Donald Draper is my hero.

This summer, I watched an incredible amount of a show called Mad Men, about the lives of the employees of Madison Avenue ad agencies. When I came back to school, I discovered that a good friend of mine also follows Mad Men religiously, and we began a dialogue about who are favorite characters are. In the program, the characters live lives of incredible excess, drinking, smoking, and having meaningless and/or adulterous sex constantly, with a few notable exceptions. It was then that I realized that some of the most interesting characters in the show were the ones that, for one reason or another(or for many, many, many, reasons) I hated as people. It makes for good drama, if not for a uncluttered, unencumbered, happy life.

So, for the sake of entertainment, I wish that I could say that I am more evil, and that unethical Don Draper is my hero. For sure, I have: Lied, cheated, stolen, manipulated, and lived under the thumb of vice- but I've always felt bad about it afterwords, and more often than not, try not to make the same mistakes and to make amends for the ones I commit. After that, I will also go on record to say that Donald Draper is a fucking asshole and I can't wait for him to die of lung cancer/liver failure/become incarcerated and become somebody's bitch in prison, but I hope that happens in Season 20 or so. What I'm leading to is this; I get a huge amount of pleasure by immersing myself in literature, and feel immense satisfaction in reading about interesting characters, whether they are like minded, or completely alien.

My academic focus is English teaching, and I'm really glad I've chosen that because I love talking about my feelings about characters and plotlines(see above) and really, really love hearing what other people have to say about them. One of my philosophies is this: what you take out of literature is not complete until you have shared what you think, and have, in turn, listened to what other people have to say about it. For this reason, I can seem bipolar in class; one day animated and talkative, the next brooding and silent.

I chose this class because I really want to be able to defie the idea of "empty" rhetoric. I hate chasing tails, wild goose chases, and manipulation, and I want to recognize this in my own writing as well as others writing.

Other than that, I'm a deadly ruthless Risk player. Go on, pick up the glove; I double dog dare you.

Cheers!
Tim Boo