Back to School

I'm back at BYU. For my last semester no less. It's weird to think this could be my very last first day of school! So far the semester has been going pretty well. My classes are going to be a lot of work, but they seem interesting.

I'm taking Shakespeare, Adolescent lit. writing class (this is the same class I took last semester, but with a different teacher), British literature during the enlightenment, Art History (Part Two), and the senior course. The senior course subject varies by teacher and semester. This year I got a great professor who I've had before, and the subject is American Mystery Novels in the 30s and 40s. It's been really fun. I've already read one novel, The Maltese Falcon. We are also watching the movie in class.

So in honor of school starting up again I thought I'd compile five of the most memorable back to school movie scenes:

1. Never Been Kissed.

It's hard to be popular. Especially when your coworker tells you to wear a white feather boa outfit and you spill chocolate milk on yourself. Poor Josie.

Josie: That'll teach me to wear white jeans after labor day.

Popular Girl: I don't think you're supposed to wear white jeans after 1983.

2. Full House. Ok so technically this is not a movie. It's a sitcom.

But I can't help remembering DJs first day of high school. It was pretty awful. She wore the same outfit as the teacher and had to eat her lunch in a telephone booth. Alone. But because this is a sitcom, this horribleness lasts for one, two days max. Then DJ adjusts to the new school, and gets over all her awkwardness.

Update: I found a synopsis of this episode online. And it was the first day of seventh grade, not high school.

3. Nemo!!! I wasn't quite as excited as Nemo for the first day back, but I do love starting a new semester. It's always fun to go to all your new classes. Here's the clip of Nemo getting ready for his first day of school.

4. Mean Girls

So I love the first day scene in this movie, it does the whole introducing the high school cliques thing well (kind of reminds me of the first scene in Ten Things I Hate About You as well). I also love all the first day scenes with Cady and her parents. I threw in one of their conversations below.

Parents: Hey. How was your second day?

Cady: Fine.

Parents: Were people nice?

Cady: No.

Parents: Did you make any friends?

Cady: Yeah.

5. Footloose:

Ren has this conversation with his mom:

Mom: You about ready to go?

Mom: You gonna wear that tie?

Ren: Yeah.

Mom: I think you might want to dress down for now.

Ren: Why? I like the tie.

Mom: September, when you go to college, you can dress like David Bowie.

But you know what? He does wear that tie and he becomes one of the best things to happen to that town! Thus Kevin Bacon has taught us an important lesson: Be yourself, the rest will happen. Also, challenge any anti-dancing laws that get in your way.

Honorable Mention Back to School Movie Moments: School of Rock, Harry Potter ('Cause who wouldn't want to go to Hogwarts? lol), Sky High (mostly I just remember that their school bus is like a roller coaster ride), plus all those inspirational education type movies

Currently: adoring Ingrid Michaelson and obsessing over my kindle

Currently Reading: Red Harvest

Cost of Education

About a week and half ago I read an article in the daily universe that BYU was changing its international student policy. According to the article, international students will have to pay a $4,000 deposit to attend BYU starting summer 2010 semester.

This has sparked a large debate. Some people are saying the deposit is a positive thing. It seems like it was designed to help students deal with the financial problems they may face after coming to BYU. Others say the policy is discriminatory and that people are being punished for not being American (1). Before you form an opinion, you might want to know what exactly this deposit is.

Well, according to the daily universe the deposit will be used in this way:

"Before graduating, international students may use $3,000 of the deposit money after demonstrating financial hardship; the remaining $1,000 will be held and used for a plane ticket to return home, Westerberg said. While the money is held by BYU, it will accumulate interest in an escrow account returned to the student upon graduation."

Apparently the previous policy allowed students to access their deposit after their first semester at BYU (2). There is no mention in the articles of whether or not the deposit itself was higher before.

BYU is not the only school doing this. Many schools require international student deposits. From just a few minutes googling I found schools with international student deposits ranging from $1,000-$5,000 dollars. But is it fair? It's hard to say. I can see the advantage of being prepared for unexpected financial responsibilities. Many international students are limited in the amount that they can work here (for instance students working on campus often can't go over 20 hours a week) and learning to manage money is something most students deal with when they enter college. However on the other hand I know if I had been asked to pay $4,000 in addition to all the other fees I had to pay when I came to BYU it would have been difficult for me. I know there are people out there who get by one semester at a time. Could this policy take a chance away from a deserving student? There are many students that think so. In fact, there is a facebook group protesting the new policy. They are proposing a $1,000 flight deposit instead and requesting people to sign an online petition (3).

I'm not really interested in writing a big, loud opinion about this. I just think this is an important issue. It's amazing how much can be going on in your own community without you knowing.



Currently: Nervous about midterms!

1. Read the full Daily Universe article here.
2. Read the Daily Herald article here.
3. View the petition against a new BYU international student facebook group here.

Harvard

My mom showed me this announcement earlier this week, and it made me so happy. Why can't more schools do this?

Harvard University announced over the weekend that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition. In making the announcement, Harvard's president Lawrence H.. Summers said, "When only ten percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution."

If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay the tuition. To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $60,000 a year, visit Harvard's financial aid website at: http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/

Currently: Eating Cheerios

Zac Efron and Joe the Plumber

So I know I said I'd write about the actual award portion of the Oscars, but let's be honest. By now everyone has moved on. I will however, give you my highlights:

• Hugh Jackman singing (I can't help it, he's amazing!)
• Anne Hathaway's role in the opening number
• Slumdog Millionaire winning EVERYTHING
• Zac and Vanessa appearing in the middle of the musical montage ( I was also fairly perplexed by this, lol)
• Ben Stiller's Jaoquin Phoenix Impression
• Jack Black's pixar joke

Ok so now my chatter about the Oscars is over.

This week my world has been fairly average. I've been swamped with school work, which leads to this sort of weird phenomenom where I am not exposed to the real world a lot. I always find this kind of funny. I hope if there was some major world event going on during Midterm week that someone from the outside world would take the time to call me. Or at least put out an informative facebook status. Anyways the point is every once in a while I get a glimpse of how skewed my view of the world is. I know there was major bailout stuff going on, but honestly I was always so tired when I got done with my school stuff that I never wanted to read those articles. I wanted to read something lighter and more entertaining. So sadly world while you were out there creating valid news stories and reporting on important events, these are the top 3 most important stories out of all the news that made it through to me this week:

1. Joe the Plumber had a dismal book signing
2. Cheapest Car ever manufactured is released on the market ($2,500 starting price)
3. KFC employees are tricked into spraying all their fire hydrants and taking off their clothes by prank phone call

I know, there's not even a Heroes recap in there, that's how much stuff I've had to do. Oh well, I can always start being an informed citizen next week, right? But seriously I feel strangely disconnected so I have made a goal to catch up on real life as soon as my English paper is officially turned in (Monday at 11).
Wish me luck!

Weekend Update

So this past weekend we had an extra day off for President's day, so Lara and I decided to take a road trip. We went to Idaho to visit some friends at BYU in Rexburg. I was a total wimp about the cold though. I had to bring out my blue puffy coat from retirement :) Anyways, we did a bunch of things, I got to:Visit Kimberly and David, eat snow, pretend to be one of Karen's roommates for 3 days, go sledding for the first time, eat at Jack in the Box [Oh! J in the B how I have missed you], play psychology, explore BYU-I Campus, discover the only pizza place in rexburg that will deliver after 11, find all our doppelganger apartment complexes (they have a Riviera, a Carriage House instead of Carriage Cove, etc.), and... Lars and I even managed to hit up Mayan Adventure for some jungle themed madness on the way home. So all in all a pretty awesome trip.

After that it was just back to life as usual. Which basically means I came home and watched SNL (Alec Baldwin and Jack McBrayer!!!) on my tivo when I should have been doing my never ending amount of French homework. Which might explain why the test I took tonight pretty much killed my brain. Although in my defense there was a good amount of studying done today before said test. I just wasn't in a good test taking mood. The testing center was unreasonably warm and completely full, giving it that claustrophobic feeling. Also, I feel I am never really done with French homework. It is pretty much constantly happening. You'd think with this constant exposure to the language I'd be pretty on top of it by now, yet I still confuse How are you with What is your name? But don't worry my education has not been a complete waste. I can tell time, point out items at a grocery store, sing the Flight of the Conchord's Foux de Fa Fa song, and say a variety of generally enthusiastic expressions. C'est Incroyable! Quelle Chance! Super!

Currently obsessed with: Boba drinks from DEW
Currently reading: As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner