No Touchy!

No Touchy!

            First grade is probably one of the few years that I can barely remember anything about. I can still tell you who my teacher was and my favorite movies, but if you ask me who was in my class that year I can only name like five people. My lacking memory of first grade is to me completely normal cause it wasn’t really an important grade. Anyway I’m deviating from my topic. So when I started first grade, Murdock was under some improvements. The stupid pejorative uniforms had been thrown out and the giant mural in the library was being painted. I remember the artist who was painting it kept getting suppliant or harassed by my class to paint in the SpongeBob characters and a few manatees, you can guess which ones he put in...... Curse you SpongeBob! 
            So I was clearly in the Manatee’s class…. Yeah. I remember my teacher perfectly, even though there is little chance for me to forget her cause she has lived in my neighborhood for the last decade or so. Can I say awkward? Cause seeing her at the pool every summer along with a former Pope chemistry teacher is extremely creepy. Which in a way I guess it is the same for them cause they live so far out of district, they would never expect to see one of their students. Well surprise! Anyway, I’m going to call my teacher Mrs. M and she was this pudgy little woman that was sweet but just a little scatterbrained. Nobody could made a animadversion comment about her even though she was a little crazy, she was still a good and avid teacher . Which being crazy isn’t bad, at least she wasn't a myopic teacher, and you would have to be a little to teach certain Elementary grades. And she was pretty chill and put up with a lot of crap from us. For instance, I punched a boy in first grade…. Yeah, really hard to believe. The boys teacher was flipping out and accosting me but Mrs.M got down to my level and asked me why I did it and I can’t remember my exact response, all I know is that I got away with it. The summer before I had mastered shoe tying, and my best friends at the time had a brilliant idea right before Halloween. We were going to tie all of our shoelaces together! Well it didn’t end up well but Mrs. M put up with it. Looking back on it today i can vouch that she had the patience of a saint.
             Back in first grade my favorite movie was the Emperor's New Groove and I would quote it all the time... and before you think i was just an annoying kid.... my whole class did it. As you can see I still remember part of the movie because of my title. Yeah I was considered normal in my class haha. As for TV shows, I was kinda obsessed with the Powerpuff Girls. And when I say obsessed, I mean  I had the bookbag, key chains, dolls, hell even the bedspread. The keychains were like my little talismans. Yup and my favorite one was the blue one a.k.a. Bubbles. So yeah entertainment wise I was pretty much a normal kid. Socially I was a different story. See my sister is seven years older than me and since I'm the baby of the family, I kinda had to mature a little faster. By first grade I had already watched R rated movies and had watched several episodes of the Real World which is a very maelstrom show. Yeah I was the "badass" seven year old *rolls eyes*.  Yeah I was a little histrionic back than, I blame the Real World.  
        So as I'm thinking of a song that would represent my life at that time... I honestly can't think of anything. But I do know what my favorite song was that year cause I found my little clip it music player! So back in first grade my favorite song was Bye Bye Bye by N*SYNC. You have to admit it even though its considered old now.... Its still a really good song.

                             

Life Was Simpler When We Still Had Naptime

SONG:  I Want It That Way by The Backstreet Boys

             When I think about my kindergarten days, the first question that pops into my head is WHY THE HECK DID I HATE NAPTIME SO MUCH?!? Like seriously I would kill to have naptime right now! Anyway back than life was so much different… I was different… and by kindergarten I had undergone so many changes and experienced so many things that a lot of people probably wouldn’t have until they were a little older.Thanks to my acquisitive memory, prior to kindergarten, I was apparently a “social butterfly”and my imagination was anything but banal. Everywhere I went I always made a new friend and I was really outgoing. My only living grandmother was always encouraging to be outgoing, and she was by far one of the most influential people on my life at the time. Life back than was so much different.

My first day of school was almost stereotypical. I woke up at like four in the morning and snuck downstairs and watched the old reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club. I was so excited! My Winnie the Pooh backpack was sitting by the front door and my hair was already done. Now that I look back on it, my parents were evil! I had gotten a haircut maybe a few days earlier and I was now sporting a bob with bangs. It was horrible. Anyway that morning I had my clothes already picked out. See funny story about that.... my school had attempted to enforce a uniform. Which at Murdock, everybody knew that wasn't going to happen. After the first day of school my life just went on as normal. But in October of that year, I finally realized that my grandmother was never coming back. See I believe that my family, in order to protect me, had told me that she had gone on a long vacation.... I mean what else are you supposed to tell a four year old? So when I had realized that I just…. became shy, taciturn, and i wouldn’t say congeal but if I didn’t want to do something... there was no way in hell you were going to get me to do it.

My life was so much simpler back My clothes were picked out for me, we had naptime in school, and I was friends with basically everybody. Nobody was invidious and the only people we eschewed from was the opposite gender cause we thought they had cooties. Those really were the good ole’ days. And you know in Kindergarten when you read a book you got obsessed with the character? Well Clifford was my character! The Big Red Dog was my kindergarten love 

Also back in 1999, boy bands basically ruled the world. I remember this because thanks to my slight obsession of them, I had developed a coherent friendship with a lot of the friends that I had kept through elementary school. In fact it gave everybody something to bond over instead of being carping kids. In fact I’m pretty sure the only arguments we really had was if N*Sync had emulated the Backstreet Boys. But unfortunately as time went on boy bands have become few and far between to obsolete. Luckily there is still evidence to substantiate their existence.  I love how back than all I really cared about musically was this! 

I still cannot believe it has been thirteen years since than and to think of everything that has changed.... well it would give anybody whiplash. Funny thing is no matter how well the other years went, if given the chance I would totally go back to kindergarten. After all, life was simpler when we still had naptime.

Things Fall Apart Chapters 4-10 Connection

So I'm not gonna lie... for me at least it was really hard to think of a connection to Things Fall Apart chapters four through ten. The story was set so long ago that it's hard to find something to relate to my life and the world today. But as I am sitting at work I found a little inspiration. Which I may be completely having a complete foul ball of an idea but I will try it anyway. So in my ASP class, I have a variety of children from all types of cultural backgrounds. And some of them have different viewpoints and customs that make you think WTF!? Truthfully it isn't anybodys fault, it is just a cultural issue. Well here we go. So in Things Fall Apart, Obierika has felt like a woman and in their culture they feel that feminimity is a weakness and women are inferior. Mind you this is set in like the 1890s... but this idea still is present in several cultures.  But for the most part in at least part of the world this idea that woman are inferior has been thrown out the window. But I have witnessed that this idea is not as buried as I thought it was. See I have this little six year old boy in my ASP class that refuses to listen to all the female teachers. Like this kid has actually told us that he basically doesn't have to listen to us. My point is like Obierika in the book, this little boy has learned to see women as inferior from example. All we can really do is just respect the difference even though we may not agree with it. But in the book, Obierika just really can't look at it like we do. He sees him as being weak and to a guy that is just something that you don't want to think of yourself as. So my connection for this week was my little guy and Obierika.

VV Brown Character Resume

World of Jenks: VV Brown Resume
From Northampton, England, and currently resides in Los Angeles, California
Her objective is to make it in music in the U.S. after becoming famous for it in Europe.
Formal Education/ Training AND/OR Background
Education or Lesson Obtained §  Studied at a performing arts school where she learned to play a variety of instruments. §  Offered scholarships to study law at Oxford University but turned it down to pursue a music career . §  First offered a record deal at the age of 14 but had to decline due to educational commitments §  Once again offered a record deal at 18 in 2006 and accepted but a year later moved back to England due to failure §  Rediscovered in 2007 by a European label and had musical success in Europe Experiences that helped VV to do what she does
November 2008
Model §  Modeled in Magazines such as Vogue and Elle §  Walked in several fashion shows
1983- present
Singer/ Song Writer §  Appeared and performed on several talk shows §  Achieved musical fame in Europe §  Opening act of Maroon Five tour §  Performed at Fashion shows Skills
§  Despite the deprecation of the record companies, VV continues to compose her own music. §  Is fraught with the ability to play a variety of different instruments.
Involvement/ Activities
§  Is so ambient with work ethic that VV only takes maybe three days off a year.
References
Her guitarist, Her two sisters, and her mother (via skype)

Troy Movie Review

Katie Callahan

Mr.Neumann

World Literature

February 6, 2012

Troy Movie Review

            There are few movies that can satisfy both man and woman in today’s Hollywood productions. In fact I can only think of less than ten movies that would fill that category. One of the movies however is Troy. Troy takes place about 1250 B.C. in Greece. Troy has a lot of action to satisfy the guys and a little bit of romance to satisfy the girls. Unfortunately for us girls, Troy is more an action movie. The film stars Brad Pitt as Achilles and other prominent stars such as Brian Cox as Agamemnon, Orlando Bloom as Paris, and Diane Kruger as Helen. The plot is based on Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad. Both plots take place during the Trojan War, except Troy goes into more detail about what caused the war.

            Troy starts off with Agamemnon and the Greek army preparing to take over another Greek city-state. The leaders agree that instead of a huge battle, they will just have their best fighters fight each other. Whoever wins will either refrain from taking over the city-state, in Agamemnon’s case, or handover the city-state.  So Achilles fights the other guys fighter, and Agamemnon takes over the city-state. A little later, We see a celebration in Sparta. The celebration is over the peace treaty of Troy and Sparta. This scene is relevant because this is why the Trojan War was fought, at this celebration Paris and Helen fell in love. At the first battle, Achilles chooses to spare Hector for now, which is in the Greeks minds is completely crazy. A girl, Briseis, is taken that same day and she is given to Achilles. Now Agamemnon is a huge jerk and takes Briseis from Achilles and Achilles than chooses that he wont fight anymore.  As we watch the movie, we learn that Achilles cousin is becoming more and more anxious to fight. So young Petroclus, steals his cousins armour and goes into battle only to be slain by Hector. This pisses off Achilles and he finally gets back into battle. The first thing on his to-do list is to kill Hector. He rides his chariot to the entrance of Troy where the one on one battle occurs and Hector falls.

Though there are a lot of differences between the Iliad and the movie, the setting and the set design stayed the same. The epic poem and Troy take place in Greece about 1250 B.C. So at least when they created the setting for the movie they stayed true to the location set in the Illiad.

With all stories that were written almost a millennium ago, there are going to be a lot of differences if one of those stories happens to be adapted into a movie. The plot is usually one of the first things to change. An example would be, the war prizes. In the Iliad, there were two important war prizes. Achilles was given Briseis and the other girl, Chryseis, was given to Agamemnon. In the movie Troy, Briseis was the only war prize and she just so happened to be Hector and Paris’s cousin. Also in the movie, the Gods are not seen. They are talked about but never seen.

Overall, I liked the Movie..... and no it wasn’t because of Brad Pitt. It was a really good film and the characters were cast well. I did overall like Troy better than the Iliad because it was so much easier to understand and did not bore you to sleep. For instance the battle. In the book you read about it and its ok and really boring. Than in the movie, you see the battles and you get sucked in. If you like Action movies or Brad Pitt movies I would recommend the movie, but if you are more into reading and loathe Brad Pitt..... yeah just read the book.