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July 01, 2006
day 7
June 30, 2006
day 6
June 29, 2006
day 5
June 28, 2006
day 4
June 27, 2006
day 3

Argh! Diaryland ate my entry. How frustrating.

Anyway, I came up with a new "You know you are from MA if..." This comes from my observations the last few days that I might add has frustrated the hell out of me.

Anyway, so you know from you are from MA if everyone around you assumes that being a Republican/conservative is worse than like, being a Yankees fan. I will tell you, I think I get a better response on being the latter than the former. Let me share my experiences this past week and a half.

I spent much of today trying really hard not to cry. Really. It was that bad. I kept to myself for most of the day, not even eating lunch with them. I am just tired of people assuming that Republicans are such horrible people. I am tired of hearing abour "right wing wackos" I am tired of hearing the constant stream of criticism about Bush (every damn day at lunch, I swear!) - not that I am saying that one should not air grievances about our government but these people are bitching about him more because of his party affiliation than because they really do not like what he is doing or saying. I am tired of hearing about what an idiot he is. This is a man who graduated from Harvard Business School for crying out loud. And I am sorry, but a family's money can only get you so far, and that is well beyond the scope.

There are only 24 hours a day and I wonder how we Republicans have enough time to line our pockets, dismantle social security, alienate all other countries except England, deny alternate cultures to thrive in our country, get women out of the workplace and back in the kitchen having babies, rid the country of homosexuals, find a way to overturn Roe v. Wade, send teenage/unwed mothers to Siberia, teach religion in schools, widen the gap between the rich/middle class and the poor, keep people of color from higher education, decrease the quality of education in our schools, and think of new clever ways to deny opportunities to women and minorities.

Phew. No wonder we are all so rich. We could not possibly have jobs because those are all full time jobs. Basically if there is a problem in the world, blame a Republican. If he was not responsible for it, he probably wishes he thought of it.

Yesterday at lunch in addition to the daily Bush griping, someone brought up Reagan. Now, I love Reagan. In fact, this weekend I had read a wonderful book (that everyone should read) called I love you, Ronnie and it was a biography of Nancy and Ronald coupled with a lot of his letters and telegrams that he used to write to her over the years. What a passionate guy. It made my heart ache. He was so sweet to her, so obviously in love. She is a very lucky woman. It reminded me of when Jim and I were first dating and Jim would leave me the sweetest notes and send me cards. That to me is the greatest thing. Anyway, I am getting off topic. So the group was talking about how he sucked and then someone joked about him being a "vegetable" now. What a horrible thing to say. I don't care who it is. If something (God forbid) was to happen to Clinton, or Gore or someone like that I would not make light of it. It's not right. Before we are Republican or Democrat we are Americans, and also human beings. I had hoped that people could be beyond that. Apparently not.

We talked today about the curriculum frameworks. People in my group were griping about how the content was split into US History and world history. People could not get over that. They thought it was bullshit. Okay, yeah it is weird to smash all the other countries together under the umbrella of "world history" but come on, this is the US. We teach US History. I am sure that in France they teach French history, in China Chinese history. This is not rocket science. I felt that there were lacking parts of the frameworks, sure. For instance, in a list of fifty people that students should know, ten or less were women, and about the same or less were people of color. As you guessed, the reason for all the problems with our frameworks stemmed from having Republican governors and other "unenlightened" i.e. conservative people making the decisions.

The trouble is that I just don't know what to say. I hesitate to make a "big deal" of it; afterall, this program has only begun. It would be a long nine months if there is animosity on anyone's part. Yet, it has lead to me feeling alienated from the group. I find it hard to voice my opinions, whether they are different or not. I just don't feel comfortable.

I think I need to just grow some balls...

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