whose the fairest one of all?

This weekend my family watched mirror mirror. This is a snow white idea movie. Or really it’s a retelling of snow white. I wasn’t really watching it for the plot but for the gowns in this movie. They costumes for the queen and snow white we amazing.

In the movie one of my favorite scenes is the ball that is thrown to welcome the prince into the kingdom. The thing is that it’s a costume ball. The costumes of all the nobles are very non-colorful, but the queen is in a red ball-room gown that makes her look like a peacock; while snow white has the costume of a sawn with a bird head and wings.

Another dress which I love is the one that snow white starts out in. it is a simple pink and green dress with vines and flowers embroidered in to it.  Her wedding gown is also very pretty with its blue and giant orange bow.

The dwarves in this tale there are only six, and they are bandits.  They also have these cool stilts that they put accordions over to make themselves giants. It’s really a good idea.   One of the dwarves also has a wolf head which adds to his name wolf.

What this movie lacks in plot and characters it makes up in costume. So if your going for the movie itself them it won’t be that good. But if you just like pretty dresses this is the movie for you. 

last post on the great influenza

I am almost done with my free reading book and it has been the best one yet. The book I read for this term for most of it was “the great influenza” by John Barry. This book has changed my perspective on the medicine we use today; also on how we got to this point in that field.

You see this book started out in 1918 before world war one and the outbreak of influenza. It would look at the people who would develop modern American medicine till the outbreak and then those who would have to face it. These two groups of people would be the same people but not. For the epidemic will change their outlook on medicine and how they treat it.

             These men would also have to fight against the political machine which is the government of America. During my book the president of the United States is Woodrow Wilson and he chooses for most of the war to ignore the deaths of all the civilians and soldiers due to the influenza outbreak.

            Where I am at in my book though is very interesting, because it is up to where I know who they are talking about due to advance biology.  In the book the Author mentions Fred Griffith who we discussed in class because of his contributions to genetics and Watson and crick who both discovered the double helix. This book shows that its studies were going on in real time.

            I have a little bit left in this book, but I have loved reading it. I am excited to finish it also though . it will give me a chance to get back to reading something that is in the fiction and a little bit easier to read on a level. It will still be challenging but it will be in an area of literature not as hard as nonfiction.

blogging problems

The issue with blogging

you see right now I just spent a good long time working on one post. I found pictures I gave well detailed thoughts on those pictures and I even included a link. But blogger messed it up. Now all my pictures aren’t showing.  This frustrates me because I was proud of that post and now its due to the fact that I don’t know how to make a web site work for me.

This pass year I have been struggling with blogging due to the fact that I don’t know what to write about. I really don’t want to sound like a know it all and also not sound like a rant on about something I know little about. But blogging has just become a chore now.

                It lacks the fun of writing because I don’t know what I’m allowed to write about. Do I have to focus on like one real thing or can I do fiction writing without getting in trouble. In the end its just s stressor for my Sunday about getting it done.

                One thing about blogging is that once in a while in all this muck that is my writing I find a piece, that I am proud to say I have written.   It was one that put a lot of care into and feel like I have a message to give to my community of fellow writers.   This only happens once in a while; so is it really enough to make up for all the not so good writing I am doing?

                I don’t know but I hope that in the future I can maybe get more of those great writings and less like this one which I just started writing because blogger didn’t post pictures right on my last post correct. That would mean that my readers may not get the point I am trying to make.  

                To improve writing you must write often but does it all have to be well written that is the question? 

Shopping

Okay well I think with spring just around the corner, we can start looking at winter sales!  These are the some of the best times for shopping. When stores are starting to get there spring inventory and with that sales on all the winter cloths go.

Now you may be like why the heck would I want to get winter stuff for next year? Well even if the stores are selling out of there winter cloths it doesn’t mean winter is over.  You will just have to make sure that what you buy can be used in many different ways even sometimes in spring.

Mod cloth is a website I love for dress shopping. The dress are cute and fun and you don’t find them really anywhere here in Iowa.  I picked this dress because any girl can use a little black dress.  Its form fitting do if you do wear it make sure you can keep in your tummy. The price for this dress on sale is about 15.99 without shipping.

This purple dress I just loved. The bow looks oh so cute and the print on it added some fun. I liked that the dress had straps because with strapless dress they have to be well fitted. the price for this dress is 16.99 so also a good price for a dress.

The one item that I would spend the most money on would be the shoes.  I found two different shoes on this site, the black bow ones which I absolutely adore and I think would go with both dress. The only bad thing about them is that they are 59.99 while the simple black wedge is 32. Fashion does have its moments.

I love shopping both online and in person. The best thing is when you go with friends though.  If you like the shoes and dresses here is the link for the website.

http://www.modcloth.com/shop/sale#?size=S,2,4&price=2,174&sort=newest&page=1

how to help writer block

Writers block is one of the worst things in the world. It is that moment when you hit a wall that will not move no matter how hard you try to come up with the next thing you are going to say; but fear not my fine friend for I am going to help you beat writers block.

Step one

First things first you need to drop the subject. You have been ting about it for hours now and you need to get a new fresh outlook on the subject. While that does not mean you should stop writing it means it should be on a different subject. These subjects could be anything from puppies to what the weather is outside. Once you have gotten away from the subject for a few hours it’s time to come back.

Step two

Refocus yourself on finding new ways to write about what you have a block on. This may be looking on the internet to see what other people say about the topic you are writing about. But be warned you do not what to plagiaries their ideas and take them as your own. Just find them a inspiration to fix your writers block. Other ways to refocus are to eat as you write to get those brain juices flowing again.  Smart people eat to keep their brains focused, meaning this could get you the idea to beat writers block.

Step three

            Starting back on the subject maybe hard at first; with the lost of creativity you find that every angle you look at is flawed. This is not the case; you just haven’t found the right perspective for writing a new idea. To help this one you will need to look at maybe another point that maybe coming in the future for you writing. Start from there , where you know what you want to do and write ahead. This may give you the insight into what needs to happen in the place where you have writers block. 

Paradise

The cost of perfection

A world that in which everything is perfect: utopia. What is the cost if such a great idea? For when everything is perfect do you want to understand it and fix it? Another word for utopia is paradise. A place that is perfect in a way that makes it a heaven to be in. If humans were in utopia or paradise would we even know it? The more important question is what is the cost of a perfect place?

When you find utopia it’s never really utopia. For humans are imperfect so what is perfect, that we humans bring ourselves into becomes imperfect. Literature shows this in many books written by many different people over time, the world is imperfect and so are we. Yet in a sense every person wants utopia or finds it and realizes paradise isn’t what the character thought.

Most often what seems to be a utopia is really a dystopia in disguise. In books these factors, ruin the perfection in what the character is living in. another way is that the dystopia was there the whole time but by outside forces the character is brought to see the corruption.

In “the giver” (http://www.shmoop.com/the-giver/summary.html) you see a kid who is growing up in what appears to be a utopian society, but what is really not. The shock of what his life has been brings Jonas to a change in perspective: and in the end he runs away from the community to free the people of their ignorance.

Dystopia’s are easier to find in both life and literature. The hunger game is an all-out dystopia with only utopia for the citizens of the capitol who live in wealth and don’t have to work hard for anything because the districts create everything for them. What makes it worse is that with the rebellion the government controls the districts with brute forces and control of the emotions of its people. This plays on the people make them controllable on a large scale and they can’t escape this control. Nor can they run away from it because district thirteen does about the same thing, controlling its people with survival and living underground to protect themselves.

Utopia and dystopia are opposites of each other. One is perfect and  the other imperfection. Is one better than the other? Can without becoming inhuman can we find perfection and paradise? The cost of paradise is too much in retrospect; to be perfect is boring and with it we lose our identity.

whats with gym?

The problem with gym in schools.

I have never really enjoyed gym after getting out of elementary school. As a child I swam every day, at  school I  didn’t need that extra few minutes of time spent running around playing games, but I enjoyed it because it add some activity to another otherwise day of nothing but sitting in a classroom learning stuff.

What would follow on the subject of gym is that in middle school it would have the fun juiced out of it by the requirements of doing sports. The teacher at the school I attended made it a little less fun in that she would make you wear step counters to make sure you took a certain amount of steps just to get an A for that day. It is one of those ways that gym teachers are trying to make students grading easier and measurable.

But can you really measure your activity? I find that with calorie counters you can understand what is better for you to do and eat, while gym has just add to a day a little bit of frustration on being made to work out at a time in the day that wasn’t what I need or liked. Even if you did a sport during a time in middle school it didn’t get you a free hour. You just did it for fun which was fine by me; because the time spent practicing for that sport was with friends and enjoying just being a team.

While in gyms of schools you found that you weren’t on a team just a bunch of classmate’s forced to do sports; while your love for being on a team and getting active was being juiced right out of you for the reason of a test on a game that you should just play to enjoy; not for a grade.

Now in high school you find that sports are the way to go with teammates and fun that has been lost from gym. The problem with that is its only one sport that can get you so far and you just train for one thing, gym classes can do a variety of sports that with sports teams you only get one.

I haven’t taken a really gym class scene I have arrived at high school, the only gym I have ever done was with the swimmers before school, and that was just dry land workouts that we got credit for being there. What I hope in the future is that someday the gym teacher will start putting fun back into gym by making it fun; not just another class that a student has to pass to graduate.

last spring break

Last spring break I went too Arizona to visit my family on a family reunion. While I was there I found that the culture was a little bit different.   They had a different idea of how to dress, along with how the buildings where built.

When we first got to Phoenix, Arizona the airport was different.  The terminal was mostly outside while even if the there was no snow it was odd to be outside when we stepped off the plane.  The highways were a lot emptier of trucks.

One of the better things of about travel is that the shopping is different. The shops were very open when you looked around. Lots of the merchandise was outside and all the shops where open with either window that let in lots of light into the shop. Doors were open everywhere along how the color of the cloths that they were selling.

The cloths back in the shops where bright, they also had bling on them. The shorts were the same look that is very hot here but the cloths were a lot cheaper. The hotel I was staying at was in walking distance of a dress shop. The dress they had there were a lot brighter colored than the ones we had here, the yellows were a sunny yellow and they had orange, and brighter colors than they had here. We have more muted colors than anything else.

We stayed at a hotel that was huge. The pool was huge and it was kept cool. While there I found that it was an open hotel. The hallways were open to the outside along with the fact that the place had little to no inside at all.  It was just one of those great places were you could enjoy the outside.

Houses there were also very different. It was an open house very much like the shops that were around the hotel. They had a pool and a hot tub in their backyard which was common among the houses. They also didn’t have a basement; they don’t get tornado’s in Arizona so they wouldn’t need a basement, what they have which we don’t it a second level and a spare little house which grandma could stay in.

Baseball also was in season when I got there; Which was that they were doing their spring training. That was a lot of fun to watch.  We were really cloths to the baseball players and it  was just like a kernels game just with major league baseball players. If you lived there you probably would get a job there for spring break just to enjoy the baseball and it would be a great way to make money. 

love to read?

To read a book and understand it that is a challenge. Is what we are doing in the classroom helping me understand what I just read? With the level of how people learn and value thinking and reading; our future classrooms may lose the one thing that I was taught; How to think.

I was raised in a house with a teacher, she had quit her job to stay home with me but that didn’t mean she stopped teaching, I was just her only pupil. We went places to the park and to the pool. She taught me how to walk and talk. At night she read me books; starting the love of reading that would come in go through the rest of my life up to this point.

Schools today have reading lists; you have to read from them and then not just understand them but also be willing to work on projects with classmates. This can take the joy out of reading. Deadlines; pressure on tests take out that joy of just reading a good book. Can we improve that in any way?

I hope so. To have your love of reading taken away just for the reason that your teacher wants you to read a book would be; Sad. the best thing about reading is that it can take you to new world that are better here than anywhere else. Books bring joy to a child’s life; in a way that nothing else can. They add imagination to a child’s life; toys become better just by reading to add creativity.

Are children of the day losing the joy to read? I think I am little sometimes. The books that I have to speed read; I comprehend stuff less and what really happens is that I just can’t learn stuff. My textbook reading is sometimes even better than the books I have to read for other classes.

Are we ready?

http://www.flu.gov/pandemic/history/index.html#

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/flu-outbreak-oklahoma-school-district-cancel-classes/story?id=18187718

 What would we do if this happened again? I keep asking myself this question as I read my book “the great influenza” by john M. Barry. Times have changed scenes 1918 but has it been enough? Could we stop any kind of epidemic of that size?   Are we prepared?

Today we are hearing about the flu that is going around; but is it really that bad? We maybe; the best thing we can do is antibiotics and vaccines.  

That solution has troubles with the fact that the virus then gains a powerful weapon. The ability to evolve and gain immunity over a single antibiotic which it can then share with other viruses and bacteria. 

Today we are finding that we have a shortage of vaccines and this flu season we maybe have one problem. The doctors can’t fill prescriptions fast enough to get them around to people. This leads to people having not enough of their prescription which they don’t finish; that will get you a second even worst infection. 

So are we ready for a virus?  I don’t think so but when you get sick finish your medication. 

中国?

The art of study Chinese is hard; to understand this subject to have to be able to connect sounds to characters and those characters to the English meaning.   That jump from words on a piece of paper to word your teacher is saying to you.

To write “the spring festival is china’s most important holiday” you would  write “春节是中国最重要的节日。”  now the sounds are “chun jie shi zhong gou zui zhong yao de jie ri”. Sounds pretty crazy right?  Well when you look at their grammar Chinese write in a very different way.

They always put the time first when writing or saying a sentence; if there isn’t a time then you go subject.  So an example would be “ma ming writes Chinese’s characters very well.”  “马明写汉字写得很好.” The sounds for this are “ma ming xi han zi xi de hen hao.” See ma ming is a name so he is the subject next it says he writes characters, so action final it says very well; Describing how he writes these characters.

This language has two ways of writing it both in a simple or traditional from.  So for me to write my name in the simple from is 冯凯蒂。While in the traditional from it would be more strokes. Traditional is more for a formal occasion, than normal life so it could be the learned writing of the Chinese you may say.  

Survival of the fitness

            I have been reading a lot from my book the great influenza and I must say that being sick is your number one killer. Colds kill. You know what I mean they make you feel gross and slow, add a fogginess to your thoughts. Also you get a gross runny nose.  All these things add up to one thing, an immune reaction to germs in your body. These reactions cause discomfort but it means your body is waging war on its attackers who don’t really think as much as just want to reproduce.

             What I have found as I’m reading is that your body is a great thing. It tries to help you from dying by fighting a disease that may kill you. When we didn’t have very good medicine, one of the more common ways to die was infection and sickness. Another way that lots of people died of a sudden disease is that we weren’t prepared in wyas that lead to speading of this great disease.

            With all the antibiotics and other treatments doctors are giving out, infections are becoming harder to fight. They are drug resident and that makes it hard for doctors to treat it. So do we go back to survival of the fitness, or do we look to new ways of treatment?

I think a little bit of both. We should reduce the use of medical treatment so that bacteria don’t need to mutate as fast to survive, but we also invest in medical studies to look for new forms of treatment. These treatments would have to be a new way of working with our body instead of just using drugs.

Then   maybe we could help people with in curable disease by just boosting their immune system so they can fight it themselves. This may be a wild dream by a crazy junior in high school; it is my hope that we can look outside the box to find the best way to survive and flourish in our environment. 

Supernatural

Supernatural

            Over Christmas break I watched a show with my mom. It was called supernatural. It was pretty good. The idea was that two brothers drove around in there dads’ 1967 Chevy impala; fighting the supernatural. At first it was pretty simple they stop bad guys and demons. A normal family in a TV shows. What gets me is that after a couple of seasons we start exploring new ideas. Like a biblical apocalypse. It really was built up as you go through the series.

They start out the whole thing with the death of Sam and Dean’s moms death. She dies in a way that is supernatural; this leaves dad, John to raise the two boys. He doesn’t do it a the normal way, for his job became to hunt down the thing that killed his wife.

So the boys are raised on the road. Dad working “cases” while they are trained to hunt and kill the things that go bump in the night. The first episode builds on the fact the brothers had a fall out when Sam went to college. Now at the start of this episode thety get be together to find their dad who has gone missing. Sam leaves his girlfriend behind for a day to go find his dad with Dean. But the important thing that happens is that Sam’s Girlfriend dies at the end of this episode leaving him to go with his brother to fight monsters again.

This will lead to a great many episodes building up to him fighting a demon that will go after the whole family.  I like this TV show because the lore that they talk about is really out there.  If you look up what they say about ghost and how to fight them it checks out.

 What they say about demons is that they are black smoke which must take over a body to use most of their power. the only thing I don’t like about it is sometimes itcan get a little out there. If you can’t handle some outside views of god and angels this is not the series for you. I am now on season 5 and it has been really good. They have add more parts to it like angels and even the devil. I just hope it stays a great TV show, 

Pottermore

Pottermore review continued

Well I have been looking at this site for a while now and I have found it can be very addictive. I loved the harry potter book when I first read them but this second time around I am even starting to like the ones I didn’t like when I first read them.

I have now finished the first two books and the new content adds to the whole thing of how harry potters world is well written and rich in detail. One thing about it that I don’t like is the potions, because they have a time issue. You see sometimes a potion has to sit for like an hour and that is a long time to have to wait on something.

I have now reached the end of second year and I’m beginning the third book of the series. I love the exclusive content about characters and I have found that one of the best things was with how the books have come to life.

A few things they should change is we should fight the bascule’s with harry instead of just watching it.    The next thing they should add is that the books we collect should be able to be read. Instead of the little snips we get.

These changes I think would add to the great experience I am having on this website. 

the dark knight

The dark knight

Last weekend I watched the dark knight with my family and after reading that essay on “should batman kill the joker?” I started to ask myself that threw the movie; shouldn’t batman just kill the joker?

The movie itself proves that batman can’t kill the joker. He can’t do this because he would become what he fights against and that would make him less of a protector of the city of Gotham.   A person to compare him to is Harvey Dent, he also fights crime in Gotham but in a different light.

But unlike bat man Harvey can be corrupted, which lead to his death at the end of the movie. What it shows is even if Harvey was a good person he couldn’t do what was right in his time of lost. Unlike batman who turned his whole life into a way of saving and giving back.   

I thought it was a good movie giving a different angle on a story and characters we all know. what I found was that my favorite character was Alfred for the reason that he was a good soul. He cared about Bruce and that was why he was so decanted to him.  He also suggests that the joker is just mad and he has really known reason of killing people other than that he likes to create chaos. This idea is a crazy one and it was proven by his willingness to throw away life and money. He is just the embodiment of crazy.