Today was one of THOSE days. Not just those, THOSE.

First hour...wow. Just wow. I'm increasingly amazed how she's managed to keep a JOB. We're grading a quiz about the sonnet and vocab information, and one of the questions was "What is connotation?" and the next one was "What is denotation?". She says "Connotation is the emotional meaning of a word, like the n-word. But of course, it's not okay for white people to say it, however, it's okay for black people to say it." W...T...F? #1, why the HELL does a political message need injected into GRADING A PAPER? #2...no. Rappers say it. I highly doubt if you ask a random African American off the street they're going to say it's acceptable for anyone to say that word. Just like they don't agree with all the sexist crap in rap. And then she comes to denotation, which she explains as "Denotation is the factual meaning of a word - like when most people hear gay or fag, they think homosexual, but the dictionary definitions aren't that." That was another rather tasteless example(especially because saying fag is essentially the same as saying nigger, but she said fag...instead of just leaving it at gay...), but that wasn't the worst part. All of a sudden, she starts going on about how she was reading a magazine put out for the gay community(not because she wanted it for her, because she found it in her friend's car), and how they're just like the black community is(or used to be - I honestly can't remember what her exact words); they like to cry discrimination at every chance whether they're being discriminated against or not. But, in the magazine, there were ads saying "Shop here - support the community" and THAT, my friends, is apparently discrimination against straight run businesses('cause there's no such thing as straight people that aren't homophobic, mind you), so all gay people are big hypocrites.

...

W...T...F. Hate to use it twice in one post, but oh my GOD the IDIOCY astounds me. The logic...is...just wow. And there is absolutely, positively, no need at all whatsoever to bring that up, while grading a paper in a *language* class, especially when you know there is a gay student in the room.

Just...the logic. Wow. Okay, let's change the words in there, just as an example of the astounding lack of astuteness(heeh funny sounding phrase). If a person said they were reading a punk or underground music magazine, and there were ads that said "Shop here, we support underground bands/the scene/(you get the picture)"...would anyone even attempt to argue that that was discriminating against the mainstream businesses? No? That's right.

Because it's a stupid argument. A really really really stupid argument. People are naturally going to want to support a community they're part of, and thus, themselves(and/or presumably their friends)...and doing that, is called putting your money where your mouth is(so that you're not a hypocrite). To argue anything else is just pretty friggin' stupid. But that's already been covered. Aside from the stupidity of the lacking logic, ALL minorities will have some people that complain because they think they're being discriminated against all the time. It's human nature - can we say duh? However, at least in this area, I'd think a lot of the time the discrimination isn't made up, it's just something that some people would like to ignore.

So moving onwards...

Psychology was okay. Bio was...okay...ish, except the current assignment is really stupid and involves responding to an article that only considers two viewpoints(or three, I guess) - completely science-based atheist, completely literal Christian, and Christian with a belief in evolution. What is the point of doing this in a bio class? I'm confused.

Fourth hour was okay. Fifth, much less so.

That's our LA III class. Brings new meaning to the words "exercise in futility". We spent the majority of the hour learning about plaigarism(because NONE of us know what that is *eyeroll* dontcha love having a teacher who's only taught MS before...). Yesterday we read an essay(or, more accurately, excerpts from this essay) by Emerson, called 'Self Reliance'. I really liked it. Shane started going on about how it's all hooey. Today he continued the argument, and his argument was completely stupid. I don't even mean as an opinion thing. I mean like, it made NO sense within the context of the essay, had nothing to do with the essay, and was full of holes(and also circular). So I'm arguing with him, and I keep getting interrupted by people who don't even know what the hell they're talking about, or what we're arguing about, but feel like contributing on Shane's side and just interrupting me to annoy me and ruin my train of thought, and then bitch about how we're arguing, and afterwards/during about five or six of them started making fun of me because I "argue too much" or some similar crap like that.

I don't get this. I'm sooooooo sorry I actually *care* about some issues, and I'm willing to at least attempt an intelligent discussion, because I think they're fun and you learn a lot from them. I guess that's such a horrible personality trait to have. Maybe I should not care about politics or philosophy or anything outside of tv(and this was funny; because at least one of the people who were getting on my case considers themself a nonconformist). I'll work on that one, just for everyone elses' sake.

(except not)

The whole thing probably irritated me wayyyyy way more than it should have, but it was just annoying.

The rest of the day was decent. Except that somewhere in all of this I discovered that the summer program at the University of Chicago(which is, for those of you who don't know, the university I plan on attending, or at least really hope to attend), that I want to go to desperately, is probably out of my price range. It's about $4,000 to $4,500(if I'm reading it right, plus there's an optional $500 thing that I have no idea whether I'd pay for or not), and the absolute most you can get from financial aid is $1,200. That leaves me with somewhere between $2,800 and $3,300 that I need to come up with. Which will, as previously stated, probably not happen, unless I can pay it off in ridiculously small payments. I don't want to make my parents pay for all of it - I feel bad because I'm already burdening them with this and I'm not even out of college. But I just can't seem to find a job. I'm going to try harder to, though, because I want to go so bad. Maybe I'll ask the counselor for sponsorship ideas or something...doubt he'll be good for anything, but it might be worth it.

I did end up getting my checkered fabric though. Ska messenger bag, here I come! Makes me happy. Especially because my current bag has a crappy strap and is killing my back.

Speaking of ska, Jaime(sounds like hi-may), the Mexican foreign exchange student, likes ska. How cool is that? I need to remember to burn him off the Streetlight Manifesto CD and Keasbey Nights as well.

Anyways, I'm done. Nice long post. Probably going to bed soon because I've been so tired lately. I'll save the bag to make for tomorrow...there wasn't enough time tonight.