Ampersand nave! Thou shalt not speak such ill of his Imperial Majesty!
As a Texan myself, I was thinking of selecting Texas, since part of being a real Texan is recognizing what a shithole our state is and enjoying it anyway. But I picked states that I know I don't like at all. Mississippi, because I was there a few weeks ago and it's a boring dump of a state. Iowa, because it infuriates me that it's somehow perfectly acceptable that a state constitution can effectively mandate that some Cedar Rapids dirt farmers get to pick the President of the entire country. And South Carolina, because it's in the news every other week for some scandal or outrageous crime and I'm sick of hearing about it.
As a South Carolinian, I would just like to point out that most of those come from a few small parts of the state. I'm not even sure if any of them represent or are from my area, actually.
But it's actually a beautiful state.
I voted Texas (I know a few people from there, and they're actually pretty cool. I know, doesn't make much sense), Nevada (legalized prostitution BAD. Probably makes more sense than the last) and Virginia (family member has had a run of very bad luck with that area). But it's more like "what state makes you most angry/would you say you hate as a joke to a friend" than "what state do you hate most" answer. I don't really hate any.
Hey. I live in Beaufort county, and you sir, obviously have never traveled the state, or seen the school systems outside of the state. Our fair state, God save us, is a shithole. Incompetent governors, evil bureaucracy, greedy everybody.
While yes, good old SC is a beautiful state, but only part of it. And only the scenery. And only where there is no people, or at least very few natives. Take, for example, Hilton Head Island. A very pretty tourist trap. We have the highest income in Beaufort county. Period. Guess where we are all from, within several generations? The north. Yup. This is due to heavy marketing in the Cleveland area, although I won't get into that. Our school system sucks major cock. No, not the gamecocks, you twit. All of the money we import from the north (Hooray tourists), instead of being spent locally, is spent on the district scale.
Speaking of which, our superintendent, Mrs. Truesdale, a graduate of Clemson University (not all that bad actually), she wants our robotics team to go to the Clemson regional kickoff for the F.I.R.S.T. competition. As co-captain of said team, I support my mentor in saying no. We fundraise extensively for this trip, and pay for it ourselves. We could understand the "Stay in-state" thing if it was a school sponsored event, like football, but it isn't. We fund-raise the FUCK out of the area. We pioneered the fund-raising methods in our local area. And we are only 5 years old! Just goes to show how backwater SC is. We want to go elsewhere. Word from on high is that we go to Clemson. Where there is nothing to do, other than the kickoff. Where we have to drive farther than if we were to go out-of-state. We can only take 4 people to Clemson. This is our major beef. We don't want to only take Q, Mr. O., Craig and I. We don't want to have to do that. We want to include the freshmen. The F.I.R.S.T. competition is a different sort of competition, and I wish to continue the tradition at my school.
You should check it out! By taking the young, rising talent with us, we can get them fired up about it, and stoke some interest in engineering, science, and computing. THE FUTURE. Hard work is what has brought America to the heights it was at before the turn of the millenium, and brilliant minds will have to continue the tradition of engineering, if we want to stay on top. And, God bless, South Carolina obviously doesn't want to be a part of this.
The money at Hilton Head, while this may sound like rich, white, conservative bitching, is, instead of being spent to further education at the local school, is being siphoned off to Blufton schools, the poor. Shit, this is rich white conservatives bitching. I hate those dudes. Consider this paragraph moot.
Our leaders. Gosh. The governor has an Argentinian mistress. He's cheating on his wife. In Argentina. Really. Way to go, dude.
And Don't get me started about Congressman Joe Wilson. You know the story, by now.
At this point, it is customary to complain about my classmates and their stupidity and laziness. But I'm a senior. I have deeper insight into the nature of our lives than people who spout that shit.
Although, SC isn't all bad. Have you ever been to the Blue Ridge Mountains (what we call our section of the Appalachians)? We call them this because they are blue, in the fog, which happens to be frequent there. Absolutely beautiful area of the world. I sincerely recommend visiting it. It isn't the most spectacular, it isn't breathtaking in scale or beauty, it just radiates a very deep, profound sense of peace. Almost as if it has seen everything. Seen the dinosaurs, seen the death, seen the destruction. Seen the cold. Seen the snow, seen the first strange creatures that were so profoundly different from their predecessors, which came with it (when we crossed the Bering Strait). Saw the centuries of peaceful creatures settle down, into a way of life. Seen the strange man, with his strange ways, arrive. Saw the natives driven from their own land, dieing by the thousands for no reason. Seen the white man expand across her broad faces. Seen the uprising, saw the fighting, saw the invaders fight off their own masters, and declare themselves free. Saw the same, now free people, declare themselves free, this time from their own people. Saw them fight. Saw the blood, as they fought themselves, saw the loss. Saw the defeat of the uprising. And it doesn't really give a shit. Because it's a mountain range, once mightier than the upstart range known as the Himalayas, now a low, old, range, enjoying it's slow erosion into plains.
And that is about where the events that would be noticeable to a mountain range end. At the civil war.
Just a very profound sense of history in that mountain range. You get this deeper feeling, than the normal, "oh shit that's huge" you get from such mountain ranges as the rockies, or canyons like the Grand Canyon.
BUT DO WE CAPITALIZE ON THIS? NO!!!! We let it slip by us!
The unemployment rate in South Carolina has been consistently double the national average. When the nation was at 4%, we were at 8%. The average now is what? 9.7%. We are at 11.5%. Well, not quite double. But significantly higher.
We are the 49th state in education. I don't know where they get that info. Thank god for whoever is 50th. I think Mississippi.
Not to mention some other, miscellaneous things, like general incompetence in the school guidance office. I should of never left Pennsylvania.
TL; DR:
Read the damn rant already. I HATE SC. IT SUCKS.