I have this semi-new hobby where I go to the bookstore and pick up random magazines. Today, N took one magazine from the pile and started reading it. After a while, I noticed him giving me weird looks.

“I have no idea you felt this way,” he finally said. “Why did you never mention anything?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“This!” he said and gave me the magazine that turned out to be unexpectedly radically pro-Palestinian for our region.

For the next two hours, I had to be providing the pro-Israel point of the view, feeling like a Netanyahu mouthpiece because N suffers when he can’t hear all available points of view.

I’m doing something deeply wrong in my life because it is abnormal that one should have so much grading. I now even have a teaching assistant but still, there is a mountain of grading.

My students definitely are from a different generation. I have failed at explaining why “Ben-Beley” is not a typical European name. This name was used in an Enlightenment-era work of literature, and it is crucial for the understanding of the text that Ben-Beley is an outsider to Spain.

So we watched Gone Girl last night. It’s definitely watchable and a good way to pass time. Of course, the actors were completely wooden and the extreme luxury of the interiors made zero sense within the plot. The 39-year-old protagonist was, for some reason, made 4 years younger. The screenplay was written by the book’s author, so it’s hardly a mistake.

In the movie, Amy’s rage is even more baseless than in the book. She is dehumanized and presented as a complete psychotic in the movie. Still, the audience identified with her. When Nick hit Amy at the end of the movie, there was a collective gasp in the audience. If you watch the movie, you will see that there is a much more hardcore scene of violence that didn’t elicit such an emotional response.

I overheard two young women saying that “this is like the best movie ever” at the end of the show. I’d been worried that Hollywood would attach a happy ending to the film but what I didn’t realize is that the audience sees the ending as already very happy. The women in the audience seemed completely identified with Amy. As I suspected, this is definitely a cultural phenomenon.