escapism
in journal
hi. it’s been a while since i’ve written. this last month largely sucked and i’m determined the rest of june and summer will be better. at the least, it will not be bad due almost solely to my actions as happened this last month. so far not so good, but i do feel some improvement.
i saw the new harry potter with my mom last night (she’s visiting the west coast for a few weeks) and it was really good. however, i wasn’t as excited about it in general because 1)the first two i saw with other ‘harry potter fans’ family members whereas my mom kept falling asleep during the movie, and 2)earlier in the day, i’d been reading and was almost done with christopher paolini’s eragon, so it was a little harder to get into the j.k. rowling world as i was immersed fantasy-wise in paolini‘s alagaesia. but still, it was a really good movie ~ the special effects were totally convincing and the dementors part scared me, too, which is good.
i know for a lot of people, these types of entertainment, be they movies or books, are a form of escapism, which makes sense to me and seems ok. (i.e. escapism is not inherently wrong.) but i know i probably ‘escape’ just way too often, so not all that consciously i’ve been trying to find and learn lessons in these escapist stuff. now… which is worse: escaping stress/conflicts by watching/reading fantasy novels, or ‘finding’ moral lessons in these novels and trying to apply them to my life? sigh.
so much work to do! it’s scary. in the next ten days i have to bust my butt school-wise. i’m thinking about maybe taking only one course this summer, versus the three i’ve been thinking about, that way i have time for me, not me-the-student, or me-the-worker. if i weren’t so busy, i’d not have to read as much escapist stuff (and yes, that does include horribly-written and -embarassing romance novels.. argh.) becuase i wouldn’t feel the need to escape! my time would be so much more my own.
by the way, i lovelove fantasy books and feel no shame about loving them. (whereas with tawdry harlequins, yikes.) but i do read them way too often to escape and although a little of that is healthy, sometimes that’s all i do with my free time. no good.
~ andrea
