Oh, What "A Beautiful Mind"

First of all, I have to clarify what I said in my last blogs about my admiration for Steven, Lori's brother. I do not admire him for bailing out, I admire that he was the only one who took the initiative to try to understand the psychology behind schizophrenia so he could help his sister. I admire him for at least trying although he did not go through with it all the way but that is because his sister, Lori, did not want him to see the horror that goes on inside the psychiatric hospital. Steven, himself, could not stand to see people suffer. There is so much more to the book. I highly recommend it. It is called "The Quiet Room" by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett for those who are interested in reading it. I would love to talk about the book but there is so much information packed inside that I cannot condense it all into one blog.

Now, get ready for my day! I woke up later than usual, 8: 40 or so. Then I found out that I have to do laundry soon because my clothes are piling up on the floor-in my closet. While looking through my clothes, I regretted not bringing more sweaters and pants because it is really cold here, except for the sunshine that we have today. Then I looked at the weather to determine the weather for the rest of the week. After that, I washed up and got dressed to go eat breakfast. I am starting to get tired of the variety for breakfast but breakfast is the most important meal of the day so I ate a bagel and some potato wedges. Afterward, we walked to class and this time, we had to go to a different classroom than the one we are usually in. This is because we were going to watch a movie called "A Beautiful Mind," and Dr.J suggested that room 106 was more suitable for movie watching. Therefore we sat down anxious for the secrets of the movie to unravel as the professor pushed the release button for the curtains to come gradually down, shading the windows from the rising sunlight. This took about 30 seconds or so and I watched in amazement and wonder what else is there in this room that I have never seen before. Then the projector screen came tumbling down and stopped. It was a really big projector screen, bigger than the ones we have at school. Then we waited for him to dim the lights and turn on the movie.

The movie started out with a guy name John Nash who is in his freshmen year at Princeton University through a special scholarship (something something Carnegie Scholarship). Then he meets his roommate Charles, who stumbled into the room drunk and disoriented while John was busy studying. Then it shows how John is always busy studying and trying to solve these problems that I found to be really intricate and difficult. There was a scene when John wanted to kill himself by banging his head on the window and then his roommate tried to stop him. His roommate then pushed the window with such an incredible amount of force that it flew out the window and crashed on the ground by the luscious green grass while two students were walking by. John and Charles started laughing hysterically as the two students looked up in confusion. After he graduated from Princeton University after resolving Adam Smith's theory, he became a professor. He was well-respected and liked on and off campus. Then on a visit to the Pentagon, he met a mysterious man who calls himself Parcher. Parcher asked John to work for the government as an undercover agent and they implanted a secret code on his arm which requires a black light to see it. John's job is to decode the mysterious message of the Soviet Union. And so the movie goes on about how he is a great professor and well known throughout. He finally finds a woman who he likes and eventually marries her and start their own family. However, one night, John gets paranoid and his rage is set off so his wife calls the doctor and they take him in the hospital. John accuses them as the Soviet Union who have discovered his secret and are planning to take him away.

The problem in this picture is that John was hallucinating. Records show that he never had a roommate name Charles nor did he ever work for the government as a spy. His wife had called him and signed him into the psychiatric hospital because he was schizophrenic. They had to explain to him that he was schizophrenic and all of this is just a delusion. John tried to show them proof that he actually works for the government by digging into his arm where he had "seen" them implant the numbers to keep track of him but it was not there. Therefore he had to take medication to help his hallucinations go away. Basically the movie goes on from there. He finally gets better but he never did stop seeing things. He learned to control them and eventually was able to live an almost normal life. After he got a bit better, he started working at Princeton, doing his work in the library. He raised his status from a worker in the library to a well-known and respected professor. John even received a Nobel prize and to this day, he still walks to campus.

The movie ended at 12:38 but class was not suppose to end until 1:00. So Dr.J decided to tell us more about John Nash. He mentioned that the real John Nash's life was not as smooth as portrayed in the movie. Instead, his wife divorced him and he started experimenting with his sexuality. Then we got out of class at 12:45, 15 minutes earlier than usual. We dreaded walking down the flight of stairs although it was a flight of stairs less than usual. Then we trudged downhill to the Verney Woolley where we slid our Brown identification card to open the door and walked on the blue mat to the interior of the cafeteria. Then we went through another round of sliding our cards to get lunch. Today, I was deciding between pasta and burgers. I was trying to be a vegetarian for day but I could not resist the burgers so I went to make my burger.

First I took the bun and split it in between the cut. After that, I picked up the juiciest looking burger on the tray and settled it on top of the bottom bun. Then I used the plastic black tongs to pick up two pieces of lettuce and gently laid it on top of the burger. I examined the cheese to see if it was American or Kraft singles but I failed at that. I picked it up anyways and decided I should of put the cheese on before the lettuce and so I remade my burger. The tomatoes were screaming my name but I did not know if I was craving tomatoes or not but I decided I wanted to be healthy so I slid two slices of pre-cut tomatoes onto my pile. Then I cuddled up my burger by placing the top bun over it after squeezing ketchup on it. And so we went to eat outside because it was a nice bright sunny day. It feels so good to walk out and feel the warm breeze sweeping over me.

Then I decided to work on my final reaction paper for class. I spent a good hour contemplating about what to write because Dr.J had asked for it to be less than two pages and to reflect on the book. It was extremely difficult to narrow down the topics that I wanted to discuss so I spent a good 25 minutes thinking about the main topics of the book. Finally, I decided that I will mainly focus on the affect Lori's schizophrenia had on her family as a whole instead of just Lori. Then I finished typing up my paper by 6:03 and started walking to the dining hall with Courtney. While walking past the Maddock Alumni building, a random stranger walking past by hollered out "Hey you guys! Did you find out that Michael Jackson died?" Then everywhere around us, we heard talk about his death. People walked around in denial that the "king of pop" is longer no more.

After dinner, we went back up to the lounge where we studied for a bit and I sent my final reaction paper in to Dr.J. I then decided what shall I blog about and here I am to blog about my exciting day. The best part of today was probably watching the movie. I learned so much from it and by the end of the movie, I decided I want to meet John Nash. When I finally figured out what I wanted to blog about, I walked down the five flights of stairs and into to my room I entered. So here I am blogging.

Now that I reflect on my day, I found out that I had quite some time on my hands. I had finished my reading early started on my reaction paper right away. I am really adjusting to the college life. I predict that in the future, I would be walking long distances and climbing up to 55 steps on the stairs. Oh well, it will be a great daily workout.

Since I do not want to be burdened with homework and a 83 page of reading, I shall start reading now.