Class was nothing out of the ordinary today, we discussed the two articles from last night's homework. The first article was about former president George W. Bush, and specific instances where he overstepped the boundaries to his executive authority. The second article was about Obama and the economy. Both I found, were a bit biased and left-leaning, and I'm pretty already accustomed to hearing the perspectives from which the articles were written. I currently live in a sweepingly blue state, and my hometown is a very liberal college town, so I'm used to hearing Republican criticism and broad support for Obama. I'm young and my political knowledge is still pretty limited, so I don't find myself adhering stiffly to either party's policies yet. I actually don't mind being in the presence of opinionated partisans, but the fact that the majority of the teachers at my high school are openly liberal is a little frustrating. A lot of my politically invested classmates have the same democratic values too, so I don't hear a whole lot from the other side at my school. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that calling oneself conservative has become taboo, at least in the environment of my school. You obviously wouldn't see the same blaring support for a Republican presidential candidate as, say, Obama, and I don't say that with Mitt Romney specifically in mind. You definitely wouldn't see someone openly advocating for a Republican candidate without overhearing a few patronizing comments. I don't take issue with this because I'm backhandedly right-wing myself, I take issue because I constantly have unsubstantiated Democratic praise shoveled at me from every direction, and really, the only ideological opposition I hear is from my parents. There's considerably more variance in political position here at Columbia, so it's interesting to hear kids have the same fervor about Republican ideals as they do about Democratic ones back home. However, it's a bit of disappointing to me that the more openly biased articles we've read in class are ones coming from a Democratic standpoint.
I hit the 3,900 word count today while writing my essay, and I'm excitingly close to being finished. My paper won't be the 20 pages I had initially expected to write, but I think in 15 I've managed to get my point across and at this point there's not much I can do about it but edit what I've got. I already feel super accomplished and I haven't even finished - so I can't wait until I print the whole thing out and have that burden lifted from me.
After class today, Simon, Claire and I went to the piers and, at the edge of the Hudson, sat in a big field filled with people to watch The Silver Linings Playbook. I'd seen a majority of the Oscar nominated films this year, with the exception of Amour and Life of Pi, and throughout the whole movie I just kept asking myself - why haven't I seen this movie yet?? Silver Linings was probably one of the greatest movies I have ever seen, and I continuously caught myself smiling about the most menial things. Everything about the plot played out perfectly, and the ending made me tear up too. We had to wait 2 or so hours before the movie even began, but I had a good time the whole way through. I just sat on the grass and chilled with Simon and Claire, and managed to read my homework assignment (the last article in the 1 1/2 inch thick book we received at the beginning of the class). The temperature was perfect too, and lucky for us it didn't rain like the weather report predicted but remained completely clear. The only part of the day that was unfortunate was the grimy subway ride back - it was packed, unbearably hot, and sticky, and we took the (locally stopping) 1 train all the way from 23rd St. to 116th. But that's okay, because I took a nice shower as soon as I got back to my dorm. Tomorrow will be our last normal day of class, because, as I'm sure my mother would love to learn, we get to watch a movie on the last day of class!
Don't freak out mom, it's JFK, which is relevant to a case study we read earlier this week on the psychological effect the movie had on some peoples' faith in the government and support of popular conspiracy theories.
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