finality

No more pencils no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks....

 There were people when I was growing up who swore that Amerika was the greatest places ever and that we were founded on principles of freedom and goodness and whatnot and then I got older and read more books and talked to more people and realized that a lot of what I learned was wrong. I've also learned that in the minds of a lot of people of every stripe, ideology often trumps truth and that no one appreciates a Cassandra.

Oh you chicks are so emotional. You're so negative. 

Revolutions might unseat a terrible order, but most of the time, maybe Vaclav Havel excepted, the new order isn't any better. Meet the new boss same as the old boss, just different names and groups on the shitlist, a different crew of elites. So it's hard for me to believe in revolution, especially starting over from scratch socialist revolution, because that's how you end up with holidays in Cambodia and those are no fun for the peons any more than colonial overlords.

And when the arguments brought to light are irrefutable, when one god is set up over another, and the absurdism is evident to anyone with half a brain, bumper-sticker platitudes might sound great, but only go so far, and I feel like I've already won when the discourse goes from dissenting arguments to personal attacks. If the way the students around me rolled their eyes as he tried to get the last words in again today were any indication, his pettiness is evident as is the process of indoctrination and regurgitation.

Stop laughing, stop smirking, stop making those faces, stop mocking. 

A winning smile and the chortles of "you can't expect me to believe this" seem to be far more devastating than an f.o.a.d or a snarl, and so half an hour later, I turn in my paper with a huge grin, wish a nice day, and walk out triumphant. Heaping burning coals on your enemy's head by not returning the favor of jerkness seems to attest to the keen of understanding found in the books of wisdom that he so despises. The grades don't matter, this was a waste of time, but I got some wheelie bus transportation cheap, the company of my homie in all things geeky, and maybe someone else in that room of a hundred people realized that it's okay to truly question.

Besides, I'd rather be insulted by you than someone I respect as it is.