The Big Event

Last few days haven't been that exciting. I don't know, I don't feel like my life is more exciting because I'm in Peru. Well, Tuesday was the Big Event: my haircut! Yes, I went to Quechua in the morning and got my haircut a little while later. I went to the place down the street that did my roommate's hair well. I told him I wanted "capas" (layers) and not only did he gesture to prove we were on the same page, but he got out a book and showed me a picture. He was cheap too, only S/15. My hair turned out really well, as you can hopefully see in the picture. I didn't feel like doing homework, so I didn't. I watched a movie instead, lol. Didn't even take a nap.

Film History yesterday was really fun. We watched Intolerance. That also is in the book. I'm so glad that even though I'm away from the book and my Netflix, I can still cross movies off. I really enjoyed the film. My favorite character was the Babylonian chick because when a boy so much as looked at her, she was yelling at him. She took no crap from anybody. One guy kissed her without her consent, and he was sorry. And when they auctioned her off as a bride, she did not try to appeal to the male of our species and she didn't care. She rocked. While the other chick, like their story eventually got good, but the gangster dude pissed me off because he kept harassing the girl and was quite aggressive. In my afternoon class, we talked about that stupid book. No one liked the book except for this one American chick. I don't like romanticism - English nor Spanish. That's just the way I am. But my teacher even said that this wasn't a good piece of literature. We only read it to learn about the genre. In the evening, I went to the library and watched Midnight Cowboy. I've seen some of it already, and thank goodness I've already seen the ending because due to technical difficulties we couldn't watch the very end. They made it to Florida and the computer battery died.

Today wasn't too interesting either. In Quechua class, we learned about the different languages in Peru and a brief general history of them and the "Castellanizacion" of Peru. (Castellano means "Spanish" - don't ask, I don't know) I like Quechua, it's fairly simple gramatically, and I think it's very nice to listen to. Then I met with my group in the afternoon. The film department is very different from that of Long Beach. They have editing rooms, but they're bigger. They only have one television studio and no booth. (ha!) They have a really awesome service that's more for the protection of the equipment than for ourselves. We get a van, driver, and security guard whenever we have a film shoot off campus. People don't have cars, and public transportation and taxis are not safe for the equipment. (lucky us!) Also, we don't need a permit to shoot on campus and they have this special thing to let our teacher know when we're missing class for a film shoot. At Long Beach, we're on our own in that department. I don't know, I think it's about the size of the one in Long Beach, and has it's advantages and disadvantages. I wouldn't trade it for Long Beach, though. I realize that all film students around the world are the same. We all have the same dream, the same appreciation, understanding, and love of film. What separates me from them is, by the Grace of God I was born in California/EEUU. This afternoon in my film class, we watched a film called Dioses from 2008. It's a Peruvian film about a rich family. It gets really weird though because the brother and sister are in their 20's and the brother develops some strange sexual obsession with his sister. idk... it's part of the story though. Everyone kept talking about how the story was about the difference between the two classes. While they were talking about that, I was thinking about how they were wrong. And when the conversation was over and I finally put my ideas together, they were done, so now I have to write a damn paper, which in retrospect won't be that difficult. But still. I thought about how the film is more about dissatisfaction. The brother is unsatisfied with his father, his riches, and his lack of a sexual life. So he finds satisfaction in switching his major and obsessing with his sister. Obsessing over his sister though also doesn't bring satisfaction, but when a real woman comes into his life, he still thinks about his sister so in a way it still brings some kind of satisfaction. But all the members of the family were dissatisfied with something. I guess you could argue the class thing, but I think it's more about the dissatisfaction. This evening I baked a cake for my roommate for her birthday. I hope she likes it. She turns 21 tomorrow and wants to pretend we're in the states even though we're not, lol.