dude! i'm a blog of note on blogger's front page. kickass. i didn't figure it out at first -- i just kept getting new entries in the guestbook congratulating me. what can i say? i'm slow.

i finished lot 49 this afternoon, which was crazy in that functional wish-more-books-were-like-that way. lots of arguments about film and literature recently, stemming from the film and media class joel and i are taking and the english class joel ross and ben are taking. becca says film is sexier; that's the only reason analysis of it seems more attractive. i say pretentious film people are bad, but there's nothing worse than an intelligent person gone snobby about books, to the point where he deconstructs them past recognition and/or the author's intent and cannot simply enjoy reading. i would adore english -- i would take nothing but classes on books -- if all we did was read and discuss, bounce ideas back and forth and bask in the glow of a beneficient, wise professor's insight.
unfortunately, English isn't about that. the important part of English as a Subject now is to write essays.
-- aww, shit, man, i don't feel like getting into this again. :-) basically, the beginning of the end for me came when, in eleventh grade honors english, we had to write on Great Expectations. being in the throes of a blinding, disemboding passion for the Subject, i composed, against all sense and or logic, a
well-reasoned, carefully thought-through piece on how Miss Havisham needs to rape Pip in order to free her from the spell of frozen time set in place when she was jilted on her wedding nite.
ridiculous? oh, i know.
but my reward was an A, and in my skool, that was nothing to sneeze at. that teacher ended up writing me a rec.that perhaps lubed my way into college. i'm grateful; but i can't forget that to obtain that elusive, precious acknowledgement of effort and intelligence, that "A", i had to write a pretty bullshit essay that has colored the novel for me ever since. not that it was ever one of my favorites; still. .

goddamn, what am i babbling about? i have to go to film again in a second. (penn)becca is supposed to come over this afternoon -- should be exciting. i need to pick my 4th class. my life is good. this place is like a jello mold and we're all chunks of fruit, dropped in and so thoroughly enclosed that we forget anything else ever existed. ... well, not quite. i miss my folks. maybe i just need to pretend i don't.