I’d say it’s been one of the most unproductive weeks of my Ph.D so far. I didn’t get any Ph.D stuff done (well, OK, I forced myself to write a few paragraphs of paper cum thesis chapter), and I didn’t do much in the way of tutoring either. Two students requested that I remark their assignments, but that’s about it.
But it was a great week in terms of getting to know my office colleagues a bit better. The DSTC gave Bill Segall a nice sending off, then he and another four of us went to the Royal Exchange to shoot some pool. It was a good night.
For the first time in quite a while (meaning a month or so :), Nigel and I rented out some DVDs. We rented The Royal Tenenbaums, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Vanilla Sky, Mulholland Drive and Mickey Blue Eyes. So we went and got some pizza (Sylvie was supposed to cook, but ended up going out. No matter, was craving for some Vegetarian pizza with ample covering of jalapenos) and watched The Royal Tenenbaums. A strange but enjoyable movie. I must admit, I kind of liked it in the same way that I like movies such as The Big Lebowski. On imdb.com people seemed either to love it or totally hate it. I definitely didn’t hate it, but I wouldn’t say I adored it. It certainly boasts an all star cast (Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray, Gene Hackman, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller and others). But it really is the kind of movie you can’t try to explain to other people. On the surface, it’s about a once wealthy family being broken and then put back together. But underneath it’s about depression (Paltrow plays the part of a perpetually depressed adopted daughter), obsession (one of the characters is obsessed with Paltrow’s character, but to say which character would be a major spoiler) and redemption (Royal Tenenbaum, played by Hackman, spends the movie trying to reunite his family so that he can make up for what he feels is his failure as a father and husband). If films like The Big Lebowski and Magnolia don’t appeal to you, give this movie a miss. It is seriously weird in places, but that’s precisely the reason why I like it!
