Dispatches from Alabama Part I: A Blogtroduction In 2D!

Hey humans, Hunter here. Some of you may remember me as “Robert” or “Tweetwee,” or “that bro that only ever wore flannel and really put into words just how much quantifiably those kids in that place where we ate sub-par food sucked, metaphorically,” but you will soon know me as “the helper elf” in terms of what I will do on the blog. That’s right, it’s practicum time.

I am currently living in Birmingham, Alabama, [where we stop at two amendments (not including the first)], for some reason (1). I am able to substitute teach about Paradise Lost sometimes, because my background is in English, but to supplement the 30 dollars I have made from that I work in a restaurant, because my background is in English. (EDIT: I have since been fired).

And when I’m not serving as an entirely unnecessary cog in a machine that facilitates young moms obtaining food that can be described as somewhere between “fast” and “real,” I’m sweeping up the potato chips that their “children” have decided that the floor needs more than they do. I have checked most of these kids for the 666 mark that Damien had in "The Omen," but they have been remarkably well hidden thus far. We’ll know we’re in trouble in a few years when one of them turns into Sam Neill and runs for president, and I’ll be on a street corner with a sign and a beard (finally) shouting about how President Neill used to throw his potato chips everywhere and his mom was kind of a b-word (2) and anyway isn’t he British? (EDIT: I have since been fired).

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Pure evil.

In addition to helping out with the blog itself, I will also be blogging (since I see keeping a word document open while I explore Wikipedia as a viable way to both pad my hours and keep on the moral straight-and-narrow). And I have some ideas for those and here are those ideas:

• Movies to Watch/Movies to Drink To: where I will review both good movies and charmingly bad ones with similar subject matter side by side and devise a drinking game for the bad one. Examples: “Fight Club” and “Never Back Down,” where one (standing the test of time) explores themes of duality and anarchy in strikingly unique ways, and the other has you taking a shot every time they mention Jake’s father and also every time you find the Orlando underground yuppie MMA scene to be slightly less than plausible.
  
• Also the groundbreaking anime classic “Princess Mononoke” and “The Thaw,” a movie where Val Kilmer defrosts a Mastadon and unleashes a plague on the earth that wipes out mankind. One is a truly breathtaking blend of environmentalism, mysticism and visual storytelling that is rarely even hinted at in Western animation, and the other may kill you if you drink every time you notice how fat Val Kilmer’s gotten, or every time you have a burning desire to refer to him as “Iceman.”(3)
• Academic Papers on Unenlightened Subjects: one thing I wasn’t prepared for was how few papers I’d have to write in real life. So I will correct that. Possibles:
• Speculation on the psychological condition of the characters in Modern Family, and whether or not that explains the reasoning behind the producers of the show never justifying its documentary-style format. If they’re insane and talking to a camera that the audience is supposed to think isn’t there, the show becomes a lot more interesting. Post-gender normative theory in Sean Kingston’s song “Replay,” which was positively lighting up the radio a couple of years ago, and contains a great deal of probably accidental gender role-reversal. 
• A Freudian analysis of that same film, “Never Back Down.” (Ignoring of course that Freud was not much more than a coke-addled postulator who shouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone, except, I have learned, English departments really want to).
• The Psychological effects of growing up a Spider-Man fan, and whether or not said fan can know love while Mary-Jane Watson (posited correctly in the thesis as the ideal woman) exists as an idea in their consciousness. 23 years of research has gotten us to a resounding "nope, sorry."
• Dispatches from Alabama Parts II Through Going Forward, Presented in 2D!: where I recount the various ways that Alabama gets in trouble and bemoan the fact that I pay taxes to it. (4)
• Also, November is National Novel Writing Month, and for whoever doesn’t know what that is, it is essentially a reason to churn out 50,000 words of fair to middling quality (quality situated under quantity, here). Everyone should do it, and I’ll be posting some of my efforts and also threatening others into posting theirs.

check out that symbiosis

 One thing I will never write about is writing, since I’m as qualified to do that as a baby shark is qualified to write about swimming: I know it’s something I have to do to keep breathing, but I’m completely oblivious to how I do it or what exactly it is or even what water is. I’m too busy trying to get remoras to be my friend and eat the waste from my gill slits.(5)

    There’s a chance I’ll also hit you all with updates on how frustrated I get with my (utter lack of) facial hair, especially with a roommate who can grow one hell of a beard. 

 These are the things that I think about.

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FOOTNOTES:
(1)  And to answer an inquiry that I myself made before I moved, no, becoming closer to the equator has not made me better in any way, I have in fact gotten sick for the first time in about 5 years here. What I’m driving at is that North Carolina is a way better state, both at keeping me healthy and at not sexually molesting detained immigrants.    
(2)  I won’t be swearing in any of my blogs, because there’s a chance that my mom will want to read them. There’s also a good chance that I’ll swear anyway. 
(3) Also worth noting that the female lead, Martha McIsaac, was in a movie called “Ice Princess.” Wikipedia. Also, get it? 'Cause of the ice? And Top Gun? Get it?
(4) North Carolina, incidentally, was better at taxes and also at not executing the mentally handicapped. 
(5) I’m doing this from memory: I know a lot about sharks. Also, dinosaurs.