Henry Kraatz's Blog

Late November is an exciting time for me. Not because of the approach of the holidays, but because of the beginning of winter running. (The excessive hype for Christmas is one of my least favorite parts of the year, but that’s not relevant here.) In my opinion, the winter is one of the best times to run. I realize most of you will disagree, and that’s fine. I only want to explain my view. Before I even set foot outside, I have to prepare for the weather. I dig out my favorite running clothes just for this time of year: layers of long underwear, sweatshirts, sweatpants, hats, gloves, and—my favorite part—socks. Long wool socks and pom-pom hats are inexplicably exciting to me. Putting on every layer before going outside feels like preparing for a spacewalk or a deep-sea dive. When I have finally prepared, I feel like an explorer venturing into the great unknown. In winter, I can run at any time of the day. Summer runs are restricted to the early morning and late evening when the he

            Dreamworks’ Shrek is one of my favorite films. (If you haven’t seen it, spoiler alert, don’t read this post. Drop everything and watch it in its entirety.) There are many reasons I like Shrek so much, not the least of which is the memes that it is the subject of. The film has more to it than a few meme-able moments, however.             The characters in Shrek are well-developed and three-dimensional. They challenge the archetypes of fairytale characters. For example, the main protagonist who rescues the princess is not a generic “prince charming,” but rather an ogre named Shrek. The prince, Lord Farquad, on the other hand, is comically short and has bad facial hair. The viewer, however, is allowed to see past the exteriors of these characters. In a famous scene, Shrek states that, “ogres are like onions.” Shrek has layers: beneath his mean, ugly exterior is a lonely soul with emotions just like us. Lord Farquad, the prince, has layers as well: beneath his princely ext