Planning and Prosecuting

            I’m not sure if watching a popular movie for analysis purposes is a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, your research assignments consist of reading and watching the things you watch for enjoyment in any case. On the other hand, when you’re watching them, not for enjoyment, but for close analysis, you end up noticing all the things that are wrong with them – in the end, at best they’re boring and at worst they’re disemboweled.

            At least, that’s how I’m feeling about Pride and Prejudice about now. I’m watching several different versions and re-reading the book, and while there are fruitful grounds for analysis, I kind of like to suspend belief for a while when watching; it just makes things more agreeable. I suppose, though, that if given the option to watch a popular movie for homework, I should take it.

            Pride and Prejudice isn’t the only movie I watched this weekend. On Saturday several Christian groups on campus and a couple of local churches hosted a documentary showing on sex trafficking (It was called Nefarious if you want to look it up). It was very intense; I think most of the people in the theater started crying. I’m not sure if that many people will actually do something about it, but awareness was raised.

            I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, really – about the gap between thinking and doing. I mean, let’s face it. It’s not usually the best idea to throw yourself and your money into a cause because a movie made you cry. Yes, this is a horrible thing. But there are a lot of horrible things out there. The entire world is broken, corrupted, cursed. You can’t fix everything. But you have to do something.

            In DOXA, the weekly large group of one of the Christian groups on campus, the speaker last Friday talked about habits – about how habits, not thoughts, really influence our actions. How our souls and spirits are shaped not by what we know or even what we believe, but by what we do. About how it’s important to implement habits that will point your heart’s longings in the right direction. Too often I sit and think and plan and don’t ever get anything done; I find myself desensitized to the brokenness of the world around me.

            In a cappella we learned a new song on Sunday. Well, I say song. It’s actually an epic compilation of eight different songs, all of them centering on the theme of being asleep and numb and then waking up to God’s love and salvation. It sounds awesome – or at least it will, when we finish learning it – and it also made me wonder what I’m asleep to, what I need to wake up to.

            There isn’t a definite ending to this musing – I’m still figuring it out. It’s life, after all – nothing is ever neatly wrapped up. And there are always other things going on; it’s rarely clear what events are really at the center of the story. It’s just something to think about, something to help guide me in an as-yet-undetermined direction.

            Speaking of undetermined directions, Housing Day is coming up. At Harvard all the freshman live together in several different dorms, while the upperclassmen are divided into houses, which they belong to for their last three years here. The house selection is completely random, but today opens the applications for ‘blocking groups,’ which is where you specify which other people you want to be in your house (it doesn’t assign roommates, just which house). I’m blocking with another girl from my Hebrew class, so we’ll see what happens.

             A few things happened over the weekend. I spent a good part of Friday finishing my Expos essay – yep, the same one I mentioned a couple of weeks ago – and turning it in. I always end up rewriting my papers several times before they’re much good, so I don’t really mind, but it was good to be finished. I ended up at the MIT ROTC unit most of Saturday; a Rear Admiral came to visit who is in charge of Israeli-Palestinian security. The talk was really interesting, and the sandwiches and cookies weren’t bad, either.

I also prepared a presentation for this morning’s Naval Science class on Texas Independence, since yesterday was Texas Independence Day *cue patriotic music*. It went pretty well; instead of putting relevant pictures on, I filled in the PowerPoint slides with cartoons about Texas, and I think everyone liked them. Overall, it was a pretty good week – no busier than usual, and no major disasters, or none that I know of.  So best wishes until next time. Have a thoughtful week and a late but happy Texas Independence Day!