” Greenfield said.

Lang will begin rehabilitation next week. She also has plans to help future students avoid the heart-stopping effect of the D2L notification.

“I’m working on an app that turns my phone into a kind of pacemaker,” she said. “That way, whenever a D2L alert comes in, my heart rate will adjust accordingly.”

Lang envisions a future career in biomedical engineering. She already has plans to market the life-saving device.

“I’m calling it ‘Desire2Live’,” Lang said.

In all the excitement, Lang forgot to actually read the posted BCEM 394 grade on D2L.

This article is part of our humour section.