Classes
I signed up for a philosophy class this semester. I thought it would be interesting and it is but we're watching a movie now. I honestly half expected that we would watch The Matrix or some boring educational film. Instead we're watching Donnie Darko.
I'd heard of this movie, who hadn't? But truth be told, I had no idea what it was about until we started watching it. It seems really interesting so far but Frank terrifies me. Like, I want a circle of salt around my desk scared. Why a demonic looking rabbit suit? (I've read some spoilers but it doesn't really answer that question.) I'm looking forward to finishing the movie.
There was one part where Donnie's mom asked this teacher if she knew who Graham Greene was and the teacher said, "Oh, I think we've all seen Bonanza." I think I was the only kid in the class to get the reference and actually see Bonanza. I knew exactly that she meant Lorne Greene who played Ben Cartwright and laughed because I couldn't imagine that guy writing a story about kids breaking into a house and demolishing it for kicks and giggles (loose summary). I think everyone else laughed because they knew that Bonanza had nothing to do with the book and just recognized that the teacher made a mistake.
In another class we're reading Dead Souls by Gogol. It's ok, but Gogol compared it to the Divine Comedy and the Dante fan in me just went, "One: You're not that good. Two: How?" I'm seeing a few parallels, but not enough to convince me that it's an appropriate comparison/companion. So for my lit journal, I wrote how I could see a few things like the Divine Comedy and mostly not. I had a long paragraph detailing the differences and similarities between the Governor's Daughter in Dead Souls to Beatrice in the Divine Comedy. My professor is going to think I'm insane.
Alek: Hey, he's probably read it
Luke starts to eat his ice cream, the man put crumbled pumpkin pie pop tarts on it and he won't let me try any!
Me: But he's not Professor R, who let me blather on and on about it and the kids seemed to think I was weird for mentioning it in class yesterday.
Dante: The kids think you're weird because you're a Russian Studies student. You talk and talk and talk about Russia, that's weird. (Leaves room)
Dean: Maybe you just like R places.
Alek: Then what about Siberia?
Dean: What's Siberia in Russian?
Alek: Sibir'
Dean: Huh. Ok.
Me: And Dante was from Florence.
Dean: Who cares? Dante didn't die there and he isn't buried there!
Dante: (Returns with a magazine) Of course I'm not!
Luke: *laughs so hard ice cream comes out his nose*