It's really tragic to witness the slow and eminent downfall of an institution of higher education. Since the beginning of March, when the University announced a $26 million dollar budget cut, a new sense of paranoia has flooded the city. Professors and graduate students remain fearful of their positions being eliminated and departments are having to make cuts across the board while students are having to incur the ever increasing costs of college. Of course, those increasing costs are not gaining them access to a quality education, but instead asubstandard and sub par experience. Many of my friends are majoring in theater or dance at UNR; both of these programs face cuts and eventual elimination.

I believe that education is a right for all. Why, would we as a nation not want the most educated populace in the world? Why do we assume that destroying the education system, not only in Nevada, but in the US is somehow going to generate more positive results? Didn't Governor Sandoval boast about having this fabulous education plan? Where has that plan gotten us?

Unfortunately, what is invariably going to happen is the mass exodus of students and faculty from this state, taking with them their knowledge, talent, and money. They will leave Nevada and invest their resources in other states; one that does not rank 50th in the nation for education.

The fall of UNR, represents only the beginning of a very very very bad year. An assumption that budget cuts will stop there is laughable; more cuts need to be made. Regrettably, individuals that are below the age of 18 have very little power and political clout to enact change; therefore social programs geared toward early education, high school music programs, etc are often first on the chopping block. More often than not, representatives will listen to their largest constituent base - who may or may not have children and may or may not support educational endeavours. Perhaps they are voting to expand social security coverage or voting to lower taxes oblivious that money for programs needs to come from somewhere. It sucks even more because research - ya know very costly research - has shown that engagement of children through early education programs has shown to improve grades, behaviors, and chances for future education or careers. Though we have these facts staring at us, we still chose to do nothing.

So let me get this straight. We already had a failing education system before the collapse of the economy. Now that the economy sucks, we feel that the best way to address this problem is make additional cuts to said education system - though they have no money to begin with - and assume that everything will work out in the end? Great we'll be broke and have an uneducated citizenry.

Could somebody please give me a small country to rule? Nothing large or grandiose, but just my own country, because part of me feels that I would be able to rule a country better than some of our current leaders. I would have ridiculous holidays as excuses for days off, amazing social benefits, and my theatre, music, and dance programs would be the best in the world. This would be our flag; Anybody who does not like rainbows is not welcome in my Gay New World. Also, as a Ginger, I see it as my moral responsibility to give Ginger's free sunblock for life.  Anybody want to come?

Ok, so some freaky stuff happened at burlesque practice last night. Now Nevada is infamous for it's long history of haunted hotels, ghost towns, and generally some scary shit. Locals in the town will recount tales of horror from the old mining communities, saloon brawls, and then of course the long history of mob-run casinos. So it is safe to say that if there are a large gathering of angry spirits it would be in the state of Nevada.

So for burlesque rehearsals, we practice in one of the ballrooms in one of the hotels in town. For months the girls in the troupe have recounted tales of strange encounters of the paranormal kind while they have been in this ballroom. Now imagine stepping off an elevator and right into one of the hallways from The Shining. You anticipate at any given moment that two small demonically possessed children are going to appear out of nowhere, invite you to play and then kill you and subject your soul to eternity of unrest. Girls have related tales of seeing shadows in the bathroom, voices whispering their names, and scratching along the wall just to name a few.

So last night at practice we probably got the closest to interacting with the spectral culprits than ever before. We were having a mini photo shoot and and taking shots of different burlesque girls dressed up. On one the pictures, for real real and not for play play, we saw this blue orb of energy – ironically situated right above her coochie-snorcher. It kind of weirded us out, but we didn't dare give it too much thought. While this photo shoot was going on, Jeanine's - one of the dancers - daughter was doing homework in the corner of the room. When the photo shoot was over, we were calling her over to pack up her stuff and she wouldn't move our acknowledge our presence. After shouting her name 5 or 6 times she finally looks at us and walks over – I swear it was some bullshit right out of Children of the Corn. We all noticed that her behavior seemed a little off but again, didn't read too much into it or think too much about it.

Then Nayte, my fabulously tall choreographer, began choreographing my “bad romance” number for the upcoming show. Just as we were beginning, Nayte gets a call from Jeanine and apparently her daughter was sobbing in the background. Nayte tells us that Jeanine's daughter apparently kept hearing people whispering her name into her ear and kept feeling this air pass by her. She also heard this scratching and pounding coming from the walls. She was so shook up by this situation. We all asked Nayte why she didn't say anything to us and apparently she was so petrified that she couldn't move and was afraid to say anything.

The night just got weirder from there; more obscure noises & voices that kept intermittently interrupting practice. We all got freaked out to the point that we had to end practice early and high-tail it out of there. However, before doing that we had to have our own Paranormal State experience. Avid fans of the show, we thought we would take a moment and try to call the spirits and have them make their presence known. It was something straight out of horror movie; three ridiculously hot people attempt to perform some half-ass seance and end up releasing some 2,000 year old pissed off spirit. Mama also didn't raise no fool, I have seen my fair share of horror movies and as the big, loud, flaming, drag queen of gay I have a 50/50 shot of either surviving the whole ordeal or being murdered first. So I was a little hesitant but I was willing to go along for the ride. Nayte and one of the other dancers – Veronica – heard voices and whispers in their ears and Veronica heard soft parlor music playing in the background. I heard and saw nothing and I do not know if that is because I am sometimes oblivious and a little hard of hearing and therefore miss stuff sometimes or if it is because the spirits know that drag queens have some magic that they did not want to mess with.

Well it is safe to say that we did not stick around too long to see how the situation played but I am aware that I have more practices in that ballroom and therefore have to go back there. So I guess now begins the task of boning up on my knowledge about spirits and warding off ghosts.