Welcome to the first post of 2006. So many things have happened to me in this year, that I’ll toss them out in random order, maybe they’ll be funny, and maybe you’ll get bored. Who knows. First, Nils is in Norway - he’s overseas along with many people I know (for example: Emily, Emily, others). He called the experience “once in a lifetime” complete with backpacking Europe later in his 7 month stay, and total immersal in Norwegian culture and general Norwegianess. This type of horizon and world-view-expanding activity strikes me as extremely desirable for the complete college experience. While I am unable to partake at this point in my existence and for the forseeable future, I plan at some point to do some real traveling. It would break my routine-building tendencies, show me things I’ve never seen before, and make me a more interesting life-experiency type father. “Let me tell you what the Cathedrals of France look like at sunset” is generally more interesting than “let me tell you about the Saint Paul skyline at sunset” but not necessarily as practical as “if you use the correct attachment on the wrench, removing the oil filter doesn’t have to be that difficult.”

Anyhow, we brought some people together from high school to discuss these changing times, but mostly just to joke around about life. It’s refreshing to see that, yes, everybody has classes that are ridiculously hard and, in fact, planning the steps to a job is never a sure or set-in-stone thing. Right now in life is hard - you can sense the enormous potential and the gigantic room for error that you have. Freedom to pick a life path allows for both fantastic opportunity and wrenching decisions. It’s like being on top of a mountain - you can decide many ways to ski down it, but when you choose one path, you are unable to experience some of the qualities of the others. To a certain extent, we are skiing partway down the mountain, running into trees, and then trekking slowly back up to try a different run that we like better.

I saw The Family Stone and The Sting. About the only two things that these movies have in common is that they both begin with “the.” Family Stone is, really, a good holiday movie and one that accurately portrays the drama that every family sees. I initially cringed a little at the ideal aging process that movies seem to show (the grandparents always have suspicisouly stylish glasses and an impossibly unrealistic casual elegance), but this movie bucked that trend later on, revealing the toll of aging in a way that, if shared, would spoil part of the movie. The Family Stone is good for a family to watch on a cold day - it’s a little too wintery to go well with a summer crickets in the background kind of evening.

The Sting was just as good as I had hoped - combining such spectacular acting, music, and plot twist that I realized watching it again would reveal more layers of cinematic goodness. This complexity is a mark of a good movie, making the intial viewing a sort of whirlwind tour of everything the film has to offer. Furthermore, the pace of this movie has something to teach today’s films: the audience doesn’t have to be left breathless after being pounded with 46 plot twists and turns: space the development out, let the actors do their jobs, take your time. Watch this movie earlier in the evening to allow it to sink in.

Another thought: I’m coming up on the most important semeseter in my life, a time to get in some good grades for my dental school, time to prepare to do well on the DAT, time to do any resume rounding out that is left. I’m skiing down one of those slopes, I hope I do not hit too many trees.

I some other really neat things to say, but right now they elude me. I will close for now, and hopefully post further thoughts later.

• Steve Clappier
• Cheston Hsiao
• Alex Oray
• Matt Prestegord
• Eating out
• Wedding
• Marriage
• Study abroad
• Parenting
• Movies
• Dental school

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