Lethal Masculinity?

    At some point during this past week I read a particularly engaging artical called "Men - It's In There Nature" written by a philosopher named Christina Hoff Sommers. In this artical Chistina talks about an incident involving her son and several other boys during a "sensitivity exercise." For those who have not read it I'll just give a breif summery. The story goes something like this; Chistina's son and his class mates went for a camping trip in Israel, while there they where asked to participate in a sort of personal refection activity. The students where tolled to venture out into the desert until they where certain that they were in seclusion from each other. Once alone, the students were to write down what ever feelings that occured to them in the issolation of the desert. Christina tells us that this exercise yelled one of two responces depending on the student's gender. In the case of the girl students everyone returned with nice essays on the "Haunting loneliness" of the desert. In the case of the male students, well.. maybe I should just quote the passage, "The boys scattered into the desert, Quickly became bored, and sought out each other's company. Then they threw the pencils and paper into a pile, and used the candles and matches to start a little bonfire. The boys loved it; the sensitivity trainers were horrified. They viewed the boy's behavior as an expression of primitive violence and lethal masculinity straight from The Lord Of The Flies."
   I know that was a mouth full of a quote, but I wanted the readers of this blog to actually see it so that comment on it directly with having to explain my context each time. That being said, I have a lot to say about this, for one thing I'm a little more than bothered by the choice of words here. I mean look at this, "primative violence", maybe i just have'nt read this carfully enough but I did not read about any acts of violence being commited on anyone. I'm sure the sensitivity trainers would counter this by saying that setting fire to the paper was a symbol of violence that must be expunged, but how does grouping together and setting up a fire represent violence? Think about it, this guys were lonely; so they went to talk to there freinds, they probibly got cold waiting out in the desert night; so they built a fire to keep warm. Is that violent or destructive? I look at this and see constructive co-operation, everyone pooling in their resorces to help each other out. Before anyone points it out to me, I realize the boys were supposed to be alone to reflect on there feelings and I'll admite it's a little sad that they seem to all have the emotional depth of a milk carton, but the said fact is that some guys are much more restrictive when it comes to emotional expression, that's not to say that the emotions aren't there, but they probably didn't like the idea of opening up in some group circle. I know that I am never the first to volunteer for these things because, most of the time self reflection ends up being a stroll down negative nostalgia lane and some image of my blood mother throwing a plate on my head will revisit me. However even if no one in that crowd had anything that extreme haunting them it doesn't mean that they have no right find a better use of their time then trying to milk-out fake feelings for the sensitivity trainers that simply aren't occuring on the spot, and It certainly does not warrant them labeling the boys behavior as "Lethal Masculinity"      

Hectic doesn't even cover it

     What a week I've had, I don't think that school has ever given me so much trouble as this. I really wish i could tell you about it the traditional way, in cronological format but to be honest I simply can't remember everthing clear enough to give it to you strait. Instead I think I'll make use of all that alternate story structer I've been taught and start at the most hectic point. It was Tusday, or maybe Wensday, I can't remember, but i was walking from Consumer Ed. to Algebra 3 grinding my teeth and trying to look at anything that wasn't math related. I could scarcely believe my luck and at the same time was dreading every second, In just a few moments I would be explaining to Mr. Chonard that i was dropping his class, that was the part i was dreading. Of course the part i was extatic about was the not having to take Algebra any more, but we'll get to that later so anyway, I was just heading tword the door and there he was standing and greeting his students. As soon as his head turned tword me my head droped, it wasn't that I was afraid of him or anything I was afraid of his subject, infact i was all ways a nervous wreck in his classes because i couldn't and still can't understand most of what he's teaching without going over each and every problem, but I never had any reason to fear the man himself. I just could'nt stand the thought of dropping out after all the work he had done to help me stay afloat in his subject. He had oftain put his time aside to stay after school with me and bring me up to speed and after all his effort here I was giving up on him. My guilt was made worse by the fact that despite myself could not shut out the little voice in my head shouting for joy that I would never have to see a stupid "f of g over x squared times z" equation for the rest of the year. I tried my best to sound genuinely sorry for dropping his class and I think he didn't hold it against me, but I still ran from the door as soon as our talk was over as if he'd been shouting it me. For the rest of the day my sense of relief at no more math took over and i was happy, but then i went to the bath room during my lunch hour to call my dad. After explaining to him how every thing went. he told me how his talk with the principal went and he said that according to Mr. Austen I would need to take that fourth year of math in collage In order to get even an associate's degree. I should have know, I thought, me being freed of math it was to good to be true. Suddenly I was angry and i thought about how stupid it was the one could graduate high school and get into collage without a fourth year of math but in order to get out of collage they made you take it anyway and there you have to pay for the class. I was sure it was a scam the collages came up with to make money, if you needed that class for the career that you where going into then i could understand that but I sure as heck wasn't going into any math related fields so why was this necessarily. Well.. at least I was made aware of this before before I made a really expensive mistake and I doubt some how that the collage professor would offer nearly as much personal assistance as Mr. Choinard does, so there are some things to be grateful for, still way to get my hopes up huh.