Jones Soda

...told me to call my dad yesterday.

Ha.

In other news, it is really freaking cold in Pittsburgh and it sounds like it's pretty cold everywhere else, too. I like warm weather so much better if for no other reason than I tend to resent all the energy I spend just keeping warm, energy that could be spent doing things like homework. Blah. It's more than just not liking the physical sensation of coldness - it's feeling like the cold gets into every single part of me inside, just sucking all the energy and life out. I hate it.

(There's a panda nudging at me and telling me to make comments about...well, never mind. He's been acting funny lately, what with picking up Mormonism and all. I think it's a phase, but according to him we're running away to Utah this weekend...)

Hm. What else.

There's an interesting trend of thought in my International Orgainzations class. It seems to go something like "Everything bad that happens is the fault of the U.S. because the U.S. should be able to step in and stop anything bad from happening. Not only that, but it's their job to do so even in the face of overwhelming public and international disapproval because we, the educated elite, can clearly discern right from wrong. (Looking back at historical events...) At the same time, we're going to be a part of the popular majority opposing current U.S. efforts because we, the educated elite, can still clearly discern right from wrong and this is definitely wrong, particularly because the rest of the world and country think so."

It's not just the actual politics involved in the specific situations, it's the fact that there's such an inconsistency of ideals regarding what the U.S. is supposed to do - I feel like instead of actually applying a systemetic thought process regardling policy and action/inaction, the idea is to just follow the trend of popular opinion with respect to individual situations. It's true that there may be some value in that, at least in terms of acknowledging the role of popular support in world politics, but at the same time it just *feels* strange sometimes to be sitting in a classroom listening to people continually contradict themselves without even realizing it, or stopping to defend the contradictions. (In other words - I could care less about what people's actual political ideals ARE, as long as they can keep them consistent and therefore more or less reasoned...)

I know that it would make more sense for me to say something about it during class, instead of being a wuss and just blogging about it like some whiny 12 year old...yeah. I have no defense. I guess there's a bit of a wuss in all of us, especially those of us decidedly not making a career of poli sci or anything of the sort.

On that note, time for a quiz on assembly code. Processors are so sexy.

(Edit: Until I, for the second week running, do much more poorly than I expected. Grumble. Intel, I blame you and your little-endian foo. )