(3): Prez and Me, or "Yo, Teach!"

Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski (Jim True-Frost)

After I graduated high school, I started an ill-fated business degree at a university in the city. One semester later I had dropped out. I wasn't ready for it, I still had the pervading sense of 'done' my high school graduation had given me. I spent the next year-and-a-half working and then traveling - the idea was to take time and figure out what I wanted to do. When I got back from a six-month stay in Seattle I still wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to study, but despite that, on the eve of QTAC's final round of offers in 2009, I signed up for a double degree in Arts and Secondary Education.

The possibility of becoming a teacher had always been in the back of my mind, as far back as when I was in school. I had never seriously considered it until the night I signed up for it. What initially attracted me to teaching was that it was something I was already familiar with; I had been around teachers for a good percentage of my life, there wouldn't be too many nasty surprises. I also figured that I'd be able to study something I liked - the arts part of the degree - and would be able to apply it practically. In the next few weeks, while weighing pros and cons, worrying about whether or not I had made the right decision, I justified my choice with the extra holidays teachers get per year, the flexibility/opportunity for travel, the constant demand for teachers and therefore the ease in getting a job (apparently), and it's potential as a 'rewarding career'.

I've been obsessed with HBO's The Wire for most of the beginning of this year. It's hands-down the grittiest, most engaging and well written show I've ever come across, and as far as cop shows go, it makes Dexter look childish. In the fourth season, a character becomes a teacher after being shamed out of his previous job as a cop. This character - Prez (Jim True-Frost) - in past seasons, is a sort of fuck-up; one thoughtless mistake after another eventually leads to a fatal one and he's kicked out of the police. He works well as a teacher in the fourth season. Overcoming a lot of shit slung from his students and superiors, he manages to assert himself and find pleasure and motivation in his new job, while gaining the respect of most of his class. I know there's a world of difference between West Baltimore and the places I might be teaching, but watching the season was encouraging.

I have a lot of respect for teachers and for a lot of the 'pre-service teachers', as we're dubbed, in my course. I think teachers are undervalued, and from all accounts it sounds like they're underpaid too. After 2.25 years of my program, I've come to realise that there is a lot of stuff out of teachers' hands when it comes to educating their students, and sometimes it's overwhelming. I haven't done any prac yet, only ten days of observation, so I'm anxious about graduating and discovering that I fucking hate kids, or I don't have the patience, or the empathy, or the balls to deal with some of the students I'm bound to encounter. How the hell am I going to shake my predisposition for selfishness and put the needs of my students above myself? When I put my mind to it, I can think of a million ways it could go wrong, but at the same time, I honestly want to be able to be a good teacher.

This post is simply to justify that I've gained something from spending two days doing nothing but watching The Wire. Despite its grounding in fiction, the fourth season's education story-arch inspired some retrospection, and I'm glad I was a little trigger happy back in '09 with my QTAC preferences. Rough seas are to be expected for my initial years but hopefully it'll make itself worth it. Next time I'm having doubts I'll just think of Prez... or watch Freedom Writers, or some shit.

(2): Let the right one in

Eli (Lina Leandersson) 

Let the Right One In: the alternative to Twilight for anyone who hasn't had a lobotomy. Stephanie Meyer could learn a thing or two about the tricky dynamics of human-vampire relations from this Swedish film.

Necessary snobbery aside, this movie really is beautiful. It has its gory moments - I mean, blood is a given in a vampire movie - but it isn't so much scary as it is unsettling. The film pushes the creepy kids button, and most of the goosebumps come from that angle. This idea is nothing new, in fact it's been done to death, but what made Let the Right One In stay with me over these last few days was its perfect marriage of story and aesthetics.

Let the Right One In is essentially a love story. The film follows Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) as he navigates the social obstacles of being the weird kid at his school - mainly bullying, mainly from a particular shit-head named Conny (Patrik Rydmark). An assumed father-daughter couple move into the apartment complex that Oskar lives in and he quickly befriends Eli (Lina Leandersson), a mysterious girl of his age. A series of murders take place and suspicion eventually falls on Eli and her reclusive 'dad' (Per Ragnar).

While Oskar is definitely on the wrong side of normal, his complicated character is developed very effectively in a way that demands empathy. A single child, living with a fairly absent mother, bullied at school, and only outwardly happy on his rare visits with his dad: these aspects promote sympathy while being simultaneously offset by his other character traits like his scrapbook of newspaper articles reporting murder and awkward bowl-cut.

Eli's character, complete with the emotional baggage of being immortal and vaginaless (seriously), is a fascinating opposition between vulnerability and invulnerability. Her youth and seeming fragility give a misguiding air of helplessness which is ultimately tempered by her intelligence and, oh yeah, her diet. Apparently not soulless, Eli is outwardly shaken each time she feeds, and this reveals an element of insecurity in her character which I think makes her soft spot for Oskar more believable. Again, the theme of two outcasts finding love in each other is nothing new, but this film takes the idea pretty close to its extreme. Stripped back of all its details, the attraction between Oskar and Eli exists because he's just psyched to have a real friend, and she's psyched to have someone who doesn't mind the vampire thing.

The story being the bones of any text, this film is fleshed out by Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography. Set during a Swedish winter, where the sun is down for the majority of every 24 hours, this benefits the horror element in the film. Snow and the perpetually dark sky sit in constant contrast to each other, and act perfectly as the backdrop to the story's central relationship. Many shots are also cleverly layered, so that when the focus shifts depth it creates a false sense of movement - a cool little trick I've never really noticed in a film before. Apparently there's a Hollywood remake of Let the Right One In, which I am curious to see, but it's got pretty big shoes to fill compared to its visually and emotionally engaging original.

Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant)

In a side note: I've wanted to visit Sweden for a long time. I'm actually meant to be there right now on exchange, but that unfortunately didn't work out on account of my rigid degree structure. I was originally attracted to the frozen northern country by the reputation its girls had, but on further research it started to sound really interesting. It seems to be one of the only places where they've managed to make socialism work, they're very forward-thinking in terms of education (which is what I'm studying), and their government is pretty damn generous with their mostly awesome musicians. It's still on my places to go list, especially because I paid for $400 worth of basic Swedish lessons (Jag dricker vatten i klockan halv tolv), but it's going to be a while before I'll be able to go for any decent length of time.

Anyway, watch the movie, you'll like it.

(1): Practice makes perfect

I like writing short-stories and other things, but I don't do it often enough. I'm in a constant crisis of motivation; it's too tempting to watch season after season of whatever HBO/Showtime series is currently hot as shit than to concentrate on something a little more constructive. This goes for everything from study to laundry.

I think my heart's in the right place. It's a stretch, but I'd love to make money off of writing eventually. The lifestyle would probably suit me - working from home, sans-pants, sandwiches. I've never been that psyched for science, or for labour. I'm uncomfortable with calling myself 'creative', but I do like the feeling of accomplishment after making something. It's the accomplishING that I'm having trouble with.

The plan is to force myself to write on here. I haven't got a crystal clear idea of exactly what this blog will be about, but hopefully after a lot of entries a general theme will materialize and from there I'll get a sense of direction. So until then, please bear with me.