We agreed how I wouldnapos;t be able to keep up this apos;every other dayapos; thing, didnapos;t we? No matter. Five days isnapos;t exactly the two years or so I didnapos;t update before...
Anywhoozles.
Second year classes are much more exciting than first year classes, I think. For example, in ENGL201, The Theory and Practise of Criticism (a complusary second year course for all English students which does exactly what it says on the tin), we had an interesting debate in the first seminar, spawned by some quotes by some dead guys. And a woman.
One of these quotes goes something like "To write poetry after Autschwitz is barbaric", by Mr Culture himself, Theodor Adorno. Itapos;s a pretty famous quote - Iapos;d heard it before, though I obviously didnapos;t get the significance of it back then seing as I didnapos;t remember it. Anyway, the beginning of the dicussion was pretty unremarkable, but then I said something like when anyone writes
about these kinds of horrors, theyapos;re essentially profitting from them. Which, in my opinion, is rather fucked up. I mentioned how the tabloids caused an uproar when Mary Bell received a share of the profit with the woman who wrote her biography when it was published, yet, Hollywood makes a movie called "The World Trade Center" and whadyaknow, nobodyapos;s got issues with anything.
"But then youapos;re assuming that anyone who writes is doing it merely for the money," some girl said. Fair enough. But... Isnapos;t that what Hollywood is there for? I mean, the advance on a publishing deal is miniscule (they donapos;t call them apos;penniless writersapos; for nothing) - and anything else is down to luck with regards to book sales.
Hollywood, on the other hand, has money in both hands. Money in one hand to fund fund fund, then promote promote promote. Money in the other from where it collects - box office, DVDs, memorabilia. A couple million gross profit means nothing. That is a apos;disappointing returnapos;.
And who the fuck is the industry helping? Is it seeking to raise awareness and prevent further tragedies? I donapos;t doubt for a second that a portion of Hollywoodapos;s revenue goes to some kind of philanthropy, but on the whole, the only places I
see or
hear of money being thrown at are the kind of people who I can watch on VH1apos;s "The Fabulous Lives of the Rich and Famous", or whatever itapos;s called. Now
thereapos;s a goal we can all aspire to: be kind to yourselves. Fuck the rest of the world. Liposuction and apos;pimped out cribsapos; are evidently more essential that you know, providing aid to victims of war. Or even getting the nationapos;s people out of poverty.
I didnapos;t say any of that in the seminar. Some guy struck me down with "oh, but if we donapos;t talk about these things then theyapos;d slip under the radar and be forgotton." He was much more eloquent and confident than that though. Solid in his opinions. I canapos;t remember exactly how he phrased it, but that was his point, more-or-less.
He had a little "youapos;re-fucking-unbelievable" snigger when I conceded and said, yeah I donapos;t doubt that these things need to be cast into history as important. Perhaps it was the way I said it - as if I was changing my opinion because no one agreed with me. Well I wasnapos;t, and I couldnapos;t give a flying fuck about whether other people agree with me or not.
But whatever. Either way, I can see these seminars becoming something I look forward to, despite all the abstract thinking or whatever, as it looks like theyapos;re going to concern the kind of things I think about. Whether or not theyapos;ll come to the same sort of conclusions as I do in my uneducated manner is another thing. All the same - Iapos;m stubborn, sure, but not so much that my standpoints refuse to change in spite of logic.
Our first lecture was on Structuralism - Sassaure and Barthes in particular. I loved it. Couldnapos;t quite understand its relation to studying literature, but I loved it all the same: "nothing is organic," the lecturer said, "we are only social constructs."
Amazing.
As the title suggest, I was going to do my writerapos;s journal thing. But Heroes is on so Iapos;ll do it later. I.E. Tomorrow. :D
edition illustrated model sports swimsuit, edition illustrated pic sports suite swim, edition illustrated pic sports swimsuit, edition illustrated picture sports swimsuit.
