Thursday, March 13, 2008

I said Dude.

I am currently suffering through finals week of the winter quarter. I had to take this seminar class on multiculturalism in America and it was pretty awful. Not organized, the teacher was a wussy and let these arrogant theatre kids basically run the class. At Depaul, it being a private institution you get alot of suburban rich kids raised by these new age liberal parents who send them to Chicago so they can learn about the real world. It's alot of pretension, sometimes more than I can handle gracefully. On the other hand, it being a private institution I am getting an excellent education with lots of grants and aid for which I am seriously and completely grateful and humbled by. Anyway, my rant here is concerning the last day of this meandering troublesomely disorganized class and the straw that broke my tolerance camel's back. I was late for class. My cousin called from Colorado as I was walking out the door for class and I was super excited to talk to her. SO I was late and the only seat was by the two theatre guys in the class that I usually avoid like they are on fire. The final class we just sat around and talked about misconceptions of everything in the world and on and on. In the class is this conservative minded guy from Russia. He probaly has only been here for a quarter of his life. He somehow made a statement that homosexuals and intravenous drug users are the most likely to get AIDS. That was what he said, basically those two populations are the most likely to contract AIDS. Theatre kid 1 (who is from Portland and his mom is a lesbian and he had 2 mommies, he tells us every chance he gets which was like everyday in class) almost wets his corduroy pants. He screams out in frustration, "My mom did not create AIDS!!!!" I leaned forward ( because he was sitting across from me) and just said "DUDE! seriously?" I recoiled in horror. Not from this ridiculously unnecesary reaction he was having, but because I said the word DUDE. ew. where did that come from? Anyway, theatre kid 1 went on to plague us with his beliefs that gay people are not doing anything wrong and they are not more likey to contract AIDS than anyone else. Theatre kid 2 patted him on the back and was like "it's ok calm down." Theatre kid 1, while raking his super-messy-I-just-got out-of-bed-at-2-pm-right-before-this-class hair in frustration, responds "Dude, no, I mean, Dude, thats my family, dude. For real. Its not like this in Portland. People there know my mom did not create AIDS." I felt the need to point out that Igor, my Russian comrade, did not suggest HIS mother or anyone's mother CREATED AIDS. He merely said that homosexuals are more prone to contracting the virus. Now I dont give a hole in a chocolate covered donut if, in fact, homosexuals are more at risk to contract it or not, Don't have sex and if you do then use protection, but I wanted to throttle theatre kid number 1 for making a huge scene and being what I felt was way to oversensitive for like the 90th time in this quarter. I was actually too tired from staying up all night writing my final 10 page paper on the Ethnic Myth to reach across the table and smack some sense into him so I just stared at him. My friend Loressa, however, was not tired apparently. She turned to him and said, "He (meaning IGor) was not making it personal, calm down, he just doesn't know." Theatre kid 1 turned to Loressa, who is Black, and said 'What if I said all Blacks are bad? Or all Blacks should be oppressed?" Wow. Whiggity what? Now I leaned forward and said, "Shut the front door, no you did not just say that to her." She said "Why you gotta go there?" and then she turned away. I was speechless.

Theatre kid 1 and I have a bit of a history in that class. One day he was going on and on about foreign labor and the poor workers and outsourcing when I noticed something. SO I raised my hand and asked if he felt so strongly about that and we had to listen to him for like 10 plus minutes interrupt class, why was he wearing Nike's? He got super pissed and said we all patronize the evil corporation. I said yes and maybe we all feel bad about it too but we aren't yelling in class for ten minutes about it when the topic was the immigrant experience of Chinese Americans. Another day he was treating us to a super special glimpse into something about the government being evil and as a people we need to join together and I probaly agreed with him but he just kept going. I mean he is so passionate about EVERYTHING its like we all just stopped listening after awhile. So I asked him why if he is soo passionate about all this change and need for human aid why is majoring in theatre? He could have punched me in the face if he wasn't half my size and knew I could snap him like twig. He said, "theatre is a medium that changes the world the most." I said I think Jesus is.

SO... yesterday we had to peer grade each others final papers. Guess who got mine? He wouldn't tell me what he gave me but he put a sad face on it. Excellent. Can't wait to find out after the teacher reviews it. I feel better now. Dude.

2 comments:

Aaron said...

This is a funny story! Everything from the DUDE reference ( I don't know you but through internet action but still I find it hard to hear you say DUDE) to the great name "theater guy."

You are funny!

Anonymous said...

Sarah, I so enjoy YOU !

Your stories about what actually goes on in your life and how you preceive them - you should write.

Perhaps that is your calling - think of all the people that you could bring to the Lord through your writings.

Think about it.