| The Chronicles | Twist Bobs * | ||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
|
In the girly movie department, I got roped into watching "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton" and "Chasing Liberty". I wouldn't have actively sought them out, but the girls wanted to watch them over here, so I ended up watching most of each. They were expectedly cheesy, but I suppose they were lighthearted romps (to use a critical cliche). And hey, Mandy Moore got "naked" twice in the latter film. Oh yeeeah. See...I took something emasculating and guyified it. In the hilarious movie department, I saw "Shrek 2" the day after it came out. I was quite impressed. From the trailers, I wasn't quite sure if it'd carry, but I actually ended up liking it more than the first. The story was more engaging anyway, and Antonio Banderas was perfect as comic relief. In the television department, I'll be brief. Jasmine lost. Fantasia unfortunately won with her annoyingly Macy Gray-like voice. "WB's Superstar USA" was pretty funny...if a bit mean. "Joe Schmo 2" recently started. The first episode was funny, but Tim and Ingrid aren't quite as endearing as Matt. And finally, the Braves are playing superbly mediocre baseball. I still have faith though. Oh, and can I mention that I'm relieved that the NBA and NHL playoffs are over? It seems like they'd been going on for months. In the really weird foreign film department, I watched the uber-gory "Ichi the Killer" from Japan. Honestly, this one blew "Kill Bill" away in terms of cringe-inducing violence. I seriously can't think of anyone that I'd recommend the film to. Scotty and I were induced to watch it by Dave, who'd recently bought it upon a recommendation. Stylistically, I suppose it was decent, but the story and sheer amount of bloodlust were just disturbing. To give you a taste: a guy got hung from giant meat hooks in his back. As if this weren't enough, they also skewered his face with needles and poured burning oil on his back. Yeah...that's just a tiny sample. In the violent but uplifting cinema department, "Band of Brothers" is every bit as excellent as everyone says. Cat and I recently spent hours watching all ten episodes, usually in 2-3 hour chunks. The stoic Winters is a perfect lead character, and Lipton (Ron Livingston aka Peter from "Office Space") proves exceptional as a sidekick with depth. Luckily, they didn't rely on either character to carry the whole mini-series, as various other men take center stage in each episode. After seeing so many die through the course of the series, I'm not quite sure why episode nine hit me so hard, but I definitely had tears in my eyes as they discovered the concentration camp. I admire the bravery that the men went through in the war, and it raised two thoughts in my mind. The first thought is that no amount of training can save you from that random piece of shrapnel. In a way, it seems so arbitrary and unjust, but then again, we all die eventually. How is it any more "arbitrary" or "unjust" than any other form of death? To put it pointedly, we all deserve death anyway. The next thought that it raised is whether I could do what they did. Honestly, I'm not sure that I could. There are farfetched rumors of a draft coming back. I believe that I'm registered with selective service, but I'm not sure that I can justify fighting...particularly killing another person. Let me put it this way: what would Christ do if he were drafted? Sure, there's the whole render under Caesar bit. And, of course, there's the very important bit about loving your neighbor above yourself and a willingness to sacrifice yourself as he did. I'd hope that I'd be willing to lay down my life for someone else. That said, Jesus was a healer, not a killer. It's left me a bit conflicted. I suppose that I've come to the conclusion that if I had to enter military service, I'd be a medic or support staff. If that makes me a coward in the books of some, so be it. The School of...I'm too tired to come up with something clever Enough philosophizing and criticism for the moment. Let's get back to the daily grind that picked up soon after the last entry. On my way back to Auburn, I dropped through Atlanta to visit David. We had a nice chat at an interesting Chinese restaurant. I believe the name was something like Noodle Bowl. Basically, most of the meals are a big bowl of noodles with some sort of meat. It was pretty good, but I couldn't finish it all. Then again, most of the time I don't finish big meals. If you're unaware of my eating habits, most of the time, I consume my food very slowly. This past week for example, I ate a burger over the course of a couple of hours. This typically leads to acknowledgment and shock from others when I manage to eat something quickly. Yeah, this is a really random tangent. Perhaps I'm just still proud of the fact that I managed to down a huge plate of nachos in a decent amount of time at La Bamba the other night. Anyway, classes started the day after I returned to Auburn. I was signed up for two engineering classes and two Spanish classes. However, one of the Spanish classes conflicted with one of the engineering classes. Deciding that I wanted to stay on track for finishing Spanish by fall, I dropped the engineering class. In its place, and in order to avoid feeling like I'm slacking, I signed up for a German class later this summer. The two Spanish classes will be over in another week or so. The conversation class has mostly consisted of helping at an art camp for kids. We'd hoped that there'd be Spanish speaking kids, but no such luck. Instead, we've resorted to trying to teach some of the kids Spanish. It's refreshing working with kids again. I haven't really been exposed to them much since highschool when I worked as a volunteer at a daycare. At the same time that it's refreshing helping them make clay animals and wire sculptures, it's also quite tiring. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I've gone from that to my engineering class. So far, so good. I've made every class, and I've managed to do pretty well on all of the quizzes that we've had. Every day, I go to Advanced Spanish Syntax in the late afternoon. I signed up for the class because there weren't any other Spanish classes that I hadn't taken. Unfortunately, this particular class is a graduate-level (6000-level) class. I feel a bit out of my element as most of the other students are GTAs. Fortunately, I've struck up a friendship with a number of them, and we've been able to work on homework. I'm still struggling for a B in there though. If you want an idea of class, recall diagramming sentences in English. Now, take that up a notch and learn all the various caveats and classifications. Now, do that in another language. Needless to say, there are a lot of subtleties that are difficult to grasp. Pastimes With that schedule compared to spring, I've felt like I have very little free time during the day. During the night, people usually come over or I occupy myself with something pretty useless - like playing Minesweeper (the records are getting ridiculous), Freecell (won 67 in a row before getting careless), Solitaire, or my new favorite game, Jurassic Park. They took my favorite movie and turned it into a game where you get to create the park and make dinosaurs. How awesome is that? As a follow-up to the last entry, I ended up buying a rubber ball and sidewalk chalk. Unfortunately, the only size that I could find is rather large, but it works decently as a four-square ball. We played quite a bit for a week or so there, but we haven't played in a little while. I guess we exhausted it like we typically do. That said, we might be going after dodgeball/battleball next. Kevin and I are considering trying to convince everyone to chip in for a set of balls. More Philosophizing Back to philosophizing, I came to a realization the other day. I no longer resent couples. In the past, you might recall that I'd spoken of my jealousy and resentment for the couples that I saw. Now, in hindsight, I sort of feel like I've had my shot. There were certain cards that were stacked against me (though I certainly made my share of mistakes), but I realize that I had somewhat of a chance. I guess that's what I wanted for a long time. I wanted a real opportunity. Having experienced it, I don't really harbor any more jealousy. Instead, I fall back on wishing my original underlying feeling of wishing the best for the couple. In another musing, I briefly came to a rather depressing conclusion. As I showered (showers are good, safe thinking places), I began to despair at the fact that I know no one whose favorites line up closely with mine. Televisions shows, yes...but they're a bit less personal. I kept trying to think of people that appreciate my top five movies or my top five favorite musicians or a number of other topics. Often times, I show someone something that I really like, but they don't appreciate it the same way that I do. Perhaps that's just a statement to the fact that we're individuals, but I couldn't help feeling as though my particular tastes are too unique. It'd be a lot easier if I liked the mainstream stuff. Why couldn't I be content to call "Top Gun" one of the best movies ever? I kept drawing a blank as to who appreciates my stuff, aside small cases. I once knew a girl who liked Less Than Jake and appreciated "Can't Hardly Wait". However, those small, nice facts didn't guarantee that we really connected on any other level. I was elated to meet a girl the other day that appreciated "The Fifth Element" and had heard of Less Than Jake. As I kept pondering this, I eventually came to another of those realizations. I kept wanting someone with interests that matched mine. In fact, I already know that person - my brother. Personality-wise, I match up closely with my dad. Interest-wise, my brother and I like almost all of the same stuff. I suppose that makes sense since we grew up together, but I'd never really considered the scale of it. We appreciate the same shows, the same music, the same movies, the same general humor, the same games, etc. Certainly, we like those things to various degrees, but the only source of conflict that I can really recall is the fact that I've started appreciating country a bit more of late. I was talking to him the other day (he's in Chattanooga for the summer) when he mentioned that he's watched a lot of History Channel lately. I didn't really say much, but it made me smile. I've been watching a lot of it too. All in all, I sometimes get frustrated when our personalities clash, but I really am thankful to have him around. You're free to say, "Aww." Okay...that's enough for now. It's 4:47am. I have a project that I haven't started that's due by 10am, the start of art camp, and tomorrow's a long day. The links, titles, and pictures are just going to have to wait a bit. | |||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
| talk to me |
 |
