Watched a movie tonight called The Fountain. Quite an interesting movie; it's a fantasy / mixed with reality story dealing with life, love, death, and the afterlife. The main character is a scientist who is looking to find the cure to cancer. He is hoping to find a way to successfully remove tumors mainly because his beloved wife has cancer and is dying from it. He wants to find the cure to save her. She is in the last stages, and has, unlike him, slowly come to terms with her own death. She has spent time writing a novel that originally starts with the Spanish inquisition and eventually becomes a search for the Tree of Life. This Tree was hidden by God from Mankind after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and were banished from Eden. Supposedly, the Mayans knew the location of the Tree, and the Spanish conquistador was sent there to find it, and bring back the "fountain" for everlasting youth and life. This story is intertwined with the current age story of the researcher (Hugh Jackman) and his wife (Rachel Weisz), who are also the conquistador and queen of Spain. I won't spoil the ending by saying anymore, but I liked the movie and how it dealt with the subject matter of death. I think this is something we all need to think about, to understand and to come to terms with. It makes living and life itself seem all the more precious, and more alive too, if death is not something to be afraid of. The movie's not all about death, there's also enjoying and living life, and loving and be loved. It's a pretty good movie.
It's hard saying goodbye. A good friend of mine is leaving Duke to return to Paris. He was fed up with the physics program here, and after securing a position in France, decided to return home. It's unfortunate that the department here could not do more to help, as he was genuinely bright; unfortunately he was suffering from depression, probably induced by the stresses of the PhD program as well as the dull boring city of Durham. In general how does one say goodbye? You don't really, especially if you're good friends. You just end up saying hello less often. At least that's my take. Unfortunately, more on goodbyes, it's goodbye to Duke's NCAA hopes for this year. We were outplayed by LSU. Sure the refs were really not entirely fair (from our point of view of course), but they closed our top scorer down. It was a fun run, and I enjoyed watching them play, especially since I thought they played such great team basketball, but it's over. Such a somber posti...
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