I am cheerful because my wretched Geography class was cancelled. And I used the time I would have been there to go grocery shopping. So well done, all around.

I have also realized why a) I am so disenchanted with the UCF film program, b) I hate gen-ed class, and c) art history has become my most fascinating area of study. And all are related.

It's theory. I love theory. I love discussing and analyzing and theorizing. It can be applied to any humanity, really. Maybe even sciences. But so far, the only classes I've been exposed to this kind of learning since high school has been art history. Gen-eds never delve that far into curriculum (actually, my Chemistry class bordered on it...which is why I obsessed over getting an A in that class....I studied 18 hours for the final exam because I wanted to make sure I did well...who does that? For Chemistry?).

Anyway, the film program here is SERIOUSLY lacking in theory. I even took Theory and Criticism in Film and we didn't get beyond the most basic formalist theory. We literally spent half the semester on Seigei Eisenstein's concept of montage (aka - what has become standard for film editing). It was revolutionary...in 1915. We barely scratched the surface of André Bazin, who had some interesting, critical ideas. We never once discussed anything like feminism, black theory, Marxism, queer theory. We never even looked at social or political context of films or discussed how the biography of a filmmaker can affect the work. (All of those are things we've covered in the first 6 weeks of my Theory and Criticism of Art History course). To it's credit, the American Cinema class I'm in currently is all about biography and social context. But it lacks severely in anything else. We don't discuss thinkers in film classes. And we should.

I was in the library today, picking up a book for a film paper I have due in two weeks (I'm highly doubtful that anyone else in my class will use an academic source. Maybe an online newspaper or journal article...but I'm guessing Joe Schmo's Film Review website is going to be their top source. But whatever. In the books I picked up (and when I'm in the film books section, I pick up many that are not related to my research...just to see), there were plenty of references to Baudelaire or Walter Benjamin (whose work Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is paramount to Marxist theory and any duplication-based art, like printmaking or photography or film). Yet has Walter Benjamin been mentioned in ANY of my film classes? No. Not once. Maybe back at Indiana, but definitely not at UCF.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a school whose art history department is slowly imploding while they build a new Biological Sciences building, but it's my education and shouldn't I be getting more than this?

I guess the bottom line is that if I want to learn it, I'll have to teach myself. Or go to grad school (I'm making the broad assumption that grad school actually teaches based on theory and discourse.

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In other news, Nilla wafers and vanilla frosting is the best snack ever. Plus, the frosting entirely defeats the purpose of eating Reduced-Fat Nillas (yes, I'm using that as a "plus").

My thesis is not progressing greatly, but I am having a great time reading through some of the books and articles I've found.

And now I'm taking a break to watch American Gangster, which I picked up from a redbox today (it was just released on DVD). Mmm...$1 movie night. Life is grand.

(As a sidenote, I think it's really sad that there are really only two prominent, black dramatic actors (Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington). I mean, I think you can make an argument for Jamie Foxx or Will Smith as a Denzel-follower, and possibly someone like James Earl Jones for Freeman (had his career been fuller in more recent years), but really...)

I honestly don't understand how a person could sleep for 6 hours with two different alarms going off every few minutes.

Seriously. Every three-ish minutes, one of two alarms chimes. And yet she sleeps through it. They were going off at 9:30 this morning, when I left for a meeting with my advisor (most everything is on track for graduation...I do have a couple little hiccups which I hope to get resolved soon).

They were still chiming at 10:30 when I got home from my meeting.

And now? 6 hours later? They are still going off.

I really don't understand.

I mean...if I were so tired that I definitely couldn't wake up and wasn't going to wake up...I'd turn off the alarm, or reset it for a much later time. And I seriously doubt I could even sleep for that long, being waked every three minutes.

To be honest, it's pretty damn annoying.

Now, I know some of you out there may be concerned that I will be having such a busy Senior spring semester that I won't have any time for shenanigans or tomfoolery.

Don't worry...I'm still managing to fit utter nonsense in, wherever possible.

Today, I had early class (eww) but was back home by 9:45am, at which point I did my homework for Theory and Criticism of Art History (read two articles and write responses for them). It wasn't hard and it ended up being really interesting.

So tonight, I rewarded myself by going to the UCF men's basketball game with the roommates and Colleen's boyfriend. When we left (5 minutes before the end), the score was 90 - 68, and I just checked...we won 109 to 80. Go Knights! It was kinda boring, to be honest (I prefer football), but it was free for students, so it was a nice way to spend an evening.

Additionally, I'm planning on being GROSSLY irresponsible this weekend. First, I will be seeing 27 Dresses on Friday with Anna and maybe Colleen.

Then on Saturday, I'm attending Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa. Oh yes, you read right. It's an annual festival with an epic 3-hour parade of pirates, and the Bay will be full of pirate ships (at some point, there's a "battle" between the pirates and the navy, which ends in the navy's surrender). Oh man, it's gonna be awesome.

Then, as if that weren't enough, Colleen and I are going to be attending the Matchbox Twenty/Alanis Morissette concert Saturday night (conveniently located at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, practically in the midst of all the Gasparilla Pirate Fest foolishness).

Pirates + Alanis + Matchbox Twenty? Saturday is going to be AWESOME!


But that's not all! I'm going to try to get to Disney a lot from Sunday through Wednesday when my sisters and brother-in-law will be doing a crazy-intensive trip (they are attempting to ride every ride, see every show, and hit up every attraction there is).

The problem is that in the next week, I have to write a 4-page paper based on a movie I haven't yet seen (and am not certain fits with the topical guidelines), write an outline and continue research for my thesis, and study for a very difficult geography exam. Then the week after, I have to visit the Rollins College art museum and write a review on the exhibit, and study HARD CORE for my History of Prints exam (which will most likely be the second hardest exam of my scholastic career...nothing beats that chemistry final from last semester).

So today was quite excellent.

It started bright and early at 9:10am when Anna knocked on my door and said I had 20 minutes to get ready to go tailgating. While I was ready by 9:30, we still ended up waiting on Colleen and Jessica (from next door) and didn't get out of the apartment complex until 10:15. Oh well.

Tailgating was sort of a bust. And it's really more like picnic-ing (or so I joked). While some people hung out in parking lots...they are so small and numerous that it's impossible to get a really big "tailgating party" feel. However, we have a large strip of grass we call "Memory Mall" on which hundreds of tents were set up with alcohol, grills, music, football, and other such nonsense. Nothing like ribs and burgers at 10:30am. We met up with Jessica's boyfriend, but there wasn't really anything to do and we didn't have alcohol, so we moved on and patronized the on-campus Barnes & Noble to pick up festive black and gold pom-pons, and Starbucks.

We then set out to scalp us some tickets (question: is scalping only the action of the seller, or is the buyer also scalping? In this context, we were buying), and got a super incredible deal. We bought 3 tickets valued at $40 a piece...for $25. Total. So...a $95 discount. Not shabby.

And the game rocked. It was the Conference USA championships in which we played Tulsa (which spells "a slut" backwards). It started out a pretty even match, we were neck-and-neck through the first half. The second half came around, though, and we kicked their asses 44-25. Schweet. So, we're division champions and on our way to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, TN where we'll be playing LSU. I'm predicting a loss, but division champs is good. It's our first title ever in our first season in our own stadium. Pretty awesome. Oh, and our running back is right behind Barry Sanders for single-season rushing yards (2,448, compared to 2,628). Go Kevin Smith. Here's to getting 180+ yards in the Liberty Bowl.

After the game, we were famished and for whatever reason, Anna decided she really wanted to go to Hooters and none of us had ever been, so we got some wings and burgers and had a lovely and filling meal. We actually ended up sitting at a table next to three guys from the UCF football team. I have no idea who they were (they didn't have numbers on their backs, and a commentator running a play-by-play, as per usual), but it was cool none the less.


Since then, I've caught up on most of my backlogged TiVo (two episodes of "Project Runway" and an entire week of "Ellen"), while Anna has been passed out on my bed. She's going on 5 and a half hours, only gaining consciousness for about 3 minutes over the entire time. But she has a nasty habit of pulling all-nighters (or multiple all-nighters), so she probably needs the sleep.

Colleen thinks it's hilarious.


BTW - Anderson Cooper stated that he was obsessed with "My Super Sweet 16" and "Tiara Girls" when he was on "Ellen." There's no way he's straight. I'm surprised he didn't cite "Project Runway" as one of his favorites.

(Also, when she had Joey Fatone on, she brought out JC Chasez and had them play "The Singing Bee" against one another. It was pretty damn cute.)