I'm back. I had pretty modest expectations of this retreat -- some time at the beach, long breaks, short meetings, pretty good food. As to whether or not these expectations were met, let me put it this way: the food was indeed pretty good.
Yep.
It was an excruciating experience this time around and I hated (yes, hated) almost every second of it. Some personal divisions and difficulties between the staff and administration came to the fore and it was like a carnival of exploding repressed feelings, finger-pointing, and defensiveness.
Hated it.
What's worse, Monday morning is still there. This wasn't like some bad blind date that one never has to relive. I've got to go back and be with these people (and have a staff meeting with them!) on Monday. Sigh.
On the bright side, I've seen some really interesting movies over the last couple of days. For my directed reading, I watched the infamous The Last Temptation of Christ by Scorcese. For fun, I watched No Country For Old Men by the Cohen brothers. For curiosity (and in honor of my sister-in-law Shauna), Suzanne and I watched Dan in Real Life. Quite a variety, eh? They were all really worthwhile in their individual ways and worth writing about.
But it's Sunday morning and I need to head upstairs and help get the girls ready for church so my comments will have to wait.
They may wait longer than I'd like as my work computer shut down on me last Tuesday and refused to let me log back on. It's done this before and requires a trip to the computer repair guy -- so I may not have my prime writing time available to me for the next couple of days. I'll still check in and post - it just may not be as frequent or at the same times as usual.
6 comments:
Oh Great Rememberer of all Things Celluloid ... Did the Cohen Bro's. also do "Raising Arizona" ? That is quite probably one of the funniest movies of all time. I panned Nicholas Cage on Mo's blog the other day, but then had a recall moment of R.A. and am willing to back off somewhat.
Gird up your skills in the negotiation dept. with your job and you can move on to the Wayne State infamous Fall Teacher's Union contracts. No food fights !
Yes, the Cohens did do "Raising Arizona" and, yes, it is one of the funniest movies there is. ("I'll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash ya got. And you better make it quick. I'm in dutch with the wife!") I have it on DVD if you want to borrow it. I'm not a big fan of Nicholas Cage's later stuff either but I do think his performance as H.I. McDunnough was awesome.
Not to be the buzzkiller here, but it's 'Coen', not 'Cohen'. Sorry. The supreme movie geek in me can't let this slide.
On the happier, less geeky side, I also own this movie and absolutely cannot stop laughing when I watch it. It's a wonderful fever dream of a film.
Sigh. Buzzkill film geek.
Coen.
Happy?
I am interested to see what comments you have on 'Dan in Real Life'...We really liked it a lot. However, our taste in cinema doesn't always jive with yours, so I will be looking for the review.
My favorite part in Dan in Real Life comes when he puts a smiley face with the honey on the peanut butter sandwiches!
He's just a dern good dad. Making smiley faces when no one else is watching.
Remind me when I get there to tell you a funny story about Dan . . too long to comment here.
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