Survival of the Fittest

I had an assignment…my only assignment…for my International Relations class. The assignment was to research a world event and write 1000 words on the subject, with references. However it was supposed to be about a world event that your home country is not involved in.

That took a while to find. I come from a…involved…country.

But beyond that, he wanted us to write is with our own “spin” on it…from your home countries point of view.

Now that was very easy to do.

The question I’ve been having in my mind recently is how much I look at my fellow students with an older point of view versus an American point of view. I admit that’s a pretty black and white way of thinking about things. Our perceptions are a blend of a variety of different things…not only our age and home land, but our personal experiences, our personalities, our socio-economic station (woot, look at me!), etc.

So we all have different perceptions on things, regardless of how similar we may seem.

And I have perceived this.

A lot of my fellow students…

A lot of my fellow students are utter and complete morons.

Yeah…that’s harsh. I’ll be the first to admit it. Perhaps that is the “elitist American” (that I’ve heard SO much about) coming through. Perhaps that’s my “look people, I’ve lived a lot of life already…much more than you have…so shut the **** up.” Perhaps (and actually) it’s just Neil.

I was in accounting class today. Most of the students fear this class like the devil is involved somehow. I’ve gone off about that before. Anyway…this girl was sitting next to me…one that I’ve had issue with for quite a while. The whole lecture she sat there drawing pictures of cartoon characters. Towards the end of class the teacher hands out a practice problem for us to do which uses all the different accounting methods we learned about in class.

Instantly her hand shoots up… “I don’t understand! I don’t get it! Help me!”

So of course the teacher stops…pulls her aside, and re-teaches her everything she missed while doodling like a 12 year old.

That folks…is utter and complete crap.

Look sweetheart…if you want to succeed in life you’ve got to actually work. You’ve got to try. You’ve got to, above all, fail.

I was really disappointed in my teacher’s behavior. If she can’t figure out that she needs to pay attention in class, she shouldn’t get this stuff handed to her on a silver platter.

Survival of the fittest…does that make me an American? Does that make me more mature? Does that make me (pardon) an asshole?

I think it makes me successful.

Magnus agrees. We were just sitting outside our place shooting the breeze while these kids up above us were blasting the same 5 songs over and over…yelling at people walking down the street and generally making asses out of themselves. There are some other extremely stupid things that they do in the rooms behind locked doors that will get them into even more serious trouble…but I won’t get into that.

Magnus…my pal…told me that they were “useless”. He said something like “those guys aren’t going to have a life worth living. They will always be used”.

I explained the meaning of the word “tool” to him. He laughed.

I don’t mean to sound bitter here. I don’t want to sound harsh. But there are some things I am very disappointed with in regards to Les Roches.

And it’s pretty much the students.