Pregaming for film class like

We’ve already seen two brave souls attend their FroSci lecture drunk, but what happens when another baby Bwogger volunteers to attend film class high? Read about their Thursday morning Vertigo and close encounter with a professor below!

As I sat in Butler late Wednesday night finishing a paper that was due in a mere couple of hours, I was met with the sudden desire for action. I have film class for nearly four hours on Thursdays, and I always mean to show up stoned—at least for part of it. Because I have an 8:40 that ends 5 minutes before my film class starts, I never wake up in time (or have my shit together enough) to roll and smoke leisurely before sitting in the Lifetime Screening Room for a good chunk of my day. However, I decided that this Thursday would be my chance to give it a go. I left my post on Butler 3 and made my way upstairs, where I locked myself in a single-occupancy bathroom and rolled a spliff to be used in the morning. With this extreme element of planning and preparation, I was sure that everything would be a breeze.

I dipped out of my 8:40 class a bit early to catch up with a pal/fellow Film classmate in Riverside (smoking in a dorm isn’t an option when your RA lives next to you and has no chill). Spliff in tow, I made the treacherous walk through snow and ice before eventually deciding to just light up under the scaffolding on Claremont. After about 10-15 minutes on the street, my friend and I made our way to Dodge, where I heard we would be watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

I was feeling sufficiently high, so I decided to sit in the back row to avoid closely interacting with my professor (in hindsight, this was an unnecessary precaution because my professor is the coolest guy/the screening room is too dark to make eye contact with anyone). My professor walked in late looking very disoriented, and as he stood behind his lecturing podium he stated that Thursday’s class would make for “an exciting and disturbing day.” Exciting + Disturbing + Decently High Student = not the best combination.

My body was feeling pretty relaxed, but my thoughts were all over the place. My professor seemed to be saying a million words per minute, and everything he talked about appeared incredibly profound. I was so shocked by his lecture that I turned to the stranger next to me and said something along the lines of, “He [referring to our Professor] just said so many words so quickly that people literally spend their entire lives thinking about!!” I think I was referring to the fact that my Professor said the words “Freudian” “Feminist” and “Orientalist” in succession, but the person next to me didn’t seem to grasp the magnitude of the situation (replying to my statement with only a dismissive head nod).

After about an hour and a half of lecturing and watching movie clips, it is standard practice for my class to adjourn for a 10-15 minute break before beginning a full-length film. During break, I feverishly snacked on chocolate while attempting to converse with my sober classmates. It was during this conversation when the unthinkable happened… My professor entered the hallway (which is #RARE since he always remains in the screening room during break), stood directly across from me, looked into my eyes/soul, and asked me what I thought of one of the serious, racially-charged movie clips he had showed us earlier. My professor looked WAY different up close than he usually does while lecturing in the dimly-lit screening room, and he kept making these weird facial contortions. Still high, I blankly stared at him for what seemed like an eternity through my barely-open, red-tinted eyes (I forgot to bring eye drops), and then I began to laugh uncontrollably. I had to walk away before I made more of a fool of myself. Luckily some of my classmates around me were able to answer the question that he posed, but my initial desire to avoid my professor on all accounts was not met.

The class proceeded as planned, and we did end up watching Hitchcock’s Vertigo. I guess this was the part of the day that was prefaced as “disturbing,” because watching Vertigo while baked really freaked me out… so much so that I closed my eyes and ended up dozing for about 20 minutes. I think watching Vertigo sober is freaky enough, so I feel that my reaction was justified.

When I woke up from my brief nap, I was sober, tired, and slightly confused. Showing up high to film was definitely an interesting experience, and I feel like it went really well (except for the moment when I blatantly laughed in my professor’s face and potentially ruined any future chance of serious interaction). I hope to do it again sometime after Spring Break, and perhaps it will be another exciting (sans disturbing) adventure.

Not your average film class professor via Shutterstock