A Purposeful Beginning

Let me get the standard blog opening quickly out of the way in order to jump right in with my first proper post:

Hello, and welcome to Cinema &.

Probably like many people, I’ve thought more about starting a blog than actually doing anything about it, but cometh a new year and cometh a new project. This is particularly true for me in 2012 since my graduate studies are out of the way and I want to be mentally engaged enough to avoid being tempted into starting a post-graduate degree. So, a blog it is.

The blog will primarily be about film: the movies I see and think about and those discussed in my classes. I am a high school teacher at a prestigious boarding school in the mountains of Gangwon-Do in South Korea. I mainly teach English literature and composition, but I do make room on my schedule to teach a class or two on introductory film studies (2012 will be the first year the course will be offered for credit, so I had better up my game). Over the past two years I supervised a small film discussion section. December saw those students graduate, and after an embarrassingly tearful (on my part) farewell, I realized how much I would miss sitting with that group, viewing films with them, and sharing reflections and feelings about those films. It is my hope that this blog will be a continuation of those discussions and a way of prolonging and the spirit of that class. So, thank you to: Minju, Oscar, Minsoo, Nyeong, Michael, Taek Yoon, Do June, Hyo Young, Seongmin, and Carla.

This blog is also an extension of something else: eight years ago I started keeping a brief database of every new film I saw. Over 550 movies later, I still keep adding entries. I hope the coming posts here will not more than just the title, director, cast, and my grade for each movie.

Finally, as the name implies, Cinema & will stray away from movies every so often. These diversions are most likely to relate to the literature classes I teach, but don’t be surprised to see the odd post about food or of poetry or short fiction.

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