Shorts7's Blog

The AFI Top 100 Films

shorts7 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:15:58 +0000

Movies I’ve seen: The Wizard of Oz, E.T., To Kill a Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Sound of Music, King Kong, Lord of the Rings I, West Side Story, Jaws, Rocky, The Silence of the Lambs, Forrest Gump, All the President’s Men, Titanic, 12 Angry Men, Toy Story.
My choice to write about: Toy Story

In my opinion, Toy Story deserves to be on the list of the top 100 films; this is for numerous reasons. First of all, Toy Story has an original plot. Although movies till this day try to use the same one, none can match up to that of Toy Story’s. It’s characters are completely original. No other movie’s main characters are an astronaut and cowboy. The characters’ attitude is very positive really doesn’t promote violence, considering that it’s primarily meant for the youth. Most importantly, it’s plot deals with one of the top desires of all kids: their toys coming to life; yet, the twist is that the kid is oblivious to the toys’ lives. It’s plot is very unique, but it also bring out the imagination and fun in every viewer. When I was younger, I could watch it over and over. It was one of my Disney movies that I didn’t want to pause or leave, even to go eat or use the bathroom. It’s graphics and adventurous plot kept me in my own world…in the movie’s world itself. I was in the zone. Another reason that it qualifies to be one of the top 100 movies, is because of the impact on emotion. It is difficult to watch a movie that has no emotion in itself, and that doesn’t effect your emotions. Toy Story brings out happiness, and the characters are constantly showing different emotions, and making comments that the viewer would find funny. Also, I think that the coloring, brightness, and style of the graphics of the film absorbs your attention and interests you. Toy Story makes you unable to never forget it; it leaves its mark.

MOVIES!

shorts7 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:28:32 +0000

One of my favorite movies of all time is West Side Story, and a movie that i’m crazy about is SAW I.
West Side Story: This movie is definitely one of my favorite “greatest” movies. The first time I watched it was in the 7th grade and didn’t really know what I thought about it, but I eventually discovered I loved it. It had a really neat plot, and the musical characteristic of it just added on to the entertainment and made it more interesting. It “expanded” it, I guess you would say. It’s unique-ness is what made me like it so much. As you should know, West Side Story is a musical-based movie about two people falling inlove who were either white or latino. This caused extreme tension and ended up resulting into two gangs fighting each other and Tony, who Maria was in love with, dying. It was such a tragedy. Movies like this absorb me pretty easily; I like love stories. The ending wasn’t neccessarily predicatable, which was a plus. The settings they chose really worked out. The music and beats are very catchy. As much as I remember about this movie, I didn’t really find any negatives pertaining to the way the film was made. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is at the very end when Maria tries finding Tony and does, but he dies in her arms. It’s not neccessarily the most positive part, but it’s emotionally moving.

-In every respect, the recreation of the Arthur Laurents-Leonard Bernstein musical in the dynamic forms of motion pictures is superbly and appropriately achieved. -Every moment of the drama has validity and integrity, got from skillful, tasteful handling of a universal theme. Ernest Lehman’s crackling screenplay, taken from Arthur Laurent’s book, and Robert Wise’s incisive direction are faithful and cinema-wise, and the performances are terrific.
(http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1739E774BC4152DFB667838A679EDE)

As for SAW I, I am an absolute fiend of scary movies. It doesn’t matter if they’re cause only anxiety or if they are all about the bloody and gory. SAW I is a great scary movie, because it combines both. It’s definitely more gross than anything. But it constantly leaves you unexpecting of what will happen next. One of the MAJOR reasons I love this movies is because of it’s plot. I would have never dreamt such a twisted plot in my life. The idea of somebody coming up with such stuff is shocking enough. Although the ways people were set up to die and be tortured were very twisted, I was very intrigued by them; very awed. But other than it’s amazing, unique plot, it has its other positives: It should be considered one of the top movies because of its ability to shock people, to consistenly keep them on their toes, and its complex make-up. It’s meaning is very in-depth. When thinking of technical things, everything looked realistic as you can get, along with perfect angles, perfect timing, etc. The opening scene of the two men (including Jigsaw himself, which is unknown until the end of the movie) in the bathroom makes a great start. This scene starts up people’s imaginations from the get go. Also, the fact the majority of the movie is set in the bathroom forces the audience’s minds to be confined and allowed to understand things only so much. I can’t think of any negatives! Lastly, the music is intense and perfect for the ending revealances.

-There is no melodramatic lead-in to Saw, it throws you straight into the middle of the story and never lets go till the final frame. The majority of the movie plays out in a harshly fluorescent “cell” with all the other action, save the final act, being told through flashbacks. This can make Saw seem strangely stagy, especially in the extended opening scene. It’s an unusual approach but it works well as the movie never once drags. -
Saw is not for everyone. It can be gruesome and brutal, if that’s your thing, but that makes up a very small part of what it otherwise an interesting psychological thriller.

(http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/Saw-718.html)

Response to article: The Hype Is Right

shorts7 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:20:17 +0000

To start off, I love the idea of a new peice of technology – it’s so neat and interesting. On the other hand, I do enjoy the little things such as the newspaper, books, and DVDs; reading is a major hobby of mine. With everything done on the internet, I’d go crazy. I can’t stand to stare into a screen all day; it’s bad on your eyes. I love the idea of being able to lay in bed, hold and read my book, and turn the pages. This new technology will eventually eliminate all of the valued things today. I don’t think all people will agree with this new “itablet”.
As for education, the only impact I can see this having on it will be online classes and online reading….online EVERYTHING! Or possibly a struggle for students to read from a book or do very normal things of today, all because of how you use the “itablet”. I’m not really understanding what this new peice of technology will look like. For classes like this one, the “itablet” would help more than hurt, because this class is based more on technology and the internet. It would speed things up, enabling up to progress faster on our material, and possibly cover more.
In general, I think that the “itablet” will bring more convinience to our lives by allowing us to find something or entertain ourselves quicker than we can today (not that today’s rate isn’t fast at all). On the other hand, our stories will become less valued – not just by youth, but everyone. I’m on the fence with this one.

My Response to “Obama Would Curtail Summer Vacation”

shorts7 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:25:32 +0000

I will clearly state, to begin, that I do NOT agree with Obama’s decisions on this topic – no matter what his interests may be.
It comes off to me as though his one and only major concern is American competition with other countries around the globe. Yes, that’s important to our country and economy. But at the same time, life itself is important and I don’t believe we were placed on this Earth to live for competing with other countries (and all of the stuff thats attached to it). We were placed on this Earth to live our lives and be happy and one thing is for sure – the youth in America would no longer feel that way if Obama follows through with this and gets his way. We, as students, will already have to face the fact of no 2-month long summer vacation when we graduate college and start our career. Our youth days are way too important in numerous ways to be occupied by school and homework 24/7.
I think the idea of keeping school open all night is fine – on week days only though – because it would allow us to come up to the school at anytime to recieve help on an assignment we realized we couldn’t do while we were doing it. This would benefit both students and teachers by keeping their learning and teaching up to date. But then again, there is a negative side to that idea, which is the fact that teachers would be forced to spend hours at the school. Yes high pay would be a nice thing, but not being able to go home and spend quality time with your family or have a relaxing break would not be a good thing. In other words, teachers would no longer have lives.
Summer school is definitely out of the question, because not all of us are making bad grades and need help. It should definitely never be required. I, personally, am satisfied with my grades.
If the school day was longer, there is no way you would get me to stay the entire time. And I know for a fact that other students would feel the same way. This would increase the drop out rate in all of America. Also, if this ridiculous idea ever did pass into law, they better never even attempt to give kids homework. After spending long days in school, nobody would have even the slightest motivation of thinking about doing extra work. Even under today’s conditions, many of us go home from school and do homework until bedtime – only breaks being dinner and a shower. That’s pathetic enough as it is.
Shortening our summer break and lengthening our other breaks is not something im a fan of at all. I absolutely love summer and it’s all I ever look forward to. The majority of us love the warm weather and the fact that it’s such a long period of time – long enough to give us time to recover from the previous school year and reach the point where we actually wouldn’t mind learning.
I question the topic of college and time extensions. College is paid for out of our own pockets and extended time seems like we would be forced to pay more money, which would cause LESS people to attend college. That would be a major loss and cancel out Obama’s reasoning in a big way.
At the end, the article seemed to focus on students who aren’t that wealthy and whose parents are constantly working. School for them and their reasons should be an option/opportunity for them. I don’t think it’s necessary to drag us into it who in fine condition/don’t need help.

Response to Justice Cunningham

shorts7 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:29:24 +0000

Some high schools in our country emphasize college prep, yet some do not. And those that don’t tend to be incapable of doing so, because of problems branching from the students themselves. This article made the point that education is becoming such a dominant part of life in today’s world that prominent people are advising longer school days, longer terms, etc. I completely disagree with the idea of having that happen. There is more to life than math formulas and analyzing a peice of writing written 30 years ago pertaining to what his childhood experience was like during a trip to the lake. This brings me to our high school. In my opinion, Danville High favors emphasizing college prep a slight bit more. We aren’t too extreme. Some high schools even have ACT classes. Our college prep classes are worthy and of much quality, but our vocational classes seem to be extremely limited and of no quality. I completely understand what the article is trying to get a cross, and, thus, believe that our school needs to start putting more emphasis on vocational education. The skills learned by those classes go on to benefit the world and people’s everyday lives. Where would we be without those jobs that never require college? I think our emphasis on college prep should remain the same, but increase our emphasis on vocational education. As a person who is extremely interested in going to college and becoming something different than an auto-mechanic, I favor college prep. But for those in our school who aren’t meant for it, we need to make changes for. These changes – if they ever come- will take forever. If it wasn’t so complicated, I think there should be high schools with limited college prep and extreme emphasis on vocational education for teenagers.

Weekly Goals

shorts7 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:04:42 +0000

9/14/09
This week, Rachel and I plan on completing the directory in the lobby. Also, hopefully by the end of the week everyone in class will have sent their teacher’s emails to us. If not, it’s fine, because I have only gotten two responses out of 4 – understandable. For the teacher’s emails we recieve each day, we will go ahead and update information if neccessary and also create a page for any teacher that doesn’t have one that a student notifies us about.

Weekly Work

shorts7 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:26:39 +0000

9/10/09
Rachel and I, as partners for the Department section, have been working on the directory in the lobby. We are getting near being finished. It will probably be done by tomorrow. As for my opinion on the work load, I feel that it’s just right. Nothing too little, nothing too much! So far, nobody in class has sent us any emails of their teacher’s replies.

9/18/09
This week, Rachel and I didn’t get too much accomplished, but we plan on changing that next week since we finally got the directory out of the way and complete. We just finished up the directory yesterday (thursday), and began playing around with the school website manager program. We haven’t completely figured it out yet, but it won’t take too long. We have recieved more than enough emails to keep us busy all next week.

Response to Salon.com

shorts7 — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:06:23 +0000

     First of all, all I have to say is “wow”. This article about teenagers and the internet has some really good points, and the author, Goldwasser, pointed out some facts about the relationship we teens have the internet that aren’t that obvious to all people.
     I completely agree with Goldwasser’s observation that we teens know of nothing but mostly of what the internet has to offer. I am not saying that the Internet doesn’t offer much though, because it does and I have learned quite a bit from it concerning academics. Kids today don’t read, write, or care about school. It’s true. I’m not one of them, but I sit near enough of them in class this year since I don’t take a lot of difficult classes. For example, in English 4 last week Ms. Shearer brought up the idea of having to read one book every 9 weeks for a grade and I heard everyone around me sigh and make negative remarks. I do believe, along with Goldwasser, that the internet has played a role in the interest of teenagers. The creation of Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter-specifically-have negatively affected what teenagers decide to do with their time. On the other hand, I also believe some kids are just simply lazy. When it comes to the decision as to whether it’s the internet itself or jealousy of today’s older generation, I believe it’s a bit of both. At certain times, I think that adults find it unfair that their children or students know how to do something online they don’t and/or the fact that we have it much easier today thanks to the internet and its wonderful search engine Google. On the other hand, I think kids should have limited time on the internet if time gets extremely out of hand, because its distracting inanities do attract teenagers and distract them from being responsible and completing their studies. Goldwasser makes a comment about 15 year old boys sharing their feelings online. Quite honestly, I don’t find that important. That is only step one. We all have the nerve and skill to type out our feelings to others while they cannot see our face or hear our voice. What is very important in this world is the ability to communicate and do it correctly and with confidence. These online social networks make it unnecessary to call or meet up with our friends or new people and talk, and thus, these online social networks are giving teenagers the easy way out and not forcing them to learn how to speak to someone face to face and be comfortable at the same time. That is a major form of ignorance that derives from too much time on the internet and texting.
     Yes, the internet constantly exercises and improves our skills for writing about ourselves, but that isn’t the only important thing when it comes to thinking and writing. The thinking and writing process for writing about subjects other than ourselves (such as history and literature) are extremely weak in present day teens. The internet doesn’t sharpen those skills; school does. I know this from personal experience. It’s a huge shift going from being on Facebook all summer to writing a paper over a piece of writing out of a literature book. School’s teaching of thinking and writing is the key to knowing how to write college papers and open our mind up to a completely different level. The internet’s teaching of thinking and writing is an addition that makes it all complete.
     I don’t think adults should feel jealous or insecure as a reaction to we teenagers knowing more about the internet and how to find things easier and faster. Personally, I would be willing to sit down with any of my family members and show them how to work everything. It beats being asked to look something up every 10 minutes. As for the internet being a big help with academics, I think that adults should be positive about it, because what our books can’t describe well enough for our own individual understanding, the internet does. The majority of the time, parents say “I have no clue” when their child comes up to them and asks them a question about what that night’s homework includes. I agree with Goldwasser when she states that the permanent information on the internet allows us to take more time to understand the concept of things. That is a major plus. Some teachers I’ve had have made use of the internet by choosing links for us to go to concerning a certain topic in their subject. The internet enables teenagers to work with visual lessons rather than reading descriptive words straight out of a book. Many understand better by seeing and “experiencing”. Teachers really should work with the internet to teach us more.

Two Websites to Consider

shorts7 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:29:26 +0000

The first high school’s website that I chose to observe was Lexington Christian Academy. http://www.lexingtonchristian.org/ I chose to observe this, just because it came to mind first. The one thing I love about their website is the organization. The opening page is pretty confined and simple, not too busy. It has all the basic link buttons on it and also a single box for a slide show. It’s “boxes” look more modern b/c they aren’t like squares, they are rounded edges. They do have an Alumni site which is really neat. So I like that idea now! Also, they have an organized page of everyday announcements (incase people don’t hear them at school thanks to loud classmates). The second school I chose to observe was Chillicothe High School in Chillicothe, Missouri. http://www.chillicotheschools.org/I chose this school, because it was the first school to come to mind since I have a friend from out of state who just graduated from there 2 years ago. Like Lexington Christian Academy, it has that single opening page that has the basics and its mascot. I noticed that this website uses only so many colors, which is good because the main base color of black makes everything else pop. Maybe we should have EVERYTHING in blue and all font white and gray. They have a sports news page all on its own and I think that would be a neat and easy way for people visiting the website to keep up with sports’ scores and articles.

My Thoughts on DHS Website As Is

shorts7 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:28:01 +0000

Observations:

Many of the things you click on, such as Dress Code for example, the ‘calendar’ link exists and just shows this year’s school calendar. Yes it is convenient if you want to go straight to the calendar from there, but considering that you clicked on Dress Code I don’t think anyone has interest in looking at the calendar. I’m slightly anal about the presence of things that you have no need for. In other words, I believe it’d be a good idea to remove the calendar link on most of the things if possible. If we keep the calendar, we need to somehow make it a calendar pertaining to that subject, such as a club or sport.

Format:
I think that font style wise, we are fine. The only thing I feel is a problem is the font size. Some things are way too small, so in order to even things out such as headings and then there subheadings, we may need to make the main headings a bit larger. With little font and a lot of writing, some people may choose to not read it.

Homework Board:
No Homework Board exists on our school website. I believe that one is really important, because sometimes people don’t hear or see the homework assignment given that day for different reasons. I believe we should add a “Homework Board” button to place near Email, Infinite Campus, etc. It would be easy to notice and get to. This would allow students not to fall behind in certain situations.

School Supply List:
School Supply Lists work for elementary and middle school, but when students get to high school it’s a bit different. Teachers have more of an option not all classes require a one subject notebook and 1 inch binder. What we can do though is list the things that students DO need for every class – such as loose leaf paper, a graphing calculator, pencils, and pens – and then end that section with a note that students will find out what they need to buy on the first day of school and every teacher and subject has different requirements. If people disagree with this, then we can have every single teacher in the school send us a note telling what exactly students need for their class(es) and post that onto the School Supply List. Whichever is fine.

Student Project Showcase: Our school website doesn’t have anything like this and we do need to make one, because there are pieces of art that are created by students in this school that are only displayed to people in this school and to people who choose to step foot in the building. I believe the public needs to have the opportunity to see the talent that originates from our school and have the students recognized. I’m not really sure what “buttons” we could link it to, so opinions would be nice.

Parent Resources:
We already have a Danville High School online handbook on the website. A general syllabus for each class, on the other hand, we do not have. They would be good to put onto our website, because not only would it save paper but parents can look at it at anytime and not depend on getting it from their child to read.

Master Calendar:
We have a master calendar that has absolutely no information on it besides the first day, last day, holidays, etc. – everything on the calendar that each student receives with their registration papers. We need to put every single event possible on it so that students and families of all types can receive important information. Keeping it updated will be simple enough. It needs to include sports, assembly events, report card releases, and anything else that matters!

Contact Information:
Our school site does have a contact information page under Faculty and Staff, but personally I don’t find it very attractive and I’m pretty sure most other people wouldn’t either. We need to liven it up a bit and add phone numbers.

Alumni Section:
An alumni section would be neat, but I feel like it’d be sort of complicated to get that started. I’m not quite sure if Alumni students from here would actually participate in that stuff.

Pictures:
When it comes to pictures, we need to update the pictures on the site – remove all pictures of students who have already graduated. Also, we need to update club/sports group pictures. When I go to another school’s website and look at their sports team’s picture, I typically can’t see anything because it’s taken from such a long distance away. Therefore I look for possible individual pictures. If it isn’t too complicated, I think we should have individual pictures for as many players as possible in each sport/club. If students choose not to have it on there, then that’s fine, but other students would probably like that.

Online Registration:
We do have a page that contains online registration access, but we don’t use it. It’s such a convenient way to register for different things that I think it’d be a good idea to start putting it to use now – we have to start somewhere. And technology is only going to advance and computers are only going to become more popular.

Online Store:
Not only is our school store never open, but we definitely don’t have an online store page. Both students and parents love sporting school apparel and there is hardly ever a way to get hooked up with any. This page would be an enjoyment to many people in the community along with students and parents.

Fundraising Tools:
Our school website NEEDS a page where people can log on and donate money for whatever reason they’d like. Our school needs money – simply put. In order to have better and more advance things, which also result in better education, we need the money. I don’t know how many people would actually be willing to do this, but it’d be good to just try.