Coincidence

About two hours before we heard about the shooting story, I had a conversation with one of my colleagues about leaving grad school.

"I understand what you're feeling. I fucking hate this place - I HATE it! Sometimes I just want to pack a U-Haul full of TNT and drive it up State St. and be like, C-ya!"
"Hell, if I had a U-Haul, I'd take all my stuff and leave this shithole town in the dust."

It's always there, even in non-violent temperaments. Most of us just don't act out on it because we happen not to be sociopaths. But I can understand the anger. It's true that people suck. I kind of wish that Cho didn't illegitimate the righteous anger of all other Korean-Americans, by going crazy, but I'd be a hypocrite if I said his freak-out was groundless. And it's not even a race thing in America, it's everyone: check it out, my interlocutor above was a white guy. But you know how it is, the media circus is already starting to make this about race (it was the first thing I heard about the identity of the shooter), and for the next few years Koreans aren't going to be allowed to so much as frown without getting shifty-eyed looks from people. Damn. The world is such a hard, hateful place. And, I didn't even get my free ice-cream cone yesterday.