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March 31, 2001

Results from the first day of TRASHionals are up.

March 26, 2001

It's two days after I saw it, but I've been busy. Here's the review for Enemy at the Gates.

March 21, 2001

One of the movies of last fall I really wanted to see but never got a chance to was Almost Famous. Now, thanks to the magic of video, I present you with the Retro Review. I actually have quite a bit to say about it. And Marc, I don't want any angry comments from you.

March 20, 2001

I know I didn't do this first term, but I just feel like doing it this term: class reviews. I'm in a particularly whimsical mood right now, and my classes this term just lend themselves to humorous commentary. Perhaps this will become a quarterly feature, perhaps not. Anyway:

World Biogeography (GEOG 211): I'll start with this one because I probably have the least to say on it (okay, I guess I don't have that much more to say about sociology - but that's why we'll handle that one second). The class was, essentially, exactly what I expected. It's a lecture for an hour and 20 minutes (give or take) twice a week, and a few tests. The only problem really is the incredible amount of stuff that's required for memorization. The stuff that is covered most prominently in class shows up on the tests, but there's also a lot of stuff on the tests (too much, in my opinion) that is not covered nearly as well, making it, in my opinion, almost impossible to get an A on any test. Likewise, there's a lot of times where you're asked to identify a particular climate type or something and the information just doesn't seem to really pin down any one climate. So you put down a reasonable answer and end up getting it wrong. I could have done without that - it's the reason I aced all the homeworks but couldn't get better than a B+ on any of the tests (which is also what I ended up with in the class).

Intro to Sociology (SOC 110): Okay, I guess I really have even less to say about sociology. My main complaint would have to be with the lectures, which, while full of useful information, never seemed to mention anything that would be on the exams. The exams were full of minutiae from the reading, stuff you could only get by reading very - and I mean very - carefully, which not only never seemed necessary but was also damn near impossible, as the reading was dense and difficult to get through in the first place. But at least the exams were largely multiple choice (something you need when the class is several hundred kids), which makes it easier to fake your way through them even when the questions seemed ridiculously specific.

Public Speaking (GEN SPCH 102): I have no real problem with this class except for the fact that it was masquerading as a class. When you get right down to it, the three most common General Speech classes (101, 102, and 103) are sort of jokey, but unfortunately they seem to be Speech department requirements. I took 103 last quarter and really enjoyed rather thoroughly because it was basically a combination of two things I enjoy doing: acting, and reviewing other people's acting. Of course, I don't much like to act in front of people, so this was a little different, but I handled it well and in general had a good time. Public speaking, on the other hand, was entirely different.
Like Anal Perf it had little in the way of actual insight to offer. My main problem with 102 and 103 is that they are largely about doing, but too much about doing from what you already know. We were told a few things about public speaking, but nothing that I couldn't have guessed on my own if I didn't know them already. So, basically, I would just get up every two weeks, give a speech, and sit down, without worrying to myself, "Oh, I hope I applied these techniques right." All that and I got a B+ in the course, which is actually not as high as I thought considering I never saw much in the way of criticism - which is the other problem. I can't recall getting much in the way of criticism except it was said that I was speaking too fast - this on my third speech. So I slowed it down as much as I could for my fourth speech and it seemed like everything went fine. Not that there's anything wrong with a B+ per se, but it's not like I was ever given cause to think I was getting less than an A or A-.

    Media Construction (RTVF 180): Ah, here we go. This is, by far, the class that I had the most problems with, and which I pretty much laid into in the CTEC.
    The biggest problem with 180, I think, was not exactly the lab. It was certainly not the lecture, in which we actually - gasp! - watched and analyzed films (for a while - then we looked at interactive computer programs). In lab, we did look at some elements of film - lighting, cinematography, and that - but the problem was the film in question was 35 mm.
    Yes, that's right - the problem with RTVF 180 was that not only did it have little or nothing to do with Radio or TV, it had almost nothing to do with Film, at least in the way I think of it. Maybe it was naive of me to assume that I'd be shooting with actual 16mm cameras from day one, but one thing I did not expect to be doing was creating a storyline and then attempting to display it intelligently with a 35mm camera. The class focused almost entirely on taking still pictures, getting them into the computer, and displaying them on the Internet - in short, not even closely resembling what I expected of what seemed to be the "Intro to RTVF" class.
    It's at this point that I would recommend not taking this class, except that I can't, because if you're an RTVF major you have to take this class. All I can say to those of you taking it in the spring (though how you came to be reading this I can't imagine) is, hope that the CTECs (mine especially) make some difference in the way this class is run in the future. How I got a B out of it I'm not even sure - I guess they must have really liked my final project.

March 20, 2001

Well, it's been a while, but we've got a new movie review: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Which, unbelievably, is still in theaters.)

March 16, 2001

Holy cow. Quite a start to the NCAA tournament, with upsets galore: #15 Hampton stunning #2 Iowa State, #13 Kent State over #4 Indiana, #12 Utah State over #5 Ohio State, and #11 Georgia State over #6 Wisconsin. Not a great day for the Big Ten, obviously, but it was a great day for fans of the upset such as myself. The problem? Of those four, I only had Georgia State - plus BYU and Oklahoma State failed to win (both really got blown out, too), as did Arkansas. To follow the Challenge, which I'm sure I'm now doing quite poorly in, just click on the March Madness link at the top of the page.

March 11, 2001

The Madness is here! Click on the March Madness link at the top of the page to view the brackets. Coming soon will be my predictions plus those of everyone in the Tournament Challenge, updated throughout the tournament.

March 9, 2001

One thing that happens when you pull an all-nighter is things get really far away really fast - in the temporal plane, that is. For example, while it is just 10:30 on Friday, a time at which, on most days, I would just be getting up, it feels like something else. What, I'm not sure. All I know is that things that happened Thursday evening instead feel like they happened sometime last week. Hopefully I can go to sleep soon, but as I write this I still have about two more hours before I can exit the realm of the awake.

In unrelated news, Ferris Bueller's Day Off made its entrance into the Top 50 today at #16.

March 4, 2001

The Carleton Undergrad Tournament was held up in Northfield, MN this weekend. We sent one team, which came in sixth - we had been hoping to do better, but two straight losses in the afternoon (both on the last question) sank us down a little bit. What officially did it was losing the tiebreaker match for third place in our division, which would have allowed us to potentially play for third place overall and a trophy. Instead we finished sixth of 22 teams - not too bad, after all. Round-by-round results and all the questions I got (lots more this time than last time) are listed here.

There's more! View last month's updates.

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This page last updated: Monday, April 15, 2002 08:02:39 PM