Day 7 since I was injected with the J&J vaccine
I watched this film for my French Cinema class…
4/15/21. Thursday
8:00-8:30 – I set my alarm for 8:00 but I lay in bed for another 30 minutes.
8:30 –9:00 - I’m up and I weigh 102.5. My eye is very red and throbbing so I start the course of eyedrops that I found last night with plans to administer them more intentionally – 4x a day.
Downstairs and I say good morning to the dog. She pooped near the front door. This hasn’t happened in awhile and I’m irritated. I rub her tummy three times, she grabs her tennis ball, and we go outside. She goes potty and I unclog the fountain and do some light sweeping. We return inside – cheese for her, coffee for me. I go upstairs.
9:00-10:15 – Shower. Lotion. Covid-19 uniform. Light make-up.
10:30-2:00 - B. arrives for “patio coffee”, with a croissant and coffee for me and a coffee and something??? for himself. Appreciate it!
We talk politics.
2:00 – 3:30 - B. leaves and I put in an eye drop and heat up my leftover chicken tequila alfredo fettucine, then start watching the rest of Divines for my French Cinema assignment. The fettucine still holds up and is delicious. What can I say? Today is a carb day. I finish Divines and take notes while I watch.
That was an incredible film! I saw it, previously, in my French 01 class , in 2019, but forgot most of the significant scenes.
The film begins with a montage featuring Dounia and Maimouna [two females] engaging in various activities so the viewer understands their deep bond. Dounia is a white, Romainian teenager and Maimouna is an obese, black, Muslim. Some of the activities in the montage occur in “the Roma Camp”, where Dounia lives. 12,000+ Romani have immigrated from Romania and Bulgaria and live in these slums scattered throughout France, where there is no running water and limited electricity. Dounia lives here, in extreme poverty, and is fixated on money to the exclusion of all else, except Maimouna, her best friend and the person she loves most in the world.
Dounia’s obsession with money is made apparent in a powerful scene featuring Dounia and her teacher in which her teacher, during a mock exercise, tries to teach Dounia how to perform as a receptionist, in preparation for an exam. Dounia, who is not at all interested in living a mediocre existence, is not taking the exercise seriously, when her teacher tells Dounia she will never make anything of her life. Dounia explodes and berates her instructor for living the life of a teacher, condemning her middle-class status. She drops out of school, claiming she will make more money than anyone in the class has ever seen. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the film as we learn that Dounia’s primary goal in life is to acquire as much money as possible.
As the movie unfolds, Dounia is intrigued by a female drug dealer, Rebecca, who has become empowered through crime and money. Eventually, Rebecca puts Dounia and Maimouna to work, cutting black tar heroin, siphoning gas, and dealing drugs. Maimouna, who attends mosque regularly and has a curfew, does not appear cut out for this lifestyle, but willingly follows Dounia’s lead in all of these enterprises.
Eventually, Rebecca sees that Dounia is actually a great beauty and convinces her to rob a competitor drug-dealer of the $100,000 he has stored in his home. This involves Dounia catching the drug dealer’s eye at a club and then going home with him, which she manages to do. When Dounia thinks the drug dealer is taking a shower, she searches his home, looking for the money. Unfortunately, he catches her and a violent fight occurs, with Dounia ultimately prevailing and stealing his money. The next day, Dounia is at the airport, leaving town with most of the $100,000, having left some of it for her mother, when she gets a call from Rebecca informing Dounia that she is holding Maimouna for ransom and will kill her if Dounia fails to return the money.
It is in the last 20 minutes of the film that we see Dounia choose Maimouna over money, with no hesitation. She immediately leaves the airport, with most of the money in hand, and arrives at a storage shed where Maimouna is being held by Rebecca and her partner, Samir. Rebecca, enraged that some of her money is missing, pours gas on the floor, pulls out a lighter, and threatens to set the shack on fire if Dounia does not tell her where the rest of the money is. Somehow, Rebecca is jostled, drops the lighter, and the shack ignites. Maimouna is too large to escape through a small window, but encourages Dounia to leave the burning building. Dounia refuses to leave and is willing to burn to death with Maimouna, until Maimouna shoves her through the window and Dounia is pulled out by a friend on the outside.
It is at this moment that we, as the viewer, realize that Dounia, who is willing to die with her friend, has come to the understanding that Maimouna is the most important thing in her life and money no longer matters. Unfortunately, this understanding comes too late as Maimouna burns to death in the fire. In one of the last scenes, we see that Rebecca made it out of the shack alive, most likely with the money, and Samir is en route to steal the remainder from Dounia’s mother. Dounia is left with nothing and the movie serves as a cautionary tale for those who put wealth above all else.
Wow!
Again, more overwhelming fatigue and I just have to lie down. Is this a J&J residual side effect? My eye is throbbing – I can’t tell if this is eye strain due to watching a movie and note-taking or if a blood clot has shot to my head and my eye and brain are about to explode.
3:30-4:30 – Nap
4:30-5:45 – Blog post
-L. leaves for work.
5:45-6:00 – Class starts in 15 minutes but I set up everything last night so there is not much to do. I check the Discussion Board and make sure class content is ready.
6:00 – Tonight is a “combo” and the students have to listen to a combined lecture, with an embedded podcast. It’s two hours long, followed by the documentary, then the video quiz.
-I post the lecture.
-I start working on my French Cinema paper. Part 1 is a summary of Divines and how it was received after it’s original release.
6:30-7:15 – I take the dog for a walk. I said this earlier, but we’re at the point where she doesn’t want to come in from the walk. She just wants to keep going and tries to resist coming inside. I listen to Air Talk.
No gardening today – there is not much to do in the yard.
-I send an email blast, reminding the students that we do not have class next week.
-French Cinema paper.
-I take a paper attendance. Everyone is here today. Finally, the D and F students are gone – only one remains and it is unclear why she didn’t drop as I notified her several times that she was getting an F in the class. The OSD-TBI student is gone, thank god.
-I post the link to the documentary.
-French Cinema paper. My eye hurts when I look up or down and is still very red. Another eyedrop and some Advil.
-I post the link to the video quiz.
-French Cinema paper.
-L. returns from work, having just seen my doppelganger walking the dog. It takes awhile for her to recover when she sees that the dog and I are actually in the house. Nope – wasn’t me. L. is freaked out.
9:00-9:30 – I finish Part I of the paper and check for edits. Class is over, but I hang around for another 30 minutes in case the students have questions.
9:30-10:00 – Part 2 of the French Cinema paper involves a compare-and-contrast between Divines, La Haine, and Les Mis. My teacher gave us several prompts to choose from, but I decide to create my own prompt and start jotting down a few ideas pertaining to the portrayal of female characters in each movie so I can jump right in tomorrow and get started.
I’m experiencing eye strain right now and my eye feels like it’s pulsating. More Advil and I call it a day [a “work” day, that is]
10:00-11:00 – Kitchen duty. I make my coffee for tomorrow, take the dog out, and lock up.
11:00-12:00-I do an Insanity – Cardio Recovery workout.
Recover – glass of champagne and I read a Money Diary.
12:00-1:00 – It’s almost bedtime and I’m afraid to go to sleep. What if I have a stroke? I’m experiencing anxiety, so I have more champagne as I listen to What a Day and do my nighttime routine.
The Advil wore off and my eye is throbbing again. Another eye drop.
I leave my bedroom door unlocked in case L. needs to render aid.
Bed.