Monday, April 27, 2015

A Room With a View: Class Situation

Let me start off by saying that A Room With a View is not my type of movie. I generally don't really enjoy what I think are called period pieces; in other words, movies that are set in the past. In different eras, maybe, is a better way to explain it. I don't really know why, but I find it very hard to enjoy them... Perhaps the only one I've liked is the recently released and Oscar-nominated (and with a few Oscar wins, too) movie called "The Theory of Everything", based on famous physicist, cosmologist, etc. Stephen Hawking, and even then it didn't focus on a specific era but rather on his life, his struggles with his disease, his love life, and... I digress. Point is, I usually don't like these types of movies, and A Room With a View was sadly no exception. Anyways, on to the class situation in the movie...

So! In the movie, Lucy and Charlotte, two seemingly upper class women, stay in a hotel in Italy, but are inconvenienced by the fact that their room doesn't have a view. Mr. Emerson and his handsome son George offer to switch rooms with them, and for some reason I don't quite understand, this seems to bother Charlotte. Anyways, although they don't seem to be poor, these men are more easy-going and open-minded and shit when compared to Lucy and Charlotte. Oh, I hadn't thought about it before, but are we allowed to cuss here? Well, already did it so... Digressing again. Point is, Lucy begins to find herself drawn to George, and eventually he surprises her by grabbing her and kissing her passionately, and Charlotte interrupts them. Once they're back home in England, Lucy is engaged to a snobby, definitely upper class guy named Cecil (even the name is snobby! No offense to any Cecils who read this, I only speak the truth.). Things get complicated when George, the other guy, moves in right next to her. We see a pretty good example of the class difference between George and Cecil in the lake scenes. Rich men are stereotypically seen as allergic to fun and real emotion, so Cecyl, being a rich man, doesn't even think of going for a swim. On the other hand, George, the fun, relatively poor guy, gets in and splashes around and stuff. So, long story short, she breaks off her marriage and tries to run away from George and her feelings for him, but ends up running off with him to Italy again. 

So... I guess that's it. 

Monday, April 6, 2015

My Journal Experience

It's been a while since I last wrote here, I gotta keep this thing updated...

So! At the beginning of the semester, our English professor informed us of a two or three month project: throughout the semester, we were going to keep a journal and write in it approximately five days a week. The journal had a little peculiarity, however; in this journal, we were to follow five "anti-rules" based on Natalie Golding's "Writing Down The Bones," which basically said to write whatever came into our mind non-stop for about 10 minutes, completely uncensored and without much regard for grammar or spelling. One of the anti-rules, and probably the one the professor emphasized most on, was to "go for the jugular," which basically meant to go for precisely that which we didn't want to write, that which we didn't want anyone else to see, to go for those dark feelings inside ourselves that we have trouble admitting exist. It can be hard to explain, but I think you know what I mean.

When we were told of the project, I was obviously not excited at all. Although I do enjoy writing every now and then, keeping a journal updated 5 out of 7 days sounded very tedious and time-consuming, and it was something I knew I'd forget very frequently. Effectively, I hated it during the first week or two; I forgot to write in it at least 6 days a week, and the few times I did write, it felt like I was only giving a half-hearted, "let's-get-this-out-of-the-way" effort. It was also very hard for me to ignore my spelling mistakes, so I frequently went back to correct something or stopped to look up how exactly to write a word (the word "embarrassing" has always confused me, for some reason). However, I slowly began to enjoy it a little more each day. I also began to write all 7 days of the week, in order to make up for the days I'd forgotten. Eventually, I actually looked forward to the late hours at night in which I'd write! It was a place to write down the thoughts I'd had during the day, my thoughts about what had happened and how I had felt about it. Since the rule was to ignore those barriers we build up about what's right and what's wrong, about what is and isn't acceptable, I could expose my true thoughts about certain topics no matter how wrong or controversial they seemed, even if only I was ever going to read them. This openness with myself about how I felt helped me make a significant decision some weeks back to stop going after something that had no future, and I've felt much happier with my life since then.

The project is now over, and my journal had a grand total of 43 entries. Even though I haven't written in the journal ever since I wrote the last entry, I'd really like to keep one in the future. In the summer, when I don't have any more assignments from classes and stuff, I plan to begin a new one, with five minute entries so it doesn't take up too much time. It's been a surprisingly good experience, and I look forward to doing it again. Oh, and I probably won't decorate this one.