Psych 101+Rwanda

Today.
I woke up to beautiful sun and warm weather only to not set one foot outside all day long. Don't you just love those days? I know I do. Snap. Especially when I haven't even had a chance to shower. In three days. I am not even kidding. The semester system is brutal like middle school gym. You know...boring at first. A lot of time spent sitting on your butt on the floor listening to lectures. And all of a sudden one day you have to dash off and run a mile as quick as you can. Or in this case, all of a sudden all of your term papers are due and you have to write three in a row.

On top of all this, I have a serious problem that may in fact demand psychiatric help. I am overly empathetic in the extreme. Case in point: When I was watching the Manchester v. Chelsea game last night I just about died when the Chelsea captain missed his goal in the shoot out. He just completely choked because he slipped on the grass. And it cost them the game. I nearly cried. I bet he felt horrible....but the thing is, I'm not even necessarily a Chelsea fan. I like Arsenal. Why do I waste all this emotion on soccer stars who I had never even heard of before. I am freaking writing a 30 pg paper on the Rwandan genocide and these children whose mothers and fathers decided to kill them in 1994....does that make me cry? No. I type away like nobody's business. But privileged soccer stars living cushy existences who miss their penalty shots=waterworks.

Somebody should probably study me.

Or put me in therapy like I said.

I was actually in therapy once, after Olive died. It was interesting, really. Right out of the movies. There was a lot of nodding and "how did that make you feel?" and "hmmm"ing on her part. She never said anything else. It was so silent, and awkward with her just staring at me over her glasses that I would just babble on and on and on. Which, in retrospect was probably the point. Expensive babbling though. Serves my parents right for demanding that I see a shrink rather than actually discussing my "issues" with me themselves. It's funny actually, because I didn't really have issues. I just hated being in Baltimore because I didn't know anyone there. And since my best friend had just died, I felt that I deserved to yell at my parents for taking me away from the PNW and everything familiar. The only issue I have with the whole death thing is that I don't have serious issues at all. I miss her of course, but I don't think about her often. I think it is a mild form of denial, where what I don't think about can't hurt me and so I don't think about it.But I have no idea....maybe I would know if my therapist had ever said anything besides "hmmm." It's really very easy. And I honestly don't have any real build up of whatever that you always hear about with people who are repressing things.

Weird.

Anyway, did you know that the current Rwandan government is absolutely ludicrous? I had no idea. Just think about it. The Hutu majority makes up over 85% of the population. In 1994 they committed a genocide in response to various things, but primarily because they became convinced that the Tutsi-RPF who had just invaded were going to take back power and oppress them once again. So now, the genocide has been ended, but the Tutsi-RPF once again has all the political power in the country. And they have banned all other political parties. They also had the bright idea to punish every single person (Hutus) who participated in the genocide, even if they only damaged property. But they refuse to hold accountable the Tutsi RPF members and supporters that massacred Hutus both in 1994, in the refugee camps in 1995 and in Zaire in 1996. So what is the moral of the story here? That the Tutsi minority captured total power and now are going to institute a crack addict form of victors justice, and risk inciting the vast majority of the country back to violence. The worst part is that the entire world has ignored the fact that the RPF government has a human rights record nearly as bad as Mugabe's in Zimbabwe. They don't call the RPF Africa's Israel for nothing.