Alpha Company and the BABC
This morning I got to skip my much-loathed math class to head downtown and meet the BABC board -- the group of highly generous and all-around-awesome people who sponsored the essay contest that will send me to England this summer. albumsontheside , it looks like we're gonna be cleared for RL raves! I need to email a few people and get further info, but apparently you can come visit the school while I'm there, and we can chill for a bit during the built-in downtime. IT WILL BE SO EPIC.
Speaking of which, I'll be creating a travel blog specifically for that trip, at the request of the BABC. I'll link you guys to it when it's up, but for now, I'm looking for name suggestions.
Anyway, moving on to an entirely different subject, reading the Tim O'Brien book in class is really something incredible. I've never seen my classmates actually get into a story before, but they're doing it now, and it's kind of amazing. They're beginning to treat the characters in the way I usually do myself -- like real, living, flesh-and-blood people, people they react to, like or dislike, or try to figure out what's going through their heads -- and not like authorial pawns or cardboard cutouts. My table and I have decided, for instance, that Henry Dobbins would be a nice dude to befriend, and that we're gonna kill Azar. I heard someone say that they cried over what Rat Kiley did to the water buffalo, and I could have rejoiced, because that means that they're letting the book get to them. This is the first time I've been in a class that actually engages with the text, and it's honestly a wonderful, wonderful thing.
The book's done strange things to me. I'm not sure how this happened, but somehow I've observed all of its various stories by osmosis. I've been retelling them to my sister and buddies who haven't read it, and I think they're teaching me how to be a better storyteller myself.
(I also just made the somewhat funny, somewhat sad realization that I have totally been the Martha to someone's Jimmy Cross, but that's a story for another time.)
Seriously, guys, if you're reading this and haven't read The Things They Carried, go out and get it like now. It might change your life.
Speaking of which, I'll be creating a travel blog specifically for that trip, at the request of the BABC. I'll link you guys to it when it's up, but for now, I'm looking for name suggestions.
Anyway, moving on to an entirely different subject, reading the Tim O'Brien book in class is really something incredible. I've never seen my classmates actually get into a story before, but they're doing it now, and it's kind of amazing. They're beginning to treat the characters in the way I usually do myself -- like real, living, flesh-and-blood people, people they react to, like or dislike, or try to figure out what's going through their heads -- and not like authorial pawns or cardboard cutouts. My table and I have decided, for instance, that Henry Dobbins would be a nice dude to befriend, and that we're gonna kill Azar. I heard someone say that they cried over what Rat Kiley did to the water buffalo, and I could have rejoiced, because that means that they're letting the book get to them. This is the first time I've been in a class that actually engages with the text, and it's honestly a wonderful, wonderful thing.
The book's done strange things to me. I'm not sure how this happened, but somehow I've observed all of its various stories by osmosis. I've been retelling them to my sister and buddies who haven't read it, and I think they're teaching me how to be a better storyteller myself.
(I also just made the somewhat funny, somewhat sad realization that I have totally been the Martha to someone's Jimmy Cross, but that's a story for another time.)
Seriously, guys, if you're reading this and haven't read The Things They Carried, go out and get it like now. It might change your life.