No, I haven't dropped off the face of the planet

I've been busy doing entirely uninteresting things the last two days, so that's why I have not posted anything. School calls, as the quarter is almost over. I will, however, recount a tale from yesterday's class.

My humanitarian issues class is dominated by people will little intellectual prowess which often leads me to fits of frustration and emphatic argument. I simply have low patience for certain things and incessant nobbery is one of them. To boot, I must relate the tale of Real World's presentation. Now, everyone in the class has to present something. I did mine before the conference, so I'm done there. But everyone else has to take one of the speeches from the conference, explain the speakers argument, and then offer their opinion on that argument.

Real World chose a speaker who devoted his discussion to religion and the role that plays in integrating migrants into new communities. He was a good speaker who made a series of totally devastating arguments, so she chose a good one. Her initial presentation of the details was actually pretty good. She had obviously taken a lot of notes. But then she proceeded to engage in "her story" of living in Germany and attending "white" churches. I always object to this because I think the personalization of argument is where objectivity is departed, so I cringed immediately. But then I realized something quite simple: she had missed the ENTIRE point. Her narrative on how the church accepted her in as part of the community, etc. was COMPLETELY irrelevant because the argument was about the STATE'S relationship to the migrant, not a church.

Not only that, she entirely missed the macro level as well. At the conference, there were many Europeans who equated assimilation and integration as one in the same. This speaker described two systems: the European system and the American system. Europe forces assimilation; America is more laissez faire and allows for integration. This was the real target of his presentation and there was nary a word out of Real World's pie hole on this one. SO, being the firebrand that I sometimes am, I was forced to interject and "recast the debate" as it were.

What's the point in this diatribe? Quite simply, I'm getting quite tired of the low talent pool that seems to dominate this program. There are some very smart students, the professors are quite excellent as well, but for obvious reasons, the least talented seem to have too great a role. What I don't understand is why someone who is clearly uninterested in International Relations would spend thousands of dollars pursuing an MA.

For example, another young woman gave a presentation on Friday as well on peacekeeping and the professor had to ask at the conclusion, "What does this have to do with migration?" It's not that peacekeeping is removed from that, not at all. It's just that she was so ill prepared that she had entirely forgotten to relate her very cursory analysis of peacekeeping to the subject at hand. It was a big one off with no point at all. Of course, I expected as much. Prior to giving her presentation she handed me a note that read, "Please don't ask me any questions after my presentation," which of course made me want to grill her on the spot. But, her narrative was so poor, that I literally couldn't think of a single question to ask. There wasn't enough information, nothing of controversy, no argument all. Sadly, she got off the hook.

At any rate, I know that in some ways I'm getting what I deserved here because I was such a poor student in my undergraduate years. But at the same time, no one deserves this:

Real World: "The wider disposa is of concern..." [Diaspora]
Real World: "Like when you go to Senegal..." [Synagogue]
Real World: "For example, they guard the masses..." [Mosques]

I'm not asking for too much, am I? Whatever, I'm just in a foul mood. The weather's crappy, I'm not enjoying this paper much, and I haven't gone out and had any fun this week. Blah.