Saturday Screen Viewing

Today was a wonderfully restful and slow day.

We had breakfast in the lobby of Hank Ingram today. Because it was the weekend, Aiyana and I decided we would wake up a bit later than usual, which led to us to discover barely any food left when we finally arrived downstairs.

I had some coffee and a cinnamon roll along with some strawberry yogurt, and then we were off to class.

A rather relaxed day it was; for the course of the two hours we had in class today, we watched a video of Axis of Evil’s stand-up comedy. This comedic group focuses on bringing awareness and shedding light on controversial issues regarding people of Middle-Eastern decent, but doing so in a light and good-humored way.

I applaud the comedians’ approach to the contentious issue of Middle-Eastern stereotypes—the most common (and shallow) that “all Muslims are terrorists”. Ignorant statements like these are not only detrimental to the culture of a people, but very hurtful on a personal level as well.

Watching the video, I realized that though the truth may be difficult to grasp, many of us do in fact tend to judge others based on the person’s ethnicity, appearance, or even name. Sometimes, it is no fault of our own—we often pick these presumptions up from others while growing up.

Nevertheless, we ought to always keep an open mind.

After class, we ate a quick lunch at Rand Hall instead of the Commons since it is the weekend, and then signed out with our friend Grace to make a quick trip to the Vanderbilt Bookstore and the local CVS/Pharmacy.

I had barely an hour and a half to catch up on the seven parts of the Harry Potter series before Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would be showing in the lobby downstairs. Later in the evening, we would set off to the theater to watch the newly released second part.

After much frantic reading of the summaries on the Internet, we hurried down to the overly-crowded lobby room where I began my venture into the realms of Harry Potter.

I absolutely enjoyed the first section of the two-part movie and could not be any more excited to wrap it up with the final installment.

We had a nice dinner of pizza (in the lobby once again), and soon were all ready to board the three buses to the cinema. Our spirited proctor group decided to wear matching t-shirts and add some fun to it, taping “Gryffindor” onto the back of our shirts and drawing Harry’s famous lightning bolt scar on our foreheads.

Welcomed by advertisements for overpriced popcorn and soda, we hurried into our reserved viewing room and sat down. I was ready for an epic adventure, and the movie delivered.

I was very amused to see how deeply immersed the fans of the movie were—I heard constant sniffles and saw hands lift tissues to faces, blotting away tears throughout the course of the film.

We all had a fun time and very much enjoyed the motion picture. I promised myself and Aiyana that I will indeed watch the six preceding Harry Potter movies when I have the time to spare.

Tomorrow will be much more relaxed than today—we plan on breakfasting with Ms. Kronenberg and Ms. Bulls at the Pancake Pantry in the morning, and a carnival is planned for us on the Wyatt Lawn in the afternoon as well. Although our schedules as students are always packed with activities literally hour by hour, they are almost always a delight to take part in and entertaining, which of course is a good thing.