So lately I've been starting
So lately I've been starting to think I might want to minor in Sociology. For some odd reason I find it really interesting...
In class our professor asked us how much money he thinks a family needs to make in order to be considered in the top 10% of the United States. Of course being at NYU the perspectives of most of the students was highly skewed and they couldn't believe it when it was "only" about $110,000 a year.
I did some research and in Bothell, where I went to high school the median household income is $40,000... maybe that's why I was surprised at how high it was...
It was one of the few times I've felt out of place at NYU.
Anyway, all this study of different classes and household incomes, population, race, etc. really really interests me for some reason and I'll probably end up taking more sociology courses. To minor in it I need to take an intro course in it (done) and three electives.
For next semester, depending on what's available I'm looking at the following...
Race and Ethnicity
Social Movements, Protest, and Conflict
Sociology of Music, Art, and Literature
Globalization and the Nation-State
hopefully I can squeeze this in...
Woohoo, I just figured out I can major in Film & TV and double minor in Sociology and Fine Arts!
Okay, the above was typed last night but never posted because LJ was being weird.
It's 5:11pm Wednesday now and I've finished three classes one have one more from 6:20 to 8:10. Whew!
Last night I watched Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express which is one of my absolute favorite films. Just outside my top 10 definitely in the top 20 along with In the Mood for Love.
Today at the NYU bookstore in between classes I got a book called Contemporary Korean Cinema: Identity, Culture, Politics. It's very sociological in the way it looks at Korean cinema and I'm enjoying it. Sociology and Korean film in the same book! Woohoo. Hahaha, excuse me for geeking out...
The book is interesting in that it looks at the Korean film industry during some very different periods of time. It deals with the industry or lack thereof when the Japanese had annexed Korea and the various forms of censorship imposed by the Japanese. Then it deals with the cinema of the North and the South after the Korean war and how the two are similar and dissimilar and finally it deals with current Korean cinema. Much of it focuses on how the society portrays itself and how the government and society indirectly censor many of the films, although it's rapidly changing now.
The book is really difficult to read because it uses lots of complex ideas in its interpretation of the films. Lots of marxist ideology mixed with post-modernism, semiotics, hermeneutics, and other ways of looking at art that make my head hurt. I'm slowly making my way through it but I'm finding it rewarding so I'll deal.
One thing about it is that it lists all these old Korean films that are practically impossible for me to get a hold of and were I to get a hold of them I'd have a hard time following some of them possibly.
If I'm ever a succesful filmmaker I'll start an organization that preserves and subtitles old Korean films...
Be back from class soon. bye.
