Initials

Thursday, another long day.

Today in my Chinese Culture through Film class we're covering the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, particularly the "Rape of Nanking." It's pretty gut-wrenching footage. Right now they're showing a U.S. propaganda film from WWII - I know that its entire intention is to make people feel the way I'm feeling, but it's still hard to watch. We had to read a couple memoirs written by Japanese soldiers, and I was really struck by the matter of fact attitude towards killing, pillaging, etc.

One commander talked about how the final exercise in his training was to behead a Chinese prisoner, and how after he'd done it he felt different, fearsome, somehow strong and detached inside. It seems like we get the same amount of detachment with so many different situations in life - killing is an extreme example.

Meh, that's not really a new or particularly insightful observation. The human psyche has an amazing capacity for adaptation. I guess that supports my contention that people really have a lot more control over themselves and more ability to control their impulses than they're willing to admit. I'm not sure to what extent that's desirable, though. There seems to be this ideal that as one person gains more discipline and loses the ability to "let go", they somehow start to miss out on the ability to really experience some of the more fundamental, wonderful, aspects of being human. (Others would argue that not to be disciplined just leads to a lot of embarassment.)

Moderation in everything, right? That's always the answer. I wish it wasn't always so; life would be more exciting. Maybe excitement isn't really what we want, though.

Speaking of moderation, I talked to Adam last night. I'm looking forward to the summer with the same mixed feelings that I look forward to most things, but in all seriousness, it should be pretty fun. (I did that on purpose - read it again.) Christina said she'd try to come down from Boston for my birthday...should be a fun one. It's kind of strange; last year when I turned 20 I didn't really feel like I was any older or any different than I'd been the past few years, but this year I've really noticed how things are a lot different. I think when I turn 21 it's going to feel just right, and I'm going to actually feel my age.

What else.

I sat in on an interesting meeting today. It was a town hall disucssion and the issue of cheating within the department came up. It was fascinating to watch how strongly some people felt about some of the situations, and to watch people trying to explain and justify themselves. I thought a lot of people made good points, but you could tell that some people really hit on some sore points.

It's only 8 more days until the panda and I leave for Germany. This weekend and next week are going to be getting things in order for that and doing a metric fuckton of homework. I haven't been nearly as disciplined about getting work done and staying on top of things as I've needed to be, and it's starting to show in my grades. I'm going to just push hard next week and then start over after spring break - the grades aren't bad enough to be really worried about, they just aren't as good as they can be. Yeah. Germany is going to be fun. The second half of the semester is going to be insanely busy. Life flies by, I suppose. One day at a time.