Course Reflection

This being the last day of class, I've decided for my last blog post to be a course reflection. I've really enjoyed being in this class. It has probably been my favorite this year. Most of my classes are lecture based where the professor speaks at you as opposed to 'to' you. Its refreshing to be in a class that encourages discussion. Also the level of intellectual stimulation is awesome. I love a class that makes you think and I believe that's what this class is all about.

South Park

Ever since we watched South Park in Class, I've been seeing it with new eyes. The show has always been really funny in my eyes, but now it just seems that much funnier. Its fairly obvious most of the time that the show is satirical, but now I look for deeper meaning in everything. I'm writing this post while watching the episode about the different atheist alliances. Its funny because God has been eliminated from the vocabulary and has been replaced by science. Which changes nothing about the weight of their words, just the semantics.

English Projects from Other Groups

All of the other groups in the class did an excellent job on their presentations. I especially like the group's presentation on Facebook. It was a very effective presentation because it was funny, which kept the audience involved, and it was something that everyone in the class was able to relate to. I'd like to think that our presentation was an effective one, but we probably should have prepared a little more. However, I feel like each group brought something unique to the table which helped deepen everyone else's understanding of the subject matter.

Religion

Hot button topic. I generally avoid talking about it but, while I'm thinking about it, I'll write about it. Christianity is a funny entity. It's a religion based on immaculate conception, resurrection from the dead, and an almighty being who made the world in six days. I believe all of that, I am a Christian, but I think it's funny how some members of the Christian flock have the balls to say that other religions are crazy. Really? Look at your own religion. I digress. The holy text of Christianity is the Bible. When you attend church, you are told how to interpret the bible. I believe that meaning is something that you have to find for yourself. If there are people out there who are Christians, but never interpret the Bible for themselves, how can these people find meaning in Christianity? I'm not a biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but as of late I've attempted to read the Bible and reflect on it a couple times a week. I want to find the meaning for myself I suppose. Thank God I don't live in the middle ages, otherwise I'd be a prime candidate for burning at the stake or some other medieval method of dispatching the heretics. I guess what I'm wondering is if looking for meaning in a faith based idea is folly. Maybe so, but I think I'll keep trying, if nothing else I'll be well informed.

Much Love,

Nate

Movies

Aside from music, movies might be some of my favorite things in the world. Film is a medium where the intellect of an author and the passion of an actor run head-on into each other to create something amazing. I love movies that make you think, not in the way a spy thriller with all of its twists and turns or a historical movie with all of its facts and allusions make you think, but movies that produce a truly cathartic experience for the viewer. I could name hundreds of movies that I like. I recently attempted to make a top five favorite movies list on one Facebook application or another and I simply couldn't do it. I'm going to try again and explain why I chose each of the movies.

1) Fight Club- The story of a man coming to self awareness. Not to mention the awesome fight scenes. I love the way Edward Norton's character doesn't have a name. How can he when he doesn't know who he his.
2) Requiem for a Dream- this movie left me feeling absolutely numb. I literally stared at the TV for ten minutes after the movie was over. Addiction isn't relegated to drugs and it can drive people crazy.
3) There Will Be Blood- well, it has Daniel Day Lewis in it, so it's going to be emotionally intense. I like it because it shows that human nature can take you to and over the top, but that a uni-faceted nature will quickly take you over the top
4)The Big Lebowski- Cohen brothers, enough said. I like this movie because you can pretty much make it mean anything, which also means it can mean nothing. I like to think that its an allegory of US foreign policy in the 90's with the Dude being the new government, Walter representing the governmental hangover from Vietnam, and Donnie representing the American public.
5) Animal House- there's really no deep meaning here, and that's what I love about it. Sometimes its refreshing to watch a movie that just "is".

So, there you go.

Much Love,

Nate

Books

In keeping with my general library/English theme of my last few posts, I feel as though I should discuss books. Cooper Library has somewhere around half a million books. Right now a 4:30 am I'm sitting in the middle of a mountain of information (or the peak because I'm on the sixth floor). I wonder how many times some of these books have been checked out over the years. How many minds have they shaped and expanded? How much knowledge has secreted from this building? Its almost mind boggling to walk amongst the book shelves. Each one of these books is someone's life work. Someone spent years writing some of these books which are walked by everyday. I would imagine that writing a book is one of the biggest contributions that someone can make to society; their influence can last forever, their ideas can shape or break a society. I've actually attempted to write a book. Nothing utterly profound like Hemmingway or Hawthorne would right and certainly no two thousand page monstrosity like Tom Clancy would crap out, but a book nevertheless. I failed; it's really hard to write a good book that means something. But lots of people have done it before. I'm sitting in a cathedral dedicated to the authors who came before me.

Much Love,

Nate

Brother Micah

I'm sure everyone has heard about Brother Micah, his rants, and the trouble that he was causing at various places around campus. I never actually saw him in person, but from what I hear he basically damned everyone around him to hell. He called all the girls whores and the guys were all doomed to burn for eternity because they were perpetual sinners outside the grace of God. This pissed a lot of people off. I heard countless conversations over the course of three or four days in which people were debating his message and his methods of delivering it. If I hadn't recently found that Brother Micah seemingly makes money by working up a crowd into a fever pitch of anger, and then suing the first person to lay a hand on him, I would think that Brother Micah might have been a rather effective evangelist. Obviously he takes a generally dim outlook on the youth of the world, but he got people talking about something that isn't generally discussed outside of certain situations: God and religion. People like Brother Micah are catalysts for change, whether they mean to or not. I would almost guarantee that God was mentioned more in the three days that he was on campus than the subject had been talked about all year. It got me talking, and I'm relatively hesitant to break into a theological discussion outside the walls of church. He's a con artist and, I assert, a raging lunatic, but he got me thinking. Maybe that's the purpose he serves on this earth.

Much Love,

Nate