#like yeah I’m pissed my world history teacher spent a week teaching 9/11

[theamazingannie]

This is apparently an extremely unpopular opinion, but I hate 9/11 jokes. And I don’t say this as some super patriotic person who is always like #neverforget and planning memorials and all that. I was born in 1999. I was two when it happened, so I don’t remember it. But I live in America so I’ve seen the documentaries and the news reports. It seems like every year of school starting in like 4th grade I learned something new about what happened that day. And it was a tragedy. It was devastating. People died. People felt so hopeless that they jumped out of buildings because it was better than burning to death. I agree that it’s unbearably annoying that we are so obsessed with this event. I agree that it is horrible that our country ignores the effects of this event, all of the innocent people who died in the war, all of the innocent Americans who were harassed and harmed afterwards for simply looking like the people who did this. I’m angry at our government for ignoring the signs of this attack because it wasn’t random. There were many things our government did that led to this attack and signs that something was coming. I don’t think it was an inside job, but I do think it could have been stopped. I don’t think Bush was involved simply because he didn’t freak out and panic in front of a bunch of children during story time (something everyone who claims Bush did 9/11 ignore when talking about his straight face after finding out). This wasn’t a military attack. These were innocent people just going to work. My dad knows someone who was inside the building because he was delivering sandwiches for a lunch order. I think a big part of the younger generations’ response to it is overexposure and a lack of personal understanding that leads to apathy. We see this frequently. I understand why you think it’s okay to make constant jokes about this. But it was still a tragedy, one that happened during some of our lifetimes. I don’t expect you to weep and be filled with patriotism and rage upon hearing about it. But I also don’t understand how anyone could joke about it. Especially not an entire generation

[andromedahawking]

NaNoWriMo Day 7

One week! One whole week! 11667 words! I’m doing a thing!!

(Apologies again, sleep-induced weirdness may occur here...)

Things progressed smoothly over the next week. The project moved swiftly, Maria made sure to keep up on all her other classes, and work managed not to drive her crazy. All in all, she’d had worse weeks.

But then, it was Tuesday, the 7th of November, 2084.

Election Day.

She woke up that morning briefly ignorant of this very important fact, and for that moment, it was a very blissful ignorance. But then the bubble popped, right as she was about to get out of bed, and suddenly she decided she wasn’t feeling up to going to school todayy. She would just stay home and sleep. Yeah. Let’s not think about the outside world today.

Group Chat

Maria: Someone tell Monaca I'm sick, won’t be in today.

Tatie: I’ve got you, sweetheart.

Maria: Thanks.

She let her phone fall out of her hand, and buried her face in her pillow. Why today, of all days, to exist on this mortal plane?

At around 9, she heard the front door slam shut, and she let out a small sigh of relief. Thalia was taken care of. One less thing to have to think about now.

She tried to go back to sleep, but her mind was swirling with thoughts about the election. It was going to be a very big night, and a lot of the hubbub would probably have her name tossed out way more frequently than she would ever like it to be. Why did she have to be a dumbass? Why did she have to try to make a statement? And why did everybody else decide to listen?

John had said it was looking close this time. Herald and Andrews were easy losers, anybody could tell but Alighieri and Waters… that was where the real battle was gonna play out. It was going to go to Round 3 voting, without a doubt, and the margin would be incredibly thin when it was all said and done. And of course, tomorrow would probably be worse than today, because the result would be known and everyone with half an opinion would be rushing around to tell everybody what they thought about the whole ordeal and what it meant for the future and yadda yadda ya, just thinking about it pissed her off.

She moved her head under her pillow, and clamped it down around her ears in a futile attempt to drown out the noise in her head, and slowly managed to drift off into a very unstable sleep.

—

She woke up multiple times: 11, 13, 17, and then finally got up at 19 to get a couple pieces of toast and some milk before going back upstairs to crash again, telling Thalia, “Lemme know who wins before you leave tomorrow, m’kay?”

“Thought you don’t give a fuck.”

“Would that I could, sis, would that I could.”

“You gonna actually get up tomorrow?”

“Not if I can help it.”

—

The next morning, Maria was awoken by a sharp knocking at the door.

“Wh’d’you wan’?”

“Alighieri won. 220 to 215.”

“Ah, sweet. Make sure to kick anybody’s ass who gives you any grief at school, tell ‘em I told you to.”

“Buddy, you don’t gotta tell me twice. I was planning on kicking ass anyway.”

“Attagirl, Thal. I’ll see ya later.”

“Don’t spend the whole day being dead, okay? You look like shit when you do that.”

“Thanks, Thalia, I already knew that. Now get to school.”

“Roger dodger, sis…”

She listened to her footsteps thunder down the steps, then the front door slam. Then it was very, very quiet.

So, Alighieri, huh? President Alighieri. That was not gonna go over well for a lot of people. Having a Democrat snatch victory out of Progressive jaws after everything that had happened this year was something that was considered a bit of a worst-case scenario in the eyes of the liberal establishment. So that also meant Maria had to keep out of the public eye again, to avoid getting pulled back into the blame circle and being picked apart again by all the media pundits.

God, couldn’t she just lead a normal life? Somehow?

Ping.

Tatie: You going to call in sick again today?

Well, kudos to you, Tatie, for being very observant and also very up-front.

Maria: Something like that.

Tatie: Hope you know where to find the homework. And make sure you show up on Thursday, otherwise four out of four groupmates will murder you!~

Maria: Don’t worry, I’ll be in tomorrow. I don’t like the idea of being drawn and quartered any time soon.

Tatie: Haha yeah, generally speaking it’s good to try and avoid death. We would prefer you alive.

Maria: Me too. I’m going to be passed out most of today so don’t be surprised if I don’t answer any of my messages until tonight at some point.

Tatie: Enjoy your sleep, then~ I’ll leave you alone.

Maria: See you tomorrow.

—

Maria did manage to extricate herself from bed on Thursday, although to be perfectly honest, it was mainly because she didn’t want to be the one to flake out on the group project first. If she did that, then she was screwed on a school level as welll as a national one. Thankfully, school was also a lot easier to repair, so on balance, probably not the worst thing in the world if she missed today. Just bad.

Adrien and Hannah were chatting outside the History room when Maria got there. “Hey, Maria!” Adrien said, waving. “How’s it going?”

“I am so tired,” she groaned. “The last two days just had me wiped out.”

“Yeah, we missed you on Tuesday,” Hannah said. “You just catch a bug or something?”

“Mm-hm. Nothing too serious, just sorta took the energy out of me. I’m over it now.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “So, uh, what did I miss, dare I ask?”

“Not much, actually,” Hannah said. “Monaca spent most of it just sort of going over the details of Teller City. Most of it’s in the reader.”

“Okay, good,” Maria nodded. “I can live with that.”

“She also was railing about making sure to vote,” Adrien snickered. “I didn’t think she could be much more high-energy than she already is, but man, that was something to see.”

“Definitely,” Hannah agreed. “You were probably smart to stay away from that if you were under the weather.”

“Oh, yeah, I can only imagine.”

“Keep it that way. It was hilarious, but also a little bit scary,” Adrien said.

“I just hope that she doesn’t use today as to follow up on that…” Hannah said.

Just then, Monaca came around the corner of the hall, Snapple bottle in hand. “Morning, guys!��� she said, waving enthusiastically. “How was your Wednesday?”

They all gave her the usual spiels about "lots of stuff to do” and “not enough sleep”.

“God, you guys sound like my roommates from when I was in college,” she said.

“It’s almost like we’re in college or something,” Maria said, smirking sarcastically.

“Woooow, really?! I never would’ve guessed!”

—

“Now, today’s gonna be a bit different from the usual format,” Monaca said to the class. “That’s because the election has been decided, so as your History teacher, I’m obligated to spend a few minutes with y’all to discuss the implications this whole thing has on the future of the next four years, what it means for you, for us, all that good stuff. So let me start off by asking, how many of you followed the election pretty closely?”

About a quarter of the class raised their hands.

“Okay, and how about just the cursory stuff, like the headlines and stuff?”

About three-fourths of the class raised their hands this time.

“Alright. That’s a fairly decent percentage of you. Now, how many of you voted for the candidate on the ballot, and not the party?”

“…Um, could you explain that a little better?” Graham asked.

“Sure.” She picked up her bottle, empty now, and started fiddling with it in her hands. “What I mean is, when you voted, how many of you chose your options based on who you liked, as opposed to based on which party they belonged to? Did you vote for Terry Waters because you like Terry, or do you just like the Progressive Party?”

“Oh, man, that’s a harsh question, don’t you think, teach?” Maria asked with a small grin on her face.

“The truth hurts, what can I say?” Monaca said, grinning back. “You don’t have to answer, of course, I just thought that would be a good question to roll around in your heads for a little while today. A lot of people tend to vote for a candidate based on which party they belong to more than what the candidate’s positions actually are. Party loyalty plays more of a role than what the candidate is about. You can usually infer a candidate’s positions based on which party they’re a member of, but just because someone’s a Democrat or a Republican or a Progressive doesn’t mean they’ll fit neatly into the party platform. Heck, the Progressives and Constitutionals became major parties because the Dems and the Republicans split way back in the 20s and 30s, remember? Party is an umbrella, but candidates are usually more specific.”

“Implies politicians keep a stable platform!” someone called out, earning a lot of snickers from the class.

“You got me there!” Monaca laughed. “Yes, politicians are always notorious for saying one thing and doing another, hypocrites that they are. But hey, that’s part of how it all works. Politics is just as much about charisma and knowing how to talk to a specific audience as it is about policy. You can’t get very far if you can’t get a lot of very different people behind you.

“But now I’m rambling! Okay, back on topic. So, with Waters and Alighieri, what do you guys think the main difference was that…”