A mixed-venture day.

The padded rugby squad did not look good at all. It was an ugly, ugly game. Too many turnovers and apparently unsmart plays made the student section very unhappy. Add on to that that the breaks were not falling in favor of the home crowd, and after a couple reviewed plays that went against the squad, there were some objects littering the field in our section. Not exactly a class-act. But I didn't get hit, nor did I contribute to the mess. I might also make mention that that the student section was not being a good cheering section for the majority of the game. And that I had to watch a good part of the game from the aisleway, as the people in my row claimed it the row in front or the row behind. And since I'm not part of a group, I didn't exactly have the leverage to toss someone else out. I had a better view from the aisle, though. So I suppose it wasn't all bad standing out there. I may be just a bit bitter that things went all the ways that they did.

But then things got better. They always do. In the form of a beatdown administered by the volleyball team. That was refreshing, and I don't know how much of an effect we had on the opposition, but their game started falling apart in the fourth set. So maybe we had an effect. It nothing else, they like having us around to do antics and such. And we're very good at that. And then I had a good time in a channel full of Oldbies, Ancients, and Venerable Old Ones. The scroll speed got heinously quick, but the 'Net training I have sort of let it all wash over, only picking out the bits that were actually important.

And our conference rivals lost, too. That makes many of us happy. They lost to the team what we lost to at the bowl game last year, by about the same margin.

Tomorrow, I'm probably going to sequester myself in the library's Juvenile collection to frontload some work that I'm going to be doing throughout the whole semester. I always feel better about evil deadlines if I've got all of my projects running ahead of schedule. So, we're hoping that this trend continues. I don't want to get behind at all, because I fear that it'll be a tripfallrolldownhillfilledwithspikesandpits sort of thing. So I may have to forego my few social activities in favor of my work. Which makes me a bit of a hermit, but also a bit grumpy. Don' wanna give up the social activities. Just can't let them take over, either. *sigh*. I hate school sometimes. But I realize that work wouldn't give me nearly as much free time. Such is college life. If it were high school, it would be more like this. Millicent's comments are spot-on accurate.

So, g'night. Tomorrow, I'll be complaining about the refresh rate of the fluorescent lamps overhead.

Yeah. It's that day.

That day. You know, the one that everyone seems to want to refer to when trying to promote their pet political project. Or the one they use when trying to make perfectly legitimate objectors look like they hate the country and want to join the Nazi party. (There. I said it. The forum discussion has degenerated to its lowest point.) The one that gets slung about when making war for peace. Yeah, that day. A day where nearly three thousand deaths have been used to justify more than thirty thousand (at a ballpark figure, no idea whether it's accurate at all or not) in various war actions and their consequences. It's the day that people use to run a smokescreen in front of things that probably need more scrutiny. (As well, probably as a day that gets waved around when people feel like enough isn't being done to prevent it from happening again.) It's the kind of day that gets tossed about if someone wants to justify utilizing surveillance tactics on normal people.

Here's secret number one about that day - I was exactly one week into my university studies when it happened. Secret number two: I was studying the French language that day.

Secret number three, however, is by far the best one - I never saw the towers fall. That's right - I was trying to wrangle with the French language when it happened. I was also unaware that anything had happened until I saw a news monitor in the student union. And then, I finally watched a little bit in the dormitory and figured out what had happened. Even then, if I saw it, it was in replay. Maybe that's to blame for my current liberal atmosphere. After all, if I didn't see the attacks happen, I must not have been charged with the patriotic spirit that everyone else seemed to receive. (Well, okay. There were some exceptions, but most of those people were already terrorists by the current administration's definition.) Yeah, so it's that day. If things continue on their present course, it might take on a new meaning, as the day when everything started to go wrong.

But I'm an optimist, really. I don't think it's going to be a problem. After all, we pride ourselves on being some of the smartest people in the world, right? Our public schooling systems are the envy of the world! Our nation is strong in providing jobs for American people at fair wages! And most importantly, our electoral system is fair and our politicians don't lie or try to cheat the system. We're the envy of the world, really.

Hrm... so I have to add an extra u here and there, and it's "al-u-min-i-um", and the alphabet ends with Zed, right? Okay. I think I'm set to be the most patriotic American I can be. I just hope there's someplace that I can be patriotic when I decide I want to be.