as I'm sure you all know, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 50th year of rule not long ago, and many world leaders called to congratulate her. George W. Bush, having an obvious interest in dynasties, was among the well-wishers who called her majesty.
"Madame Queen," he asks, "How have you managed to stay in power for so long?"
"Well," she replies, "I think the most important thing is to surround yourself in smart people."
"I'm not sure I know what you mean..." replies George Bush.
"Here," says the Queen, "I'll give you an example."
So her majesty calls up Tony Blair and connects him to her call with Bush.
"Tony," she says, "Your parents have a child who is neither your brother nor your sister, who is it?"
"Well, that's obvious," he replies. "It's me."
Her majesty disconnects Blair and says to Bush "Do you see what I mean now?"
"Yes, I think I do see know," Bush replies, and hangs up. He then calles Dick Cheney into his office.
"Dick," he pronounces, rising behind his desk to lend authority to his words, "Your parents have a child who is neither your brother nor your sister, who is it?"
Cheney sratches his head. "Hmm, Mr. President," he replies, "that's a thinker. I'll get back to you as soon as possible."
Cheney leaves the oval office very worried. He paces the halls of the White House for the rest of the day trying to come up with an answer to the president's question. The next morning, Cheney is preparing to go see the president and he knows he'll have to admit he hasn't been able to find an answer to the question, when he runs into Colin Powell. Relieved, he thinks, Colin's a smart guy, he'll know the answer.
So Cheney says to Powell, "Colin, I have a question for you, it's very important. The president needs to know. If your parents have a child who is neither your brother nor your sister, who is it?"
Powell replies "Well, it must be me."
"Excellent" Cheney mutters and rushes off to the oval office.
"Mr. President," he exclaims, "I have the answer to your question!"
"And who is it?" asks Bush.
"It's Colin Powell!" says Cheney
"No, you moron," replies Bush, "It's Tony Blair."

it's not that i don't care, i just care more about finishing than anything else. some of my classes are still interesting, especially the seminar ones where i don't have to sit tight and get lectured at all class -- we have discussions instead. i only really have two lecture-based classes this term but that's more than sufficient to remind me how over them i am.

i know i've felt this way before -- last time i was about to grad (from highschool). kat's feeling pretty much the same way, and quel suprise, she's grad-ing this year too. i told her that it's not neccessarily a bad thing because the apathy and impatience just mean you're ready to move on and do the next thing. so i guess i should take my own advice, but i'm already in countdown mode. seven weeks and three days to go (not including finals), which can also be counted as six papers, one presentation, and two exams.

apathy can be a problem though. i'm especially sick of the same old poli sci bullshit (why do we breed the most arrogant professors??) and so this canadian foreign policy class that is just another way of being cynical about the same old shit is kind of killing me. wheneve people start talking in that class, it's so frustrating becuase they never actually have a point and so i find myself thinking "yes, okay, we get it, you're clever. now can we actually talk about something?" and it's the students and the prof. i'm sick of everyone acting like they have something to prove, and that being more important than actually figuring things out or solving problems. my big problem with apathy though: I have to come up with a paper topic, which is a lot harder when you don't care.

goodbye reading break. you were too short anyways, lacking time for me to start any of the papers or presentations I hve to put together for the next few weeks. heck, you didn't even have much time for reading, depending on how much I get done today. What kind of reading break makes you spend 20% of it on the couch with a migrane anyways? So this is it reading break, it's over, I'm going to look for a more reliable moment of liminal time.

If the whole rest of my life wasn't basically one big venue for political debate, imagine the pearls that might spill forth from my lips here. This very post could be Sasha's insightful and well constucted rant on electoral reform if only I hadn't already given it so many times that I just don't really want to get into it now. I might've written about Bush2 Inaguration2 or Stephen Harper starting an anti-gay marriage ad campaign with out his partners' consent. I might've waxed poetic about this coming BC election which will use our same old crappy electoral system and probably result in the re-election of GCAM unless we talk a whole bunch more people into voting. Hell, I might've even given you my opinion on Carol James. Or the Tsunami and resultant wave of American excizing guilt. (They're doing it for all kinds of causes now, it's a feedback loop. "Oh something bad happened to you, and I heard about it on CNN. That's so terrible. Let me give you a bit of money I collected from my family and neighbours so that I can feel better about myself." Americans fundraising to avoid dealing with things. "Can't we pay someone to do that?"). Okay, so maybe sometimes I can't resist. At least a little bit.

otherwise, you'd know they're sticky...

a fire drill has let me out of class 20 minutes early, and left me thinking "Dammit, how come this only happens during interesting lectures but never when I'm so bored I start looking at the reflections in the bald spot on my irish lit profs' head?"

I'm off now to go see Naomi Klein talk with some local indigenous activists, including THE Guerin of the Musqueam nation whose court case is considered on of the ten most important in Canadian legal history (probably because it prompted the creation of the entire contemporary treaty negotiation regime). The subject of the talk is: Colonization and Occupation, from Canada to the Middle East.

My plans for the next couple of days centre on studying for my foreign policy midterm and, tomorrow, celebrating Katrina's Birthday!!!!