Musings on Class, socializing, and Luce

[davetheanalyzer]

Another month has gone by and I’m in the thick of schoolwork. Writing Portfolio goes at the usual slow pace. The bright side of having to take it again is that I could test-drive a revision of an idea I showed the class for the first few semesters. I got informative feedback and am in the middle of the second draft, revising a series of events with one route, though I’m considering how it was first done as an option – I could come up with a reason for the odd scenario that was in the first draft, as it would keep the main character close with another but it does mean she mightn’t interact with one character who will become her best friend. Of course, I could have those interactions before or after those scenes. I didn’t plot the story yet, so I’m not sure, but it’s an interesting conundrum I might bring up in the notes of my revised piece.

My Seminar in Nonfiction class is where the bulk of the work comes from. I have gotten the hand of the reading and pacing, though there is a slight bulge coming for October, as I have to submit another item for workshop and submit an essay by the middle of next month. Since I started work on the essay last week, I decided to kill two birds with one stone: to submit a work I already wrote a while ago and take advantage of the professor saying fiction that leans on the realistic side could be submitted to the class, just to see how nonfiction people would critique it. That will be interesting and I would have one less project to have to devote writing time to. I hope I can keep up with the writing and posting in the months ahead.

In the meantime, I’m done composing thoughts about feedback to We Will Hold On Forever. I was slow again, easily distracted but one night last week where I kept distractions to a minimum, I got a lot done and was even getting into starting rewriting the chapters. I hope I fleshed out the many scenes enough that they would be interesting and fulfilled. I don’t know if I will make the posting time I put myself for next month or November but I will see. This might be another broken promise but I should try for the umpteenth time not to get distracted and keep my focus to writing the fanfics. I have missed around seven days from sleeping around the clock and deciding I need a break, so I decided that once every other week when I’m taking a break from Tumblr, I’ll pick one day where I double up on writing the story to catch up and won’t occupy too much of those free weeks. Though that might have to wait, since again there is a lot of classwork I need to get through.

I’m thinking about some social matters. Last year, I went to a writing club where people read out their work and are given feedback and the person in charge sometimes covered parts of publishing. It was recommended by a caseworker whose wife was in charge of it. I decided it wasn’t for me. But in the year sense, when I became more gradually aware of my tendency to veer away from social situations and not talk to anyone much, I wonder if I should give it another shot. I wonder if I’m lonely and this little social contact is good for my health. I have tried to engage online more but I always slide back to observing, as I’m busy with other habits and schoolwork, and nervous about screwing something up. Maybe next month I can see if I can go to that writing group again and if it fits me, maybe stay for the long term. It is only once a month, not that far of a drive, so it wouldn’t be too much of a hindrance, I hope. I’ll have to see if it has any effect on my social skills.

In movie news, I have seen the film Luce near the beginning of the month. Before we went, my mom was interested and read reviews that expressed some concern that it was against adopting children from difficult backgrounds, in that tigers don’t change their stripes. Reading up reviews, I came across one or two that interpreted it was more about how the worst of international adoption could mess a person up. Reading the reviews did kind of spoil the culprit but we went to see it anyway and liked it. For most of the film, it flips back and forth between whether adopted Eritrean teenager Luce or his teacher Harriet Wilson are responsible for the increasing incidents that started with a charged paper about revolution through violence. The tension is kept up well throughout the film, especially with how Luce’s adoptive white parents react to it.

Amy Edgar pushes back at any vocalized suspicion of her son, but she does appear to quietly doubt and make her own investigations, which lead to their own share of conflicts. Peter Edgar appears more inclined to believe the accusations, and it leads to conflict with his wife. He does love Luce but he missed being a “normal family,” with adopted Luce at age ten and having to help him with therapy to cope with his time as a child soldier. With how he looked fondly at babies, and was friendly to a relative with a baby, I thought he was going to be revealed to be having an affair. There are a few other characters, DeShaun who became cynical after Wilson kicked him off the track team for marijuana in his locker and Stephanie who was sexually assaulted and is Luce’s girlfriend, who become important as the story goes on. We see the personal lives of Luce and Wilson as the mystery rolls out, that Luce seems concerned with his former teammate DeShaun despite the latter’s coolness in response to the former’s poster boy academic success and Wilson trying to care for her mentally ill sister Rosemary.

Soon, though, it became clear that it was Luce who orchestrated the incidents, all to get Wilson fired. Wilson had been stern with her students, wanting them to become aware of the racist boxes they will be put in and to help them stand up for themselves in times of crises. But Wilson made an example of the racism they would face by kicking DeShaun off the track team and robbing him of the chance of a scholarship. She forced Stephanie to come forward about her sexual assault, which the latter indicated she didn’t want. Luce was accomplishing a lot academically and with track but he didn’t like being put in a box and how his classmates had to go through the same thing. He hated having to put on a face all the time. Wilson had good intentions but the students felt her methods were too “cruel to be kind.” They didn’t want to deal with these boxes. So Luce worked with his friends to frame Wilson as out to get him and have her fired. I guess this deals with another conflict that racism and other prejudice can cause, the disagreement and backlash with how to deal with it.

This conflict is only an extension of the mask Luce often has on with his adoptive parents, who literally renamed him at age 10 because they couldn’t pronounce his name and then had to live to their expectations. He was in some ways remade by them, and that racism can be a danger with international or interracial adoption if the parents with privilege don’t treat their child with respect. The expression he reveals at the end during a run hints at the rage he has, maybe for his circumstances and issues not dealt with from his child soldier years. He got to exercise a little power in the end, as his adoptive parents just accept what he did and try to move on. I did wonder if he did all the things that didn’t go well for Wilson. He appeared a minute or two before Rosemary made a scene at the school. Rosemary could have looked up Wilson’s place of work, Luce could have tipped her off, or even guided her to school himself. This film might have something problematic to say about adopting children from difficult situations. I don’t know enough to say. Whatever the potential issues, I enjoyed the film and the thriller elements were well-made.

That’s all for now. Until the time Halloween comes around, see you!