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jane eyre said I think that part of my problem yesterday was that I was too nervous when I took the exam. I mean I'm the same person who started their car when it was already running when I took my drivers test many moons ago. Of course that impressed the exam person to no end. He or she should have failed me on the spot, but it didn't happen that way. ... Today was the first day back for my regular class. Victorian literature. Colonialism. Topics that couldn't be any further from what my mind was wrapped around last week for work. J Crew girl walked past me as though I didn't exist. True, I was busy reading at the time, but a hello would have been nice. I guess that I am fairly low on her list of priorities. Instead of chatting with her, I got into a mild argument with another female student. For reading we had been assigned a scholarly essay about the evils of colonialism and I happened to notice that the author had an Indian name. I brought this to the attention of the professor and wondered whether or not the author had a personal stake in the paper. I thought that this was a fair question, but the said student commented in an offhand way that I was being racist. Now I guess that I wouldn't have minded this silly comment, but the fact that she couldn't say it to my face really bothered me. She said it while hiding behind the body of another student and then shut up as though the conversation was over. Somehow her comment struck her as being funny if not an outright putdown. My first reaction was grow up little girl. She was so self righteous that it made me ill. Then I thought about it some more and realized that she wasn't worth my time. Her opinion of me doesn't affect my grade. This same woman has spoken before in class and she strikes me as a budding zealot and I can't wait for the day when someone shatters her little noble world. Now maybe that sounds overly harsh, but a fair amount of my idealism died in my twenties and I know that the world is not a perfect place nor will it ever be that way. People kill other people. People die for no real reason. One group will always think that their way is better than someone else's way be it an ethnic, racial or religious group. People by nature are selfish and want the world to revolve around them. I should also mention that the professor said that my point was valid. There has been some serious discussion about how close an author should be to the topic that they are researching. Emotions might play a factor in the conclusions that they draw. There was one final part to the conversation though. Once there was a gap of silence I said in the general direction of the zealot, I doubt that Gandhi every chanted God save the Queen. It might have been a little extreme, but I think that I made my point.
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