Presentations and a tough paper.

The last class we just had was my very favorite of the entire year.

The presentations were wonderful. I walked in a little bit late on the presentation regarding Israel and Palestine, but what I caught of it seemed to be very informative. The speaker brought in material that was relevant to what our class had read earlier in the year, turned the material around and made us think about the opposite side of things, and did it eloquently and with a couple visual aids to make the whole thing set in a little further. It was a great presentation.

That being said, I thought the best presentation was the presentation made on behalf of our nation's armed forces. All three men who talked were great speakers, they all had different stories regarding the Middle East for the past decade and beyond, and they told it in a way that was perplexing to me.

I wish more people could hear what the soldiers said that day, I've been thinking about it all weekend.

The other thing I've been thinking about all weekend is this rough draft that's due. I can't get a good foothold on Mahfouz's works enough to write a paper on it. I've tried about three different angles on the matter, and every time I get a little over a page in, I'm dissatisfied with it, and I scrap it entirely. That's why I'm up at 7:15 in the morning - so I can try one last hurrah and try to get my paper completed. Arrrgh.

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and I can't wait to discuss the speakers in class today. See you all in a couple hours!

-Dan

Lions for Lambs

I went and saw Lions for Lambs on opening day, mostly because I was bored and had nothing else to do, but also because I thought the cast was pretty solid and it looked like it had pretty good potential for a movie. Also I thought it would make for a pretty neat blog topic :)

Lions for Lambs is a movie about the ongoing war on terror, focusing mostly on Afghanistan, but Iraq and Iran are involved as well. It's a three-pronged narrative, in that there are three stories going on at once. The first story is told from the perspective of two American soldiers in Afghanistan, the second story is told by a professor (Robert Redford) at the University of California who taught those two soldiers in undergrad, and the third is in a senator's office where the senator (Tom Cruise) is relaying/spinning a new plan for attack in Afghanistan to a reporter (Meryl Streep). The movie is about 90 minutes long.

Despite the awful reviews the movie got, I thought it was okay. Tom Cruise played the part of a super-conservative Senator, and I thought his acting was great. Meryl Streep was also very good, and Robert Redford was as well. Despite all of the good individual performances, the three-pronged narrative wasn't extremely effective, and the script itself was a bit lacking.

All of that being said, the movie was good for one thing -- If Americans haven't yet opened their eyes to what's going on and the fact that we're at war, then this is a GOOD movie for those particular people to see. It definitely had it's moments, and it may be worth three bucks at Kalamazoo 10 to see for anyone who's interested.

As for the reading for today, I'm beginning to delve into Mahfouz. I have four short novels by him to read, and I really have to start working on them soon or I'll never finish. I hope everyone's a little bit further along than I am.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! See you in class.

Dan

Edit: Class Schedule for the next couple weeks is as follows:

Wednesday November 14th - Two blogs on second book. Two people are coming into present.
Monday November 19th - Blog due on presentations made on Wednesday... 3rd paper - 3 pages rough draft due.
Wednesday November 21st - NO CLASS!!!
Monday November 26th - 3rd Paper Final Draft due.

The Day The Leader Was Killed, take one.

Cover picture for The Day The Leader Was Killed by Naguib Mahfous

Before starting my post, I'd like to establish that this was a tough read for me. For being such a short book, I feel like I didn't get the full importance and backstory of it, and I'll end up reading it again tonight before I go to bed. That being said, it was an enjoyable read, and I would recommend it to anyone in the class.

The Day The Leader Was Killed is a short novel narrarated in alternating chapters by an Older man, his grandson, and his grandson's childhood sweetie. The novel revolves around the stories and perceptions of these three characters, but also goes in depth into problems in Egypt, and culiminates in plans to assassinate the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. It turns out that the people of Egypt are not particularly pleased regarding Sadat's economic policy, and want to take him out.

I don't want to ruin the story for anyone who's going to read it next, but it's a good novel, and before I start really working on it. I'd like to read it again.

See you all in class :)
Dan