1 post tagged “film and literature”

    I got the Governor's School form today, finally (nominated for Engineering and Creative Writing departments, so that I can be the world's most incompetent-- albeit eloquent-- engineer). It's a lot of paperwork to fill out, but I have been waiting for the opportunity to get into this program since my Freshman year. The Creative Writing department is particularly hard to get into ("There are typically 2,400 applications and the program serves approximately 625 students each year."), but I'm up for the challenge. :)
    For those of you that don't know, the NJ Governor's School program is an elite free summer program for "outstanding Juniors." They almost canceled it because of funding issues, and I was worried that we wouldn't get a chance to apply for it this year. But, thankfully, it has been upheld by private donations, and I will finally have a chance to join the Academia-Obsessing-Overachiever's paradise. I think that my chances are fairly good-- my portfolio, especially the Columbia stuff, shows off my ability to write in different genres, and I could not be more passionate about this subject. I don't know how much fun living at TCNJ for a month would be, but who cares?

    Other news in the world of Academia: I tutored at the middle school for the first time today. I ended up tutoring one of my friend's brothers in "social studies," which was kind of nice. I learned something about East Africa and Swahili, obviously very useful things in the life of an 8th grader who couldn't give less of a shit about anything besides hanging out. Ah, 8th grade.

    I have to write a paper for Film and Literature comparing characters in Love Actually to a book that we have read (on our own, not in the class-- despite what the name might suggest, we don't actually read in Film and Literature). I chose to compare the Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson characters of Harry and Karen to Martha and George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (convenient, I know). It's going to be hard, but it beats the bromidic comparison of Sarah and Karl (or anyone in that film, really) to Romeo and Juliet. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to structure the piece; I was thinking something along the lines of comparing how they must keep some of their composure (albeit unsuccessfully, in George and Martha's case) for the sake of their kids/guests, or perhaps how they deal with the situations differently, or how the same type of love (or dependency, even) is expressed in different ways. Strange, isn't it, to have a room full of children who have never experienced the "sheer agony of love" to respond to such a question? I almost feel as though I'll be looking back on this in ten years or so and realize that my answer is almost that of a five-year-old.
    "Charline, what do you know about divorce?"
    "It's bad! People should love each other! Some people yell at each other and some people try not to. That's why divorce is bad."
    Oh, dear.

    I was speaking to Seth, one of my favorite people, today (Oh, I could write books and books on Seth) and mentioned to him how it would be strange-- and quite unfortunate-- if both of us somehow ended up back teaching at our high school. He said that it could be worse, but that that idea's pretty horrible. He then went on to discuss how he awoke from a nightmare and almost poked his eye out on the plastic blinds above his bed. Strange boy, really.

Charline