Hah! Back in action! This weekend is merely a sore throat and persistent cough now, and film class has given me impetus to be excited once more. This week we are watching Lawrence of Arabia and The Third Man--both British films. I love Brits! Especially exciting is The Third Man, written by the same author as the book The Power and the Glory, the amazing Graham Greene who does an astounding job taking evil out the realm of the fanstastic or fairy tale and into the mundane where it lives every day. Want to watch them with me?

Film class also has the power to disturb. Joining The Last Laugh and Battleship Potemkin, not to mention M and Citizen Kane, Ladri Di Biciclette ("The Bicycle Thief") has reminded me again that bad things happen to people who cannot find jobs: society is a pitiless machine that rolls over people's dignity with its iron cogs. The closer I meander to the ranks of the unemployed, the more I am convinced that a society that does not provide people with meaningful place is no society at all. And I take too many people to the hospital from the nursing home to believe that American capitalism concerns itself with meaningful social relationships.

If I'm lucky, I'll manage some meaningful place riding a camel across a large desert, discovering a shady haven in a rocky outcrop just in time for afternoon tea.

observations on the passing scene, in no particular order:

-just chilled a little with Dave Pascoe, of Tanzanian fame. good times! i sure am scared to graduate and leave this wonderful school, but on the other hand i love reminiscing, so there's something to look forward to...

-i hate being sick. it makes me wish i lived at home still.

-i just found a trove of Animaniacs songs on the network. here's to the bestest cartoon show ever!

-i love ibuprofen. it keeps you from biting people's heads off.

-i need tea. now. it's a good thing it's almost lunchtime. i think i'll abscond with some from the cafeteria. perhaps i'll cache some teabags surreptitiously for later.

-

yet one more log on the burning bonfire that is my ambition to travel:
the see-thru loo

as if to spite my passionate resolve to write only good and beautiful things, only literature, life or fate or awful cockup (in the words of the nutty British rock star from love actually) would have it, the times demand a news flash:

*as i was resigning myself to call around Rochester for a good eyeglass shop to shell out a few hundred bucks to get my vision back, i opened an innocuous anonymous intracampus mail envelope to find the lost lense for my glasses. fifteen minutes of work with a leatherman and a twist-tie and you can't even tell they were broken! I CAN SEE AGAIN!!!!!!

(and I can buy coffee at the coffee shop and food at the Jube again!)

and now for something completely different

*to take advantage of someone else's misery for a moment of sheer integrative studies genius, let us all pause and offer our sympathy to Katrina Lao, that pioneer of bloggers, who suddenly and without warning lost her three-years running blogspot site to what Dr. Oakerson would only call the vagaries of having only an imperfect property right. perhaps if she was a Peruvian street vendor she could have called a voluntary organization to protect her pitch, but alas it is gone without even a chance to redirect her vast network of friends, family, admirers and stalkers to her new address at msafiri-k.blogspot.com.

additionally, for those with free time

*my alternate site for more literary/creative/depth of thought projects now has another long stream of semi-disjointed thoughts coopted from my journal. see deadmoosetalking.

this broadcast brought to you by bad sleeping habits, Tikka headlamps, Compaq "Comcrap" computers, and glow-in-the-dark SPAM boxers which are currently glowing for all they're worth. and my roommate, the Russian Faire Princess, who is blissfully snoozing the night away. and my new and super-cool discman that reads a massive collection of mp3s i burned freshman year. and Sting for "Desert Rose" which is either incredibly cool or very patheticly cheesy. or both. like me. :)