The Slippery Slope of Stupidity and My Intolerance

So, I'm taking this Terrorism and Political Violence course. As you can imagine most of our discussions revolve around the predominantly Muslim terrorists that we see in the world today. I should also preface that there are approximately 8 military students (all of which are seniors) in this class. We've been here together for a while, so we're fairly tight and can get fairly rowdy. There also just happens to be a female in the class who is of Arab descent and says "we" when talking about Arabs and Middle Eastern people in general (not the brightest move being at this particular institution either). I should also note that the teacher had us move our desks into a giant circle to help facilitate a better atmosphere for a discussion. As fate would have it, Little Iran was sitting directly across from me in the circle and had been staring at me (mistake #1) for some time (the class is just shy of 3 hours long). It was so bad that several friends of mine commented about it at the break. As with most people, I get agitated if someone stares at me (For the new readers: I'm a little edgier than most people). This is at about 1.5 hours into the class. Well, for some reason the professor was making some connection or comparison between the Middle East and Asia. Little Iran speaks up and says that the reason Asia isn't completely backwards is because they were never colonized. As I can't contain myself any more I said, "No it isn't! Asia was colonized too! Ever hear of France and Vietnam?" She (mistake #2) responds, "But it says it in the book!" (mistake #3) while pointing to it. I let my jaw drop for approximately 0.27 seconds and quickly fired back, "Oh yeah! Its in the book!", as I shook my head in an obnoxious manner. By this time, one of my classmates already said, "That's what the entire Vietnam War was about." I don't recall if she said something else, but I then sent a fire for effect volley with "Are you that blind to history?!". The military side erupted with laughter. I'm not sure if anyone else found humor in what I said because I was so pissed that the room was spinning while I was just sitting there. I shortly thereafter got a "fist of power" (fist-to-fist version of the "high five") and some wide eyed grins & chuckles from allies.

*deep relaxing breathe*

At the break, with approximately 1 hour of class time remaining, as soon as we got clear of the classroom, everyone that came out our side of the classroom was like, "But its in the book!" So, expect some good stories to come out of that class! That class is once a week on Thursday nights.

Crispy