The Love Boat

Since when is living on a cruise ship a viable option for graduate students? Oh, when they are doing a semester at sea, perhaps. But a semester at Tulane spent living on the Mississippi? WTF? The administration of this school has it's thumb up it's arse. I can imagine the planning process:

Smithers: "Uh, sir, we have a situation here. If students are forced to return to this flooded, dirty city, they are going to need housing."

Mr. Burns/Cowen: "Smithers! I have the perfect idea - why not have those students rocked to sleep like babies to a lullaby? Bring them back to the cozy days of the womb. Carnival cruise ship on the clean-enough-to-sleep-on river! They'll get used to the smell! And we can charge them the going rate for an apartment. $800 a month, yes, for the luxuries of experiencing life at sea! The grandeur of the Love Boat will be reinstated!"

Effing arsehead. Makes. Me. So. Angry. And what is being done about this? Who even has a voice? No one is listening to us - shit, no one is ASKING!!! How can this school expect to have any future if students are not even asked what they want? That is not saying students will necessarily get what they want, but shit, just ask. At least pretend our opinions count. We are the public health professionals of the future, and what have we learned? Ignore your community! Do as you please! Be sure to make a buck off of them when they are down and out!

FAAAACK. I am unbelievably angry and this anger is hard for me to get a handle on. I am disgusted, outraged, and completely shocked that no one gives a flying fuck about us. This keeps getting worse. We'll see what my department chair has to say. Need I say that I was in the Community Health Sciences department? The department that is supposed to care about community? I asked him if he could make all of our classes available online, so we can stay put in our non-cruise ship apartments if we want to. I cannot wait to read his lame ass response. Something like "students won't get the same experience, the classroom time we value so much." Yeah, but after sleeping on a CRUISE SHIP for 5 months, who the hell is going to be able to learn shit?

Too mad. Must stop talking about this. *growl*