First Impressions

First impressions are silly little things. You can't possibly know a person after meeting them one time. You know that. I know that. It doesn't stop your brain from filing away the supposed personality of said person FOR ALL TIME, though.

Brains cause us nothing but pain and suffering. Why we even use them is a mystery to me...

Anyway, we open Looking for Alaska and are immediately sucked into the high-thrills life of Miles Halter: the curious teenager who accepts the dismal turnout to his going-away party without wanting to kill the no-show invitees. As he says, he's not disappointed because his low expectations are met. Still, don't you find it strange that he doesn't seem to care one bit? Proof that nobody cares about you enough to wish you goodbye?

Then again, you'd have a heart attack if you were perpetually surprised by your lack of friends.

Which leads us to the question of why - why doesn't he have any friends in Florida? He seems like your average nerdy kid. Cynics may say it's for the greater good of the plot. I think it's for the sole reason that his Floridian public school isn't his "Great Perhaps" - there's nothing there for him; how can he be invested in a place of absolutely no personal importance? When you make friends, you're giving a part of yourself away. You're saying, "Here I am! You can take this little piece of me and do with it what you want!" And if they're school friends, they're going to take that little piece of you and bury it in the fibers of that school whether you like it or not.

Once Miles arrives at Culver Creek, he wastes no time in embodying my thoughts before most social outings: planning the ideal outcome of the forthcoming event out in your head. O Miles, how truly thou doth speak. Like the trailer for most summer movies, the anticipation is so much better than the real thing.

Then, because he is hot, (wordplay wordplay hahaha!), he takes a shower, like all cool kids . [That was entirely too many commas for one sentence.]

Cool. I am cool. I am MILES [expletive] HALTER and I do what I want, goddammit!

In sashays Chip Martin (henceforth "The Colonel"), whom I have always pictured as black. It wasn't until my second reading of the book that I realized that his race is never explicitly stated. This leads me to wonder why I contemplated his skin color at all and my brain once again directs me to our first impression of the Colonel: he's "short and muscular with a shock of brown hair." OHAI, first subconscious clue - brown. I don't know what this says about me, but every time a character is described as having a hair color that is dark, the movie screen in my head gives 'em dark skin.

It's the same thing with those "tall, dark, and handsome" characters. You may be referring to his hair color, but I always envision a blonde girl leading around an Eastern European man tilting his hat to cast his body into shadow.

Maybe that's strange since people often color characters with familiar traits. To be honest, I usually picture characters as being light skinned unless it's explicitly otherwise stated. (I am Polish-American on one side and English on the other, so I am pretty damn close to actually being the color white.) But... that's probably not a good habit since people aren't homogeneous.

I don't know. Race is a touchy subject. I'm going to stop talking about it now.

The Colonel is one of my favorite characters. He reminds me of Oscar the Grouch - he's, well, grouchy, but in an endearing way. And he gives Miles (henceforth "Pudge") an excellent nickname! IRONY FOR DA LULZ.


Well, this was a shamefully shit first (second) post. SORRY. What can ya do? ("Stop procrastinating," answers the voice in my head.)

I’m trying to find the right balance between straight up discussing the book and relating my own forays into human civilization. I don’t want to be like, “well, the first letter on page 32 reminds me of the time when I was asked – nay, begged – to model by no less than fourteen agencies within a time span of three hours.” Whatever my flaws may be, I’m not that unabashedly narcissistic. (And also because the only time I've ever been asked to model was at the age of eight as my mom and I were walking past a vendor on the second floor of the mall. That, dear readers, is what we call a scam.) At the same time, people don’t often like reading other people’s dissertations about The Wonders of the Elusive Motif in this Very Important Book that You Don’t Understand. Especially not when there are 30 dissertations*. All in blog form.

Of course, I did just come up with that last paragraph while trying to establish “trust eyes” with myself in front of a full-length mirror, so perhaps I’m not an expert when it comes to not be egotistical…

*I mean “dissertation” in the “formal piece of writing way,” not the “needed to obtain a doctorate degree” way; as far as I know, I am not enrolled in graduate school.