Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know

Yeah, that's right. I haven't posted anything since Obama trounced McCain in the presidential election. Why? Because for the last 20 days I've been slavin' away in the pursuit of academic merits! I've been getting piledriven by midterms, suplexed by classroom management plans, and atomic elbowed by advanced Russian grammar! It's been a rough coupl'a weeks is all. But, have I learned anything? Let's find out.

Byronic heroes are dicks: So I have this class called Russian culture. It's all about Russian literature that has been written at the turn of the century, right before the tsars where 86'd so the Bolsheviks could set up shop. Apparently it was pretty hip at this time to integrate what us literary hipsters call a "Byronic Hero" into Russian novels. Anywho, Byronic Heroes (taken from Lord Byron; famous romantic poet, Greek revolutionary, and sexual deviant) are dicks. But they're kinda like cool dicks. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. I'm not sure why this archetype took such a strong foothold in Russia, but we've read about four books now that prominently feature a bored intellectual who uses his good looks and cultural acumen to woo ladies and then break their hearts in front of the men who really love them. Interesting, no?

Rewards can punish kids just like punishments can punish kids. But maybe they can't?: There's this dude goes by the name of Alfie Kohn. He's all about reforming the classroom to be less about rewards and punishments, and more about student/teacher democracy. To which I say, "Awesome! In this perfect fantasy world, do I have my own butler on a luxury space station orbiting planet Goodtimes?" Yes it's wrong to teach kids that they're in school in order to get a letter on a piece of important looking paper. Yes it's wrong to make kids afraid of participating in class discussions because they think you're going to punish them for wanting to learn. But let's just take a step back and realize that our entire society is based on a system of rewards and punishments, and that's just a cold hard fact that kids are gonna have to deal with.

Eastern European wedding customs are bizarre and unsettling: One day in my Slavic Folklore class, we watched a home movie of a wedding in some village located in Yugoslavia. Now, I mentally checked out about thirty minutes into the thing, because at the end of the day, you're watching someone's poorly made wedding video. Here's what I remember seeing though: The entire village population dancing in the street while firing pistols into the air, the groom attempting to sharpshoot an apple that has been hung from the bride's roof, the groom attempting to pay the bride's sister for permission to enter the bride's room to claim her as his own, lot's of funny hats, a very long church ceremony where both bride and groom looked nervous at first, but then slightly tired. Messed me up good.

Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon is badass: I'm about five TPB's (that's "trade paperbacks" for all you plebians) into this series, and I freaking love it. It's like an existential western road movie with vampires, demons, angels, and a horrendously botched suicide inspired by Kurt Cobain's own demise. There's a cinematic quality to Ennis' and Dillon's work that I've never seen in another comic book. And it is also home to a character called The Saint of Killers, who is possibly the most terrifying, grizzled, pissed off, and vengeful fellas I've ever seen. This doesn't really have to do with school, but it was nice to spend some downtime with the Reverend Jesse Custer, his gal Tulip O'Hare, and their mutual undead friend Cassidy the Irish vampire.

I can't think of any other important lessons that I learned over the last 20 days, and I blame this on the fact that my brain was getting punched in the nuts for at least 16 of said 20 days, and just wants to exit my head via my ear so it can saturate itself in a healthy brine of fried chicken, apple beer, pizza, and David Lynch movies.