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Day Four: A Movie That Taught Me A Life Lesson
Dead Poets Society. Oh yes. If there's any way in the world that any of you have missed it, it's the story of a bunch of overprivileged white boys in the stuffy 1950s who go to a private school. Robin Williams is their English teacher and he inspires them out of their dull daily drudgery and makes them love literature and rebel against the constricted society in which they live. To demonstrate their rebellion, they get to dance around in the woods with bongos, quit the yearbook, build forbidden radios, star in plays, kill themselves in heartwrenching ways involving hats made of sticks, read poetry to pretty blond cheerleaders and stand atop desks to sound their barbaric yawps over the rooftops of the world.

The now-cliched "inspirational" parts of this movie really did inspire me deeply. When Professor Keating stands in a hallway in front of all the pictures of past students and tells Our Young Heroes about how they're all worm food, and has the kid read, "that same flower that smiles today/ tomorrow will be dying," and hisses "Carpe diem, boys, seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary" in their ears, it really, really did it for me.

And although the specific situation of the movie has lost some resonance over the years, the general message still works. Back then it confirmed something I had suspected about literature and now it reminds me of it when I forget: that books and words are a gateway to something larger than yourself, and that they can connect and inspire people in ways that few other things can. Also that Robert Sean Leonard looks wonderful without a shirt on.

Day Three: Games
OK, I pretty much blew this one -- I was going to be all creative and write my own Mad Lib, but I didn't have time yesterday and so I waited, and now I don't have time today. Also I just burned my fingers on a really hot popcorn kernel and it hurts to type. Shut up. Anyway, some genius put Mad Libs online! Go here. I'm sorry. To anticipate the next topic, in the immortal words of John Bender from the Breakfast Club: "Screws fall out all the time. The world is an imperfect place."