As I near the end of my Spring semester I realize just how far behind I’ve fallen in all of my courses and, at this point, I should be losing my shit. Instead, I decided it would be a better idea to catch a midnight matinee of Lucky Number Slevin. I’ll get to my academic woes in a second but first, I want to talk about how I don’t hate Josh Hartnett anymore. I know what you must be thinking: Who can hate Josh Hartnett with his adorable beady eyes and poor selection of film roles (Hollywood Homicide, anyone?)? Well, I did and passionately so. He played the same vapid characters in all his films, riding on his boyish good looks and his disheveled, uncombable hair. While Lucky Number Slevin is only remarkable as a shallow action/pulp flick his preformance as a smart-ass, seemingly unlucky ole’ Joe Shmoe is accurate and believable. As far as I can tell, Lucky Number Slevin hasn’t receieved the greatest reviews and undeservedly so. It’s a matter of taking the film and appreciating the stylish assassin sequences and quirky, hokey dialogue for what it is and not what it could or should have been.

With that said, my semester outcome is not looking so hot. I’m currently taking 3 courses two of which I’m beginning to despise on different levels. In my course on Peru, I’m required to write an essay discussing my reaction to my Peru trip and while this is easy-peasy compared to my other assignments, it’s just another task on my long list of things to catch up on. I have a 10+ page research paper due in the same class on the literary works of Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa (Death in the Andes and Conversation in the Cathedral). On Monday, I need to present the first two chapters of a book on Peru’s urban poverty. Not only is this book the most nap-inducing crap I have ever been forced to read but I can barely begin to summarize the concept of “bounded rationality” in two PowerPoint slides. Now I remember why I’m not an Anthropology major.

I’m taking a course that compares Dante’s Divine Comedy and T.S. Eliot’s writings. I’ve managed to appreciate both of these works but have not exactly understood any of it. For my research paper in this course, I’m going to discuss the themes of love in Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso I haven’t really figured out how I’m going to do this since, technically, I haven’t read any of Purgatorio or Paradiso.

My last class is Sexuality in Film and Literature. I’m expected to watch a film and then write an essay on the sexual themes within the plot. I had several films in mind but have decided on Orlando, a bizarre tale of androgyny and immortality. Hopefully I’ll understand it more than when I did in 1993 at age 13.

Despite my inevitable panic attack, I am ecstatic over the arrival of my final batch of stationary purchases from ebay seller mytarson. The entire store is stocked with authentic Japanese stationary and lovingly packaged straight from Nippon. All their items are reasonably priced but since I am also crazy to pay more attention to stationary than my future academic career, take whatever I say with a grain of salt. Can you hear the pulse of excitement? Oh, I can. I can.

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The uproar over the hateful Danish cartoons have given me just one more reason to hate the Danes (as if reading the long winded Hamlet wasn’t enough). Since most of the cartoons are generally unfunny and hackneyed (i.e. Arabs with turbans and scimitars) one can only conclude that they were meant to offend. Political cartoons, according to the wikipedia entry, are meant to express a social or political message neither of which is present in the Danish cartoons unless, of course, we accept adolescent stereotyping as substantial political commentary. In that case, here’s my own political cartoon:

Charming, I know.

I also learned that Wal-Mart is opening about 1,500 new stores within the United States alone which is terrific news for me because I constantly pine for shitty, discounted imports from China and now I have 1,500 new places to get it (aside from the 3,200 that already exist within my zip code).

My excitement for Wal-Mart is eclipsed only by my excitement for my new blog renter: Infinitely Pie. She has an amazing knack for observing the seemingly trivial details in life and turning them into meaningful, eye-opening entries (Check out her awesome entry “PC really stands for “pain [in my] crack” in which she remarks on the political correctness of job titles). Browse through her fantastic photos on flickr or her unique photoshops for some outrageous creations.