Well, I'm officially married, so that's one LARGE CHUNK OF INSANITY off my to-do list. =)
Today (well, 11/11/2008 as I'm writing this) is Veteran's Day. Do me a favor. Honor the Vets and get to the parades if you can. They put their lives on the line so we can have the freedom to be who we want to be and do what we want to do. They deserve, at LEAST, this one day.
I won't make any outstanding comments on the election. We will see over the next 4 years whether this country can make any changes, or if we just expect things to be corrected for us. (AIG - cut out the crazy parties huh? The taxpayers are paying ENOUGH to keep you afloat. Don't take it for granted.) I'm a little peeved that Kerry was re-elected, since it's likely he'll leave in 2 months for a position at the White House, but that's beside the point.
California, and ANY other state voting against gay marriage, should be ashamed of themselves. It's been 40 years since the Civil Rights Movement, and we're still treating certain people as second-class citizens. Equality for race, color, creed, and all orientations.
Anyway...I have one case brief, one debate, one paper, one take-home final and one presentation w/ a memo due by December 1st. It's all in this order:
11/14 - Take-home final due
11/17 - Case Brief due
11/19 - Presentation w/ Memo due
12/01 - Debate and Paper due
And then I'm done for the semester. Yikes.
I signed up for Quantitative w/ Professor Snow, Intergovernmental Relations w/ Professor Burke (we'll see if he actually teaches the class. He's bailed on the last 3 classes I tried to take with him. LOL!), and Politics of State Government w/ Professor Melconian for Spring. Ought to be interesting.
Oh, something that annoyed me that started 2 weeks ago. When arguing, you tend to lose all credibility when you retaliate with a personal attack. I.e. the topic of drug testing pregnant women w/out their knowledge came up...the case in question had pregnant women who tested positive for drugs being charged with child endangerment. A thought came up, what if they were on public assistance for healthcare...is it ethical then? The conversation got a bit heated, and one girl in my class responded to the original speaker with "Well, I hope you get disabled and find out what it's like!" At that point, she lost all credibility because she refused to come up with any other argument to support her thoughts. Nevermind the fact that we weren't talking about disability...
In this case, the girl basically lost it at the end of class, and she thought she was well within her right to make such a comment and not have anyone disagree with her. And she got defensive when anyone told her it was inappropriate. She also doesn't like the guy who made the original comment.
Fast forward to yesterday's class - the girl walks in and starts making a comment about someone (I thought the person she was referring to worked in the financial aid office), specifically that she couldn't wait to meet them because she thought they must have been a mail-order bride and didn't speak English, but it turned out she was well dressed, etc. And 1/2 of the class was agreeing with her. Come to find out, it was the guy in our class who she doesn't like (and I'm friends with him). This girl works in the financial aid office, and she had just met the guy's fiancee, who she didn't believe was real. (And this was NOT the first time she made that comment).
Personally, after putting 2 and 2 together, I was embarrassed for her. She doesn't like him, and she lets it cloud her judgement and ethical behaviour (i.e. the way she's acted in class the past couple of weeks). It makes me sad that, as a woman, she thinks it's okay to basically assume that the guy's fiancee is a pushover (she's not), an idiot (also not true), or a mail order bride who doesn't speak English (considering he likes to debate, that would SO not be in his best interest lol).
And then I got to thinking of the way Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were treated during this election. Most comments were directed toward their "shrill" voices, or their outfits, or issues other than things directly effecting the election. Hillary was a B****, Palin was Stupid (among other things), and we wonder why history went the way of a black man in the White House rather than a woman? Probably because women are still judged on their appearance, and trying to appeal to the masses as an intelligent female is impossible. And women are women's most harsh critic (see Katie Couric's interview with Palin for proof of that).
Considering the fact that I just read an article stating that Carla Bruni now has a formidable opponent for "hottest first lady" in Michelle Obama? I don't think much is going to change.