The psychology test Monday afternoon went about how I expected - I scored an 83. That's not great, but considering it was mostly identifying parts of the brain and what side effects behaviorally would occur when sections were injured, it's probably better than I should have scored. But the really strange part - that was tied for fourth place out of about twenty students, the high was 90, followed by an 85 and 84. About half the class scored 70 or lower, someone managed a 36. How do I know these scores? Wednesday the professor created a PowerPoint comparing our scores to the previous class, since it was the same test. Part of the slides were scoreboards of totals recorded, so that Dr. Marrero can keep accurate statistics. He then proceeded to give a wonderful reminder that tests don't matter in the long run, and that he only gives them because the school requires it. "It's what you do, who you are, that matters. Not what your grades were." That's about as close to preaching as you can expect in a college classroom, and it isn't the first time he's come close to that boundary, dropping hints here and there that he probably sees the world from a Christian perspective.
We then watched a clip of an interview James Dobson had with serial killer Ted Bundy the day before he was executed. It was interesting to see Dobson the psychologist at work, as compared to the author, counselor or radio host. Bundy seemed incredibly manipulative, which fit what we've studied so far about psychopaths (the course is Psychology of the Criminal Mind).
It's been a long week. Besides Agents, the TV's been on hockey and Thunder basketball for background noise, but none of those are exactly non-stressful forms of relaxation, as I noted in a post three years ago. The Daytona 500 is next Sunday, which is exciting, but also adrenaline-filled, too.
Valentine's Day was a regular Tuesday, which was fine with me. It was filled with homework in Pop Market, like crafting a character description and recording our impressions to the (largely terrible) thriller flashfiction written last week. Dr. Dial-Driver ranted about the state of public education, so I got yelled at a bit for disagreeing with her too vehemently, but that was mainly for starting a debate over Steve Rogers and the degradation of values and morals in American society since World War II.
In Gothic Film and Lit that afternoon, neither me or McKenzie understood very well what was going on in Henry James's ghost story The Turn of the Screw, and Dr. Mackie didn't have many answers, either. It's that kind of book.
Dropped by the Chi Alpha meeting, which was fine. Kept tripping over the trash can while playing ping pong on the Centennial Center rec room's hideously-warped table, which played a big part in why I kept losing repeatedly.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. overdid the pop-cultural references this week, and when I say that.... the episode ended on a terrifying cliffhanger which will be interesting to follow - FitzSimmons is trapped yet again, is all I'll say for now.
Finished the Nicholas Sparks (The Longest Ride) I found for a dollar last week, it wasn't A Walk to Remember or The Notebook, but the ending was well done. Dialogue was strong throughout, and that indefinable caring-about-these-characters that all great authors have was there again. He used an intertwined structure throughout, switching from a delirious 91-year-old WWII veteran remembering his life and marriage in first-person to a third-person romance between a professional bull rider and a Wake Forest art history major, bouncing between their perspectives before going back to the old man. The way he brought those storylines together was really inventive.
Also reread through J.D. Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy for school, which is wonderfully written and extremely painful to read through. I'm not quite sure how I can work his insights into my capstone paper, but I'm sure there is a way, because the people he writes about are most of the main audience of country music.
This week's Gothic Film and Literature reading is called Rosemary's Baby, by a guy named Ira Levin. This stood out because the old guy in The Longest Ride was named Ira Levinson. Anyway, after a quick internet research, this book is apparently to blame for all the vampire-and-goodness-knows-what-all other crap that's been published since, which was exactly the opposite of what the author wanted, since he was trying to prove that all that stuff was stupid. (It's a horror story about a group of Satanist witches kidnapping a newborn. Besides that awful plot, it was poorly written.) Anyway, this guy Ira Levin also wrote the play No Time for Sergeants, which started Andy Griffith's career, and a novel called The Stepford Wives, which William Goldman (yep, the thriller author best known for The Princess Bride) wrote the screenplay for during the movie adaptation. (There is a large chunk of Goldman's nonfiction Adventures in the Screen Trade dedicated to the lessons learned from this experience.)
Got about five hours of sleep last night, the kind where you wake up every twenty minutes bolt upright on High Alert Mode.
Sage - she and her husband work as office assistants in the English department - got out of Shakespeare just as I was about to go to Capstone, when she spins around in the hallway. "Can I take your picture, Wes? You are like, THE image of 'A Distraught College Student' right now." She meant it as a joke, and I thought it was a funny quote, because if it wasn't humorous then it would just be way too true. Especially after I looked up the definition of distraught: "Deeply upset and agitated." So I posted it to Facebook, and a lot of people - mainly other students - also thought it was funny/sad/applicable.
Capstone was difficult because of the material we were reading, mostly centered around the split between how children and adults see the world through Peter Pan and a terrific Robert Louis Stevenson essay I had never heard of called "Child's Play," which seems like it would fit extremely well with G.K. Chesterton's "Ethics of Elfland" and Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child. More than usual had read the novel before seeing the Disney movie, and so found it quite lacking. A discussion of Disney villains commenced here, and I was again chided for not having seen The Lion King in its entirety (but if you know the songs, isn't that enough?). Then the rest of the other readings we were looking at were about caring for the elderly, death and mortality. This led to a lot of discussion about the everyday glory and burden of caring for elderly relatives as they grow frailer, and while it was a great discussion, the material was really painful.
One interesting fact learned today: Dr. Dial-Driver says that Lady and the Tramp was originally a book! Since her specialty is children's lit, I'll take her word for it. (The novel of Bambi was also mentioned today, which brought to mind that The Fox and the Hound was a novel first, too, but there's no way that I will ever read that - the Wikipedia plot summary is far more depressing that the movie, and the movie is appropriately realistic enough in its open-ended unresolvedness.)
I don't think I'm actually sick, but I feel like I've been just dragging through the last couple days. Found a Spotify playlist of classical covers of rock and pop songs, which has been interesting to listen to while writing this post. (Jed and Miss Kathy would approve.)
Discovered that Screen Rant, a movie-news website I usually find useful, is taking applications for a list writer, so I might apply for that. It would only be part time - all of their content comes from freelancers - but it would be something, and they're a pretty good-sized site in terms of traffic. That would look good in a portfolio of writing samples. And lists are usually easy. And since it's freelance work, I wouldn't have to move to California or anything.
UPDATE SATURDAY MORNING - Whether because of stress or sickness germs going around, I was up most of Thursday night throwing up. Did nothing all day yesterday, I'll probably be fine in a couple days.
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