entertain...er...depress me?

I enjoy depressing movies. Maybe that goes along with my love for depressing 20th century American fiction, which is why I'm taking a class for it.

I finished Absalom, Absalom! today and it was sufficiently depressing, but it also made my head hurt because it was mostly stream-of-consciousness. I can do stream-of-consciousness, but reading 80 pages of it in one sitting is kind of overwhelming. Oops, sorry for the digression.

Anyway, my roommate and I both enjoy heavy movies more than light, happy movies, unless it's a Jeeves and Wooster or Black Adder episode. Looking at our desks, you can see plainly that we own more depressing movies than we own chick flicks. Shawshank Redemption, Hotel Rwanda, The Patriot, Jakob the Liar, Road to Perdition, and so on. We just go for heavier subject material when we pick out a movie. I think I enjoy being compelled to care about the characters when it's a heavier read. I enjoy a good satire or comedy, but I think what is most meaningful to me in books or movies is being made to care about characters that are twisted or are in the middle of twisted situations. The least depressing book we read this semester was my least favorite, because when I read it I wasn't thinking too much about the characters or why they meant anything to me, because they really didn't.

Now that I've made huge blanket statements, it's time for me to get under some blankets and sleep. Oh, one more thought--depressing movies have the best soundtracks. It's true. Thomas Newman is wonderful.

absalom, absalom!....olympics

I take a break from my intense (and confusing) reading of Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! to mention the Olympics. I love them. My family has never been into watching sports, though throughout my childhood I took swimming lessons, and played some basketball and soccer here and there. We have never had a favorite sports team, or worn sports paraphernalia on purpose. But we eat up the Olympics. Ever since I was pretty small, I can remember all of us cheering and getting excited over speed skating, gymnastics, swimming, figure skating, skiing, you name it. Once we got a little older we would stay up with mom and watch until we could hardly keep our eyes open.

Tonight, Heidi (my roommate) and I searched high and low for a TV to watch the Olympics. We tried the one in our dorm's basement. No dice. Some very awkward couples watched a movie as we waited, doing our homework at a study table, and then the couples decided to watch another movie. Rude. We trekked through the snow to another building, but there was no room for us around that TV. So, we tried the Student Union, and found an Olympics-friendly TV in the commuter lounge.

I am reading the Faulkner novel while watching figure skating, which might not be a good idea, considering Faulkner has sentences that last for half a page sometimes, and it's easy to get lost. I like Faulkner, but I'm looking forward to class tomorrow, where Dr. Messer will tell us what in the world Faulkner is trying to communicate. It's beyond me.

henry buhl library

Well, I'm a doofus.

I studied in the stacks today at the library (on a Saturday, I know). I left my things in there to go to dinner, which is a very safe thing to do at Grove City College, especially since we are all issued the same computer when we come in, and everyone hates them, because they're always crashing. No one would want to steal one of those.

So I went off to dinner, and came back to the library around 6:30. I scanned my student I.D. It did the weird beep that means your card has been rejected. I tried again. No dice. I walked around to the front of the library, and that's when I noticed that all of the lights inside were dimmed. Yes. I was locked out of the library, and my homework and computer were locked inside. I felt just brilliant.

The good news is I really don't have that much homework to do this weekend, and I can get my stuff tomorrow when the library opens at 2. If I had been working on a paper this weekend, I might have just spiraled out of control and broken into Henry Buhl Library, which probably wouldn't look that strange here. You know that you're a Grover when you stare up in despair at the library on a Saturday night and wish you could get in.

(this, plus one foot of snow)