Film Critique = DONE!

Film critique is done. The last paper, woohoo. I'm rather satisfied with it, I suppose. My brain is basically mush so it's hard to take a specific stance on anything. What I liked was that once I made an outline, the writing just kind of came. The outline worked much better here than in other papers. I don't have much to say about the paper, but I can talk about the movie.
Oops, that was a premature statement. Turns out I don't really want to talk about the movie anymore. So all I'll say is: Junebug = excellent movie. See it.

My brain is fried.

My brain is fried. Or is it toast? Maybe fried beans and toast. Just like the British eat. I'm rather fond of toast, but I've never been a big fan of beans.
Beans bring forth traumatizing childhood memories. Especially green beans. My daycare lady used to practically force feed them to us. They made me gag. She was evil.

Writing Prompt - What did you want to be when you grew up?

As a kid, I often had different answers for the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" When I was five, I sat down to watch the summer Olympics and was inspired to become a "somersault teacher." In kindergarten Space Jam became my obsession; it was only natural to aspire to become a member of the Tune Squad. Later, in 2nd grade, I was enthralled by the trials, hardships, courage and grotesquely chapped lips of Iron Will. I was soon dead set on winning the Iditarod. In 3rd grade Mrs. Johnson said I wrote well; I should be an author. 4th grade - a professional rock collector. And then in 5th grade we got cable, and thanks to various TLC and Discovery channel shows, I dreamed of Civil War reenactments, prairie dog wrangling, Wienermobile driving, comic book making, resort owning, park rangering, T-shirt designing, mail delivering and llama farming. And how many years later, I still don't know.

Ethnography = DONE!

The ethnography is now finished. It was one doosey of a paper, as if I have to tell you guys. I think it went very well, but I still have some issues with it; just like with any paper, it's never quite perfect. The biggest problem I have is that there were so many funny and interesting little things that happened in our subculture that we just didn't have either the motivation, time, or place for it in the paper. We should have class time just to share out loud all the interesting things we saw in our groups. That would be quite fun.

Film Critique Anticipation

I think it would be an overstatement to say that I'm anticipating the film critique. It would probably be more accurate to say that I'm not dreading it. Movie critique is kind of my "thing." My friends hate watching movies with me because I'm always making comments about shots out of focus and score placement and lighting. But that still doesn't mean I want to write a paper about it. Who ever wants to write a paper about anything?

Writing Prompt - What is deceit?

Deceit is when, on Christmas day, your mom puts the only thing you've asked for all year, the only thing you want - a Nintendo 64 - inside the original box of the last gift you could ever possibly want, the thing you've asked them specifically not to get - a Barbie party bus. The deceit brings a frown to your face, then a pout, completely forgetting all of your manners and all that its-the-thought-that-counts garbage.

You wanted to be kicking butt on Mario Kart, but instead your staring at a picture of a handful of plastic people lounging in their plastic hot tub, sipping from plastic drinks while imaginary power pop rhythms stream out of the plastic stereo system. Worst of all - it's covered in pink. Somehow you find it in yourself to open the box, your parents laughing hysterically at the painfull cringe on your face. But all is well once again when you find those two wonderfully stereotypical Italian plumbers smiling back at you.

Deceit is a horrible thing.

Interviews

Oh, the wonders of technology. I am really quite pleased with myself at the moment. On Monday, Phillip and I had out last observation of the Boy Scouts, and so we did our interviews. We had no plan to record them, we were just going to rely on frantic note taking. But on the way out the door I had a last minute notion and decided to grab the headphones that came with my iPod touch because they have a microphone in them.

As if I needed one more thing to add to the list of why that thing is awesome. So not only can I record interviews for my English paper, I can check my email, use it as an alarm clock (I use the Duck quacking noise, it really gets you up in the morning); I have an app with the top 100 primary documents in American history (history nerd!); it has a dictionary and a thesaurus, and it plays music. Seriously, it's probably the best purchase I've ever made, aside from my camera. And my wool socks, those were an excellent purchase.

But my point is that it was a slick as pressing record, pressing stop, plugging in the iPod, playing the little QuickTime file, and typing it up word for word. I feel much more confident in the outcome of the paper with some good, solid quotes.