Film 88 (Pretty Persuasion) and a Hospital Visit

Monday night I was relaxing after an easier return to school from the weekend that was a welcome short vacation after a very long week, dealing with student's escalating behavior throughout the entire week. It was easier because something had just been working better internally within the classroom. Perhaps it was the fact that I shaved my 3 month-old beard in front of the school and now I looked like a "professional." Perhaps it's because it's almost April and the students are maturing. Perhaps it's my consistency of being their teacher every day which has finally kicked in.

Then Tuesday morning hit and a wash of unhealthiness hit me very abruptly. I got a severe case of "swimmer's ear" (or so I thought). I was sitting in a meeting and all of a sudden it felt like my ear had imploded inward. I couldn't hear people to the left of me, I started to feel my body go entirely weak, my equilibrium was off kilter and I felt like a couldn't move, if I did I was going to fall to the floor (embarrassingly, in front of my colleagues). I did everything I could to just let the wave pass over me but nothing seemed to be helping. My head felt like it was going to explode and yet fall off my neck at the same time. I felt more than dizzy and lightheaded. I was sweating profusely and felt really hot. I was shaking all over, rather uncontrollably. And all of this came on suddenly, for a very healthy 31 year old guy, like myself. I didn't know what to do, but I knew it wasn't normal. So, I called for our nurse  and she checked my vital signs. My blood pressure was a skyrocketing 158/90! She wanted me out of school and to go see someone. But I couldn't for two reasons: 1) I had a classroom full of kids and no sub plans and 2) I couldn't move, I was that weak. I tried to get out of my chair and made it about an inch.

So, they called the paramedics, much to my chagrin, because quite honestly, that's not the kind of attention I enjoy and I knew I wouldn't have the money to pay for such an expense. I wanted this wave to pass over me. But, alas, they called and I was wheeled out on a stretcher and made the short, quick trip to Maine Med. I lucky had my father there and a great friend/colleague meet me there in the ER, where I stayed from 10-5p. I had CAT scans done, blood drawn, the whole 9 yards.

What I discovered: the CAT scan revealed some kind of growth (fatty tissue of some sort) on the frontal lobe of my brain, not too concerning but a potential problem! Yay! And something wrong with my thyroid, both of which need to be followed up with a doctor.

This kind of stuff never really happens to me, like I said, I'm a rather healthy person. I go to the gym regularly, I eat moderately healthy, but I have been prone to a few headaches and sinus issues that knock me out. I threw up a few times between the ambulance ride and the hospital bed (again, something I hate and very rarely do). It was a miserable experience, thinking there was something seriously wrong with me and not exactly finding any "Real" and concrete answers. My body is still weak and my head still doesn't feel as if it is on exactly straight. I'd love to have clearer answers, but that's the medical field for you, I suppose.
So, here I sit, feeling a bit helpless and weak, trying to gain my strength. Meanwhile I have a class of kiddos who is probably falling apart due to the changes they've already gone experienced throughout the year.
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Pretty Persuasion
Starring Evan Rachel Wood, James Woods, Ron Livingston

"Pretty Persuasion" is the kind of movie that "Mean Girls" probably wishes it could have been.
Evan Rachel Wood plays this evil, popular girl that is every bit vindictive and vengeful and conniving as she is beautiful and temptress. Her father, played by James Woods, is just as despicable as a film character could get and helps explain a lot of why Wood's character is the way she is, but still. "It all starts at home" has never wrung so truer than here in this movie, with Woods' father-figure swearing and being misogynist to the nth degree and telling extremely racist jokes, all in front of his daughter (and young wife/step-mother). It is very clear that Wood's female character has learned a lot from her father, and that he has not been the best role model for his daughter.

Wood plays Kimberly Joyce, a very popular girl at a private, prestigious high school where the girls all where those typical school-girl outfits that just incite carnal dreams in the men who encounter them (apparently). In this case, it is Ron Livingston, who plays the drama coach and English teacher, who's flaws are seen by Kimberly Joyce and exposed because she feels slighted by him. "Hell hath no fury like a teenage girl scorned!" She will fuck with you and your livelihood as best as she can. And Kimberly does just that, concocted a detailed story that Livingston's character sexual harassed her and a couple of her friends after school. Of course, the allegations of sexual molestation are not taken lightly. Livingston's (the teacher) loses his job, his marriage takes quite a hit, and the case becomes a TV news sensation. Jane Krakowski plays a bizarre, lesbian-esque sensationalizing TV reporter that covers the story as it unfolds and ends up a part of the satire this rather serious-comedy begins to address. I'm not quite sure if the film is supposed to be a serious look at the sensationalization of such cases (which who can we blame other than the media for such a thing) or if it is supposed to be a comedy of errors (much like "Mean Girls" was, thanks to the excellent writing of Tina Fey, who does so well to make herself the butt of several jokes in that movie). This movie is so much more than just a dissection of mean girls that everyone meets in high school though. It's about the bystanders (like Kimberly Joyce's BBF, whom she actually has it out for from the beginning of her hatched plan, which you'll discover in the climaxing scenes...but also an immigrant Arab teenage girl who becomes a "friend" to Joyce, but also a victim in her own right).

Your emotions are toyed with the entire time, because you want to laugh one minute, but then you feel a sense of outrage the next minute. It seems like the writers did not know exactly what they wanted to get from the script as they wrote it. If it was a satire, it could have worked. If it was a serious piece on a serious subject matter, it could have worked. But mixed together it gives you a really false sense of assurance for what you are watching.

The saving grace is Evan Rachel Woods. She is a great character actress. Never has a popular bombshell in the main character role been so despicable and evil all rolled into one great package of a female specimen as she is played here by E.R. Wood.

If you don't believe me, watch this film and try not to be enthralled by her abilities to make you hate her. Then, you can also watch the film "Thirteen" (another very realistic look at what it is to be a teenage girl). I fell for her, though, in "Across the Universe."