Advanced Film Criticism, Monday, Period 1

[usedtowhizz.livejournal.com]

"I'm going to be honest with you guys for a minute," James said, which may have been a weird way to start a bad movie class. "I think I've been taking it easy on you. I think we need to step it up this week and if you make it to next week, maybe you'll get a reward."

"So this week, we're watching don't really need a meta for this because no one would EVER app someone from The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure. You know how that name makes it sound like if you had a kid you might know what the hell an Oogielove is? You wouldn't. They were made up for this movie by people hoping to make the new most horrible marketable thing in the world, and they failed, and their failure is hilarious."

"So beyond the fact that the movie's going to make your brains melt and dribble out of your ears, the people who made this crap wanted kids to interact with it. So the Oogieloves are going to tell you to sing and dance and answer questions and crap," James said. "And yes, I expect you to do whatever the movie tells you to do. Anyone who keeps it up for the whole movie will get five dollars from me as a reward. I can't tell you to buy booze with it, but I will say that it's what I would do."

"So, let's start this fucking balloon adventure!"

Practical Philosophy, Monday

[endsthegame]

"There are those of us who come here believing very strongly in duty," Ender said. "Others who come here to escape it - and some to who it's absolutely not a part of their lives."

He smiled a little.

"I had a mentor, once," he said. "I was told that people were free, unless humanity needed them, and that humanity never asked us to be happy, merely to act on its behalf - for its survival. Happiness, he felt, was a luxury that at times we could scarcely afford. To opt out of doing our duty at such a time was the worst crime imaginable: a crime of stupidity."

He took a sip of water. "I've met people who disagreed, since," he said. "I've also met people whose lives were so intricately bound to these rules they didn't even know where they stopped and the rules began. Some of you have already made your views fairly clear already, but I'm curious as to everyone else's input, too.

"How important is duty? Do we people all carry some grand responsibility to our species, or should we exist only for ourselves and the development of our self? And if we live for duty, then when does that end? Is there some point where all of us may be afforded personal freedom, or are we perpetually tied to our responsibilities, whether we flee from them or not?"