(no subject)
i'm sleepy and it's freezing outside and i'm looking forward to snuggling in my nice warm bed and pink sheets and sleeping for a very long time!
yay for going to virginia in only 9 days!
some of my classes this semester are a little unbearable... ok, so it's actually just two of them and it's because the professor is clearly far more interested in indoctrinating her students rather than actually teaching us to think for ourselves. i have never been more frustrated than when i'm trying to raise some objections to her arguments and i can't even get a word in because she will interrupt me so that she can attack my argument before i've even fully made mine, so that she can easily dismiss it.
honestly i don't know what i would do without this kid eric who's in my Catholicism & Social Justice class. i feel like he's the only sane, conservative kid in there. if i were to just think of Catholicism from the perspective of this one crazy professor (who herself claims to be very Catholic), there is no way i would be Catholic. and i realize that basically, being raised in texas and virginia, the form of Catholicism i grew up with, as well as just the kind of politics in those areas, is very heavily influenced by protestant faiths, particularly southern baptist, but i still think there is nothing in Catholicism which is actually against any of those things. ok, so my politics happen to be more in line with those of pat robertson than john paul II. that doesn't mean that i can't be Catholic.
i get so frustrated by the way my professor acts as though she has some monopoly on divine truth. ok, so i definitely don't understand much, but neither does she! that's the point, none of us do. she tried to tell me that i am too loyal to my politics and that that distorts my Catholicism, rather than letting my Catholicism critique my political party.
ironic, seeing as i had been completely torn apart in government classes last semester for letting my faith influence my politics too much. i don't know why the professor can't see that both of us base our politics almost entirely on Catholicism, it's just that we have different perspectives on it? so the Catholic church basically tells us that we have to have a social conscience and that we are morally obligated to be politically active. ok. it just so happens that, with the 2 parties in the u.s., as a voter there really is little choice other than to rank issues in sort of a hierarchy of evil. and i'm sorry, but i don't see how anyone can claim to be Catholic who does not vote for the candidate who speaks out against abortion, rather than saying some b.s. thing about how his personal beliefs are against it but he won't make that choice for anyone else. that's ridiculous. as a Catholic you are morally obligated to fight for change in the structure of sin which oppresses the vulnerable, which obviously includes the not yet born. you can't merely say that you yourself will not have an abortion, if you do not oppose laws or structures which still allow others to have them.
and then the professor will start going on, acting as if i'm so totally insensitive and don't realize that social justice is a central issue of the Catholic faith. duh. i just don't see why her way of realizing that goal has to be the way we go about it, particularly when it's completely inefficient. i don't think redistribution in that sense is the job of the government. that doesn't mean i refuse to give to the poor or to help those in need. hello, like the 10 states in the u.s. with the top contributions to charity were all hardcore red states. the two things aren't mutually exclusive (if you're a republican anyway)... one can vote for a candidate who is more pro-life and still give everything they have to the poor. however, if one were to vote for a pro-choice candidate, in theory the poor would be helped (yeah, right... liberals have nice ideas in theory but it obviously doesn't play out that way in reality) but then what can one do about abortion? it's a lot more difficult that way.
that professor needs to shut up and allow people to have opinions that differ from her own.
ok, that was my rant. sorry!
i went to the library again tonight with dusty and we were studying with jessie, but it was seriously the most unproductive library time ever. so i came home so i could actually get some work done. i guess you can't really go to olin cafe if you expect to actually get work done. but now i'm just tired, so i think i'm just gonna go be a bum and go to sleep!
my botticelli ballerina
dancing in the dark
how do you move the way you do?
what a beautiful curse and wicked bliss
to be confined to one heart in a world where
it's impossible to know love without two
xoxo!
yay for going to virginia in only 9 days!
some of my classes this semester are a little unbearable... ok, so it's actually just two of them and it's because the professor is clearly far more interested in indoctrinating her students rather than actually teaching us to think for ourselves. i have never been more frustrated than when i'm trying to raise some objections to her arguments and i can't even get a word in because she will interrupt me so that she can attack my argument before i've even fully made mine, so that she can easily dismiss it.
honestly i don't know what i would do without this kid eric who's in my Catholicism & Social Justice class. i feel like he's the only sane, conservative kid in there. if i were to just think of Catholicism from the perspective of this one crazy professor (who herself claims to be very Catholic), there is no way i would be Catholic. and i realize that basically, being raised in texas and virginia, the form of Catholicism i grew up with, as well as just the kind of politics in those areas, is very heavily influenced by protestant faiths, particularly southern baptist, but i still think there is nothing in Catholicism which is actually against any of those things. ok, so my politics happen to be more in line with those of pat robertson than john paul II. that doesn't mean that i can't be Catholic.
i get so frustrated by the way my professor acts as though she has some monopoly on divine truth. ok, so i definitely don't understand much, but neither does she! that's the point, none of us do. she tried to tell me that i am too loyal to my politics and that that distorts my Catholicism, rather than letting my Catholicism critique my political party.
ironic, seeing as i had been completely torn apart in government classes last semester for letting my faith influence my politics too much. i don't know why the professor can't see that both of us base our politics almost entirely on Catholicism, it's just that we have different perspectives on it? so the Catholic church basically tells us that we have to have a social conscience and that we are morally obligated to be politically active. ok. it just so happens that, with the 2 parties in the u.s., as a voter there really is little choice other than to rank issues in sort of a hierarchy of evil. and i'm sorry, but i don't see how anyone can claim to be Catholic who does not vote for the candidate who speaks out against abortion, rather than saying some b.s. thing about how his personal beliefs are against it but he won't make that choice for anyone else. that's ridiculous. as a Catholic you are morally obligated to fight for change in the structure of sin which oppresses the vulnerable, which obviously includes the not yet born. you can't merely say that you yourself will not have an abortion, if you do not oppose laws or structures which still allow others to have them.
and then the professor will start going on, acting as if i'm so totally insensitive and don't realize that social justice is a central issue of the Catholic faith. duh. i just don't see why her way of realizing that goal has to be the way we go about it, particularly when it's completely inefficient. i don't think redistribution in that sense is the job of the government. that doesn't mean i refuse to give to the poor or to help those in need. hello, like the 10 states in the u.s. with the top contributions to charity were all hardcore red states. the two things aren't mutually exclusive (if you're a republican anyway)... one can vote for a candidate who is more pro-life and still give everything they have to the poor. however, if one were to vote for a pro-choice candidate, in theory the poor would be helped (yeah, right... liberals have nice ideas in theory but it obviously doesn't play out that way in reality) but then what can one do about abortion? it's a lot more difficult that way.
that professor needs to shut up and allow people to have opinions that differ from her own.
ok, that was my rant. sorry!
i went to the library again tonight with dusty and we were studying with jessie, but it was seriously the most unproductive library time ever. so i came home so i could actually get some work done. i guess you can't really go to olin cafe if you expect to actually get work done. but now i'm just tired, so i think i'm just gonna go be a bum and go to sleep!
my botticelli ballerina
dancing in the dark
how do you move the way you do?
what a beautiful curse and wicked bliss
to be confined to one heart in a world where
it's impossible to know love without two
xoxo!