The Plague.

...not to be confused with the novel by Camus. I shudder to recall that English 101 nightmare...

(The good stuff is at the end of this post. Unless you prefer my academic life to my ranty, humanitarian-philosopher life.)

So, through no fault of my own, I was given a great deal of academic good fortune, this evening. All day I was sort of dreading having to take a Logic quiz AFTER my lab in Astronomy (which goes until 10:00pm on Mondays). And I was trying to study at work but not really succeeding.

And then, an hour and fifteen minutes into our lecture in Astronomy, my teacher says she needs to take a break and she's off to the restroom. Ten minutes later, a fellow student (also coming from the bathroom) enters with a message from the teacher: she will not be able to continue tonight. Go home.

This would sound like a cruel prank, but this student is the most reliable in the class and our teacher had admitted to feeling quite ill earlier. So we collected our stuff for the lab due Wednesday and left class.

I was home by 7:45.

Then my poor LOGIC teacher, while physically fine, was entrenched in a mental battle of wits with himself, and decided that our quiz tonight should be easier than normal because he kept changing our syllabus.

So I was done with my Logic quiz by 8:30, and the rest of the night is mine.

Some thoughts before I depart:

1. Everyone needs someone.
2. Human beings were not meant to be lonely.
3. Emotionally speaking, our universe is WAY too big for us to spread out the way we do. Does that sound contradictory? I don't think it is. When you think of the sheer size of our planet, solar system, galaxy, local cluster, and universe...when you THINK of how MINISCULE we are in comparison with anything else...why oh why would we even THINK of doing the stupid, inane, ridiculous, knuckle-headed, cruel, and thoroughly human things we do to alienate ourselves from one another? Why, when we should cling to each other in rabid, passionate hope in the midst of the mysterious darkness that makes up 80% of the space in space, do we lash out in pettiness and fear? Maybe if we all spent time looking up and out at what we don't understand then we'd spend a lot more time moving in and near to one another.

That's all.

-The GLS
PS: I'm not saying I'm lonely, don't worry. I just got very ranty all of a sudden...

PSS: The "That's all" above sounds a lot cooler if you read it in the deadpan voice of Meryl Streep's character in "The Devil Wears Prada".

PSSS: With the above statement, did I just single-handedly take all of the depth and profundity out of my rant? Oops.