Futility, and vandalism.
This morning I woke up oddly motivated to work on my project, but had to go to class. Maria and I went to the tram stop about ten minutes later than I usually do, which seemed fine since I usually get to class about fifteen minutes early. Except that the tram was going to be 12 minutes arriving, and when it finally did arrive, it was too packed for us to get on. I had to wait another 5 minutes, at this point knowing I was going to be at least 20 minutes late to class. I was planning on not going, but just then the tram pulled up and I couldn't really keep myself from getting on it.
Twenty-five minutes later, I walk into the auditorium, expecting 200 heads to turn around and look at the disturbance. Instead, I found myself alone in a large empty room. I love it when class is canceled without notice.
So I spent 30 more minutes waiting on and taking the tram. It wasn't the best way to start my day.
One thing I noticed on campus was the rather prolific amount of anti-fascist graffiti that had appeared since I'd last walked around. Or maybe it was there -- yesterday it was cold and rainy and I pretty much trotted between buildings with my head down every time I was outside. The funny thing about anti-fascist sentiment is that, well, there's a lot of it. And people feel the need to spray paint anti-fascist sentiments all over a campus paid for, mostly, because of, well, socialism. In the States, fascism is not so much an issue at all -- sure, people might call the professor who assigned the inconvenient project a fascist, but I'm not sure it's really a political talking point. And besides which, I've seen very few spray paint tags on OU's campus at all -- but definitely not, say, on the side of every building. It's not just the campus, though, there's a lot of graffiti in this town. Most of the one-story buildings downtown have nets on the top of them to discourage people climbing up the walls and standing on their roofs to spray paint the sides of neighboring buildings. This doesn't appear to be a particularly successful tactic, although I guess it's possible the nets were installed after the pre-existing graffiti.
Anyway, as I was walking by someone who appeared to be washing paint off the side of the Accueil building, I was handed a flyer by the Communist Student Association, protesting the privatization of higher education and the closing of socialized student housing.
Definitely a different political world.
Twenty-five minutes later, I walk into the auditorium, expecting 200 heads to turn around and look at the disturbance. Instead, I found myself alone in a large empty room. I love it when class is canceled without notice.
So I spent 30 more minutes waiting on and taking the tram. It wasn't the best way to start my day.
One thing I noticed on campus was the rather prolific amount of anti-fascist graffiti that had appeared since I'd last walked around. Or maybe it was there -- yesterday it was cold and rainy and I pretty much trotted between buildings with my head down every time I was outside. The funny thing about anti-fascist sentiment is that, well, there's a lot of it. And people feel the need to spray paint anti-fascist sentiments all over a campus paid for, mostly, because of, well, socialism. In the States, fascism is not so much an issue at all -- sure, people might call the professor who assigned the inconvenient project a fascist, but I'm not sure it's really a political talking point. And besides which, I've seen very few spray paint tags on OU's campus at all -- but definitely not, say, on the side of every building. It's not just the campus, though, there's a lot of graffiti in this town. Most of the one-story buildings downtown have nets on the top of them to discourage people climbing up the walls and standing on their roofs to spray paint the sides of neighboring buildings. This doesn't appear to be a particularly successful tactic, although I guess it's possible the nets were installed after the pre-existing graffiti.
Anyway, as I was walking by someone who appeared to be washing paint off the side of the Accueil building, I was handed a flyer by the Communist Student Association, protesting the privatization of higher education and the closing of socialized student housing.
Definitely a different political world.
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