Hm.

I just stepped outside to get the mail. Returning, the view of the living room was a pleasant one. It's starting to get dark out, and the lights inside looked homey. I like this house. I really do. It's got good memories attached to it, and moreover it's just a nice place. Living here this semester has been a lot better than switching houses. Next semester it looks like I'll be switching houses again. My schedule won't give me an excuse to stay only here, and I couldn't handle the fallout if I did. And then, next year I'll be off somewhere else. And that'll be great. But, this is the first time I've had a real attachment to a place. It's interesting.

I think perhaps when we moved from K's house, the reason I didn't kick up a fuss was because she was making TOO much fuss, and couldn't believe that I wasn't horrendously upset to be leaving. She never understood that it's people, not places, that lend things significance for me. But we moved, and it was fine. And now, here... I don't mind leaving. But L's looking at selling it. Which is her decision, and that's also fine, and it would be good for her and M to move in together and settle down. I'll admit that I don't entirely get him, but he's good for her, and I'm happy to see her happy. His kids are awesome, too, if all older than me. (I met them at Thanksgiving and was very nervous, but they were all perfectly friendly, and one is a huge geek.) Mostly, for a moment I could see IX and myself living here. I stayed home all day and did nothing today, but if I could copy-edit from home... this is a place I'd love to do it. But I'll be gone soon, and as much as I'd love it, I could hardly make enough to even cover the mortgage on this place, let alone rent it out. So it'll stay a nice memory. And I'll keep thinking that someday I'll have a place like this and realize that cozy image in my head. It'll be difficult. And nothing like what I hope; after all, it is an idealized picture... But I'll make it work. And maybe moving across the pond wouldn't be so scary after all. I guess we'll see.

Occupy Berkeley

Every time I go back, they seem to be more well-established, so good for them, I guess. No video this time, but I got some pictures. They're not nearly as big as Occupy Oakland (of which I'll try to get some video next week) but, to be fair, Oakland has all of Frank Ogawa Plaza, while Berkeley just has part of the Shattuck square area.

When I asked this guy if I could take his picture, he said, "Sure! ... If you can get it in the New York Times, that'd be even better!"

I started watching Marble Hornets

Why am I so stupid? Seriously. It's just ohgodsohgodsohgods for a couple minutes, and then, too fascinated to stop, I do it all over again. XD I'm on Entry 16, and I'm taking it in ten second increments because I can't handle any more than that.

That said, I really like it. XD Turns out there's this whole ARG around it/the slenderman. I need to look into this more. It's really neat.

Also, wish JPo could be here for our game in April. He's done a slenderman costume for a con before, and he would be perfect as one of the nightmares/Gloria's horrors. Oh, well. Time to suit up and head out to class.

Addendum: Did not suit up; ran out of time, still left late. Got to the train station, realized I didn't have enough on my card for the trip, spent enough time dithering to miss the buses of two separate lines, caught another one, spend half an hour in sweltering heat with a ringing in one ear. Joy. No real scares on the way, though; no one was wearing a suit, at all. The closest was a guy who was sitting behind me with a long coat, who tapped me on the shoulder and asked me for the time, but as he was a somewhat unkempt black man with a Dr. Pepper clutched in one hand, he hardly seemed Slendermanesque. Also, and old white guy crossing the street in a suit, but he had a baseball cap. Really, the thing that caught me out of the corner of my eye was passing a suit store, and a couple minutes later, a Men's Wearhouse. So, yeah, I'm good. Final verdict: Not scared, just overheated, 45 minutes late to class, and I walked in to hear my professor describing smegma. Yeah.

Wrote up a backstory for a character...

In a sort of ARG I'm playing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEqJeua-_1M if you're interested in what it's about), and decided that while not amazing, it's not bad, either. Writing it also helped me to feel better, so maybe I'm not entirely a non-creative after all. Huh.

-----------------------------------------------

I was never a normal child. That much can be said. While others were playing during recess and lunch, I would sit indoors and read. This prompted a certain amount of teasing which, I suppose, was inevitable, but I persevered and, I believe, grew the stronger for it.

I always had a goal in life, and followed it, determined and sure that I would face down life's adversities and triumph, in my own quiet way. While early life had given me my love of books, and the seeds of my burgeoning intellect, it was later that I started to interact with others more, and learned methods of dealing with conflict beyond running away or hiding within myself.

I progressed through college with little struggle, and became a librarian easily enough; my qualifications, dedication, ability to handle people with finesse, and love of books all spoke well enough for me. As time passed, however, friends drifted away, either through petty conflicts or because I no longer had anything they wanted. I began to seek out seclusion and peace more and more often.

Eventually I applied for and received the position of curator of a somewhat extensive collection of books, some rare, others merely beloved by my employer. I was allowed to read any and all I chose, and there, amongst the quiet, I found inner solitude for a while.

I don't remember much about the event itself. I suppose none of us really do. I remember, hazily, watching, horrified, as the walls shook and books fell all around me. I remember cracks in the earth and my beloved wards disappearing - downwards or, in some cases, simply vanishing in puffs of ash. I remember wandering, broken, amidst the desolation and wondering if I would ever see civilization again.

Perhaps this was what I needed. A call to my senses. All I know is that after wandering for some time, I found a group of refugees. While I tried to help them, explaining ways to refine their drinking water and make their shelters more secure and habitable, more often than not they would not listen, demanding querrulously that I provide them with trinkets they missed and supposed they still needed, or gathering the folds of their misery about them like a blanket, deaf to their own needs and the ones of those around them. Having restocked my supplies, and done the best I could for them, I moved on.

Traveling like this, some weeks later I found a shanty town of those with vessels, some honest traders, some people fallen on hard times and turn to piracy, and some cutthroat theives. The first sailor to lay a hand on me got a smart boot to the groin. The next, a firm thwack around the head with a steel-shafted umbrella I had found and correctly reasoned would come in use. After that, I was granted the modicum of respect I required.

I worked, after that. Hard labor, my hands once soft from indoor work becoming tough and strong. Where at first I had driven people away in my desire to be seen as someone of whom others could not take advantage, I eventually realized that cutting myself off from all contact could not be good. And so, I helped people. Fellow sailors mostly, just small pieces of advice or a friendly ear, but the littlest things can mean the most.

When I had earned my way to owning my own ship, I was pleasantly surprised to find a caedre of willing crew who would be happy to serve a captain who would treat them fairly, though by no means undemandingly. And so, I set to work.

Now I traverse the seas, trying to help where I can, and treat others with fairness at the very least. This apocalypse, this Penumbra may shaken apart our lives and set everything upon its head, but I believe that in some ways, it has done us good. It has shaken us out of our complacency and taught us to work together. And that is why I am proud to host the lending library for this, my 17 Hills tribe.

Today

Blueberries remind me of summers in Michigan. We'd fly out to visit the family, and often we'd spend a day on a trip to a pick-your-own-berries type place, coming home with baskets laden with a lack of berries, most of our crop consumed.

I said goodbye today. I'll see him again, of that I have no doubt, but it was still hard. A few tears in the BART station, a few more upon getting home, a brief but violent torrent upon making up the bed. It's mostly passed now. I'll keep missing him, but for now it's nice to have space to stretch out in the bed. That's what I'm telling myself anyways. And I'll always have the cat to keep me company.

Yeah, I don't even know...

This is verbatim what he wrote, btw:

"Erin, I didn't find this to be the simple rant you so offhandedly described it to be. I felt that it was very much aligned with the concepts of the persuasive essay we covered in class and in the text. It may have been a bit more challenging if you had chosen an audience with whom you weren't so intimately familiar, but you were not directed to do so. You wrote with compassion and conviction, and to do so isn't often done with as much balance as you demonstrate. I would have appreciated more voices integrated in your essay: If only they had been voices of the school mates you interviewed. As it is, your letter doesn't seem to be as well-formed as it could be. Still, though, very impressive work. I don't know how much effort you feel you put into the work, but I hope you know that your talent goes well beyond an adept ability to craft words and thoughts. You have a very well-developed emotional intelligence that I hope you continue to develop. Of the three classical rhetorical devices two are dependent on emotional intelligence. I hope you acknowledge that aspect of your gift and share it often with others."

Maybe that's why I'm not doing the mediation essay. I already spend most of my time mediating and generally looking after people as it is.

People fascinate me

They confuse me, too. There's always that feeling, that wondering, of where the disconnect is. Even when you try so hard to get along, you wonder if maybe you're trying too hard; if you're coming off as pathetic.

I wish I could write grandly.
Spilling my words onto the page
or screen
My thoughts swirling and encompassing the reader
Until they're left with that feeling
that unknowing
that floating, meandering, purposeful feeling
Of meaning unseen
hidden.

I've almost lost the art.

No one is to blame. Not the teachers, with their desires for easily-transmissible messages. Not my peers, with their looks of gentle puzzlement. Not even Flammanatus, for scoffing whenever I tried.

But reading the words and works of others who never conformed
never tried to shape what they were saying into neat little packages, but instead let their words run rampant, imbued with meaning and a sense of things too deep to ever speak, makes me feel

Lost
Small
Lesser
Sad
Longing
Wishing that I could do it, too.

That I could say and write these things
So profound
Instead of just

A pale imitation.
A pale imitation that will be scoffed at and met with looks of gentle puzzlement.

There's something so amazing about being able to transmit meaning through wildly, chaotically graceful imprecision.

Someday I'll find it again.

It has been an incredibly lovely weekend, all told.

On Friday, after work, I went to go see a production of the play Dancing at Lughnasa at my former high school. Going to see it was a curiously mixed experience. Seeing all of the familiar faces, though I'd only been gone for a year, was wonderful, but at the same time there was an odd sense of distance; a boundary between us that had maybe begun in senior year, when there were only a few seniors and only one junior in the group, and especially when I had directed a show. This was different, though. I was now classified as "all grown up" and "gone away," though still attending a nearby community college for various reasons that still make me bitter.

Despite the distance, however, it was a great experience. Reading through the playbill, I saw how the characters could have been one-dimensional, and feared that each of the sisters would be very different, and I would once again come away from a play or movie feeling that I had more than one of the characters as various aspects of my personality, and that it was completely unfair of the playwright to act like there were such clean divisions in traits. Nothing of the kind happened. Though the character of the teacher was stern, she also had a lot of love and kindness in her. Though the flighty sister was raucous and bawdy and more than a little saucy, I still had moments of connection with her, and appreciated why she was who she was. Though the homemaker was motherly and took care of the lot of them, she still had her moments of bitterness and anger. And though the young mother of the boy was a romantic, she was still often not a perfect mother, though she cared for her boy. I am not sure whether it was the writing or the acting that made the play so great, but I suspect it was both. The characters were too well-written to ever be one-dimensional, and my former colleagues had increased in their abilities by miles and bounds; the one going so far as to make me cry during a particularly intense scene. I may be a bit of a softie, but it still takes a very good emotional connection to push me to tears, and by golly, she did it.

After the show, I hugged and congratulated my friends effusively, though still feeling that disconnect a bit. Then I walked to the train station to catch the bus, feeling actually glad that I hadn't thought to bring my ipod with me. The quiet, slightly chilly but not cold night was perfect for walking, and it gave me time to mull over the play and my experiences with it. On the bus there was a man with a drum, beating out a repetitive rhythm that somehow fit. And walking from the bus stop home, I was filled with a sense of satisfaction and peace. I rather feel that seeing that play was the missing piece, the little bit of the jigsaw that I needed to tell me that it's okay to be who I am, and who I am becoming. There may be many paths in life, but all have their merits. I am not settling for something less by having found a path that will suit me, and one that I will comfortably and quietly enjoy, while my friends still struggle to make sense of who they are and how that will apply to the world around them. With light feet and a feeling of anticipation for the future, I made my way home.

Saturday, I went to Wondercon. Big leap, I know. Still.

I woke up at around 8 or 8:30, despite having gone to bed quite late, because I believed that Hero would be bringing a foam wrench made for a previous game over. Upon waking, I saw a message he had sent me saying that he didn't feel like waking up that early, so he had biked over the previous night and left it then, instead. Looking outside, I saw it gripping the doorknob to the garage.

I went in, got made up, lopped a bit of my hair off to form bangs for the character I was to be cosplaying:

From:


To:


So it was a bit of a sudden change. Felt good, though. I'd been meaning to do something to my hair for ages. Haven't dyed it in over a year, and cut it in over two. [/girliness and vanity] Then it was off to the con.

I had mostly gone to see various webcomic artists. I started with the Foglios, obviously, as I'd been going as one of their characters. (You may think it's Agatha, but without the locket it's kind of Lucrezia possessing Agatha. Didn't get a chance to act as such, though. Pity.) I asked them to sign my book, and they were kind enough, but I was shy, and hared off quickly.

I saw the people at the Blind Ferret Entertainment booth, made a quip about how they were all wearing pants, and moved on, hoping to see Alina Pete. Found her, but again was shy, so I made a little small talk, and bought three more buttons for my bag (stopping short at buying the pink one emblazoned "gamer grrrl" because I felt that was going a little too far).

Jostled by the crowds, I made my way back to the Blind Ferret booth, and hung around there for a good while. They told me I was completely welcome, wearing a corset as I was, though it was just plain silly to wear a shirt under a corset, and that I should take it off. Taking the comments in good humor, and appreciating them for the compliments they were (after all, I do hang around with theater people and larpers), I pretty much just stayed and knitted, feet growing sore, and at one point taking it upon myself to be a booth babe as I hadn't bought anything and felt kind of awkward just hanging around. They're good people, though. In all seriousness, you should check out the webcomics Least I Could Do, Looking For Group, and Gutters. They're entertaining, and made by some nice guys. They may be my second- or third-most favorite Canadians, after the Loading Ready Run crew and after or tied with Alina Pete.

Finally, Ariel told me he'd gotten into the con after all, so he came to meet me. We checked out the Foglio's booth again, both of us a little awkward because we'd each been there separately before, but while there, I found out he had some round glasses that made my costume infinitely better, so that was cool. He also showed me where Willis of Shortpacked!, It's Walky!, and Dumbing of Age was, and got a drawing of Mike, which he gave to me. Then we went off to have lunch/dinner with our other friends and I completely missed out on seeing The Meek and Lackadaisy booths. Drat. Still, though, an awesome time.

At lunner, Kitty drew a freaking awesome picture of me, that I am determined to have framed, and then Ariel and I headed back to catch a train, while the others went back to the con. I hung out with Ariel at his place with Wolf and Bard (who I hadn't seen in a while, and was a lot cooler and nicer than I remembered. He saw when I was really lagging from being tired, and made sure I was okay, and gotten home alright.), and later Overlook. We watched some youtube videos, played some music, had some tea, and completely failed to getting around to playing Pathfinder, but it was a really wonderful night all the same. I am once again convinced that I have the best friends. They're a lovely bunch of people who care for and about each other, and are creative, awesome, and basically all-around great guys.

And that brings us to today. It's lovely and sunny out; practically summery. I have an essay to finish revising, and some reading for Anthropology to do, but that doesn't spoil my enjoyment in the least, because it's just so nice out. The wind chimes are ringing, the plants are rustling, and if you step out the front door, the wisteria makes the whole world smell pretty. I finished re-reading Roald Dahl's Boy because it was a lovely memory from my childhood, and because the sheer enthusiasm in his writing makes everything really awesome. And later tonight I might see Ink with my mother, even though I recently saw it, because it's such a good movie and deserves a re-watch to see all the subtleties.

I don't like indulging in petty recounts of my days on here, because I'd rather it was an outlet for profound thoughts, but considering how often I am likely to have profound thoughts, and what a nice weekend it was, I'm allowing it this time. And I still feel that my coming to terms with who I am and who I will be was a pretty major development, so it kind of still fits. Shush. It's my blog, and I'll do what I want.

Explanation

So if you've been following this blog (unlikely, I know), you may have noticed some posts disappearing recently. The reasons are as follows: The first two were minutia about the week and didn't really deserve a place here, I felt, and the last was rather dark, and I'd prefer some people didn't see it. Not that I don't write dark things; Psychobabble is evidence that I do, but that's fiction. That post can be summed up fairly briefly anyhow. I read this: http://alexdaymusic.com/217/ and responded under the name of Fay. I then started considering how much of my life is about comfort and not pushing my boundaries, and wondered if by choosing a simple life I'm being complacent, or perhaps just not as worthwhile as all my artist/writer/writer-artist (in the case of Path) friends. Do they feel things more intensely, though a lot of those emotions seem to be negative ones? Is there any shame in being muse and editor to Fox and Path and my brain-twin? The image of supporting cast comes up a lot.

Needless to say, it's a dark read, regardless of some of the more grotesque/suggestive imagery, so that's going away for now. I've stabilized out a bit, and I'm pretty okay with who I am. For now. We'll see how it goes. And, uh... Sorry. Yeah.

I imagine spilling my guts all the time

In both senses, actually.

The first is being put into a situation where I just ramble on about everything that's bothering me or what have you to an audience that listens and doesn't interrupt. It could be because I've burst into tears in class, and I just say everything on my mind instead of being to scared and embarrassed to do so, or it could be some ridiculously convoluted situation where everyone I know, or would want to bear witness to this, including people who have never met me but I admire, and I have all been transported to a vast featureless space and I am held at gunpoint or some such and made to talk. Sometimes stripping is involved because, honestly, when you think about holding people at gunpoint, a lot of the time there's a question of that. And sometimes I'm a badass and take them out myself and am admired. And sometimes I'm a badass and take them out, but then collapse, trembling, to be comforted by a person of my choosing. And sometimes I don't. And I am pitied.

And then there's the other meaning. Just the image of a knife, splitting my skin open, down the middle. No pain. Feeling, but no pain. Sometimes guts are revealed, sometimes a glowing purple light emanates, and engulfs everything around it.

It's not sexual in nature. It's a need to be understood, comprehended on a deeper level. I realize it's a theme with me, and I'll probably keep returning to it. Sorry about that.

A large problem with me is that I'm conflicted, in very many ways. People learn by context. When I was young, I followed the rules. I was a model student, and learned about defiant, strong female protagonists from what I read. And then I learned about rebelling, and how it wasn't cool to be the way I was. You had to think for yourself. So I did that. But some of that turned out wrong. And some of it went off the rails. And nothing makes sense anymore. Not really. And I think this started out coherent, but it's quickly devolving. There are so many pressures. So many stresses pushing and pulling and I want to be compliant and just make people happy, make people like me. That's the problem. Making people like me. Everything I do is for that. And it probably shouldn't be. But it is. I take care of people because I want them to think of me favorably. I am self-deprecating because people will like me better that way. And while I'm objective, I know that I am pretty, and smart, and nice, and all sorts of things, but I've worked a lot of my insecurities into subjectivity and they just keep influencing me because of how much I imagine scenarios of people reading thoughts, and so now even my thoughts are aimed to please. Everything conflicts. I want to be a homebody, but I want to be an awesome, self-sufficient, kick-ass lady who doesn't do that girly-girl crap. I want to have a comfortable life and a good job, and see my friends on the weekends, and I want to be a star, and I want to be troubled and tortured because of how much people admire people who are troubled and tortured and I want to be alive and I want to be dead but not very much because I'm terribly afraid of not existing. I want a comfortable love that never goes away and I want a flame that is doomed but while it lasts is exciting and burns all who touch it and I'm afraid I'm being unfair and settling and I'm afraid that by thinking that I'm being unfair because I'm not.

My thoughts have run riot again. Mutiny will not be tolerated. I will lock them up, nice and neat as I always do, and get on with life. Because not having them that way is just a hindrance, and not helpful. And I'm dying on the inside, but objectively I know I'm just being melodramatic right now and I'll be fine in the morning.

Good night.

I never really maintain blogs for long...

Not journal ones, at the very least. I either don't use them very much, or they turn into a daily list of all my petty complaints, just as a way to keep them going. This will probably end up like the former, just because I am going to be making a concerted effort not to devolve into whining. In the meantime, however, I'm just gonna post whenever I feel I have something relatively interesting to say. So here goes.

I'm less than enthused with the current education system. I think everyone I know is; certainly everyone I've talked to shares the sentiment. There's a prevailing attitude of, "It sucks," but then people will either play along with the system because they have to (and don't go refuting that; I'll spend more time on it later maybe) or they get out of it as soon as possible and find other routes. Very little is really done, however. There are well-meaning teachers who want to make class fun and interesting but are sadly made to teach us a set list of facts before the year is out no matter what. There are those who actually think it's a good method of teaching (and it can be, for certain subjects and certain students, don't get me wrong). And there are those precious few like my senior year Gov/Econ teacher (either you know who he is, so I don't need to write his name, or you don't, so I don't need to write his name) who was, without any shadow of a doubt, a fantastic teacher. He was witty, intelligent, thought-provoking, and, above all, understanding. He would foster intelligent debate and generate interesting questions or activities for us to answer or do. The problem is that he had a more nebulous subject, so he was free to teach it in a method according to his own style - we didn't have to have the periodic chart or the SAS, SSS, only-right-triangles-have-ASS rules. ("You're such a right triangle, Jamie!" Ah, memories.)

Today in "Critical Thinking" (English) class, the topic sort of meandered around to these subjects. The teacher had been planning to show us some videos, but the speakers wouldn't play sound from the computer, only alternating between about a minute of silence and a minute of that sound you get when speakers are turned up quite loud. So our professor started asking us about our sentiments on being there; last class period we'd been in groups and had spent some time really introducing ourselves and our ambitions to the rest of the people in our groups, and what he'd gathered from visiting groups in turns was that a good deal of us were there either to further our ambitions or dreams, or because we knew we couldn't succeed in them monetarily or realistically. And, because success and education seem to be inextricably linked in the public eye in this country, conversation turned to education.

For once the class was really alive, offering input to each others' statements and generally creating an atmosphere of feedback and the communication of information. If there's one thing people enduring the education system today can really get worked up about, it seems, it's having to endure the education system today. There were thoughts offered about how learning and just going through school are two different things, and how school isn't even all that conducive to learning anymore. One girl told us about how she had to work two or three jobs because of her ejection from the household due to differing religious opinions, but she still loved to read and to learn, and wished she could just go to school all day instead of her current situation. The situation was obviously still an open wound for her, because her voice kept breaking, and she was holding back tears by the end of it. I really wanted to tell her how much I admired her for being able to share her story, but she left after class before I could. Another girl said how there were different kinds of learning, because while she'd been getting straight As in the schools she attended in Idaho, moving out here she'd seen more homeless people in a week than she had her entire life back home, and she was learning all kinds of things about culture that she'd never known before. Even the class troublemaker (really, the person who consistently livens up the class and makes it interesting for the rest of us) offered an opinion that really struck home with the teacher, talking about how people go in search of that elusive A without really learning or retaining information. It reminded me of a simple truth I'd realized a long time ago, and so I spoke up.

"I think one of the things dearest to people, one of the things we want the most, is to be understood, on many levels, or even basically, by other people. And I think a lot of the problems we're having with the education system now is that it's teaching knowing but not understanding."

A thoughtful silence followed, with our Class Entertainer performing a quiet, slow clap to humorously illustrate the effect I'd had. Even after the general agreement, our teacher telling us he wanted us to talk about what "that would look like" the next class period, and general dispersal, I kept thinking about this. I'd known understanding was important for a very long time - it's the basis of the novel I'll never write, and, at least to my mind, it's the basis for love. Understanding and appreciation are the two things I've found everyone to consistently want out of others. Understanding of who they are and what they have to offer, and appreciation for it. And I think that's a large part of what makes me so happy about geek culture now.

The stereotypical image of the nerd is the social outcast, unwanted and unliked by his peers. Geeks today have moved so far beyond that, though. We've come together and supported each other, and made each other proud to be who we are. Most anyone who's been to PAX will tell you about the sense of community there, but even without ever having been to PAX you can observe it everywhere. Strike up a conversation with someone about a mutually enjoyed TV show. Go to YouTube and see the community that's sprung up there. And I can think of no better place to find it than the forums I frequent, in which we sometimes have differing ideas and even some heated debates, but at the end of the day we will recognize each others' intelligence and validity as a person beyond the opinion, and even value the other person for saying something different, even if it's not to our liking. We care for each other, we offer words of support and encouragement when someone is feeling down, and congratulations when something awesome has happened to them.

Some people say that geek culture sprung out of the need for the underdogs to band together. Some people still treat it as a platform from which to proclaim superiority to the rest of the masses. What I think defines us right now, though, and what I hope will continue to define us, is this ability to come together, to form connections and communities with other people, just because we think they're pretty neat. A lot of the big people on YouTube (the Vlogbrothers, Charlieissocoollike, Nerimon, etc.) got to be "celebrities" because when people saw their videos, they saw people with whom they thought it would be cool to hang out. People whom they appreciated and whom, if they were to ever meet, they hoped would appreciate them back.

So while some classrooms may feature teachers standing in front of the class and telling them that N has a -3 charge, O has a -2 charge, and F has a -1 charge, and that they'd better memorize it by the test because they'd have to be balancing chemical reactions, some have teachers who will foster debate, exchange of ideas, appreciation for one anothers' thoughts and ideas, and, overall, understanding. I take this as a sign that we should not despair just yet, or throw the whole education system out the window. Make attempts to foster this behavior wherever it crops up. Start a reasoned debate in your normally boring Anthropology class. Ask your teacher to apply Calculus to a gate that the hero has to roll under before it closes or the baddies will get him, instead of just the old "ladder sliding down a wall" example (no, I'm not really sure how my example would work either - maybe the prop holding up the gate is diagonal? Just go with me here).

I think, if we really try, instead of just sitting around and sighing about how it's all gone to hell, we can really make a difference, and maybe spark some peoples' interest in learning again.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put off writing my essay some more and then complain about how dull and elementary the class is, like the raging hypocrite I am.