Lovers of the Ages: Heloise and Abelard

Beware of tutors and their pupils baring great intellectual gifts.

Heloise (1101-1164) and Peter (Pierre) Abelard (1079-1142) were two of the greatest thinkers of their day who were student and tutor, lovers and soul mates. Their love story is one of the most poignant of all time. Their affair began with passion, progressed to tragedy, and finally ended in devoted and eternal love. Nearly 1000 years since their deaths, visitors to Paris can go to a crypt which is said to be the final resting place of the lovers.

Peter Abelard was a philosopher and theologian. He was born in a small village in Brittany in France and was of the lesser nobility. He could have been a knight, but he chose instead to become a scholar. His battles would not be on the battle fields but in the cathedral schools of the time. The concept of the university was just on the horizon in Abelard’s day, but not quite developed. He was a great debater, and his reasoning often caused him to have very serious brushes with the church. He was even accused of heresy.

Peter Abelard was a wondering scholar. Drawing crowds, he debated almost everywhere he went. He arrived in Paris where he became even more renowned. He was feted by his admirers and envied by his enemies. At the same time a young woman who was about 20 years his junior was also growing in fame because of her intellectual abilities. Her name was Heloise.

Though not quite 20, Heloise had already gained attention and praise for her aptitude in languages, reading, writing, and philosophy. Abelard heard about her and was anxious to meet this prodigy. He may have been attracted to the idea of meeting a woman who was on his level or at least he desired a meeting to observe such a curiosity. In an age when the majority of people could not read or write, the few who could were men. That Heloise could, and was functioning on a level as high as Abelard, was truly remarkable.

Heloise may have been born illegitimate. She was being raised by her uncle who was a canon named Fulbert. Some believe she may have been Fulbert's daughter since their relationship was more like parent and child than uncle and niece. Canon Fulbert was determined that his niece get the best education that money could buy. He hired Peter Abelard to tutor her. It may have been love at first sight for Heloise and Abelard. Though 30, Peter Abelard had never been with a woman. His learning and thirst for knowledge had occupied most of his time. Now he was wildly and recklessly in love with his pupil. Both were not only highly intelligent but they were also said to be physically attractive.

Abelard wrote,
Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words. Our hands sought less the book than each other's bosoms - love drew our eyes together far more than the lesson drew them to the pages of our text.
So he could always be near Heloise, Abelard told Fulbert that his living quarters were not conducive to study. He explained that if he could board in Fulbert’s house it would be both good for his and Heloise’s studies. Not suspecting that a love affair was going on between this great scholar and his niece, Fulbert agreed to Abelard’s request.

Once Abelard moved into Fulbert’s house, the affair was discovered. He wrote,
Oh, how great was the uncle's grief when he learned the truth, and how bitter was the sorrow of the lovers when we were forced to part!

Heloise and Abelard continued to rendezvous in secret until Heloise learned that she was pregnant. With Abelard’s help, Heloise fled to the home of his sister. She stayed there until she had her baby, a son which she named Astrolabe. Maybe because she was young and imaginative or eccentric like many learned people, she decided to name her child after an instrument used to study the stars.

Peter Abelard finally got around to apologizing to Fulbert and asking for Heloise’s hand in marriage. Fulbert had no objections to the marriage because he wanted the scandal to blow over as soon as possible, but Heloise did. She felt that since Abelard was such an influential person in the academic world, marriage would cut into the time he needed to devote to study and teaching. He would never be able to reach heights of even more greatness if he had a wife and child chained to him. Abelard continued to press Heloise about the matter of matrimony. She finally gave in. Leaving little Astrolabe with his sister, Abelard and Heloise secretly married. They would never see their child again because Abelard would make a decision that would separate them from their baby and each other forever.

Abelard took Heloise to a convent believing this was in their best interests. He was going to go back for her, but when Fulbert heard that his niece was in a convent, he thought Abelard had forced her to go there with the intension of abandoning her. He decided to get revenge. The scandal had become the talk of Paris and France. One night while Abelard lay asleep some thugs that Fulbert hired were let into the rooms where Abelard was staying by one of his servants. The thugs castrated Abelard while he was asleep!

It was now over for Heloise and Abelard as far as being together as man and wife in the normal sense. Abelard’s career was also in effect finished. In the years to come, he would regain some of his fame, but it would be a torturous climb back to some normalcy. The story of the attack of Abelard spread like wildfire throughout Europe.
Heloise and Abelard reluctantly married the church becoming a nun and a monk, but they did not fully love or embrace their decision. They still loved each other. Even though because of his horrible fate, Peter seemed to be cold at times toward Heloise in some letters he continued write to her and love her. For 20 years the lovers corresponded while being cloistered. Their letters were passionate, but as time moved on their love seemed to reach a higher level, that of the spiritual. Peter would refer to her as his sister. He continued to study, learn and debate, deliberately getting on the nerves of some of the other monks with his controversial ideas.

Most of Heloise's and Abelard's love letters have been lost, but the few that still exist show a love and devotion that is alien to our culture and age. Christina Nehring wrote in a 2005 New York Times essay about these quintessential lovers of the Middle Ages and all time that,

The story of Abelard and Heloise hardly resonates with the spirit of our age. Not least, its origins in the classroom offend: teachers, we know, are not supposed to fall in love with their students. Heloise, moreover, is no feminist heroine, despite having been one of the best educated women of her age and writing some of its most affecting prose. Nobody who takes the veil on the command of her husband and swears ''complete obedience'' to him can hope to sneak into the bastion of feminism.

Today, even the high romance of the couple's liaison strikes us as foreign: all that sacrifice and intensity! We live in a time of broad antiromanticism when teenagers, according to The Times Magazine, have given up on relationships altogether and adults write to the editor to salute their wisdom. ''Romance?'' scoffed one correspondent. It's just ''an excuse . . . to work off sexual energy.''

Small wonder, in this climate, that the anguish Abelard and Heloise suffered for each other renders them even more suspect. What with safe sex, prenuptial agreements and emotional air cushions of every stripe, we have almost managed to riskproof our relationships. The notion that passion might comprise not only joy but pain, not only self-realization but self-abandonment, seems archaic. To admire, as an early-20th-century biographer of Abelard and Heloise does, the ''beauty of souls large enough to be promoted to such sufferings'' seem downright perverse. And yet there's a grandeur to high-stakes romance, to self-sacrifice, that's missing from our latex-love culture -- and it's a grandeur we perhaps crave to recover.

When I ponder the love of Heloise and Abelard, I think, ‘Boy! The love we have lost!

Before she died, Heloise said that she wanted to be laid to rest beside her husband who had passed away years before. Severed from each other in life, Heloise and Abelard were finally reunited in death. This is their tomb in Paris. There is a little uncertainty as to if this is the actual final resting place of the lovers.

The following short video is called The Song of Abelard and was made by someone who lives in Turkey. The music in the clip is by a Turkish composer named Ismail Sezen.

One of Heloise’s letters to Abelard can be read here.

Click here and when you scroll down you can see a postmodern artistic representation of the two lovers which is symbolic of their erotic love, eruditeness, and their final fate which was celibacy in the church.

Two years ago a book called Heloise and Abelard: A New Biography was published. I have read it and recommend it for those who want to learn in detail about these two real life lovers.

The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)

This was the fall of the Roman Empire. A great civilization is not conquered from without until it destroys itself from within.

How and why do empires fall? Samuel Bronston’s 1964 epic drama The Fall of the Roman Empire tries to answer the question.

Some classify America as an empire. Those who do are not all "elitist intellectuals" who live offshore in Europe, but some are intellectuals who reside right here stateside. Within the last eight years when everything really started to run amok in a schizophrenic fast forward of excess and madness here and abroad because of the government’s policies and the continuing decay of the country’s social fabric, a number of books appeared about the empire.

Two intriguing sounding titles that I would like to read if I had time are:
Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium
The Empire Has No Clothes

The author of Empire Burlesque also has a blog of the same name that can be accessed here.

I mention America of today because I too see some parallels between it and ancient Rome. Right now in cyberspace there are dire even fearsome predictions about what is about the happen to America within the next week and a half to one year. Some predict that on the day of the last quarter of the fiscal year, September 30, America will be technically bankrupt. The television news had not given a peep about this until the end of last week after the financial crisis hit full swing and all the bails came. On Friday I heard the first real hint of a catastrophe having been avoided by the end of the month on CNN. Some online predict that by the middle of 2009, the government will also be bankrupt and that the dollar will be a worthless piece of paper. The warnings are even on YouTube. Some predict the fall of America will only be a national disaster. They say that once there is collapse and widespread unrest, the government will totally disregard The Constitution and place the entire country under martial law. I will not mention some of the even scarier predictions which some say will occur here. I will only say the rumors and warnings are out there.

Some in cyberspace say that because other economies chained themselves to America, they will be sucked into a whirlpool along with us. The rest of the world will be hit by an economic tsunami that will sweep away everything that the global economy knew and held dear. Whether the empire falls in a few weeks or months or a few years is rather a moot point. The fall is coming sooner or later in any case. Witness the financial crisis that hit on September 14th. 117 banks are in trouble. Last Monday morning the news said that the number could be as high as 1000! Both of the wars the country is still locked into was entered through borrowed money.

Samuel Bronston’s The Fall of the Roman Empire which was made in 1964 examines why the Roman Empire fell and why in general all empires and civilizations great and small must inevitably die. It is one of the last of the great epics with a cast of thousands. Overlooked and sometimes ridiculed as slow, it was not a movie that Ridley Scott thought was awful because if you have seen Gladiator you have seen what some call a cheap rip-off of this great film. The Fall of the Roman Empire is a thinking man and woman’s film whereas Gladiator, that I did enjoy, functioned more on a gut level which today’s audiences can relate to more than its’ more intellectual predecessor. Director Martin Scorsese is an admirer of this film and sees it as having the makings of a lost art form. They just don’t and can’t make them like they used to in Hollywood. The writers and producers lack imagination, and the few who do are sidelined or run off. Plus there is just not enough money today to hire thousands of extras and build huge sets as was done in this film. Just computer generate and populate the empty spaces is the name of the game nowadays.

By the time The Fall of the Roman Empire was shown in theaters the period of the grand epic set in ancient times was over. After the failure of Cleopatra in the previous year, audiences had lost their taste for such historical extravaganzas. Some say one of the leads in the film, Stephen Boyd’s performance as the Roman general Livius was so wooden that his acting was what did the film in. I really think this evaluation of Boyd‘s performance is unfair. Probably his acting was so criticized because people were not used to seeing him playing a decent guy with high principles. Many remembered him playing the ruthless Masala in Ben-Hur, and may have expected more of the same.

In the end, The Fall of the Roman Empire was a costly box office failure for Samuel Bronston which led him to file for bankruptcy. He never produced another film.

The Fall of the Roman Empire is actually misnamed because the events of the film run from 180 to 193 AD, beginning near the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius and going through that of his son Commodus. The Roman Empire actually did not fall until 476 according to Edward Gibbon. The movie shows the beginning of the empire’s decline and some of the conditions which can cause a great civilization to fall. It is also not a completely accurate chronological history either. Incidents from the reigns of other emperors are included along with some fictional reworking of the lives of some of the characters. Despite the inaccuracies, The Fall of the Roman Empire is a far more intelligent epic compared to previous others.

The film begins with the emperor Marcus Aurelius (played by Sir Alec Guinness) whose armies are camped in and near a fortress on the empire’s northern frontier. The Roman army is keeping an eye on the barbarian hordes. Marcus Aurelius realizes that his health is failing, and the fact worries him because his son Commodus (played by Christopher Plummer) is not the type of person he feels will provide stable and responsible leadership over the empire. Therefore, he decides to bypass his son to privately pick as his heir one of his generals, Gaius Metellus Livius (played by Stephen Boyd), who was raised in the imperial household. The character of Livius is fictitious. Livius is a man of honor, who is almost completely unselfish. He sees Commodus, though opposite of him in outlook, like a brother. Also there is the added complication of Livius being passionately in love with the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, the beautiful Lucilla (played by Sophia Loren). All of these people arrive on the northern frontier where Marcus Aurelius is about to present his plan publicly, but he is poisoned by one of his Greek slaves who was a conspirator with some of the Roman officers who were stationed at the
fortress.

Before the poisoning, Marcus Aurelius informs Livius that he has selected him to be the next emperor. Livius reluctantly accepts. He does not feel it is right for Marcus Aurelius to reject his own son even though Livius knows Commodus is unfit to be emperor. Livius argues that he is only a military man who knows nothing about governing an empire. Secretly he would much rather have Lucilla even over his career in the military.

Lucilla is very much like Livius. World weary after seeing her father suffer in an unhappy marriage to her unfaithful mother, she had for a period withdrawn from the world.

After getting notice of his glorious future, Livius is really not interested. Instead he begs Lucilla to run away with him, but she refuses saying that being Caesar’s daughter there would be no where for him and her to hide. She feels exactly like her father, that Livius should be the next emperor of Rome. If Livius would just accept the position, she expects she can be by his side. However, her father has a surprise for her too. She is to be married off in a political alliance to King Sohamus of Armenia (played by Omar Sharif). The empire needs Armenia as a buffer against the Persians, and poor Lucilla is torn from the man she loves to marry a stranger.

At Marcus Aurelius’ cremation, the sulking Commodus who has learned that his father has passed over him to choose his best friend as Caesar gets a surprise. Livius, being always selfless, does exactly what Lucilla does not want him to. In a surprise move he proclaims Commodus emperor. Commodus in return makes him head of all the Roman armies and a proconsul of Roman, second only in power to the emperor.

Commodus turns out to be as bad an emperor as his father and sister expected. He is an ancient version of the jock with charisma and ruthlessness thrown in. Rome crawls with gladiators, and Commodus fancies himself as being one of the best. He bleeds the eastern portion of the empire dry demanding taxes and tribute. Early on he makes it known that his father’s moderate ideas have no place in the new Rome of Commodus. Marcus Aurelius’ ideas are seen as weak. The world must remember to respect Rome and not get any ideas about having any special privileges and equality with people who are pure blooded Romans.

Tired of Commodus’ policies, the eastern provinces including Armenia rise up. Though Commodus has fallen out with Livius by now and banished him from Rome to head the armies along the northern frontier, he calls Livius back to Rome and demands that he leads an army to defeat the rebellious armies and provinces in the east.

Livius goes reluctantly to quell the rebellion. He is shocked to discover that Lucilla is also one of the leaders of the insurrection. She begs Livius to join the rebels in seceding from Rome and creating their own empire in the east. Though Livius dislikes everything Commodus stands for, he hates the idea of rebellion. To him, it is just not the logical or patriotic thing to do. He thinks all Lucilla and her followers will do is cause chaos. For the first time, Livius doubts that Lucilla ever really loved him. How could the woman he loves become a traitor? Shocked, angry, but still madly in love with her, Livius pleads with Lucilla to run and hide because his orders are to defeat and crush all of the rebels. Lucilla says she does not run.

Lucilla’s husband King Sohamus is killed in battle. He had given the order before his death that if he is killed, Lucilla is also to be killed. Livius learns of the order, and in the nick of time saves from Lucilla from being murdered. He does not punish Lucilla even though she was one of the leaders of the rebellion, but he takes her back with him on his way back to Rome. On the road, he is given the order that he is to have 5000 burned alive and 5000 crucified in each city that participated in the rebellion. It is Commodus’ orders, but fed up Livius tears up the order and arrests both of the messengers that bring it to him.

More boxed in than ever with famine and pestilence raging in Rome, Commodus has sunk into madness. He thinks he hears the gods laughing. He decides to throw gold and empty promises to the people in order to survive.

Livius arrives on the outskirts of Rome and gives Commodus an ultimatum: either Commodus must change or Rome will change Caesars. Both Livius and Lucilla are captured after Lucilla fails in an attempt to assassinate Commodus. They are to be burned at the stake, but at the last minute Commodus decides there should be a duel to the death between Livius and him to see who should be Caesar.

Livius reluctantly fights and kills Commodus, who in his last dying breath shouts that Lucilla and others already chained to stakes be burned alive. A dazed, but determined Livius rescues Lucilla from the flames. Even though Commodus would have killed him, Livius goes back to where Commodus has fallen and picks up his body, carrying it to up to a huge monument above the crowds where one of the generals and three of the senators who had turned against him and applauded Commodus’ order to burn him alive offer him the throne of Rome. Livius and Lucilla look at the group with utter distrust and exasperation in their eyes. Then they look at each other. What I think is one of the great lines from cinema is spoken by Livius, “You would not find me very suitable, because my first official act would be to have you all crucified.” Livius then walks off with Lucilla probably into the sunset as the crowds stand around, the unfortunate prisoners who were chained to the stalks are burned, and these men who offered Livius the crown of Caesar try to audition off the throne to the highest bidder.

I don’t blame Livius for his outburst because he could see that politics and the drive for power had turned too many around him into monsters. If he and Lucilla stuck around they would have been transformed into something they did not like too. I would have walked away just like they did and never looked back.

With Christian overtones, even in its’ theme song, I imagine that Livius and Lucilla may have converted to Christianity. Livius’ ideals of selflessness, decency, and honor are certainly Christian principles which many here in America who call themselves Christians don’t have or really understand.

There are a number of surprises and thrills in The Fall of the Roman Empire that I will not mention here.

Certainly a great civilization is not conquered until it has destroyed itself from within. The comparisons of America and ancient Rome do not have to be parallel on all levels. What is important to notice and recognize is that both civilizations have degenerated into excessiveness on so many levels. America like Rome is militaristic. Both have reached a point where there is no moral high ground left. Rome tried to stop and kill Christianity in its tracks. America has nearly killed true Christianity and replaced it with a mean spirited, brutish, self- and money centered, political and nationalistic religion that masquerades as Christianity. If the similarities cannot be seen, then one has to be blind.

When I started on this post earlier last week, I wasn't expecting to see The Fall of the Roman Empire broadcast on television. It was shown yesterday afternoon on Turner Classic Movies.

With the financial crisis of last week and the general social and moral decay that exists in America at this very second, is Pax Americana finished just like Pax Romana was nearly two thousand years ago? It is time we minded our own business here at home before there is no home left. What do you think?

(The Fall of the Roman Empire can be purchased in deluxe and collector's editions on DVD from Amazon.)

A New Presidential Candidate on the Block: Me

My friend Catherine Sherman who runs a nicely informative blog with an eclectic mix of subjects has decided to run for president of the United States. Like me, she must like to mix things up. Today, I finally decided I was going to throw my two cents in and run for president too. I think I have far better qualifications than most. I have at least foreign if not foreign policy experience since I have lived in and worked in the African nation of Botswana and in Turkey. I have had friends over the years from all the continents except Antarctica. I still haven’t had the good fortune to meet a penguin from the South Pole yet, but I am open to meeting with one.

My platform as candidate for the highest office in the land will be that all Americans will have to become eloquent in written and spoken English in two years. Slang will slowly be eradicated. All Americans will have to become fluent in at least 2 foreign languages in 4 years. All reality, court, and talk shows will be cut from television to be replaced by dramas, mini-series, shows with intelligent humor, and documentaries on historical and international subjects. The news will become news again, not opinion. Reporting will be returned to the international arena, and it will be bye-bye Britney and Brangelina. Television cartoons must be drawn well and have a positive message. All Americans have to learn how to do a craft and an art form. All Americans must spend at least one hour a day reading a good book. Obesity will be eradicated within 5 years. War? Not an option.

I too will be participating in this reform effort where it applies to me. I will stop wasting time and become completely become fluent in Spanish and Turkish. I will eliminate slang from my speaking. I can already draw, so I will get back into painting again and learn how to knit.

Barack Obama and John McCain may be talking about change, but if I am elected, America ain’t seen nothing yet. :)

Visit my campaign site and video here.

Substitute Teaching, Four Year Olds, and an Iranian Film

Well, I’m finally back. Last week it was work, communicating back forth about a job offer abroad, and just wasting time and dealing with trivial things that resulted in me not posting. I really did not feel like writing even though I have vowed to myself to post at least once a week.

Last week I worked with a class for two days that I really enjoyed even though they were already tiring out the teacher, Mrs. Peasley, who has only had them only a month. School re-opened a month ago. This group were pre-K (pre-kindergarten); all of them 4 year olds. They were the cutest bunch. The shortest with kissable baby faces were Zimir and Jorge. I just loved to watch these two. Zimir had light coffee colored skin with these wonderful, bright, expressive eyes in an oval face. He was tiny and a dynamo of energy. We really had to watch him sometimes, especially in the bathroom. He would go in there during bathroom break and just play. During recess, he would prance around, the lone wolf on the playground. His high top tennis shoes were so little that they looked like the white high topped baby shoes the infants and toddlers wore in my generation.

Where Zimir’s little mouth would just fire off at times, Jorge was the silent type. He was diminutive too with kissable baby cheeks, soft, feathery black hair, and olive skin. He would always come up to me, mumbling something in either English or Spanish, which I could not understand. He was so soft spoken. There were no problems with Jorge; playing in the bathroom was not his speed. He was very obedient.

Mrs. Peasley’s two main complaints with her class were that they were not very good at following directions, and that they did not seem to have a creative bone in their body. They have any interest in the educational games she had out during play time in her room. They went for activities that did not require too much brain power. We both knew the reason for this. Their parents or guardians were giving them little if any educational stimulation outside of school.

Like most kids in our country they were probably spending too much time in front of the television. Television does not inspire the creative juices to flow. The current state of American television shows and news is so appallingly mediocre, how can anything of value be learned from them? That is why I don’t look at a lot of television. I am also trying to wean myself from so much internet usage too, but not because of its’ mediocrity. Nothing should become an addiction.

Speaking of kids, a few years ago I learned about a producer of films for kids that also have wonderful messages for adults. This producer is award winning Iranian film maker Majid Majidi. I have seen three of his films, Color Paradise, Baran, and Children of Heaven. All three of these films sort of end with a question mark. After seeing each one I had the after taste of wondering what happened to some of the characters. Did they survive? Were they surprised that a need was answered? Did they turn out to be better people after their experiences?

Here I will only give you a taste of Children of Heaven which is my favorite of the three films. Children of Heaven is the story of a boy named Ali and his little sister Zahra. One day when Ali is at the market, he puts down his sister’s shoes which he has just gotten back from the man who repaired them. While he is shopping, a garbage man comes along and picks up the shoes that still look rather shabby. He thinks they were being thrown out. When Ali goes back for them, the shoes are missing. He does not have a clue what could have happened to them.

When he gets home he tells his sister that he has lost her only pair of shoes. Both Ali and Zahra are too afraid to tell their parents that the shoes are gone. Without them, Zahra cannot go to school. Their family is poor and cannot afford to buy another part of shoes. The two devise a secret pact. Ali has a pair of old wore out tennis shoes that he wears to school. They will share. Zahra goes to school in the morning, so she will wear the shoes, that are too big for her. At the end of her classes at noon, she will give the shoes back to Ali so he can wear them to his classes. The two have many adventures centering on their trying to keep the secret from their parents. Eventually, one day at on the school playground Zahra sees a little girl with her old lost shoes on. She decides to get them back. She follows the girl home after school. Then she goes and tells Ali. He goes with her so they can confront the girl and get the shoes back. On arriving near the girl’s home, they see her, her mother, and father come out. The father is off to “work.” But he is not able bodied like Ali and Zahra’s father. He is blind and goes out peddling the few little items they have to sell. Ali and Zahra realize that though they are poor, this little girl and her family are poorer. Their father has a job at the mosque making tea. He has also started going around doing yard work for wealthy people. Life seems to be getting better for them. They do not try to get the shoes back since they both have compassion for the family. The movie goes on, and Ali participates in a race with many other children from other schools. His wish is to win so he can get shoes for his sister.

Children of Heaven was filmed in Tehran where it premiered in 1997. It has won a number of awards and was up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1998. It was the first Iranian film to be nominated. It lost, however, to Life is Beautiful.

Children of Heaven is a heartwarming story of family, school days, love, loyalty, and unselfishness centering around a pair of shoes. I cannot imagine Hollywood having the creativity of making a film whose plot centers around shoes without the story being boring or over the top. Film critic Robert Ebert reviewed the movie saying, “very nearly a perfect movie for children" that "lacks the cynicism and smart-mouth attitudes of so much American entertainment for kids and glows with a kind of good-hearted purity." It does, and it is very much worth seeing.

As an aside, my friend from Iran named Nasrin, who lives in the next neighborhood over from mine sent me information on an article that was featured last month in National Geographic about Iran: Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran. I took the interactive cultural quiz also on Iran which can be accessed here. I scored a 75. Take it, and let me know what your score is.