My class this morning said some really ignorant bullshit which really really bothered me.  Like.  I got really mad because of it but tried to keep my cool as best I could.  And then I became sad because to me, what some of them were saying was clear indication of U.S. propaganda filling their heads with "USA can do no wrong" and that makes me sad, because a politics scholar who cannot criticize his or her own country is not truly a scholar at all.  

Basically, there is a Chinese student in my class, and he made a comment about how the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in WWII pretty much ended the war.  Now, I don't believe for a fact that this is true.  We were winning the war in Europe, and we could have easily gotten Japan to surrender in another way.  But instead of saying "no, you're wrong," I did what I try to do with all my students: I challenged that latent belief just by saying that there is a lot of debate surrounding that, and whether or not the atomic bombs helped end the war or not. 

I didn't want this to open up a conversation about that, but only to get him to think about it.  But my more conservative students started defending America's decision to do that, and...I'm sorry, if you defend our "right" or "need" to drop atomic weapons on millions of innocent citizens, and those weapons not only kill so many civilians but also cause lasting effects which are still around today...I question your judgement more than a little bit.  But this is not even what truly made me angry.  Sure, I was annoyed, but that is their opinion, I suppose.  I became really angry though, when I mentioned that these people who lost their lives in Japan were innocent, in response to someone saying that we saved the lives of our soldiers, and someone said that we "were more innocent than they were." 

And I'm sorry, I can't help but interpret that as, "well it is okay, because our lives are inherently worth more than those people."  And Brendan pointed out that basically, we killed around 1000 Japanese civilians (I don't know if this number is correct, but I trust his judgment) for every American soldier saved.  And this person was advocating that this was okay.  Because Americans are worth more than others. 

At that point I did show my annoyance, though tried my best to keep my anger in check (as best I could), because the level of ignorance was so fucking high and I was unable to handle it.  I just said that that is grossly untrue and unfair because every citizenry has both innocents and those who are less than innocent, and to say that an entire population is less innocent than another (and thus worthy of two fucking atomic bombs dropped on them) is really just.  Ugh.  

I was just really disappointed.  Really.  That was a very dominating feeling when I heard that. 

Other than that, day was good in parts, bad in others?  Got my first review back from methods and I got an A, which made me really really happy.  My professor pretty much only said good things, but I think (it is hard to read his handwriting ahaha) he said I made some serious issues seem less serious than they were, and I maybe should have recommended to reject the paper rather than to review and resubmit it.  

However, our game theory session took 2 hours which was ridiculous and all over the place and it really just...made me angry.  A lot.  

But then Brendan and I danced in our office to music, which picked my mood up.  Then pizza was had and when I got back to my apartment, Stolen Babies cds were here (yay!) and he and I played Halo for like...four hours.  We just decided to procrastinate further, which we probably should not have done, but after being in class and everything for so long, neither one of us wanted to do anything other than relax. 

I still haven't gotten my tick bite looked at...should definitely do that tomorrow...

Brendan and I said we would like to get better at first person shooters and fighting games, and he also expressed interest in getting a fightstick.  We were playing Halo (I swear I've played the beginning of that campaign three different times now), and decided to start off on heroic difficulty because playing on a difficulty above what your level is will help you get better.  That and playing online. 

Sleep now, methinks.  Or very very soon.