Anticipation

In all the excitement about seeing Dr. Deangelis, I almost completely forgot to write about a movie we saw last week, “Gloria.” The movie received a 98% approval rating among the critics on Rotten Tomatoes (100% by the top critics). My main hesitation was that the movie is in Spanish with subtitles. My reading is getting better, but speed and accuracy are still issues, and as is the case with so many things, stress does not help. But we read about the story and thought we would give it a try.

Fortunately, the movie does not have a tremendous amount of dialogue. A lot of it is really a visual experience. Gloria is a divorced woman with two grown children who have moved away. She has a rather boring job, and in the evenings she tries to meet men at social dance clubs for single adults. She meets a man named Rodolfo, and although they embark on a passionate relationship, he is unfortunately having a difficult time disentangling himself from the woman to whom he had been married and his grown children from that marriage. As expected, the relationship is not sustainable. Ultimately, Gloria finds the strength within herself to move forward in a positive way.

The subtitles were something of a struggle but I was able to understand what was going on. So there is some hope for the future, and I am going to keep working on my reading.

In 1975, Barry and I were both in graduate programs at the University of Rochester, where we had both done our undergraduate work. He had started graduate school two years earlier and had selected an academic advisor and embarked on a research project in his laboratory. But that advisor then accepted a position in London. So for a period of time that semester, Barry and I thought we might be moving to London for a while, and became instantly interested in all things British. I was in a graduate program in health services research, and I remember one of my professors told me that there was a term for this: anticipatory socialization.

I suppose it is in the spirit of anticipatory socialization that I have written so much about St. John in my recent postings. Here is a really neat video montage of St. John, followed by an old Carly Simon song that these thoughts brought to mind.

Fortunately, there does not seem to be any snow predicted for this weekend. While there is something to be said for literally leaving the cold and snow behind, St. John is only sunny and warm if you can actually get there!

Love,

Rebecca