Where is my mind?

.

I find myself thinking of winter, as I once did all through the year. Winter is my favorite season. Even the things that go wrong don't bother you as much as they do in the summer. I'm sure it has something to do with the sun. I suppose, in winter, the cold helps.

Monsoons are for pleasant melancholy mornings spent listening to the sounds of the skies rumbling above the music, wondering why you aren't in class. This attendance issue is really beginning to bother me. I don't understand why it's so hard just to get to class. It's just that I'm so weary...

I think it's a dark night. Not that I'd dare venture on to the terrace. I wouldn't come back for too long. And then I'd have trouble getting to class tomorrow too.

I should get some research done for my history consultation. I think today was the last day. And I also have to get a medical certificate.

I spoke to Emma a few nights ago. I remember the base with its safe walls. I remember the base with its iron bars. The golf course, counting stars. It was a fun time. And "My back pages" is playing now. ^_^ I love it when situation-fitting music plays. I was so much older then, I am younger than that now. I remember the frantic phone calls and sneaking out. The webs of million lies we all got ourselves entangled in; things that were so much bigger than any of us. Than all of us... It feels so strange to think back. I can still see Foreshore Road in my mind. That infinite stretch of blackness with dots of lights glowing along the water's edge. I remember every tree, every turn, every sign-post...

But dwelling on the past isn't something you can afford to do when the present is constantly turning into the past at a pace you can barely keep up with. And I've left those days so far behind. Survival is of primary importance. There isn't any place in this world for the things we dreamed of. And the things we thought we were fighting for... well, they never existed in the first place. I won't lie, it had it's own charm. The feeling that we were actually making some sort of difference. The problem is, in hindsight, I see the mistakes we made glow brighter than the things we did right. And it's a painful realization to have; that we are still living with the consequences of our actions as naive children who thought they'd seen the world. What does a night-owl know about the beauty of dawn? What does a bat know about the wrath of the sun? Mere glimpses. Next to nothing.

I think the last two years are catching up to me. It was bound to happen, and I'm just surprised it took so long. Miss Sunshine, in a moment of profundity, recently said "I don't know why, but this feels like the end." The world is ending, darling. For if something is changed to such a degree that it has next to nothing left of the original matter, it isn't called an amendment, it's an abrogation. And fundamental rights are all about the government and power. Politics.

Everything creeps up everywhere else and I'm getting lost in the million multicolored ribbons I'm using to connect it all. But at least I now know what near-total loss of control feels like. It's scary, but it is a rush.

Anyhow, I have wasted enough time. I really should try and read up some history. Goodnight folks. Hopefully, my next post won't be during class hours tomorrow.



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Now playing: Lounge Piranha - Gun Song
via FoxyTunes

The History Boy

I just saw 'The History Boys'. It's supposedly based on a play of the same name produced in 2005. The movie is about eight boys who are aiming to get into Oxford or Cambridge to study history. The boys are students of a grammar school which is preparing them for the entrance exams. The movie is set in 1983 and revolves around the eight students and their three completely contrasting teachers with the Headmaster and the secretary playing minor roles.

The movie was simply stunning in terms of direction. The scenes moved from one to another with a kind of fluidity that you just can't talk of until you've seen a movie like this. There isn't one moment when you think the camera stayed on a shot too long or the soundtrack faltered. The acting too is praiseworthy, especially considering that it was the original cast of the play that acted in the movie!

The headmaster, Felix, is the easily identifiable conformist. He wants regular, structured and relevant 'education' to be imparted in the school, that - in his own words - can be quantified. The guy who teaches General Studies is known as Hector, by students and teachers alike, and is a not-really-closet homosexual (You'll understand what that means if you see the movie). The regular History professor is Mrs Lintott, who scarily reminds me of our own history prof. back at college, especially at the time of the mock interviews. (I swear, if someone just showed you a 5 minute clip of that bit of ranting and asked you to compare...). Irwin is a young teacher hired by the headmaster to help Hector and Mrs. Lintott prepare the boys for the entrance exams.

That's all I'm going to say about the plot/characters. I think the awesomeness of this movie lies in the fact that it has so many layers. At no point in the movie do they ever explicitly talk about what you just know is really being talked about. However, I think this has something to do with the whole student-teacher relationship thing, because when the boys are talking amongst themselves, they do so with such shocking frankness, I can only fervently hope that it isn't like that in real life!

The boys themselves are endearing and you end up liking them all - even smart ass Dakin and small Posner! Their characters are carefully contrasting, yet they manage to complement each other. There's the guy with the attitude, the jock, the admirer, the sidekick and so on. They all have their own single axis that they revolve around and it's beautiful too watch. You know, there's a line in the movie where Mrs. Lintott tells Hector that students forget that teachers too are human beings... I find this line to be beautifully appropriate here because the teachers in this movie are the complicated, layered people, while the boys are relatively straightforward. Mind you, that's probably just because their lives are not what the movie focuses on, but still...

This movie is more than just about History and student teacher relationships. It's about friendship and growing up and just about life. It's about different characters and how you identify with almost all of them at some point or the other. But more than all of that, it's about the subjunctive and reconciliation between contradictions... and the fact that history is made just like that. By one thing following another...

A must see, and definitely worth more than a one time watch.



P.S.

Couldn't resist it. If some of our professors had to play those teachers, this is how I think the casting would have been done.

Mrs. Lintott - History prof, or at least how she could have been (or must have at some point).

Hector -A mix of Socio and Torts. Hah! I can actually imagine it!

Irwin - Well, we don't really have anyone like that, but I'd say the closest would be Consti... (However, Irwin is a lot more insecure... and a LOT less colder!)