i wanna go back to mexico and hear “hola hola coca cola” and “gato taco” and spend my lunch hour holding hands and singing. yes, it sounds cheesy, but i want to go back.
anyway. yay for friday, it’s been a long week. and yes, i know that it was only four days, but it felt like 14.
so becca wrote today about how jaded and cynical i am about the space program, and specifically, about astronauts. {sigh} i’m not going to spend more than two paragraphs stating my point of view in rebuttal to hers, so here they are:
if she still thinks that all astronauts are heroes, then she hasn’t 1) met enough of them and 2) witnessed enough shuttle missions from the flight ops perspective (i.e. the actual, non-rose-colored, non-PR side). also, i don’t buy that sitting on top of a rocket that has a failure rate of 1:112 makes them heroic (as becca implied in a comment this morning). that’s like saying any daredevil is a hero because they’re doing something that might kill them, and that’s dumb.
becca didn’t actually quote me exactly, so here’s my actual quote: “i’m sorry, i’m just not really that impressed with most astronauts anymore.” she left out the all-important clarifier–“most.” there are some astronauts that are incredible people, and i really respect them. but there are many more that were just in the right place at the right time, and impressed the right person. i’m not saying they’re not intelligent or competant or capable of doing what is certainly a difficult job; i’m just saying that it takes more than a job title to earn my respect. it doesn’t make me cynical; it makes me realistic and logical. and truthfully, i think the space program is in desperate need of realism and logic.
last night i went over to chrissy’s apartment to watch the tech-maryland game. chrissy cooked pad thai that was great! i was so impressed! i’d try it sometime but i’m sure i’d screw it up somehow. but yum. the game, unfortunately, didn’t turn out too well. we played maryland evenly through the first half and were down 6-3 at halftime, but in the second half we just fell apart and ended up losing 34-10. james says our team isn’t bad, that we’ve just had bad luck with injuries and things…but i have to say, i think our team is just not that great. injuries or not. we just don’t have a strong team this year. then again, james has enough faith in the team for all of us. 
