With the advent of another Office season, friends of mine have sparked the question: “What’s going to happen between Pam and Jim?” I understand this wondering, considering we’ve been waiting for three seasons for them to have a moment in time where they could actually date. After an engagement, a relationship, a relationship after breaking off an engagement, and a move, our beloved Pam and Jim seem to both finally know what they want: each other.
After so many Ross and Rachel type relationships (10 episodes), I wonder why we keep watching. Why do we always hold out for them to get together? If I told my best friends that I was in love with someone who is engaged, I doubt there response would be “BFD! Engaged ain’t married!” And there certainly wouldn’t be any running down the aisle interruptions on the wedding day, exclaiming that no, in fact I could not hold my peace-he should not get married. It all just seems so dramatic (case in point, right? We wouldn’t actually watch television that was boring.)
But it also is archetypal. Most English teachers I know would argue that we think stories are good because they satisfy what we already know to be true in our minds. In other words, we expect certain things to happen because they are so engrained. These stories may have different twists and certainly different settings, but there are only really two types of the love story:
1. Boy and Girl can’t be together for whatever reason. This story capitalizes on the ‘forbidden love’ aspect, where we find our classic love stories like Romeo and Juliet (family), Aladdin and Jasmine (social statuses), Pam and Jim (engagement/another relationship).
2. Boy and Girl start off hating one another and then eventually fall in love. Elizabeth and Darcy, Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly, Lightning McQueen and Girl Car (they train us early.)
Yes, our Pam and Jim story is the retelling of a love story that we’re already familiar with. And while we constantly hope for them to be together, I have some bad news-normally that particular archetypal love story focuses more on when they’re not together or them actually wishing they were together than them actually being together. It’s not like number two where we gradually see people move closer and closer together until they are in a relationship. We would rather spend time arguing that they should be together or that they really do like each other. But what happened after Ross and Rachel finally got together? Inevitably, something would happen to drag it out longer. These stories come from the same line as Romeo and Juliet: they’re a bit, if not completely, tragic. They are the epitome of reminders that life isn’t fair.
You have been officially forewarned. My guess is that it will be four episodes max until something happens with Pam and Jim that causes one of them to question the relationship. Either this questioning will continue or there will be a huge miscommunication and things won’t be ending happily by the end of the season. Don’t get me wrong, there could be a hilarious hour-long wedding episode, but it won’t be until season 8.
September 29, 2007
September 6, 2007
Snapshots
Life, lately, has been categorized by moments that I will never forget. Snapshots of life, if you will. Moments frozen in time-a Polaroid photograph that can be held in my hand to revisit the scene that is captured before me. The interesting thing is, I don’t control when the picture is taken; it just happens. So my life seems to be categorized by the random Polaroids that are tacked or taped to my wall, skewed ever so slightly. Memories I know I will never forget.
Brian Hartley telling our Foundations class that theologians are poets and singers. Captured in this one statement is the truth that theologians don’t just capture the words of the faith, but they’re caught up in the ‘doing’ of the faith as well-they’re singing, they’re speaking those words. This has great meaning for me because I fit into the category of theology poets. But it’s one thing just to write, and another to speak forth those words, to sing them to other people.
President Mannoia telling us at the Cor 401 retreat that he feels like he has half a heart and half a brain without Ellen. They truly did become one person, one flesh. Then he read the vows she wrote for him. In a gruff, deliberative voice he said “….and she kept her word.”
Sitting in Snyder 104 with all the freshman for Environmental Science, listening to them talk about the things I talked about three years ago-things I wanted to talk about because I was worried about them. How hard would those drawings in Western Civ be graded?
I’m in a group for that class and it’s so evident that it takes time not only for freshman to be ‘greenville-ized’ (and I mean that in the best way), but it also takes time for them to adjust to the college work load. I didn’t realize that working in groups and writing papers had become so commonplace until I sat with people who had not done that on the college level yet.
Walking back up to Tower as the sun sets and the orange light streams across campus. Being really excited to go to St. Meinrad’s in October. In anticipation for the colors of fall. Realizing in a second that the familiarity of Greenville wasn’t always there and it’s not always going to be, and in that next second realizing it was my last year as I walked across campus.
These snapshots will, inevitably, continue to accumulate on my wall as my mind continues to realize that it’s my last year as a student at Greenville College. I can only hope that I will be present enough not to miss them.
Brian Hartley telling our Foundations class that theologians are poets and singers. Captured in this one statement is the truth that theologians don’t just capture the words of the faith, but they’re caught up in the ‘doing’ of the faith as well-they’re singing, they’re speaking those words. This has great meaning for me because I fit into the category of theology poets. But it’s one thing just to write, and another to speak forth those words, to sing them to other people.
President Mannoia telling us at the Cor 401 retreat that he feels like he has half a heart and half a brain without Ellen. They truly did become one person, one flesh. Then he read the vows she wrote for him. In a gruff, deliberative voice he said “….and she kept her word.”
Sitting in Snyder 104 with all the freshman for Environmental Science, listening to them talk about the things I talked about three years ago-things I wanted to talk about because I was worried about them. How hard would those drawings in Western Civ be graded?
I’m in a group for that class and it’s so evident that it takes time not only for freshman to be ‘greenville-ized’ (and I mean that in the best way), but it also takes time for them to adjust to the college work load. I didn’t realize that working in groups and writing papers had become so commonplace until I sat with people who had not done that on the college level yet.
Walking back up to Tower as the sun sets and the orange light streams across campus. Being really excited to go to St. Meinrad’s in October. In anticipation for the colors of fall. Realizing in a second that the familiarity of Greenville wasn’t always there and it’s not always going to be, and in that next second realizing it was my last year as I walked across campus.
These snapshots will, inevitably, continue to accumulate on my wall as my mind continues to realize that it’s my last year as a student at Greenville College. I can only hope that I will be present enough not to miss them.
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