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“Darling Companion” a Shaggy Dog Story
Jun 16th
“Shaggy Dog Story”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Darling Companion is a pleasant little movie about a simple little subject from the beginning to the end.
Written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, this movie can be added to his other movies, such as the 1981 Body Heat, the 1983 The Big Chill, and the 1991 Grand Canyon, among many others.
It stars Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Dianne Wiest, Richard Jenkins, and Sam Shephard, and it is about a lovable dog that goes missing and all the problems that causes.
When the movie opens, Beth and her daughter Grace are returning home from the airport when Beth orders Grace to stop the car on the freeway, because she saw something on the side of the road.
What Beth saw was a dog, and to make a long story short, after a veterinarian says there is nothing wrong with him that a few good meals and a bath won’t fix, Beth decides to keep the dog and names him Freeway.
Beth tells her reluctant husband, Joseph, “He’s not mine. I’m just going to find him a home.”
Well, you can guess how that works out, can’t you?
Sure enough, a year later, everybody is at the vacation home in the mountains of Beth and Joseph, where Grace is getting married, and Freeway is still a part of the family.
So, Joseph is out in the woods taking Freeway for a walk when Freeway spots a deer and runs off after it.
Freeway doesn’t come back, Beth blames Joseph for losing the dog while Joseph was talking on his phone, and this disrupts everybody’s plans for going back to their homes after the wedding, because now they all decide to stay until Freeway can be found.
Everybody includes Beth and Joseph, Joseph’s sister Penny, Penny’s grown son Bryan and her new boyfriend Russell, a young woman who “sees things,” because her mother was a gypsy and her father was a yogi, and even the local sheriff.
Well, now the story isn’t so much a story about a missing dog, but a story about the relationships of three sets of couples, some good and some not so good.
Darling Companion is like a shaggy dog story, which means that you either enjoyed all the details as it gets to the end or else the end itself was just as enjoyable.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Flagler College faculty-led trip to Costa Rica
Jun 5th
The following is an update on the program from Flagler student Adam Krell who is currently on location with fellow classmates Ana Chambers, Diane Cassidy, Matt Garber, Elijah Hayes, Adrienne Gonzalez, and Stephanie Sweeting.
The program is led by Assistant Professor Agnieszka Johnson.
It is not every day you get on a plane to travel to a different country for five weeks. Upon arriving in the beautiful country of Costa Rica, we were greeted by our host families at the airport, who speak no English. From that point on, it has been non-stop Spanish speaking for all of us. It is truly a rewarding experience watching not only myself, but also my friends grow in the language and culture.
Intercultura School of Languages here in Costa Rica strives to provide full Spanish immersion for students so we can fully develop the skills and techniques required for learning a second language. From the intensive Spanish courses and the homestay experience with our Tico (Costa Rican) family, we are building the confidence needed to speak in Spanish.
Each day we wake up early with the sun and eat breakfast with our host families. We converse about what we have planned and make our way to the school. Spanish class starts at 8:30 a.m. sharp each morning and lasts until 12:30 p.m. with two fifteen minute breaks. After taking an hour to walk around and eat lunch, we either have a Costa Rican cooking class or dance class followed by another class taught by our faculty leader, Professor Aggie Johnson. During the cooking classes, we have learned how to cook several local dishes, like Patacones (smashed plantains that are fried, like chips) with guacamole and beans, biscochos (a Costa Rican corn cookie), and empanadas, all while learning our way around the kitchen speaking Spanish. During our Latin dance class, we learn one of three styles of dance: merengue, salsa or bachata. As we move our hips to the beat, we have fun dancing with each other and a variety of other students who also are attending Intercultura.
Our other class, with Professor Johnson, is a Spanish literature course that will eventually end with each of us writing and reading our own short stories. This class is more challenging, as we come to class and discuss a short story completely in Spanish each day. After class, we head home to eat dinner with our host families and talk about our days. It’s non-stop Spanish speaking until we go to bed.
As we are ending our third week here in Heredia, a suburb of the country’s capital of San José, we have experienced many different adventures. From seeing an active volcano, Póas, visiting a waterfall garden, taking a tour of the coffee plantation Doka (a local company near Heredia), to taking weekend trips to San José, we are not missing out on anything that Costa Rica has to offer.
In the next two weeks we are going white-water rafting on Mount Chirripó, the highest peak in Costa Rica, and making our way to Playa Sámara for a week. There, we will spend the week with another homestay family and attend classes right on the beach. When the week ends, we will make our way back to Heredia for one night and fly back to the United States on June 11.
As the Ticos say here in Costa Rica, ¡Pura Vida! (which translates to “pure life”)
Source: Flagler College