Da Vinci Code

Have you read the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown? I have and I thought it was fabulous. It's very controversial, but I like it for its adventure story. I know people who won't even read it because it's so inflammatory, but to those people I say: "what are you so afraid of?" Seriously, people who won't read books that dare to question their faith bug me. Are you that afraid that your faith is going to be shaken? Is your faith so delicate that it's going to be rocked off its foundation because of a theory posed in a FICTIONAL book? Yes, the suggestions about Christ put forth in the book are shocking and beyond belief, but it's not like they're new ideas! Besides, I have news for you, history is full of examples of people who have doctored the "truth" to make their side of the story more sympathetic, so the idea that the bible was put together in this way shouldn't really shock anyone. Anyway, I bring up the topic only because the movie based on the book comes out next Friday. I'm planning to see it for sure. Besides the fact that I love Tom Hanks, I've really, really been wanting to see how Hollywood handles aspects of the book. After I read the book the first time I bought the illustrated edition of the book in order to better appreciate all the artwork involved. I was hoping to get some illustrations of other story elements too, but I was disappointed. Now I can't wait to see how everything comes together! And yes, for people who are wondering, I own two copies of the book - the original hardcover and the illustrated edition. The illustrated one never leaves my house, but I've loaned the other one out to half a dozen people already.

In other news, I'm so glad it's the weekend! This past week at work was killer. Then to top it all off, one of my students e-mailed me an essay that I had assigned him on respect. The essay was given as punishment for being very disrespectful. It was a week late. Now, to top it off, I discovered that the essay was completely plagiarized. It was very obvious from the first sentence I read that my student did not write a single word of this essay. So now I have to figure out how to deal with this situation. I'd send him to the director for punishment but as she's likely to just say to him "don't do it again" I'm not inclined to go that route. I've got to come up with something clever or he's not going to learn anything.