Weird Beginnings and Bittersweet Beowulf

In case you hadn't noticed I really like books. I don't consider myself an expert or even a connoisseur, I just really like books. This semester I finally decided to go ahead and take a class at university called Great Books but when I saw the list of books we were yoked into reading I was more than a little disappointed. Luckily my disappointment proved misplaced and far from being a yoke, the books turned out to be a really good read....mostly. I think I understand why we had to read the book of Genesis and bits of it were actually interesting but geez those lineage lists were cumbersome and so boring and what was the deal with the weird wrestling match and the tendon on the inside of Jacob's thigh?

Anywho, the book we're currently reading has salvaged my respect for our heroic course convenor who gets up each week and patiently shares his educated insights with a class of nitwits, my band of brothers. Believe it or not I'm enjoying Beowulf. However surprised you are, I'm certain there's no one more surprised than me. It's beautifully written and I suspect that it will serve as the benchmark against which all other books will be compared. I feel spoiled but it's bittersweet: I'm not sure I can go back to the light reading of modern detective novels and actually enjoy them properly.

Journos - Can't Live With Em, Can't Live Without Em

I was walking past the TV earlier this evening and heard a journalist reporting a story about a refugee from Sierra Leone, he was all of 18 years old and his parents had been murdered. It was a sad story but the part that struck me was the journalist's reportage of the boy's life in Sierra Leone. I found it a little insensitive. Admittedly she was trying to do a piece on refugees in Australia and how much better their lives are now but she seemed to tear apart every single detail of that boy's pre-refugee existence. Even the stuff that might have actually been okay. She almost mocked the school he went to, calling it tiny and alluding to its resemblance to a stack of fibro boxes. I am sure that his life here in Australia is more comfortable but that boys friends studied with him in those fibro boxes and I bet he has some happy memories from his past there too. I didn't stick around for the rest of the documentary but I hope that journalist redeemed herself before the end of it.