Paperwork

It's been several months since I did this. I am going to try and do posts with a lot of short items so that it will be easier to try and get momentum. I never posted anything I put much significant effort into, even though not from lack of trying. I was just never happy with any of the longer ideas I had.

I'm a couple hours into Mass Effect 2 and enjoying it. I bought Modern Warfare 2 at the end of last semester, which covered my video game base for around three months. The multiplayer is addicting, but after enough time I just needed a change. I played through a friend's copy of the first Mass Effect and liked it well enough, but it had some substantial flaws. Still, I'm a sucker for Bioware games, specifically their RPG's. Plus, I had a $40 gift card, so I went ahead and bought Mass Effect 2. Speaking of my attempted longer posts, I had a draft of a review of Mass Effect months back, after I played it. Maybe I'll try and do one for ME2 if I get time.

Complaint Department: So I got an all-essay test in my History of Modern East Asia back today and I have some qualms with my grade of an 83. I've never taken one of this teacher's tests before and we weren't provided with a study guide, so I was a little unsure of what to expect. I thought everything went pretty well. I knew the ID terms well enough and I thought I wrote a solid essay for the second part. I lost the most points on my essay, for what I see as mainly superfluous reasons. An example: in my closing paragraph about the Opium Wars and the aftermath, I wrote that Britain now controlled trade in the entire region. My teacher wrote a comment that said, "What region?" Now, clearly I meant East Asia, or what of it was available at the time, since Japan, the other main focus of the class, was still officially closed but starting negotiations with the Americans. I'm going to cut this one short because I just want to keep going and I feel like I'm being...oversensitive, maybe? An 83 is still a B, but China is in a region self evident from the damn title of the class.

Of and on, lately I've been trying to read some comic scans regularly. Previously I had only checked out notable stuff I found on Journalista, most of which was old EC/pulp stuff that is only in print in ridiculously priced hardcovers. The stuff most available is manga, so I'm going to get back into Pluto and 20th Century Boys. I started a little of Vagabond and Blade of the Immortal. The caveat is I still cannot get used to reading comics on a digital screen. I figured the uncomfortableness would fade, but it hasn't. In my last post I was a complaining 15 year old, and in this one I feel like I'm 70.

What did I interpet from UFC 110? Chris Lytle has a ground game, Cro-Cop can't run through over matched opponents anymore, George Sotiropolous is a contender at lightweight, Keith Jardine cannot get anything going, Wanderlei has actually changed his fighting style, and Big Nog could be on the downward slope. Oh, and Cain Velasquez just keeps dominating.

What did I learn in History of Europe Since 1914 last week? We ran through World War II for the whole three hours. Pretty quick treatment, but I know Dr. Pizzo wants to get past the information the majority of the class knows the most amount about. From Mark Mazower's excellent book Dark Continent, we had a chapter discussing the Nazis from 1938-1945. Some good stuff in there about Albert Speer, the later German Minister of Armaments and War Production. He was incredibly smart, didn't blindly listen to Hitler, and managed to bring their war production up to levels where they were actually competitive. The Allies were lucky he wasn't in charge from the beginning. From Benjamin Liberman's Terrible Fate, we looked at the Nazis overall plan for Eastern Europe, focusing mostly on occupied Poland. Smaller sections were devoted to the ethnic cleansing in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine and the mass deportations and internments of the USSR. At any spot in Europe, there's probably a decent chance some group was ethnically cleansed during the 20th century, especially in the East. From our regular textbook, we looked at the broad particulars of the conflict, most of which was review for me.

I also attended a lecture from a visiting professor on honor in British India. It was a fairly standard talk, but he did have some interesting photographs from the era. I also got another reminder how brutal the Age of Empire was. After the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the British responded in their typical brutal fashion. Hindus traditionally cremate their dead to allow for reincarnation, but a full body is required. Seizing on this, the British took many Hindus and strapped them to the front of cannons and fired them. Christ.

Watched The Hurt Locker. Some excellent, tense action sequences throughout, and not in the traditional way you might be thinking. And yes, the film is apolitical, but it does show the ridiculous facet of fighting a 21st century counterinsurgency and how difficult it is. Very effective character development arc for Jeremy Renner's lead that reveals just enough along the way to keep you wondering until it slams you in the face during the last five minutes.