Blogging Around

Mackenzie's blog on "The Show" by Lenka

First of all, I absolutely love that song. When I first bought it, I listened to it at least 15 times. And, whenever I listened to it, I would picture this girl (sometimes me) caught up in the middle of two friends fighting, the progress going around her, her teachers yelling, and everything in between. She would just shrug her shoulders and start skipping and dancing and just having a good time. This vision makes me agreewith what Mackenzie is saying about being confused and caught up in a billion different things at this time in our lives. I know I'm caught up in a hell of alot. But, as Lenka reminds us to enjoy the show. If we don't, we'll be miserable in the end and life will have wasted time on us. Whats the point of living if you can't enjoy it?

Anna's blog on Levi's commercials

When I first saw this commercial, I thought it was amazing. It was inspiring, powerful, uplifting, and it made me feel like a hippie for some reason. Naturally, I thought the commercial was raising money for some stellar organization raising money for some good cause. Then, the end came, and it said Levi's jeans. I was thunderstruck! Like Anna, I was surprised at the sudden change in advertisement strategy. I'm not going to repeat them, but every single adjective that Anna used to describe this commercial was 100 percent correct. Plus, the use of Walt Whitman, a fantastic poet, made me want to go buy a pair ASAP. It was wonderfully artsy and reminded me of how companies focused on nudity to gain customers can rise up and make a commercial like this. Also, like Anna, the historical happenings and references made me feel empowered, almost as if I could do the things they could do in the commercial. Well done Levi's!

iMedia: STOMP

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzlJ8Cb1Ao&feature=related

Whenever I went to the movies, the first thing that would play would be this commercial for Dolby Digital. At first, It was a catchy tune that got me all pumped for the movie. Then, I would see it again, and again, and again until I could snap and stomp along to the entire commercial. Finally, after seeing it at least 100 times, I couldn't wait for the stupid thing to be over. Yet, when the commercial was replaced, I missed it. And now, I realize, I missed it because of the connection it had with me. I loved music, and that was, however strange and unusual it could be, music. I love music, and I always will. I love how you can express who you are, what you are, and what you want to be with merely a verse. This is a great example of expression through music. The people of STOMP see the beauty of small things in life, and what use they can be. Old basketballs, kitchen equipment, car keys, and trash cans are all ordinary dull things. What we don't realize is their value. Plus, it's pretty awesome to be cool enough to pull off banging a trash lid just to make noise. Now, strangley, I've watched the video 5 times in a row, and I'm not tired of it.

Connection: Goneril, Regan and the ugly stepsisters

I'm not saying Goneril, and Regan are ugly (well, Goneril's a couger but I don't even know where to start with that), but the sisters from King Lear and the ugly stepsisters of Cinderella are very similar. They are all power hungry, and stop at nothing to get closer to the top, even if they have to push eachother out of the way. Their priorities and desires are jumbled up, and result in selfishness. And, they are all fools in a certain way. Another thing similar is that both pairs of sisters have a third sister, This third sister is the most independent with her thoughts, and is the one who is much kinder and selfless. She also ends up achieving the most of her dreams in the end. Cinderella marries the prince, Cordelia is set free of all the turmoil going on with her other two sisters. The moral of the characters has an influence on women to stand up for themselves and to be as selfless as possible througout their lives, which is important. One might think that the Grimm Brothers took some ideas from good old Shakespeare...

360 Degrees: Rock and Roll

It's amazing and basically shaped the entire end of the 20th century. Many people, particularly the ones from that generation, think it turned music from fluffy crap to hard core good stuff. Or, to the people happy with the charlston it could be an anathema to this world and a bad influence on the younger generations. The reason why there are druggies and crazy rebels. The reason the Vietnam war was so opposed. Or, It could be the greatest thing ever heard. Or just noise. These are probably the most common opinions for those opposed and for Rock and Roll music. How did some simple songs about life become the most controversial and life changing things in the '60s and '70s? Why were most of the older people afraid of it? Surely they had some life changing music in their days. I decided to do Rock and Roll because of the new movie "Pirate Radio" about a bunch of people who decide to illegally broadcast Rock and Roll in the time when The UK's government banned it from the radio. What if they banned Rock and Roll for good, so it was never heard from again? How different would life be? Can one genre change the world? I guess so!

Metacognition: History Essay

I would really love to say that I have a well-structured and organized writing process. But I honestly don't. I do study what I must write about, but for the rest, I usually sit down, think about it for a few minutes, then start pulling things out of thin air. If you ask some authors what their writing process is, their eyes will go blank and the only thing they will think to say its "ummmmmmmmmmmmm.....". Seriously, I asked an author once. Anyways, for my History essays I usually brainstorm beforehand, write down a few things, and then memorize it for the next day. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes it doesn't. It tends to surprise me. I probably should improve my use of transitions and grammar. After I complete an essay, I read it over. And with this one particular essay, I read it in a southern accent! I have no idea why and what made it come along, but it did. That was probably the most surprising thing about my thinking ever. But I did like the process I used, because afterwards, I said it in a British accent and it sounded better than ever.

Blogging Around

For Lauren's Best of Week post:

I'm right there with you Lauren. I feel completely cheated from the real story. It's not fair to treat everybody that happens to live around here with "the western mind" kind of story. Life is not a pretty picture painted with simple texture and dull colors. It's a freaking mess! Whenever a book ends in ultimate closure, like the Harry Potter series, or any fairytal you can name, my imagination wanders onto what could have been. What if Harry became a suicidal drunk, plagued with the images of his close friends' deaths? (Granted, this is probably why they wrote Harry Potter Should Have Died). What if Cinderella and Prince Charming rushed into a hopeless marriage, and both of them leave it more distraught then before? It's just not right! Closure is something that makes you feel all warm and safe, because everything is good again. But sometimes, I think everyone needs a little bit of a reality check, or we're all gonna go around thinking that life will always end in one big closure. Well guess what? It doesn't.

For Bill's Connection post:

First of all, Bill, I congratulate you for having excellent TV show choice. Bones is my favorite show. It is more than just a crime show. It's intelligent, quirky and hilarious at the same time. Anyway, the juxtaposition is a perfect symbol of the lives of Temperance Brennan and Seely Booth. And, throughout the series, there are many more, which just makes the show more an more intelligent. It's strange at sometimes how indifferent and unconnected Brennan can be, and how sometimes that all melts away when she's with Booth. But, the minute he leaves, the bones of her life come back to her. I think it's amazing that you were able to connect juxtaposition to my all-time favorite show. It actually makes me understand the whole idea more now.

Connection: Starting Over and Sunshine Cleaning

I was extremely bored last night. It was a three day weekend, and I had just eaten my weight celebrating the end of the dreaded Yom Kippur. I was sitting upstairs at my computer, trying to think of something to do. Naturally, I went to the free movie website and randomly typed in something. The result was Sunshine Cleaning, a movie that I've been wanting to see for quite a while actually. It's about two sisters; one a single mother with a dead-end job, the other an unemlployed, lost and depressed young woman. Together they decide that enough is enough, and they start their own company. It's a very moving story, with a touch of comedy, considering their line of work is cleaning up bloody and hazardous crime scenes. Nevertheless, they help people get through that difficult time in their life. In the end of the movie, both sisters have a better outlook on life and what they should do with it.

This movie made me think about the "start fresh" topic we've been discussing on and off for a couple of weeks. It started with The Kite Runner, when Amir claims America was a place to bury the past, but to also look towards a brighter future. As cowardly as it sounds, I believe this is a good way to heal a broken soul, depending on which way the soul was broken. Yet, there are hardships along the way, for every story that has a theme like these two do. The person has to adjust to a new life, and try not to think about the extreme change they just made to better themselves. They also have to try harder to mke things at least alright in this new, strange environment. For instance, Amir has to live with the immense guilt over what he has done, long after the move to America. Norah and Rose, the sisters in Sunshine Cleaning, deal with the hardships of a new career, a new life for themselves, and a bigger picture than the one they had before. Only God knows how hard these things can get.

It may be a last resort, but if I was completely and utterly lost, and there was nothing left for me here, I would pick up my bags, move somewhere else, and start fresh. It's very romantic/dramedy movie-like, but hey, I'm an actor. I could relate the "start-over" phenomenon to several other things, but that's the gist of it. It is also one of my favorite ways to end a story I am writing (which, again, ties this to english). Anyway, the movie was awesome, and I recommend seeing it, especially if you're in the mood to here the f-bomb dropped every five seconds.

Best of Week: Parents actually mean well!

In my opinion, the most memorable and important idea of the week was stated during the discussion of whether or not Assef was a sociopath. We were talking about the signs of a sociopath, and if he was truly evil or just mentally impaired in some sense. But many people, myself included, thought that it was, in fact, Assef's parents fault for making him the way he is. We discussed how his parent's seemed to be afraid of him, and how at Amir's party they cowered behind him. It was almost as if they were the children, as someone pointed out. This led me to think about the storied I have heard that are similar to that of Assef's. Of course, not many did the terrible things that Assef did, but they were still corrupted human beings. They steal, they murder, they abuse, and they do much more, and many of them put the blame of why they are the way they are on their parents. This is also a recurring theme on TV shows that have to do with murder and injury (Bones, Medium, Grey's Anatomy, etc..).

This newfound thought made me really appreciate the fact that, even though they're strict, my parents are good parents and really only want what's best for me. Plus, they don't back down, even if I'm in the worst mood ever. I'm pretty sure I'll appreciate them even more later. Maybe I'll even stop being disrespectful to them. Well, maybe a little less...

Carry it forward: The Kite Runner

As books go, there's either the one that's a bore, cheesy, and absolutely horrible, or an ok one that you will probably never read again, or the remarkable, compelling story that has you gripping the pages. The Kite Runner is most definitely door number three. It is chock full of the naivity of a child, the humility of grown men, and the obstacles that we take upon in not-so-everyday lives. But what really hit me was the calm, serenity of Hassan that was almost Ghandi-like. Although they seem to be best friends, Amir is really not very nice to Hassan. He always sees him as a second rate human being that deserves less affection than he does. Yet Amir means the world to Hassan. And it's not like a servant-master devotion. I believe Hassan is more devoted to Amir than any other human could be. He takes blame for several things Amir does, he doesn't shoot back an insult when it is fired at him. And, in order to serve his best friend, he had the worst posible thing done to him. And what does Amir do? Nothing. And even after that horrible incident (which Amir witnessed, and did nothing), he is still devoted to Amir, which is shown when he takes the blame for the things he "stole" from Amir's presents, knowing full well that Amir had planted them there. And I'll bet that even after Hassan and Ali, his father leave, Hassan is still loyal to Amir.

I must admit that I was confused by such an attitude from such a young person. Usually, 12 year olds are ok kids, but they have a selfish core to them. Hassan has a remarkable soul that would be a surprise in an adult. He had the respect for position, family, and honor that many people could never achieve. And, I don't think I could ever achieve his level of goodness. Hassan's tolerance and ultimate devotion serves as a great lesson for the future. He was an unbelievably nice person, and it makes me want to be more like him in the future.