Immaturity At Its Finest

In the classes I teach, the kids are required to pick a book that they want to read, and by the end of the semester give a presentation on it. A few kids have finished early, and in order to prevent them for putting the presentation off until January and forgetting everything, they can do it whenever they want.

Today one of my kids finished his book and did his report. When he finished talking about it, his classmates did not have questions pertaining to the text, but made comments basically saying the kid is a dork, a loser, and uncool because he reads in his spare time.

How completely ridiculous is that? Declaring that you "don't like books," or "don't read," does not make you look cool. It makes you look ignorant and immature. Reading is so important for so many reasons, and someone who decides to read in their spare time instead of playing video games or partying or whatever should be admired, not criticized.

Hopefully some day these kids will realize how important reading is, and that it's not something that they 'have to do,' but something that can give them such a huge advantage in life.

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So Agatha Christie is quite the famous mystery writer, and one of her most popular plays is called 'The Mousetrap.' It's one of those with a group of people stuck in a house, one of which is the murderer and one is the next victim, a basic 'whodunit.'

Now Tom Stoppard wrote a comedy play called 'The Real Inspector Hound,' which is a parody of 'The Mousetrap.' I had to read 'Hound' for my Modern British Lit. class.

I'm going to do my final paper on 'Hound,' so I figured, as research, I would read 'The Mousetrap' out of good faith to the source material, and I came to realize that by reading the parody first, it completely ruined the experience of the original. I mean, it was still good, but all I could think about was the mocking premise of 'Hound.'

This happens more with movies--at least for me. I saw 'Night at the Roxbury' a few months before I ever saw 'Jerry Maguire,' so when I did finally see the 'You had me at "Hello"' scene with Tom Cruise and Renee, all I could think about was Chris Kattan telling Will Ferrell to shut up. But again, it was still good, just not as good. Plus, 'You had me at "Hello"' is possibly one of the most parodied lines ever.

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So I sat down and read this whole novel tonight for class tomorrow... I'm so tired.

Crash (the novel, not the movie[s])

Ballard's novel is about people who get extreme sexual pleasure from car crashes, and have sex in pretty much every way, everywhere (mainly in cars). There are some interesting parts, but overall the novel aims at shock factor, and that works for about a hundred pages, but the book loses steam when it's obvious that the same scenarios are repeated over and over, often with repeating diction.

7.5/10

Hannah and Her Sisters

I've been on a Woody Allen binge lately. Michael Caine is pretty much one of the best actors around, and this movie was really good. The best out of these three, that's for sure. (That's all you get--I'm hella tired)

9/10

The Purple Rose of Cairo

You can always count on Woody Allen for absurd plots. Not the best movie, but I really liked it--especially the ending. Also, lots of good laughs (more than the movie before and after this one).

8/10

Scoop

Woody Allen's latest, with Scarlett Johansson, Allen himself, and Wolverine. Not a terrible plot, but there aren't many curve balls and the jokes only come from Allen, and even then they're not up to par. But then again, like Jon always says, "Even when a Woody Allen movie is bad, it's still pretty good." Good alternatives: Match Point, Anything Else (ok, not 'good,' but 'better')

5.5/10

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First, and most importantly, appletinis are amazing, and having a few of those should explain any typos in this post. Also, I'm on someone else's laptop and their keyboard, while it has a certain finesse, is oddly paranormal (is that really a word?).

Saw II is terrible.

No but seriously, earlier I had a fiction workshop, and the whole class had a lot of problems with the story. Then, at the end when the author can ask questions, she tried to justify her story, like, "You guys didn't get the metaphor," or, "I hinted at this this way," though no one got it and the whole thing needed a lot of work. News flash: if you need to explain your writing and motifs, it's your fault for crappy writing, not the readers' fault for not getting it. Basic new criticism, ENG 3014, a prereq. for any upper-level class. Sup?

In conclusion, only one more class before spring break. Score!

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Three things of deceasing importance:

Firstly, a lesson for you kids out there. Forget reading stuff for class. Use SparkNotes if you can. On Tuesday I had a quiz on a play by John Osborne, so on Sunday and Monday I spent a few hours reading the whole thing. This is weird for me, since I normally just read the sparknotes and do decent on the quiz. I get to class, feeling good, knowing most of the plot inside out, and I get to class and on the five question quiz, two questions are on tiny things that were mentioned in one sentence in some tiny place in the play. I think I got a 3/5. Such a joke... the one time I bother to read the whole body of work, and I get fucked over in the end. Screw self-enlightenment, I just want a good grade (for now...).

Secondly, last night I watched Cry_Wolf, which is a horror movie released a few years ago. It looked pretty bad, but it had the hot redheaded chick from Dawn of the Dead, so I caught it on a movie channel. I'm not that great at predicting movie endings (and I hate it when people say they 'knew something would happen,' but didn't actually say so during the movie. I also hate people who talk during movies. And people who try to predict endings in general. Actually, I just hate people.), but this ending was obvious from the first half hour, making the last hour pretty terrible. I mean, I'm all about watching rich kids in some private high school fuck with each other, but... sigh. 4/10.

Lastly, Match Point is an amazing movie. V for Vendetta is not.

Comparing a movie legend like Woody Allen to the Wachowski brothers, who had one decent movie, is pretty blasphemous. It's so much easier to have a terribly plot-driven story by two-dimensional characters in some sci-fi world, where the only appeal is just the looming overhead of a iron fisted government future, than to write an extremely ambitious drama with multiple characters with contrasting personalities, and at the same time destroying all predetermined rules of storytelling with an ending that seems unbelievable, yet so realistic. And that's not even counting how predictable V for Vendetta was. Woody Allen's direction is precise, and even a simple shot for a second reveals more about the characters than we get from watching an hour of Natalie Portman being lectured by a protagonist who seems like a poor-man's attempt at a real hero whose only significant achievement is memorizing the whole V section of the dictionary. I could go on, but since I'm lazy, I'll just say look them both up on either MetaCritic or RottenTomatoes and see which did better. V for Vendetta is a terribly mediocore film, probably about a 6.5-7, whereas Match Point is hovering around a steady 8.5.

Man, I'm mad I failed that quiz.

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Word of the day: 'incredulous(ly)'

I was in one of my workshops today and one girl had a pretty badly proofread manuscript (lots of typos and gramatical errors), and while we were critiquing it, another girl said something like, "It seemed like you used too many big words, some of which I don't even think are real words. Like, _________, or ________, or in..credu...lously..."

So, I think the first two were actually made up, but when she said the last one, the whole class was like, "...incredulously is a real word, it's like 'skeptical'." It was pretty amazing.

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The semester has been winding down, and this week is finals week. I have two tests on Friday, and both are pretty important (obviously?). I also have a DVD buying addiction, and have these movies in my possession, still unopened: Being John Malkovich, Amelie, and Cabin Fever.

Now, I've seen BJM and Amelie before, but not Cabin Fever. I bought it because it was like $4.50 at Wal Mart, and I kind of wanted to see it, and I figured that was close to the price of renting it anyway. So what does all this have to do with anything?

Tonight at about ten o'clock, since I'm doing all my studying tomorrow, I figured I'd finally get around to watching Cabin Fever. But then at around eleven, one of my friends said I should come to the library to study. I did. So in conclusion, I'm anticipating Cabin Fever to be so bad that I'd rather study than sit through its 90 minute runtime, even though I did buy it. Maybe it will be one of those things I always say I'll do, but never actually do.

In other very important news (so important that it's at the bottom of my post...), today I've reached somewhat of a milestone in my movie viewing quest. I've now seen 66/100 of AFI's 100 Greatest Movies (you can see my checklist here). That's two-thirds down (I round decimals down, shut the fuck up), one-third to go.

Most recent viewing: 'My Fair Lady'
Rating: 9/10
Notes: Yay Audrey Hepburn, though I got sick of her Dad pretty fast. Some pretty catchy songs, too. Also, some scenes dragged on a bit too long, but it gives time to take in the amazing costumes and scenery, so it's all right.

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Am I the only one who finds this quite the coincidence?



Casablanca (1942)
The Good German (2006)

Maybe I'm missing something, but was that intentional? Either way, every time I see the poster for 'The Good German' I can't help thinking of 'Casablanca.'

In other news, tonight I got into a class I needed, called 'Modern British Literature.'

The good news: It's with a teacher I had before, and he's awesome. Plus, this proves that good things can come from staying in on a Saturday. I was so bored I checked to see if any classes opened up, and BAM, there it was.

The bad news: Since it's Modern British Literature, that means most of the stuff probably won't be on Sparknotes, so I'll have to actually read for the class (ba da, crash). But then again, maybe all we'll go over are the Harry Potter books. Yeah, that'd be pretty funny.

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My teacher said this is the shortest story to ever be published (I don't know if that's true - it's just what she said). It's pretty genius, though I almost hate to admit it. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Characters, a climax, a resolution. Wish I would've thought of it first.

"The Scarlatti Tilt," by Richard Brautigan

"It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin." That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.

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Yeah, that's all it is. Read the fresh post below this one for movie news.

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The other day I was studying on the first floor of the campus library with a friend of mine. This moderately cute girl came up to us and was like, "Can you help me find these books?" She said that there should be someone on the first floor to help her out, but there wasn't (there never is). I volunteered to help her, and she asked how the system worked. I explained that you just look at the cards placed on the sides of the aisles, which are in descending/ascending order, and go from there. She was like, "Oh," and I took her to where the first book should be.

"What's the book called?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"...well, it's not here, so maybe it's checked out. What did it say in the computer?"

"I didn't look it up, some guy upstairs gave me the call numbers."

So, she was an idiot, and I was getting annoyed. She asked again how to find the books, so I explained it AGAIN, and left her alone. Seriously, when you get into college, they explain all this to you, but how do you even get into college without knowing how to find a book in a library? The worst part was that she was a full-on Monet.

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Hollywoodland: 7.5/10
The Philadelphia Story: 8/10
All About Eve: 10/10 (amending this previous score. What a perfect movie.)

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Today in one of my writing workshops the teacher was doing a class exercise where she put first lines from short stories/novels on the overhead, and then asked the class for a 'yay' or 'nay,' on whether they would keep reading based only on that sentence.

I don't remember the quote or novel or anything, but after numerous one-liners, there was one sentence that took up 3 lines in the Word document, so there were a few commas and a couple thoughts combined. Actually, it was probably as long as the sentence just before this one. A few people in the class said 'nay,' and she asked why. This one girl said, "I don't know, the sentence seemed too long." Then I muttered, "Well then what do you read, Dr. Seuss?" Of course, when I said that, the class got quiet, and the teacher asked me to repeat what I said.

So I elaborated (slightly), and said something like, "Well if three lines is too long, what do you read, Dr. Seuss? I mean, come on..." The girl got all defensive, and started to explain what she meant, but a majority of the class was still laughing at my comment.

Funny aftermath - when we set out to do group work, she sat next to me in our small groups, so I almost felt bad. And for the record, I have nothing against Dr. Seuss.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels - Not without flaws, but lots of fun to watch. 8/10

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I'm going on my fourth year in college and have yet to see something like this. This morning I had a professor hand out his syllabus, which is customary for the first day of class, and it was just a single page listing the grading scale and tentative schedule. He held up our book for the class, and I was annoyed when I saw it was something different than I picked up from the bookstore. The book from the bookstore was a big, fat Norton Anthology, the book he held up was some old book for like ten dollars.

He then kept bashing the big, fat Norton book, saying it's excessive and expensive. Then he talked about the literary canon and how the newer book (the one he had was from 1966 and was basically all white, male authors) had more diversity. He asked which book the class wanted to use, since the book he had wasn't available and was on order, and most people wanted the cheap, thin, simple book. "As long as all our readings are in the small book, let's get it," people said.

He goes on talking for 25 minutes about how he's going to go to the bookstore and fix the book they have labeled for his class. Then finally, he says, "Well what if this was a fake syllabus, and the real syllabus is for the Norton book." Then, turns out it was, and he handed out a real, typical 5 page syllabus for the book I already had.

He was a fairly good actor, saying that he would 'change the syllabus' if the class voted to use the big book (which no one did). It was also suspicious that the original, fake syllabus was only one page, didn't have his email address, and had a 15-17 page paper on it. I was thinking, "Wow, this teacher sucks. I may have to drop this class."

By the end of the class I really liked the guy, so hopefully he's not too bad. I need to remember this for if I ever become a teacher.

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It took me 12 years of grade school and 3 years of college to find out a practical use for index cards (other than killing trees).

Edit 9/3/2008: What could it have been? I cannot remember! This is awful!

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My English Lit. class is such a joke - and not in a good way.

Today we had this quiz... Throughout the last week (which is what the quiz was on) she emphasized lots of stuff. I can tell you who (William the Conqueror) and when (Oct. 15, 1066 during the Battle of Hastings) the French took over the throne of England, and why (because Edward the Confessor [who also began the construction of Westminster Abbey] promised him the throne but, didn't deliver), and William also brought over the system of Feudalism, which pretty much meant everything besides the churches belonged to the king. I can name the first 5 kings in that bloodline (Will I, Will II, Henry I, Stephen, Henry II [who also had 4 brothers, Richard (the Lionheart), Geoffrey, Henry III, John]). I know John Wyclif was the first person to translate the Bible into Middle English, Caxton brought the printing press to England from Germany, and the most popular things in print were the Bible, Mort d'Arthur, and the Canterbury Tales. I know Thomas Beckett was murdered in 1170 in the Canterbury Cathedral and that's why the 32 (30 characters, Chaucer [who was born around 1340, no one knows for sure, and died in 1400], and the host [who served as a judge, referee, and guide]) travelers in the Canterbury Tales are on their journey (well, for various other personal reasons, but that's the general consensus).

Also I know lots of other various shit that was mentioned and emphasized throughout the lecture by the teacher and I was positive would be on this objective test. Nope, she asks us stuff like, 'name 3 authors other than Chaucer who represented Medieval literature.' I knew two, because we read one of them and I know Thomas Malorey did Mort d'Arthur, so that was two. But she never, ever, mentioned another one. And if she did (which she didn't), it was so brief and nowhere near as relevant as any of the pieces of information I listed above.

Fuck knowing historical context of pieces of literature, we need to know tiny details never mentioned in class, and somehow find them on our own.

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This summer I decided to take an 8AM class that meets 4 times a week (Mon-Thurs). The class is two hours long, so it's not the fact that it's at 8AM which is the killer (well, that's part of it), but any class that's 2 hours long tends to drag on a bit.

Unfortunately that was the only time the class was and I needed the credit, so I was stuck. However, it's nice to get it over with and be ready for the rest of my day at 10AM. Also, parking is easy and it's not blazing-summer-hot at that time (like in the middle of the day).

However, the best part of all this is not being done early or the sweet parking. It's definitely not a greater understanding of Beowulf. The best part of this is that I'm out in time to go to Burger King and order off their breakfast menu, which I haven't been able to do for years because I was never up before 10:30. God bless cini-minis, french toast sticks, and bacon egg 'n' cheese crossan'wiches.

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For all those college readers out there, take note: never underestimate the importance of a midterm when it counts for a huge chunk of your grade.

I got a bad grade on my English Lit midterm because, well, it was online and most of the multiple choice questions were bullshit. I shrugged it off, and was positive I'd be able to recover.

I was recovering well, too. 88 and 87 on my two papers, averaging 9/10 on the weekly online discussions, and an 80 on the final (because it was all essay, no multiple choice). But it all wasn't enough, and I got a C+ for my final grade.

I think this is the first time I've never been able to bounce back from a shitty test score, and it sucks. Oh well, I'm pretty sure this was my potentially lowest grade (knock on wood).

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Sidenote: 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' by Deep Blue Something (the song) owns.

So I got a paper back today and had a pretty good grade. I flipped right to the back to see my grade and where on the rubric I scored high (grammar and style, the other stuff was 'strong'). I did the usual reading of the comments my teacher wrote on the paper, then I got to the back page, which is the feared Works Cited list.

To my surprise, I see no corrections to my MLA citations and a 'Good!' written on the blank space.

Now, for those of you who have... gone to school... you know what a bitch MLA form is. When to use a comma, when a period, when a colon, when to italicize, when to underline, how many spaces after a period (no, it's not always 2), when you need volume numbers, when you don't, when to put all the author's names, when to use 'etc.,' and so on and so forth. For this paper I used 7 sources, and somehow I flawlessly got them all down. I think this was a first (for a scenario in which I had to do it all myself and used more than a couple sources).

I was more pleased with getting the MLA form right than with the numerous good comments I got on my actual paper or the grade itself, which I think is a little funny. I'm thinking about framing it.

What, I'm learning? Blasphemy.

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There's a Catch-22 to some writing exercises. Example: I was in my Creative Writing class, and as sort of a fun "final exam" we were supposed to go back to why we originally began writing - not worrying about grades and grammar and whatnot - just writing what we felt at the moment (so basically a journal entry).

Now, the teacher prefaced the exercise by saying that no one would be forced to read them out loud, she wouldn't even have us turn it in, and it was just for us. Then she said that whoever wanted to read theirs could.

Doesn't giving people the option to share eliminate the point of writing for just themselves? I'm sure some people did just write what they wanted, but the people who usually volunteer think they're funny and aim their writing at the audience, wanting to extract laughs or praise. So in actuality, by giving the option of sharing, the teacher eliminated the authenticity of private thought, resulting in faux work.

This I can deal with, but for the most part people were just trying to show off how "cool" they were by mentioning drinking or smoking or "how much they have to do" or whatever else they think will impress their peers, when in reality it just makes them look like a jackass.

Thinking back now, it would've been pretty funny if I wrote this up and read it out loud before anyone else, but that in itself is another Catch-22, so I guess it's better I just kept mine secret.

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As some of you may know, I went on a trip to Europe after my senior year of High School ('03), hitting up London, Paris, Rome, and Venice.

I saved a lot of the stuff from my trip, such as brochures, ticket stubs, postcards, and whatnot. Over the last, I don't know, "while," I've been using this brochure/pamphlet/map of Santa Croce (some art museum/gallery) as a bookmark because if anyone looks at it they'll think I'm cultured (which, while true in some manners of speaking, is for the most part a complete falsehood).

So what the Hell does this have to do with anything?

I was in my English Lit class and we were discussing 'A Room With a View' by E.M. Forester. The book is some post-Victorian crap about a girl who learns to appreciate art (maybe, I didn't actually read it). So we were sitting in class and I was reading 'Lolita,' because let's face it, class is usually boring, and I randomly heard her mention Santa Croce, and I was like "wait a second, that's what my bookmark is from!" (thinking that, of course, not saying it) So she then asked if anyone had been to Italy and wanted to describe in detail the stuff they were talking about in the book. I almost raised my hand until I heard the second part, because quite honestly I only remember a select few things from my trip, despite it being one of the better experiences of my life. So naturally I just sat there and continued reading about nymphets.

It was an odd coincidence.

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For one of my classes we had an assignment that required reading of articles about a text, then summarizing the article and relating it to other articles in our textbook. The paper length is 3-4 pages, and mine came out to be about 4.

So I print off my paper and works cited page, and the teacher wants a copy of the article we chose to use (makes sense, right?). I go to print off the article, and it is 15 pages. Ridiculous. I have a feeling my teacher is just going to give me an F and write "I don't see how you fit a 15 page article, another article [note: that's about 10 pages], and lots of Jane Eyre references into 1,000 words."

Oh well, I've done worse.

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