War and Peace

Whoa.... Cool! I'm looking out my window right now, and there are a lot of people massed on the Harvard Bridge with signs and stuff. Looks like cars can't even drive across the bridge... Well, now that the war has finally begun, the protestors are busy massing together. There was a walk-out today - at 11:30 am. Right in the middle of my physics test. We were taking the test, and all of a sudden, there was this really loud drum-beat that echoed through all the hallways. Very noisy and annnoying - thankfully, they took everything outside. That wasn't the only annoyance though - there were helicopters flying over MIT all morning long. Heck, they're still flying around outside of my room right now. I sure hope they were just busy televising the walk-out and not actually doing 'patrol' or something. Seriously, what are you going to be able to spot from the air? Man, the media must be having a blast.

As for the test? Well, as Sarah said, "Either I passed or I didn't." Same thing here... Either I did things right, or I did them totally wrong. Let's hope it's the former. ^^ Hm, the last question (worth 25 points out of 100 total) had 2 parts, and both seemed to come out to 0. That's always disturbing.... Especially when it's worth a quarter of your grade. >_< But it seems that everyone else got that too. Let's hope it's correct!

Sarah and I walked out after the test and saw there were a lot of people (all the anti-war folks) congregating at the Student Center. So we got lunch from the food trucks instead of trying to fight our way to the cafeteria in the Student Center. There were lots of people with signs and armbands and stuff. There was this frightening George Bush caricature puppet thing made out of paper mache, and some people were holding up word bubbles near him saying "'W' is for war" and "MIT is for peace." Heading back from class today, I saw some students loading the puppet into a pickup truck. They're probably taking it to Government Center for tonight's rally. Most of the signs were pretty standard anti-war signs, but there was one that disturbed me a lot - a sign of the American flag with a swastika superimposed on it. I don't agree with that at all. -_-

Hmm.... The people are walking down the bridge now, into Boston. I wonder how many there are... Well, I've been trying to sort out my feelings on this war, and it's not an easy matter. It certainly seems to me that dimplomacy wasn't going to work any more - hasn't really been working recently anyway. What are we supposed to do? Just leave Iraq alone? Can we afford to do that? Why does everyone seem so against this war? Are there really any better alternatives? If we can get in and get out quickly, I think it would be worth it. Unfortunately, though, the US doesn't have a very good record of fighting lightning-quick wars. It makes me a little sick to think about having 300,000 soldiers all converging on that one little county... But there were more than 600,000 soldiers their during the Gulf War. It's hard to imagine. The politicians sound much too optimistic. How are our soldiers supposed to be able to take over and hold gigantic oil fields the size of New Jersey in next to no time? I think the thing that upsets me the most is the swarm of helicopters hanging around here. The media just love this... They can go on and on about war day and night. Goodness knows, they've been doing that all this time anyway... But now... It will be even worse. I'm also a little worried to be here. MIT is such a high profile school - very well known in the international community. I didn't worry about that at all until just this week. What if terrorists decide to attack institutes of higher education? Likely or not? Still, I'm very disturbed, and I'm glad I've got spring break this week. I don't really want to be around here in Boston right now.

I'm really glad that my 6.001 project wasn't as bad as the last one. I'm actually finished, besides doing some final testing and commenting. So I can devote all of today to my math p-set. Joy. Heck, once I finish that, then I'm all done for the week and I can start to think about vacation!! I can't wait. ^_^

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Savage Garden - Affirmation
Current mood: Sad