Did you know? Rural southerners are all ignorant, backwoods rednecks who are afraid of the big city! They don't have any culture and should just be written off because they have nothing to offer and nobody can learn anything from them. Mostly because they are Christian and vote Republican.

It's true! The overwhelming genius and non-assholery of a classmate of mine proved it to me by shouting over my appalled defiance and his insistence that he knows all about "these people." I mean, he lived in southern Indiana for a couple of years! Well, that certainly entitles him to blanket an entire subset of the population with a ridiculous stereotype, and to completely write off my experience.

MAN I hate this guy. He seems to think he's just engaging in friendly debate, because after his outrageous displays of arrogance and elitism, he tries to joke around with me. Last night I said, "If you say 'these people' one more time, this conversation is over." Of course, he did, so I immediately turned away from and started talking to my friend. I guess this wasn't a big enough hint, because a little bit later as he was getting ready to leave, he shakes my hand and tells me how much he likes talking with me.

"You know I'm holding these conversations against you," I told him icily. He laughed, "I know," like I'm not serious and actually enjoy a constrant stream of offensive stereotypes presented as political analysis. I kind of grimaced. "Okay, see you later." What I really wanted to say was "You're an asshole, you suck and I hate you. Shut the eff up and never talk to me again." But I was raised with better manners than that.

Though if this keeps up, those manners might get left in the dirt. Sorry, Mom.

Weird Library Mall Person #3

This older man was standing on one of the raised platforms, holding a battered leather-bound folder. I didn't notice him at first as I was getting my burrito from one of the Mexican food carts, and then he starts singing. Well, not so much singing as chanting in a simple melody. "Infinite wisdom and mercy and love... Deep breath for peace for the country of... South Korea!" A brief silence in which I soon realize he is, in fact, taking a deep breath. For peace. And again: "Infinite wisdom and mercy and love... Deep breath for peace for the country of... Kazakhstan!"

I'm not entirely sure how taking a deep breath in Madison, Wisconsin will increase the peace in Kazakhstan, but maybe it's one of those butterfly effect chaos theory things that Jeff Goldblum talks about in Jurassic Park (which was on the other day and man, dinosaurs will never, ever stop being awesome). Maybe sucking up the air in Madison is depriving some military dictator of vital oxygen halfway across the world. But what about countries that are already pretty peaceful, like Denmark? Does he still breathe deeply for them? I didn't stick around to find out, though. I'm curious, but not that curious.

So, pretty odd, but as far as Weird Library Mall people go, I kind of liked him. At least he wasn't yelling about those idolatrous Jews. Or masturbation.

Still no financial aid money. My level of frustration with these idiots is through the roof. Seriously, all that needs to happen is someone official (i.e., not me) needs to tell Sallie Mae that I am, in fact, enrolled at UW and that I'm not asking for more money than I need. This can even be done electronically. And yet Great Lakes (UW's guarantor) and the UW Financial Aid office are fighting over who has to do this!

So of course, the logical solution would be for Great Lakes to fill out a piece of paper with the pertinent information and send it to me, so I can send it to Sallie Mae. The woman I talked to at Financial Aid gave me the impression that she thought my getting a blank form in the mail was a very real possibility. If that happens, you'll probably be able to get the details on the evening news.

Classes have started, and, as expected, I like International Governance, am indifferent to Micro and I hate Statistics with the firey passion of a thousand suns. I don't understand it, but I can't be bothered enough to try to understand it because I don't care. I DON'T CARE. I don't care why we have to take the mean of whatever to find out the probability of something else. I don't care how the variance formula is derived and why we square some number to get the proper calculation for a Greek symbol whose meaning I can't remember. I swear to god, someone could point a flaming arrow at my face and tell me to use Bayes' Theorem to find the probability of X and I would say, "Whatever, just shoot me." I hate it, I hate it, I! hate! it!

Roommate Kate is actually vacuuming crumbs out of the couch rather than do her statistics. I predict that the worse stats gets, the cleaner our house will be. I'll bet we could figure out a statistical formula related to that, but I think I have some stabbing myself in the eye to get to instead.

I could write about my battles with Financial Aid, and how I spent over an hour on the phone getting bounced from person to person, and how I discovered that both of my loans are missing some tiny yet vital piece of paperwork that nobody thought it was important to inform me of, and how I AM SO SICK OF DEALING WITH THIS CRAP AND GIVE ME MY MONEY ALREADY!!!!

But I won't. Instead, I'll talk about how much I love UW's campus. There is so much going on all the time. It's a big change from Roanoke, where the biggest thing happening on either Quad was some dudes tossing a lacrosse ball around, or some sorority girls sunbathing in bikinis even though the temperature is 57 degrees.

But not here! This afternoon on the Library Mall there is a guy holding a giant sign that has a bunch of stuff on it- the Darwin fish, the word "gays," the Star of David, etc.- in a circle with a line through it. The sign-holding guy looks pretty bored, because it's the other guy who's getting all the attention, as he is yelling quite loudly about repenting and how everyone's going to Hell except him and the sign-holding guy.

Yes, it's a Crazy Fundamentalist! Normally, these kinds of people piss me off because I'm pretty sure the Beatitudes aren't "Blessed are those who spread hate," or "Blessed are the asshats." But this time I just had to laugh because this guy? Was shouting- at the top of his lungs and in public- about masturbation. Now that's not a subject I'd expect to hear about in public, much less multiple times and at high-volume. It was too surreal. I wasn't the only one who thought it was funny because there were plenty of other bemused students standing around and laughing, and I actually heard one girl on her cell saying, "Oh my god, you have to come see this crazy guy!"

Later on in the evening, there was a new scene on the Library Mall: knights. Not Of Columbus, but the kind in armor. Who swordfight. In fact, that's what they were doing, as some lovely damsels did a dance (kind of like the dance some background characters are doing in the wedding scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). It was like stumbling on a mini-Renaissance Faire. I watched for a few moments and a guy wearing period dress handed me a flier for the Society for Creative Anachronism. "You could do this in your free time, if you wanted!" he said. Um, no thanks. It was fun to watch though.

And now it's time to read "Governance in Public Administration and Public Policy: Steering Inter-Organizational Networks." Don't be jealous.

Yesterday I spent a lovely day outside, and today I'm paying the price, allergy-wise. I've been watching Little House on the Prairie for most of the afternoon because this show is freaking great, blowing my nose and wiping my eyes. (Gross! Willie Olsen was hiding in the store and watching Laura try on a dress! Will this be a Very Special Episode in which we learn how to deal with underage Peeping Toms?) It was worth it though. Roommate Kate, her friend and I went to a party in the park near our apartment, and then to Taste of Madison on the Capital Square. It was packed, and every other person was wearing a Wisconsin t-shirt. Apparently that's really common; Kate said Madisonians- and Wisconsinites (Wisconsinians? Wisconsinonians?) in general- always have closetsful of Wisconsin t-shirts to prove their Wisconsin pride.

Could it be? Could I be living amongst people whose state pride outstrips my own? I don't have any Kentucky t-shirts! I have already defended Kentucky's honor a few times to doubters, but I don't have any clothing-based beacons to broadcast its awesomeness to any who might look upon me. I feel like a failure. I'm sorry, Kentucky! I promise that once I have more than $14 in my bank account (every day I check my mailbox in hopes that my financial aid check has arrived), I'll order some t-shirts.

Moving on. After Taste of Madison (pumpkin spice cheesecake and an ear of roast corn, delicious!) I went to a friend's for a cookout. The weather's been beautiful, which makes staying indoors today hard, because I know it's not going to last. I want to be able to do some hiking before it's -151 degrees outside. Hopefully staying inside today will mean I can go outside tomorrow. Or that my allergy prescription will start being worth its outrageous price tag.

Orientation was this week, which was a nice change of pace. My classmates seem pretty fun, though the assessment exam for Statistics and Microecon was brutal. Fractions are the devil's work, I tell you. (Though this kid on Little House is now doing complex long division (or "cipherin'") in his head. Now I feel stupid.) But everybody else seems to be in the same boat, so hopefully I won't be too far behind.

This show so One Life to Live on the Plains. Laura and that hodag Nellie Olsen are catfighting! Nellie totally deserves it for lying to Laura about the teachers' exam and then flirting with Almanzo. Now she's lying to Charles about Laura and Almanzo kissing! What a bitch. They weren't kissing, though Almanzo is flirting with her pretty hardcore, and he's quite a bit older than she is. I forgot about the age difference, that's kind of skeezy. Holy crap! Charles is beating up Almanzo, and Almanzo called Laura a "little girl" and Laura's hearbroken and shouting that she's "A WOMAN!" which has been a theme of the past couple epsiodes, even though she looks like she's about 12 and I wish everybody would stop talking about Laura being a woman in such a creepy way.

If I have to stay inside with a washcloth on my face and a box of tissues at hand, at least I have the nonstop drama of Little House to entertain me.