The teacher explained Baudelaire's critiques, as well as Gautier's critiques.
She also mentioned what a Lorette was, which is more high class than a high class courtesan. They were named after Notre Dame de Lorette where they all lived, which is my subway stop! I told her I lived in that neighborhood and she said, wow, most famous artists/musicians lived there, like Wagner, Chopin, and I forgot who else she named. I'm going to send her an email asking for a full list. Good to know profound inspiration was born where I'm now living.
Class was cancelled when Leila and I got back to school. We usually cut it pretty close to our Advanced Spoken class, but our teacher wasn't able to get to school because there were people protesting and sitting in the tracks of the subway. Instead, a few of us watched "Marius et Jeannette" which I didn't particularly like.
Then we had cinema class. Our teacher gave us the talk about our grades on our papers once again, this was the third time he prefaced that we shouldn't expect a good grade because most people get C's at the beginning and his goal is to get us to improve our composition and to not be worried. He said very very very few people got A's on this paper. Then he talked to us about how some of us did our formats wrong, ignored the structure, and wrote papers that were too long. I thought, I definitely failed this one, since the 2 page paper had turned into a 4 page stream of consciousness and had no format whatsoever, and completely ignored the guidelines. When he handed it back, after he called my name, he smiled softly. I looked at my paper and I got an A. He wrote at the top, your thoughts are VERY interesting, even though you didn't follow guidelines
i realized that in school, i've never been book smart, because i hate studying. instead, i'm an abstract thinker.
carla and i had an interesting talk during our break. she said that she saw a video about how in the future, jobs will be geared towards more right brained people, more creative types, who aren't book smart, who are the innovators, who think of ideas like ipods and iphones who don't just reproduce the same things over and over. we talked about how the school system doesn't encourage one's own passion in learning for the betterment of oneself, rather, it promotes a structured and very rigid box of thinking- it's an institution that teaches you more how to take tests rather than how to apply the information that you learn. i guess with my type of mind, it's a very good thing i didn't grow up in china. at least i feel that in the states, i'm more encouraged to exercise my mind the way it's naturally inclined to be exercised. it sucks because all of life is set up in a way that's better for people who are good at learning by the book, working repetitively, and i've never been that way- i spend a lot of time thinking and creating ideas and i get bored easily by routine, and society tells me the way that i am is wrong. but it's not.
i finally felt like i was recovering. so when i got home, the first thing i did were the dishes. then i cleaned my entire room. then i made dinner and tried to do a little bit of homework (i have major add when it comes to homework. don't know how i made it all these years through school. i guess i just got really good at taking tests and getting by with little to no effort. man, i wish i had better concentration, i could have learned so much more)
i can't tell how i'm feeling yet. i feel kind of.. blah. really tired, but i can't tell if that's just the sickness. i can't tell what's me, what's the sickness, and what are the meds. everything kind of hit me at the same time. but i guess that's the way it works for me. all the cherry blossoms die at the same time, and then spring comes and they blossom more than they ever did before.
oh and i should probably say that 2 nights ago i had an insane incident in which a french man decided that we were meeting up when i told him i was sick and couldn't hang out, and this lasted for 3 and a half hours, of him calling me non stop and leaving me voice mails and texting me and telling me i was being "silly and surrealistic" for not wanting to hang out, and that even if i were sick we could make tea and watch movies and i said definitely not, and he WALKED TO MY HOUSE and stood downstairs for an hour asking me for my door code. i told him i was watching antichrist to which he responded was his favorite movie and i think he really wanted to watch antichrist with me. uh. i hung up on him over and over just so he would stop calling but he wouldn't let up. i finally begged him in 3 different texts to please stop calling me, i need sleep, s'il vous plait, and he finally stopped at 3:30am.
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