The Secrets of Happy Families

I found an article on BigThink called "Discover the Secrets of Happy Families." It came with a video in which a man, Bruce Feiler, talks about why and how he wrote his book, "The Secrets of Happy Families." In his book, he wrote 200 ideas for families to try out because he didn't want to make a list of a few things families must do, and if he wrote 200 it would make it more obvious that nobody can do them all. His basic advice was that everybody is different. One parenting strategy might work on one child but not another. I know that this is true for my siblings and I. We all have very different morals and mind sets that make problems either harder or easier to solve. Feiler said that the secret to a happy family is trying. You can't just follow a handbook or do what your friends do. You have to make your own path. Obviously, I'm not a parent, but I've been told that I'm very maternal, so I'd love to just read a few of his 200 ideas in the future.

How Mindfulness Can Impair Your Mind

I read an article on BigThink called "How Mindfulness Can Impair Your Mind." When you are mindful, you are aware of what you are doing, and this is an overall good thing. It improves your behavior and well being and helps you break bad habits. However, being too mindful can keep you from learning many things that you learn when you aren't really thinking about it. In other words, babies first learn how to talk by listening. They don't know how to spell, and they aren't outright thinking, 'I'm speaking English right now.' This is why it is harder for people to learn a language later in life, because they are almost always mindful of it.

Deliver on 'Today'

I read an article on BigThink called, "Everyone Wants to Create the Product of Tomorrow, You Also Need to Deliver on 'Today.' Long title, I know. As the title suggests, the article was about how people are always trying to invent the next big thing without making the things we already have better. This is a very bad thing because in the end we all end up with worse products. The old is mediocre and the new is brilliant, and there is no middle ground. Without improvement, nothing ever comes out of anything except for a material product. No ideas, no inspiration. The article said, "To be successful, innovation requires both the planting of seeds and the pruning of buds....Leadership teams should contain a complementary mix of planters and pruner, or innovators and optimizers." I completely agree with this because, like society needs scientists and garbage men alike, a single project needs to have equal focus on all aspects, not just the new.

Dogs

For as long as I can remember, I have disliked dogs. I was terrified of dogs when I was little, even dogs like Molly, my Yorkie-Maltese. I wasn't the type of girl that had stuffed puppies on their bed. This fear of dogs gradually grew into an actual repulsion. Even though I can still pet my dogs and other peoples' dogs without gagging or screaming, I really would rather not. I can see why people think they're cute, and sometimes I can't stop myself from going "aw" when I see a puppy, but I also can't help but see them as the smelly, drooling, messy creatures that they are. I just can't help it. It also doesn't help that I'm allergic to dogs and cats. When I'm older, I know that I will probably be forced to get one by my future children, and no matter how much I will try, I will not be able to get them to look after it. That will probably be one of the biggest challenges in my life. I would much rather have a clean house and a turtle than a scratched up floor, a billion responsibilities, and a dog.

GPS Tracking Bullets

I found an article on BigThink called "GPS Tracking 'Bullets' Could Help Reduce Car Chases." Police departments and state patrol agencies are apparently testing out Starchase, which is a gun that they put on police cars and it shoots bullets that stick to the cars and can tell the police where the suspect is. The aim is to stop car chases, but so far only one out of four bullets are sticking to the test cars. Also, the system and bullets are very expensive, so it seems like there is still a lot of work to be done. I think this is great because car chases are really dangerous and not always effective, so this system can potentially make catching criminals easier.
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/gps-tracking-bullets-could-help-reduce-car-chases

Bye-Bye Buses; Hello, Driverless Pods

I read an article on BigThink called "Bye-Bye Buses; Hello, Driverless Pods." Apparently, there is a town in England that is starting to use electric pods to travel. People can order a pod for $3.20 using their smartphones and each pod seats two people and their luggage. The pods travel 12 miles per hour on a special roadway. I think this is completely insane but so cool. They expect it to be completely in effect by 2017, and it makes me think how close the future is. Everybody thought that by 2000 we'd have hover pads and robots, and this really isn't that far from that. To think that in four years, people can just sit in a pod and tell it where to go. I can't wait for this kind of technology to spread to the US, although it will probably get rid of the subways, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
http://bigthink.com/in-their-own-words/poetry-is-the-essence-of-education

Poetry is the Essence of Education

I found an article on BigThink called "Poetry is the Essence of Education." It's about how teaching poetry is worthwhile because it is passing a basic, rhythmic practice from one generation to the next, from Dr. Seuss to parent to child. It said that education is comes from the Latin word, "educere," which means "lead forth." I completely agree with this because I always hear people complain about having to pay taxes to schools even though they don't have a child in that school. It's ridiculous because they don't even think of the fact that someday, the children that they paid to put through school are going to lead the country someday. They're going to be the people who adjust insurance rates and stack adult diapers at CVS and stuff like that. By giving children education, they are helping the people who will someday help them.
http://bigthink.com/in-their-own-words/poetry-is-the-essence-of-education

The Conjuring

On Friday, I saw the movie The Conjuring. It was about a family that moves into a house which ends up being haunted, like most horror movies. I think it would've been a really scary movie if I hadn't covered my eyes the whole time. After the first time I saw this demon ghost on top of a closet, my only thoughts were "nope, nope, nope" and I covered my eyes whenever I knew something was about to pop out. The makeup was extremely effective and the plot was great. The only thing I hated was the music choice, because sometimes it didn't really fit and it just dragged me right out. Other than that, it was pretty good. Even though the general plot was cliche, the producers put their own spin on it.

The Zine

I'm pretty proud of how the Hallowzine came out. I wrote a story for it, made an ad and coupons, and helped with the layout, so I guess you could say I had a significant investment in it. I really liked everybody else's illustrations and writings, too, although I still haven't gotten the chance to read everything. I can't wait to find out how the people we gave them to liked them and how the next one is going to turn out.

Acting Workshop

The other day, I went to the acting workshop with James III. It was my first acting workshop, so I was worried, especially because I was given 10 minutes notice and wasn't prepared with a sonnet. Luckily, Ashley had printed out two different sonnets and gave me one of them. First, James III had us all introduce ourselves by saying our name, our favorite anything (food, color, musical, etc.) and what we know about Shakespeare. I've only ever read Romeo and Juliet, parts of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Merchant of Venice, and I've seen Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing in theaters, but nobody else was very far ahead of me, only reading the requirements for school. Then, he had us each come up with a sound and gesture that is over the top and we went in a circle and shared them. Then, he had us go through our sonnets and pick interesting words, think of what the word makes you think about, and find a gesture for the word. Then, people volunteered and performed their sonnets with the gestures. I was one of the people who didn't get to go because we ran out of time, but I was kind of looking forward to it. I don't know if we'll pick it up next time, though.

Paganism

I was telling my dad about The Wicker Man, and he said that the religion that they followed sounded more like Druidry than Paganism. He explained that Druidry followed Celtic traditions. I was very confused, so I decided to do some research. I found the most straight forward source that I could, which happened to be The Pagan Federation: http://paganfed.org/index.shtml. It turns out that Druidry is a branch of Paganism. Paganism is a very broad term that describes "a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion." Paganism has a lot of different branches, such as Druidry, Wicca, Shamanism, and Heathenry, which includes Norse, Northern, Odinism, Asatru, and Vanatru. There was so much information on this website that I couldn't read it all, so I just decided to research Druidry and save the rest of them for another day. I found a very interesting passage on the Druidry page: 
'O knowledgeable lad, whose son are you?'
‘I am the son of Poetry

Poetry, son of scrutiny

Scrutiny, son of meditation

Meditation, son of lore

Lore, son of enquiry

Enquiry, son of investigation

Investigation, son of great knowledge

Great knowledge, son of great sense

Great sense, son of understanding

Understanding, son of wisdom

Wisdom, son of the triple Gods of poetry.’

(Colloquy of the Two Sages- Celtic Traditional)

This passage, I feel, represents the belief in the connections and the circle of life that was represented in The Wicker Man. I definitely suggest that anyone who is interested in the branches of Paganism visit the website, http://paganfed.org/index.shtml.

The Wicker Man

Yesterday, we watched The Wicker Man (1973) and I liked it. I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it, but I liked it. There were a lot of things that I didn't understand about the plot, such as why certain people denied knowing Rowan while others said they knew her but didn't know how she died, and then at the end it turned out that she wasn't dead, but the entire thing was a trick to get the police officer there to sacrifice him. I'm all for a good plot twist, but I don't think that it was necessarily executed successfully. I also didn't understand why it was so musical; there was an entire dance sequence with Willow dancing naked and banging on the walls, and the entire time, I was completely confused about what was going on. Then, there were little boys dancing spinning around a tree with their junk tied to ribbons, singing about nature and reproduction. I understood that it was a Pagan thing, but I didn't know why it was relevant. I was annoyed at the police officer the entire time because I didn't like how he treated the people on the island and kept talking about Christianity like it was the only way to live life. At the end, he sang a hymn while he was burning to death, and all I could think was, "Dude, take a hint, you are not getting saved." He had chance after chance to escape, but he didn't, and that was also kind of frustrating to me. I think that when the movie first came out, more people would've sympathized with him because there were more extreme Christians, but now, because everybody is so accepting, most people like the Pagans better. They outsmarted him completely, and although I don't agree with killing people, I thought that they were pretty okay people.

Mirror Image

Recently, everybody in STAC had the assignment to make horror movies for Halloween. I was in a group with Ellen, Emily, Jessica, Austin, and Jessi. The movie was about a blind girl who is tricked into switching places with a demon that was trapped in her mirror. Jessi played the blind girl, Emily played her sister, and I played the true form of the mirror. Every day that we filmed, Jessica had to put a lot of makeup on me to make my skin look paler and my eyes look darker. I really don't like wearing makeup because I personally feel that I don't really need it and if I started to wear it everyday it would make my natural face look worse. Basically what would happen was, Jessica would do my makeup while Ellen was filming with Jessi and Emily, and by the time we were done with makeup there would be very little time to film my scenes. We ended up having to refill stuff, so I ended up having my makeup done about six times. On the sixth time, Jessica was sick, so I had to do it myself. Luckily, I had watched her do it so many times that I knew most of what to do. I did it myself in ten minutes, whereas it took her an hour because I was such wimp about eyeliner and mascara. It didn't actually look that bad. In the end, I was pretty satisfied with the film, except for at the end when Emily and I walked around  each other and I had to paw at her, I think I looked pretty stupid. Just saying.

Movie

I woke up this morning with a strong desire to make a film. With the horror movie that The Kindred Lips and I just made, I had a very small part. Although I helped with the plot and had a role, I still don't feel like I contributed very much. I really want to make a movie that I write, direct, and edit. As I went throughout the day, lines just kept popping into my head and I wrote them in Notes on my phone. Eventually, I looked at all of these lines and an idea for a plot came to me. Now, I just can't wait to execute it. The thing is, for my idea, I need to use voice overs, so I need to learn how to do that, and my crappy PC is practically broken and only uses Windows MovieMaker. I can deal with those things, though.