title: Django: date field saved to model but not retrieved
body: <p>Django 1.9 / Python 2.7</p>
  
  <p>Given this model:</p>
  
  <pre><code>class CoursePurchase(models.Model):
      user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL)
      course = models.ForeignKey(Course)
      date_purchased = models.DateField(default=date.today())
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would expect date_purchased to store the date I enter into Django admin, and it does, according to my database browser:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://monosnap.com/file/ZFPRlNdg4S3k6tyKohF8bBHPH2VOiL.png" alt="Alt text"></p>
  
  <p>However, retrieving the object in the view has today's date instead of the stored date:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://monosnap.com/file/akI33Jz1aRLaoz8s5mup62NDViAMDn.png" alt="Alt text"></p>
  
  <p>(Note the date_purchased field of <code>__unicode__</code> returns today's date instead of the stored date.</p>
  
  <p>Here is the code I'm using to retrieve the instance:</p>
  
  <pre><code>cp = CoursePurchase(course=page.course, user=request.user)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>where <code>course</code> and <code>user</code> return the expected values.</p>
  
  <p>What am I missing? This seems fairly straightforward, but I can't get past this.</p>