Regally Blonde The Reel World

Author: Astri Von Arbin Ahlander

On December 31, 2006 we rang in the New Year. Personally, I choked on my champagne as I stood on the roof of a building in central Stockholm as artillery-like fireworks went off all around me. 2007? This is the number I have written after my name for the past three and a half years to indicate the time of my graduation. Up until this New Year's night, it always felt so remote, so impossibly far in the future. But now, a good week and a half into the year, everything has changed. Weekends are no longer filled with guilt-free dancing at Angela's. Now trips to NYC for job interviews become a priority, if you're lucky enough to get some, that is. Because, believe it or not, when we drive off on May 27th, we are no longer students on summer vacation, but unemployed twenty-somethings with bills to pay. No more free dining hall food. No more unlimited computer access. Now we're going to have to clean our own bathrooms, commute further than a couple of yards a day and be faced with a world in which there are no funds allocated to support our every creative whim. It really is horrifying, this "real world" business.

Because I shy away from conflict and choose to turn a blind eye to reality, I thought it best to do the only reasonable thing: look backwards. I shuffled through photos dating from the time when we still got pictures developed and didn't just let our Kodak moments exist on Facebook. I was shocked to see that back in the Stewart Hall era, we were drinking Smirnoff Ice (eew!) and I was grunging around campus in sweatpants (for this I offer a late apology). I'm thankful to have been a freshman back in the days of raving social house parties, and lament the non-existent nightlife for the current underclassmen. Walking around campus now in just a t-shirt, I also think back with a heavy heart on the days of snowmen, sledding and skiing that characterized the J-Terms of my past.

But reminiscing about my tender freshman days was not enough to drown out my unease about the future. I realized I must take to more active measures to loosen the knot of anxiety growing in my belly. As a studious senior, I looked to my majors for inspiration. Since I am doing the Senior Comprehensive Exam for English, reading any more books was just not an option. And so it was, I found the answer in my second major: Film. Film has been, after all, always, an escapist art form (whether rightfully or not). Theorists have likened the darkness of the movie theatre to the security of the womb for a reason. When we fear facing our real life, we turn to the world presented up on the silver screen to provide us with a couple of hours solace and entertainment. Luckily, there are many opportunities to escape into a reel world this J-Term. Besides MCAB's Free Friday Films, the Hirschfeld Film Series provide a less mainstream selection for more refined taste buds. The month of January is also featuring an Ingmar Bergman Film Series so as not to leave us without cinematic diversion on the weekdays.

As the sun continues to shine, the trees keep getting tricked into budding, and you stumble to and from class making panic lists over what weaknesses can really be presented as strengths to potential future employers, turn your steps to Dana Auditorium. Take out those thick-rimmed glasses, slouch low in your seat and allow yourself to get lost in the comforting warmth of the darkened theatre. Whoever said escapism is wrong? You can worry about the real world after the show.