Oregon Week in Review

Economics -- so you add the sunk cost to the opportunity cost or to the overall cost? And if it changes the value, why does going to a party still have a better net worth than going to the movies even if you've already bought the movie ticket?

Astronomy -- the first day I thought he was speaking in tongues because I was so flippin' tired, and he was doing an overview of last term. I thought I was going to cry. Day 2 was better. We learned how light is a particle and a wave -- dude, it's like physics n' stuff!

Media Aesthetics -- probably going to end up being the class with the most work to do, which is kind of okay and kind of not. Time is a sunk cost. But we get to watch some decent movies ("Halloween") and I like the instructor -- he was my GTF for History of Film last year and is a good egg. I think we may have differing opinions about John Wayne, and the meaning of the burning house in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" but that's okay.

History of Film -- it's all global cinema, with the exception of "Rebel Without a Cause" and the 1976 version of "King Kong" (as an aside: I once said that if I was a guest speaker in the cousin's film class I'd show Ken Russell's "Mahler" ... now I understand how badly that would go down). The discussion section is irritating -- this week some oldster blabbed on about his last trip to Beijing and took up time which could have been spent discussing the effing film. But, whatever. We'd seen Zhang Ke Jia's "The World" and it was okay ... I don't know, anytime there's suicide at the end, it just screams "cop out" to me (yes, even "Romeo and Juliet"), so maybe it's better we didn't discuss it. This week we're watching the "Bicycle Thief" which I've got to somehow work into a presentation about "Hotel Chevalier" -- my partner has fallen into the "Wes Anderson as God" trap and really, really, really wants to use that for our film example. He'll require some leveling out if we're going to make this 3 minute presentation work. Vittorio de Sica ... Wes Anderson ... you know I love Wes, but ... well, you do the math.