Äideistä parhain (Mother of Mine)

What a spectacular movie in every way! I loved the views of the open rolling Swedish hillsides and the winter scenes shot amongst the slender grey-white Finnish birch trees. Color was used to great effect to create atmosphere and also to delineate the past from the present; interestingly, the present was filmed in black and white and the past was filmed in color.

I chose this movie because I like good movies and I also like listening to foreign sounds. I also find it interesting to see what different countries might consider important to their history and culture. Mother of Mine takes place in Finland and Sweden during World War II. During the War, Finland fought off Russian invasion and while this was happening, some of the Finnish children were sent to neighboring countries and placed in foster homes in order to protect them from harm. As can be imagined, many of the children were separated from their parents unwillingly. A young boy, Eero Lahti, struggles with being uprooted from his homeland and leaving his mother behind while adapting to a new way of life and foster mother, Signe Jönsson. In turn, Signe must learn to deal with issues from her past in order to fully accept Eero into her life.

The Results Are In

I'm just about recovered from the stresses of this past semester. I was really happy to find that I didn't do as badly as I thought this semester:

Gothic Art (A)
Early Greek Art (A)
Italian Renaissance and Baroque Architecture (A)
Women and the Law (B)

I was not very optimistic about Early Greek Art and I was a bit more optimistic in Women and Law, but I guess it all worked out in the end. Terror always strikes around finals.

I took Women and the Law to fulfill an elective requirement as well as to get a feel for what it would be like to study law since it was one of my career options after graduation. Although studying appellate cases is interesting, I don't think that I would be satisfied with being a lawyer. At this point, I am even more certain that I would like to continue my education in Medieval Studies.

In order to further that goal, I'm hoping to take the GRE exam this summer. I have not touched mathematics for many years now, so I will need to start brushing up on it soon!

Finals are Finally Over!

I'm so relieved that finals are over...at least for this semester. I'm looking forward to reading some books I have picked out for summer reading:

Paganism & Christianity -- 100-425 CE, MacMullen and Lane
Warriors of God, James Reston, Jr.
The Mongols, Morgan
The Cult of the Saints, Peter Brown
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen
The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand
Lost Scriptures -- Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament, Ehrman
Presentation S.O.S. -- From Presentation to Persuation in 9 Easy Steps, Mark Wiskup
The Crystal Cave -- Book One of the Arthurian Saga, Mary Stewart
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Montaillou, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
Selected Poems, W.B. Yeats
The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels
Inventing the Middle Ages, Norman F. Cantor
Saladin, Lyons and Jackson
Brisingr, Paolini

I wonder if I can get through them all... I got most of the books through trading books that I didn't want through BookMooch. Unfortunately I didn't have time to read them because of school, but now I'm going to indulge in books I want to read instead of being made to read assigned books. Yay!