Journal Facebook Revised

I have a Facebook and I use it quite a bit. I use it to stay in touch with friends, up to date on sports, and stay "in the know" on other events.  It is convenient to talk with people who don't know how to text message very well (older generations).  I don't use any other types of social media, except for Snapchat, but maybe someday I'll get a LinkdIn.  I will wait until I become a big business man first though.  Right now I do not have a Twitter, Instagram, Kik, Myspace, or any other type of networking because I think that most of them are stupid and a waste of time.  They do have their time and place but for the most part social media is over used now days.  Generally people are always attached to their phones - which now have access to internet, and when the battery power gets scares, they can only travel four feet from any given wall.  The amount of people that go outside and play sports is not what it was even in the early 2000’s, when I was just starting elementary school.  I personally think that social media is getting out of hand.

Lincoln: A Brief Screening Report

One of the most important scenes in the movie Lincoln occurred in the very beginning.  It began at about 06:15 into the movie and was the scene where Mary Lincoln figures out that Abraham wants to create a 13th amendment, to free the slaves.  The scene begins with a dream that Abraham has, then goes into him laying down and Mary sitting by a mirror, and they are conversing.  Throughout the course of the scene Mary guesses what Abraham’s dream was about (freeing the slaves), and suggests that he should not try to get something as big as that passed.  Not someone with as much public approval as he has.  “The people love you.  No one is loved as much as you.  No one has been loved as much as you.  Don’t waste that power on an amendment bill that is sure of defeat” Mary tells him.  Throughout the scene he looks distraught by his thoughts but we all know that he goes through with it and succeeds.  This scene is important because it is the first time that someone finds out about Abraham’s intent on abolishing slavery.  This is what sets up one of the biggest parts of the movie.  If it weren’t for the thirteenth amendment, Lincoln would not be known as well as he is.  

Photo courtesy of http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01811/lincolnSUM_1811021c.jpg

Qualities Of A Good Movie

It is very difficult for me to think about my favorite movie, since I don’t have any one movie that I can call “my favorite”.  There are some that are better than others, and there are many different factors that play into that.  More than just genre and actors.  Mark Wohlberg is an example of an actor that can play in many different genres and all of his movies are golds.  For instance, Mark has played in action flicks such as Lone Survivor, Pain and Gain, and Planet of the Apes.  He has played dramas like The Fighter, The Lovely Bones, and Invincible.  He also played very well in comedies in movies like Date Night, The Other Guys, and one of my personal top movies, Ted.  So if the genre doesn’t determine the quality of the movie, what does? I believe it may be the lead actors that make or break a movie.  Movies like Shawshank Redemption, and Lord of the Rings are very different movies, however both are some of the all time greatest.  Script and directing also play a huge role.  There is a reason why the Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the best.  I am going to say that a good movie is determined by a combination of the actors, screen writers, and directors, but you need all three.  It is difficult to have a good movie with two and not the third.

Crazy Brave Post 2

     Joy Harjo, author of Crazy Brave, seems to be very attached to her music and her arts.  Partially through the influence of escaping her abusive step father, Joy requested to move to a different school and actually went to a school in Santa Fe known for it's art classes for the indians. Albeit forced, she often stayed up until three or four in the morning "creating" using the materials the school provided.  This whole scenerio of moving to Santa Fe for the new school seems as if it was an escape from her step father, but she was happy at first to finally pursue her inner artist.  I feel as if she under plays her drug and alcohol abuse while at the school.  She kept bringing up how the other students were using, and sometimes that influenced a break out of fights, but I find it hard to believe that she was the only one that didn't use.  I think she may have used minutely, but did not mention it during this section of the book.
     Secondly Joy talks about how much she loves her child. When the baby was born there was no one around to acknowledge the birth of her son. Her and her husband had no car, so she had to walk herself to the hospital, alone.  The rest of her family was busy or lived far away.  I feel as if she did really well talking about the birth of her son.  She explains how she was there alone, she had a military doctor who birthed her son, the drugs they injected to her made her want to sit up so they threatened to use restraints on her, the stare that her and her son shared after his birth, and her feelings of holding him after she was less doped up.  She then goes on to explain that giving birth in a hospital was an alienation and got out of there as soon as possible.

Picture courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Joy_Harjo.jpg

Crazy Brave Blog Post

Joy Harjo expresses her struggles throughout her indian education.  She tried using her education as a way to escape her step dad but was surprised by the quality of schooling that she received.   Joy Harjo mentions her church school where she had to deal with her step-father on a regular basis.  She wanted to get away from him and told her mom that she wanted to move to a different school, secretly her reasoning was to avoid him.  When she arrived at the campus in 1967, Joy Harjo felt emotionally free for finally being able to get away from her step-father and the boring church school.  Unfortunately for her, she quickly found a lack of camaraderie within the institution.  Everyone was indian, but they formed their own ‘gangs’ with alike tribe members. She was hardly able to make a variety of indian friends like her original intent was.  To top it off, Joy was unable to pursue music, one of her favorite past times.  She did have the opportunity to take various painting, pottery, and dramatic arts classes.  The quality of core classes were sub par though.  The teachers had a lack of resources for their use, and some of the teachers didn’t even want to teach, they were forced to.  The Bureau of Indian Affairs ran their schools and ran them as if they were on a military installation.  They usually stayed up until three or four in the morning “creating” and then awoke again at five thirty, less than two hours later.  The dorm staff would wake them up and then they had to conduct details around the area, such as cooking, and cleaning various rooms.  After those details were complete the students could conduct their education within their classrooms.  

Image from http://25.media.tumblr.com/1bf5f6b252a50f19025be8f168275604/tumblr_mm6s47QYwr1s7cwslo1_500.png

The Crucible (With Picture)

     I wasn't able to watch The Crucible so my post is not based off of the play as everyone else's is. Abigail is a huge influence throughout this story. Abigail is the reason why the girls met with Tituba in the woods in the beginning. When Parris found them Abigail does what she can to try to cover up why she brought them to the woods. She was going to try to put a spell on Elizabeth Proctor but she can't admit to that because that will expose her affair with John Proctor. She tries to put this event off on the other girls by continuously lying and saying that they are the ones trying to cast the spell. Throughout the story Abigail lies in her attempts to keep her self preservation and threatens the other girls violently, when they do not follow her. Her constant threats and attempt to stay with John Proctor leads to her intimidation over the other girls and influences their decisions and words throughout.

Search for Stevie

Our adventure began with our very own university mascot, Stevie Pointer, being kidnapped by the Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxons gave us one opportunity to get Stevie back, but in order to do so we had to play their sick little game of Clue. Unfortunately for them, while they were busy raiding and pillaging we were at work rescuing our beloved English Pointer hound.

Our first clue began with staying on the third floor. We were directed to go find the CD collection and look for a certain album. the album we needed to observe was at M 1630. 18 R64. It turned out to be a Rolling Stones album and had hundreds of other albums accompanying it. There was such a variety that anyone could put their collection to use.

After receiving our clue on the fourth way we made our way up to the fifth floor via the stairwell. We walked passed many areas that could be helpful to any student that needs to find information or study for a little while. These places include archives, a computer lab, and a laptop lounge with a beautiful and relaxing view. The fourth floor clue brought us to an area of books that someone could check out if they needed to do some reasearch. We ended up finding a hostage that was trapped in a cage who had the next clue to Stevies location. He bravely told us to not worry about him and to find Stevie as soon as we could. His courage this day shall not be forgotten.

After parting with the brave hostage our search took us to the second floor where we had to search through a large number of magazines in order to find our next clue. The selection of magazines was expansive and ranged from politics to the arts and sciences. The clue then brought us to the worker at the front desk of this section of the library and she gave us the next clue in our investigation.

Those vikings told us that in order to get Stevie back we needed to have a great understanding of what he looks like. We decided to make our trek down to the first floor because of the wide variety of reference books the campus offers. Our clue was to observe page 196 of the Encyclopedia of the Dog, which was the page of the English Pointer. Our team relayed that information onto the resource attendant who pushed us forward onto the clue needed.

After searching through encyclopedia after encyclopedia and finally finding page 196, the page that contained the information we needed to continue our search. We were told to locate a well known comedian at PN 2287 C5. We knew we had to go to the fourth floor. Upon arriving we located the call number and discovered that comedian was Charlie Chaplin.

After paying a visit to Charlie Chaplin, we had to go all the way back down to the fourth floor and investigate the museum of natural history. There were many exhibits about animals and other such things in nature. One of the most interesting sections of the museum was the large collection of bird eggs called the August J. Schoenebeck egg collection that rested towards the back of the exhibit. Still no trace of Stevie, but we were lucky enough to find another clue.

The next clue we followed lead us to the discovery of a shark that had been let loose inside of the building. We figured that sharks inside of a library must not be normal, and that this could possibly be the final clue we needed to rescue Stevie. We ran back down to the first floor as fast as we could to try and stop this shark from hurting any innocent civilians. By the time we got down to the first floor the shark had gotten wind of our arrival and left, but we managed to find the last clue that we needed.

We sat for what seemed like hours trying to solve the riddle that Stevies captures had laid before. Whoever wrote these clues was a twisted professional at what he does to say the least. But eventually, we managed to solve the riddle and find our beloved Stevie on the Fifth floor archives. It was a long and hard day, but we pulled through and rescued Stevie from the clutches of evil.