Hate is a strong word. But these are strong feelings.

"Life sucks and then you die." 

I've never doubted that this proverbial gem from my jaded father is true. But i've come to find that it is  particularly true if you decide to subject yourself to attending a neo-facist university.  

I HATE BYU.

{this picture is creepy. attending byu is even creepier.}
Why the recent onslaught of rage directed at the Lord's University?

Storytime: This semester I took a class, required for my major (well, actually added to the requirements during my hiatus... rage for another time) that is notoriously hellacious: Political Science 200. Its basically a super time intensive writing class (like a 10+ hour paper due each week), with some math/statistics thrown in for fun. It was craziness. But I worked my butt off and got an A. I was super happy and thought life couldn't get any better, then I recieved an email from the professor of the class offering me a position as a TA for next semester! I was ecstatic, this job would be perfect! I was so worried about how i'd find a job next semester to work around my two stupid classes that are on opposite days and times. This TA job would line up with my class schedule perfectly, allow me to teach a lab and get teaching experience, as well as get to know a professor in order to acquire those all too important letters of recommendation. On the last day of finals I had an hour long interview with the professor and formally accepted the job. A few days before Christmas he emailed me with the schedule for TA meetings and I realized my family Christmas vacation would conflict with the first meeting. I emailed him back within 15 minutes of him sending this notice. I told him about my family vacation and asked if it would be possible for me to miss this meeting, or if I would need to miss the trip in order to retain this TA position. His response was lovely: he fired me. He had hired too many TAs so my inquiry gave him the perfect excuse to solve his own problem. He gave me no choice, no option to forgo the vacation and keep this job I so badly wanted. He simply gave my lab to another TA and proceeded to cancel my hiring process (which I drove my social security card down from SLC at last minute - an over two hour trip for, upon his insistence). 

Okay, one jerk professor shouldn't sour a person on their whole academic experience. But I think this is rather representative of my entire BYU experience: too many students for professors to care about an individual and enough pride and self righteousness to put the pharisees to shame... But whatever, he can continue being a 5'4" social science professor making comparatively less money than professors at other secular universities, I'll be tanning on the beaches of Belize. Take that.

Enough anger... Some Happy things:

1) We drove up the day after Christmas and were able to spend a night at Dan's parent's house and see Ann (Dan's grandmother) and Saki (Dan's brother Chris' platonic Japanese friend). When taking a group photo with a funny face, I opted for the "shy Asian tourist look," which, in retrospect, was very culturally intensive.

2) Not to brag, well actually totally to brag, I got 4.0 this semester. Take that evil BYU.

3) We are leaving to paradise, out of the SLC smog and cold. HUZZAH!

Thank You for making it to the end of this rant. I hope that even if you choose to like BYU we can still be friends. But seriously, stop liking BYU. Now.