On the brighter side of this Wednesday the 15th (Tax Day), the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University will be holding a final exam for one of their very important newer courses; Sneakerology 101.

Sneakerology 101 is a real accredited course in it’s second year facilitated by CMU’s StuCo (Student College) program in which students can create and teach a course covering a subject not currently offered by the University. Credit sneaker-heads Elliot Curtis and Jesse Chorng for bringing Sneakerology to academic life. Their course runs through sneaker culture from the 70s on NYC ball courts, into design, manufacturing, labor issues, up to the present day hyper-marketing that has your 3 year old nephew sporting baby shell-toes. The one and only Bobbito Garcia was a guest lecturer for the class recently and this final sure doesn’t sound dreadful at all- it’s dubbed Kicksburgh 2009, and Wednesday from 6-9pm in the Skibo Gym there’ll be music, breakers, artists, vendors and more festivities centered around the interest and dedication folks share for their footgear and the individuality kicks can express. There will be a shoe-drive to benefit Soles4Souls, a non profit entity that provides kicks to natural disaster victims in the third-world, and probably the squeaks of enough Nikes to telepathically make Phil Knight perma-grin. Basically anyone who fails this course is certainly doomed to a life of limping around wearing $2.99 thong flip-flops, then straight to velcro-strap orthopedic bobos. Study long, study wrong, and don’t forget clean socks!