X-Men 3

I only just watched X-Men 3. I'd decided not to watch it originally. But I saw it for dead cheap and whatever reasons I'd had I couldn't recall so I just watched it.

I rather wish I hadn't.

That was just foul. There were no good guys in it. Not one. There were a whole lot of bastards and a few victims, is all.

What could have been a complex issue gets turned into a bloodbath. Wolverine's claws are not an appropriate response to very much of anything, yet here he's running around slicing people up and stabbing them and... we hadn't seen those people do anything wrong, to start with. They were not best pleased he was heading for where they lived. Okay, one of them stuck him with pointy bones, which is bad. But how many did he kill???

And Magneto of course has to be the one dimensional villain, so he just blows shit up and kills people. The fact that he was right about the 'cure' being used as a weapon gets to be totally swamped under the body count.

And the Professor, and what he does to Phoenix... girl has more power than him so he shuts her power and her rage and her desire away behind a wall in her head, am I getting that right? So the personality he allows her is a good girl, and only just a little powerful. And when the unacceptable parts get out he just tries to stomp them back in a box. And when she kills him - for altering her fundamental personality, which has to be right up there in the really awful things to do to someone - he gets the full on martyr treatment. WTF?

And then she asks to die! The 'good' side of her... What's so 'good' about being suicidal??? And once again mental illness is treated by a good being killed! Oh look, how noble and sacrificial, to risk your life to *stab a girl* when you're surrounded by cure and could have, I don't know, maybe brought some *tranquilisers* if you wanted to capture without killing?

And that 'cure'... the 'good' guys used it on someone against their will, and we're supposed to think they're still good? It's like someone using their feets to kick people with so you cut off their feets. No! Bad!


There's no good guys in this movie. There's a godawful high body count. And people get rewards for all the wrongest things.



Once they've set up the "Have you tried not being a mutant" parallels to other real world issues then that metaphor stays there when someone comes up with a "cure". And that didn't get dealt with at all. It gets used like just another weapon.

Where's the issue about trials and when it's proper to use or risk lethal force and the risks inherent in 'less lethal' weapons and all that stuff? Where's the 'oops we hit a good guy because we think all mutants are evil' part?

Where's the damn good guys?



Nobody behaves well in this movie. It's a nasty nasty mess. I think I hate it quite a lot.

Pirates of the Carribean 2

Watched on DVD

everyone was mean. In the first one you could kind of cheer for everyone at once. This time not so much. Everyone was mean and backstabby and all the twists got everyone in even more trouble. And kissing meant badness. That's just annoying.

I didn't like it so much.

The Davy Jones crew were spectacular looking though. That was cool.




Today I get my results back from college. If I go in and get them. I had planned on catching a bus at about 0900. Which is less than three hours from now.

I can't skip going in, it's when we go sign things to go do college next year. I'm pretty sure I have to do that. So I go. Today.

... blah.
--> sleep

College: Getting my marks back

Am at college. Got here all on my own. Which was a process I do not look forward to repeating. The bus is hot and crowded and the seats are nasty and it looked like someone had thrown chocolate milk on a lot of them. Hopefully chocolate.
And then the walk between bus stop and college made my leg hurt, which is irritating.
And then when I went to find the room to get my folder back someone bombed me with large bag of laundry. Which is not a hazard one generally expects from college corridors. They didn't hit me, and judging by the squeals and OMGs they aren't going to make that particular error again, but it did not enhance my calm, I can tell you.

Meeting teach to sign up for next year and get my folder back was nice. I got good grades, 66%, and that was without really trying so win. Personal Development Plan and Portfolio, to go with the Presentation. Apparently our group did really well at the presentation compared to other groups, because we never had meltdowns or arguing or stomping off in high drama. Cool. And our division of work was useful. And basically I did good.

Teach has a plan for if/when I do Work Study, which was a unit that had been bugging me in concept. She reckons I can do copy editing, something nice and precise and quiet and computer based. I reckon I could do that too, probably. Cool.

She also approves of my plan to write for Doctor Who.
:-)

PDP and Portfolio... Her only 'could improve' comment was about appropriate register for academic language, and how one should avoid words like "wanker".
... slightly startled I hurriedly looked through the folder and learned once again that one should never pack work for handing in at an hour beginning with a 0. Also one should mark drafts clearly, possibly with putting a big line through them, because otherwise they get marked. I tell you, teach read and commented on everything in that folder that wasn't a handout from college. It's... a valuable learning experience. Luckily she seemed to like it all, but I'll never just throw in things that look vaguely relevant to pad out a folder again.

On the other hand she now has a fairly accurate and well rounded idea of what I'm like.

... yeah, scary ...

But also useful - the PDP served the secondary purpose of educating teach in my Issues, and now she has more plans for helping. Win!

Also, I like my tutor more having read all the little comments in the margins. She also hates ring binders and files things under the bed. It's kind of reassuring.

So, she reckons she'd have heard if I hadn't passed, which makes getting my paper back for IntroLit2 fairly stress free.

Therefore I passed my first year at college.

:-) :-) :-)



Have signed up for the other half of the first year next year. Intro Cult Studs (sadly just means Cultural Studies, but is so much more fun typing it that way. Also I want a t-shirt with DW and TW characters on with Cult Studs on it. To wear to class next year. Except it's probably not amusing to very many people at all. And also I'd have to nick copyrighted images) (that bracket got a bit carried away), Intro Movies, Kidlit (Childrens literature, with nice tutor), and... well, it might be Short Story but on the form I signed it says Individual Study, which seems like a bit little but I'll sort it out later if it needs sorting.


/blog
-> pick up exam results

College: Intro Lit 2 result

70% !

Wheeeeee!

I got 70% in the exam!

I *like* exams. Exams are good. Yay exams.

... er, sorry y'all who are still sitting them.

Teach said I had a good grasp of the linguistics. Which is good because I hasn't before. Also she liked the essay structure, which is always a relief when you write a timed one. And the conclusion was good, which is yaays because obviously the conclusion is the thing you do when you've done one hour fifty five minutes of an exam and go arrrgh conclusion *typetypetype*. So it's nice when it works.

I managed six pages in two hours. Nice.

Lots of comments in the margins and a pointer to an essay that is relevant.

Also teach says I should study poetry some more later on.
It's nice when teachers want to keep you.

... I don't think poems are really my thing, but I did gain some from studying. I learned the vocab list for close reading and gained skills in close reading like the learning outcomes list says. And I gained a greater appreciation for structure and how it works with the argument of a piece. Those things will apply other places too.


Things to still work on: Sentence structure, which is choppy, paragraphs, which get shorter towards the end of the two hours, and a tendency to use the - pretty much at random throughout the essay. I think because when you do bubble diagrams you put a linky line between things so clearly a - connects things together just like that. Except, you know, mostly only in my head.



... 70% !
yaaaaaays!


Of course once the other essay and the weighting go in I'm back to my usual 60ish, but in this particular exam I did real good. Plus I got my highest mark for the year at the end of the year, which I can hope indicates some solid progress. Wins!