A Sky Afire

When heaven and earth pass away, consumed in a cataclysmic, cleansing firestorm, I'm sure it'll look something like this. I'm actually thinking of putting together a little coffee-table book of all the shots I've gotten of Dominica - but only of the sunsets from this particular vantage point, with the broken dock taking center stage. It's so breathtaking that, for a few moments, the rest of the day just kind of melts away. It's easy to forget about the mind-numbing exam we had Tuesday morning.

It wasn't so bad, but it was pretty bad. I genuinely dislike getting into an exam and realizing that I've never heard some of the terms before. What makes me even angrier is the fact that my grade may be side-lined by someone's bad-grammar or lazy question writing. Things would be so much easier if the professors were held to the same standards I am. Seriously - I'm going into a profession where people will die if I screw up, so if you're going to grade me and determine part of my future, you'd damn well better write the best questions you can come up with . It's absolutely unforgivable that some of these professors write questions stems and answer choices with even the hint of shoddiness. Of course - everyone makes mistakes, but if my mistakes are going to determine my future, it's obscene that some of these professors can just shrug off their mistakes with a "well you should have known what I meant."

I think the bridges held up. I won't know for a few days, of course, in which case I might have to (maybe) amend the metaphor. Maybe we're more like shipping magnates - we run around checking the bridges, assuring their structural integrity and strength - but when that day of reckoning/examination comes, we can only hope that whatever precious cargo has been entrusted to us has safely made it across the bridges we were tasked with securing. When the grades come out, we'll either find out the extent of the damage, or the spoils of success. I ran the bridges, I checked everywhere I could, and I hope that everything got to where it was going.

Injustices abound. Complaints will never cease. We've got a grievance process, thankfully, but these things will continue. However, the world perhaps became a little better on Tuesday when we elected the first Black (that's right, capital "B") president. Ever. Honestly, I never really doubted it would happen - I knew last year that senate was going to flip to the dems, and with everything going on, I knew that Americans wouldn't elect another republican. This race might have seemed close, but in mind mind, the selection of Palin and the economic crisis were the two final nails in the coffin. I've realized that, while I might disagree with some of someone's values (no one's ever going to see 100% eye-to-eye with anyone else, after all), the people have hopefully chosen someone who's going to make the best choices for us as a nation. There are unrealistic expectations from some - Rome wasn't built in a day, and our economy would be resurrected in short order either - but let's hope that President Elect Barack Obama makes good on his promise of change we need.

I don't want to be in class today.