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i just took a 35-minute stroll uphill on an open sunny highway back to my apartment.

in theater class, our instructor, paul hutchinson, reviewed the eight homework exercises from the past month we were to perform in class today (that's the way it works, half the stuff you do in class you've mostly forgotten was ever homework)
when i requested that we not do the "almost-silent scene" because it had been assigned three weeks ago, it was uninteresting and nobody liked it, almost everyone nodded in agreement. paul said i could either do it or not do it and take the F. when i said "ok" he got confused. he asked what i meant and i said "i'll take the F."
he was flabbergasted. how could a student WANT to take the F?
i argued that we've already done twenty on-stage exercises and one failure surely wouldn't affect me that badly. a couple of students agreed with me on that point.
paul decided not to drop the issue and discuss it with me in front of the class for a few more minutes, at the end of which i answered him that i would like to not do the scene, and he replied that he would like me to drop the course.

now, it being over a month too late to drop any courses, that was not an option. but if i stayed in class after a statement like that, it would be insubordination, which was one of the few things i ACTUALLY got in trouble for in high school.
so i walked out. calmly without making any sort of facial expression other than "alright...i'm cool with that" i packed my bag and walked out. i heard all the other students whispering back and forth to ask if i was joking or serious and i heard paul make some noise as if to acknowledge that he didn't know.

everyone in that room knew i didn't have a ride back to campus. jesse and i bug them every week for rides back because we don't have any other way to get back other than the 35-minute walk uphill in the blazing florida sun.
i'm not worried about jesse getting back because he has his cell phone and always calls people to pick him up. if i were his ride i'd feel bad and probably reconsider.
fact is, i spend more time every week searching out transport for that class then i do studying for, doing homework for, and walking to and from both of my other liberal arts classes combined.

being the devoted student i am, so set on paying attention in class and having no distractions, i didn't bring any money or even my discman, so the entire walk back i was wishing for music or a cold soda, anything to stop dictating an open letter to paul hutchinson in my mind. that reminded me of the last time i wrote an open letter. for those new to the game or just not caring enough to remember the trivialities, it was written to LIAC in response to accusations of sexual harassment at a UU convention. i wrote a long meandering essay recounting the events of the weekend and exposing the girl in question for the liar she was and how the whole ordeal, being my first UU convention, was having a negative impact on my view of UU politics, which was bad since i at the time served on our congregation's board of directors and had previously served on a couple of YRUU committees.
regardless, they liked her story better, which blatantly negated the stories of myself and three other people at the weekend convention, and i was banned from UU conventions for life.
about two months later the new youth advisor completely rewrote the service i had been preparing for over a month while i was having my portfolio reviewd at carnegie-mellon, the only weekend i did not attend any UU congregation since the start of the school year. between the reactions from LIAC and the assanine alterations to my service, i left SNUUC and have refused to donate a single dime to any Long Island congregation of my own volition.

but the thing is, everyone who read my letter, whether they had been at the convention or not, whether they were unitarians or not, there was not a shadow of doubt in their minds that i had done nothing wrong. i irrefutably documented every conversation and activity i was involved in all weekend, every song i listened to, ever room i entered and exited, but authority figures look for easy resolutions rather than just ones, and that pissed me off.

and it pisses me off today.


i am not writing that letter. at least, not yet. but i am not to take this sort of abuse.

i make an effort to edit myself as i write in my blog as i know who reads it, but make no mistake that i mean this and i am sorry for it:


fuck you, paul hutchinson.