Life, Work, and Radio Silence

A note before Submersion: Now that I am back in the bosom of my people and will be posting about my life (as opposed to the random habits of the Viennese), large portions of this journal will be going under Friends-lock once more.

I did this once before, and most of the people who cared to read are already on the Flist. Those who want in, send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view: tell me exactly what you mean to say (signed), yours sincerely, wasting away. Or comment here or elsewhere about your dying need to read about my personal life, and mostly likely the option will be laid open to you. I will wield the Mace of Rejection violently but justly.

On the life front: My job interview at the Swelles Lib seemed to go swimmingly. There was some interviewing and some chatting- I made my interviewer laugh a good deal, so that encourages me on the "charm them into hiring you" front. Apparently my sewing and costumes experience was of interest, so I played that up, and I seemed to do quite adequately on the practical portion. (Oooh, paste and glue and tiny sharp objects, the odes of obsession I could write to you.)

Those who know me and hear of my sudden interest in the library arts seem to think that it suits me to T and are generally surprised that they didn't think of it before.

At the college itself I saw a number of lovely people who I have not seen in months and I was very pleased to see them. They are all of course employed and making their parents very proud. *shakes a fist of minor jealousy*

I spent today wandering around pleasantly with my mother and letting her buy me clothes, which I think we both understand has gone from a gesture of pleasure at my return and moved into full-fledged wallet abuse.

We saw Wall*E and there will be posting about that....

Day 17: Rather Late and Rather Silly: Literalism in the Classroom

day 17
“What do you mean I cannot pass?”
“You cannot pass. There is just no getting around it, your grades are completely in the toilet. There is not a thing on earth you can do to save your grade at this late stage in the game. You quite simply cannot pass this class.”
“But that’s impossible. I got a B+ on the last in class quiz!”
“Those don’t count for anything towards your final grade. The only grades that count towards the final are the homework grades.”
“That is the exact opposite of what you said on the first day of class.”
“If you recall, this year the first day of this class fell on Opposite Day.”
“What? That was Opposite Day? Since when can you observe religious holidays in school?”
“This is not a public high school, this is a private university, and the dean of academic relations recognizes my right to practice my religion in the manner of my choosing as an Orthodox Literalist.”
“Well, yes, of course. I just mean, don’t you still have to declare that sort of thing beforehand?”
“I declared it oppositely by not declaring it.”*
“That’s insane.”
“Well! I have to say that I find your attitude towards my faith to be very offensive.”
“What? Look, I have nothing against your religion, but you can’t fail me just because I didn’t understand the practices of a religion that I don’t belong to! That infringes on my religious freedom.”
“And to just what religion do you belong?
“That’s just my point- it shouldn’t matter! I went into class expecting that I would be able to learn, and because I’m not a follower of Literalism, I didn’t know that I should feed everything you said through a reverse polarity filter. The facts of the issue were only clear to the Literalist members of the class!”
“If you’ll recall, the syllabus did say that students should check the dates on syllabus very carefully, because some of the class times had to be moved for religious holidays. You could have just checked the calendar.”
“My calendar does not have the Literalist religious holidays marked on it- it has the cycles of the moon! and the high tides! But you notice that I don’t tell people that I’m a sailor and then expect them to know that I will not be in classes on days where outgoing tide coincides with their lectures- I would still have to tell them for them to know!”
“Look, I am sorry for the miscommunication, I tried to be as clear on the subject as I could be within the confines of my religion, but I cannot change the fact that your grade is too low for you to pull it up. Even if you aced every homework, quiz and the final, your final grade would still only be in the forties. There is nothing I can do.”
“Fine. Fine! Then what am I supposed to do about this?”
“I would strongly suggest that you drop the class, and talk to any other professors who had their first day of class on that date and see if any of them were issuing instructions in compliance with Opposite Day restrictions.”

*As stolen from Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes Rules for Calvinball, as collected from historical documents (AKA comic strips) here: http://www.simplych.com/cb_rules.htm. See Rule 1.5

Day 18: Copping Out of Actually Writing by Doing a Review of Wall*E

So, my dear friends, Wall*e has been reviewed to death in the few weeks since its introduction. In my flist alone the wickedly sharp minds of laguera25,thelauderdale, and cats_n_crying have all attacked it, but I have only just now seen it and wish to lay out my own thoughts. I also wish to avoid having to think up some fictional thought to write about tonight, so this it shall be.

I found the Earth-based portion of the movie at the beginning incredibly sad and rather lonely- the little robot that could is stuck on a world, essentially alone except for a roach and the corpses of his deceased comrades. The filmmakers tactfully deal with the reality that the Wall*E unit in question essentially cannibalizes his brothers by simply cutting away the actual theft of the treads from off the body of another, and showing his collection of eye/camera units as an integrated part of his collections. Since it’s a kid’s movie, the accidental squishing of the cockroach turns out to be nonfatal, but we do need to understand that Wall*e is truly the last living thing on the planet at the beginning of the film.

The choice and use of the musical Hello Dolly was inspired and lovely. I had thought from the previews that the film would be entirely without dialogue, and I honestly think that they could have pulled that off and simply used the music to convey the budding romance between Wall*e and Eve. It was simple, it was effective, it was lovely. Bravo.

The character designs are rather derivative but not clearly stolen from anything else. Wall*E units, when fully deployed, look a heck of a lot like Johnny Five from the Short Circuit film franchise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6VVELKyhOg&feature=related) and feature some of the same very simple emotive tools: eyes and hands. Also, his temporary “death” at the end of the film when part of his motherboard has to be replaced from his stores suggests a similar personal history: Johnny Five gains his personality and sentience when struck by lightning, and disassembly is likened to death- he is more than the sum of his parts. Wall*E seems to be as well, but apparently enough of it was transferable that it was able to re-establish itself afterwards.

Eve is clearly an iProduct, all seamless white plastic and high tech jimcrackery. She is also about five times as photogenic. She takes the lead in all their Bonnie and Clyde pictures and looks far more frightening than Wall*E. It’s a bit strange to me that something brand fresh new out of the factory, and intended only to be a probe without any human interaction, was able to develop a personality so quickly, or was given an interface that was so human as to show amusement and interest in things with her “eyes.” But it's a useful conceit for the film, and cute as a button, so I will allow it to pass unscathed.

The Auto-Pilot was a huge blinking red nod to the HAL unit from Space Odyssey 2001, as was the music that played at the Captain slowly and ponderously launched himself from his chair and took his first baby steps towards reclaiming his authority. (laguera25 made an interesting quip at the end of her reviewon the subject of the normality of the passengers’ willful and permanent immobility, and since her review is worth forcing you to read in its entirety, I will simply link.)