Okay, I have an admission to make. You know how whenever anyone asks me what classes I’m taking this term, my stock reply is “boring classes”? That’s a total lie. My ‘Argumentation and Research’ class is fantastic, almost the perfect class – and it manages to maintain that level of approval in the face of it requiring me to write essays that include MLA citations, topic sentances, and thesis statements. As you know, I’m not a big fan of all that – and yet, it barely detracts from the class overall.

We have had some amazingly cool discussions, especially in the past couple of weeks – we talked about eating choices (omnivores v. everyone else), the implications and repercussions of our ‘war on terror’, and now this week about gender and race in politics. Huge discussions! Really good insight. I can’t remember anything in partcular, but I can’t remember much in particular usually, so that’s not really significant – it’s like putting a bunch of good tasting things together in a pot and cooking them until they turn in to something even tastier: stuff is stewing in my head as a result of the past few class discussions.

The only real distractions from the experience have come from one classmate in particular, who is one of those sort of akward people who is sort of constantly disruptive, offensive, and ignorant, but you get the feeling that he has no idea he’s doing it. Lacking in social graces, I guess you could say – and a certain amount of social grace is integral to being respected as a peer, at least as far as I’m concerned. At first I was getting a little annoyed that people were just putting up with him, and not really correcting him when he would shout stuff out in the middle of an otherwise serious discussion, but now, as of week #8, classmates as well as the instructor herself are starting to call him on it. I think the fact that he’s so vocal and tries so hard to participate indicates that he wants to be included as an equal, but before that happens he’s got to work out how to behave, and in that sort of situations he might resent the constant admonishment, but I can’t imagine that he won’t benefit from it.

It’s interesting – I guess I don’t really get enough chance to make intellectually-stimulating conversations in my typical social interaction, which is weird, considering all the smart people I hand out with. It feels like I’ve been starved for it. Maybe we don’t feel the need to be as confrontational or argumentetive around people who are friends, because we’re afraid that we might lose some of that friendship – whereas around strangers, there’s less to hold you back.  I’ve also noticed, on a somewhat personal though probably intriguing note, sexuality notwithstanding, I actually start feeling more attracted to girls if they’re smart and arguing with me – what does that mean, I wonder? Something to think about, for sure.