Classes, money, and realizations

First, a class update. I am no longer in the technology class, so no more EduBlogging. I am, however, in a multicultural education class, whose assignments keep telling me to post something as my status update on Facebook or on Twitter or to text my friends. Creative...but my classes don't usually invade my Facebook life.

Well, but I have added professors as friends. Weird.

Anyway. The week has included several monumental moments for me.

First: the US Mint makes fake money.

Have you seen the newer one dollar coins? I don't know if it was just a PR failure, but I had no idea about this program when it started--the Presidential $1 Coin Program. Though I sure did hear a lot about the state quarter thing when it was starting, and when the dollar coin was introduced, and even about the revamping of dollar bills, I never heard anything about this. The first time I got a hold of one of the presidential $1 coins (I think as change for pizza at high school, if I remember correctly) I thought some dumb kid had given the lunch lady fake money that she had bought into, and now was giving me fake money back as change.

The design--especially the Statue of Liberty back--it looks fake and cheap. I bought a snack out of a vending machine this week and got gold $1 coins as change, and initially had the same reaction. Wait, this isn't real money!

And other coins, too--after completing the state quarter thing (last year, right?), the Mint is now starting an "America The Beautiful" quarter series--again, going through all the states and territories (kudos to them for including American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands--places I didn't even know about until 10th grade, but that's a whole other issue), depicting nature scenes. There's currently in circulation a penny with a shield on the reverse and also four different pennies with scenes from four stages of Lincon's life: birth and early childhood in Kentucky, formative years in Indiana, professional life in Illinois, and presidency in Washington, DC. "Westward Journey" nickle series with five different nickles with a buffalo, the Pacific coast, Louisiana Purchase/Peace Medal, a keelboat, and the traditional Monticello. Oh, and there are currently three designs for the reverse of the Sacagawea gold dollar.

I have to admit, I was a fan of the original 50 state series--I have all of them in a book at home (except about five) that I've been collecting for the last ten years. But I think part of my attraction to the program was how it was so new. It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I didn't realize it was just the start of the future of American money. When did our currency come out of novelty shops, anyway? There are so many variations that you can't even tell what's real.

Second: Not everyone likes Minerva Tiechert's paintings

I love Minerva Tiechert's paintings. I'm signed up for a class about appreciating art and museums this term. We meet at the BYU Museum of Art. For our first assignment, we had to go write a response to a work in the museum. I chose The Rug Dealers by Minerva Tiechert, a huge--maybe five feet by ten feet--painting showing two Native Americans holding up woven rugs to sell. There are some cowboys--two Latino, one Anglo--standing on sides of the scene looking. Behind the sellers, a woman is standing and weaving a rug, a child at her side. It's Minerva Tiechert's style--more impressionistic, softer colors, movement--and looks so American, with the Native American designs in the rugs, lots of different cultures and people, an American scene in the American West.

I wrote the paper about it, and the next day at class, we all walked around the museum together, lead by our teacher. She asked us to present the work of art we had written about. We were close to mine, so I said I'd go. I stood up and described the things I just described, and then the teacher started asking the class questions, leading a discussion. She brought up Arnold Friberg, who painted the picture of George Washington kneeling and praying by his horse--and the series of pictures that appear in front of copies of the Book of Mormon. LDS audiences usually like more realistic depictions, she said, and when Friberg's and Tiechert's Book of Mormon paintings were both submitted, Frieberg's were chosen.

This lead into some discussion--several people saying, yes, I like the more realistic Friberg pictures. I don't like the chalky colors and painting style Tiechert uses. Her pictures are vague.... I guess this all just surprised me. I really like Tiechert's paintings. I guess it had honestly never even occurred to me that people might not like them.

Which leads me to realization number three.

Third: Some people think The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is cheesy

Another thing I love: the 1060's movie The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It's French, entirely sung, and sad. I watched it for the first time with my dad, and liked it so much that I bought the soundtrack and, when I was in France, went to Cherbourg and tried to buy an umbrella.

I've moved back into the French House at BYU, where I speak French with my roommates and five days a week all the French House people have dinner together. The other night we were talking about French movies. We had talked about Les Diaboliques and Amélie and I said, do you know The Umbrellas of Cherbourg? Clémence, who's from France, laughed. Christina rolled her eyes. "It's so cheesy," said Clémence.

I still love it. And listen to the music.