American Museum Of Natural History

During our visit to the Musuem of Natural History I noticed how things had changed since I had been there last. Going there now that I am in college gave me a different approach to things then when I went there when I was younger. Listening to what workers had to say, my class mates opinions, and actually reading fun facts made me enjoy the experience even more than I ever did and made it more than just a field trip. I feel like I visited every open hall. The one I spent the most time in was The Hall of Human Origins. "Traveling" from country to country, visiting different cultures and animals. We saw the 4 minute show on how the big bang created earth. We then visited the dinosaurs and got lost trying to figure out where to go next. The Hall of Human Origins and what we learned from the process of evolution can be compared to how television has evolved into what it is today. Besides what we watch, but also the way we see it. From the beginning of time of just reading what was happening, then listening to it, then seeing it with no sound or color, and now seeing it in blu-ray that shows really clear. This can be compared to how Darwin thought that we started off as monkeys, Lucy our oldest ancestor proving it.

A Vision of Students Today

(Forgot about this one)

Well, most of the things that were said in the video do apply to me as well. It's amazing how much money is spent on school in just one year by just one person. My question is, is college really an investment? What would we be getting back that we didn't already have? Because it is such a general topic I was thinking about doing more research and getting more into it. I wont just sit here and tell you I'm in school because I HAVE to be, because technically nobody is putting a gun to my head telling me I must, but I want to be successful so I guess its just a risk were all willing to take. College is just like an exam and I guess a graduation diploma just comes to say that somebody else approves of your knowledge... I must disagree about technology helping everything. Of course now it seems like a need but back then things were soooo much more different than today, even though there were other distractions. Now, it does makes things better and easier for the fact that you dont need tocarry around books all the time and actually read them for a project and collect newspapers and clippings for future references, but the internet is the biggest distraction now. For me specifically, some times it is easier to type up project because people type faster than how they write, and for research papers it ise easier to collect and gather information, everything is there for you to see at the same time. But I get so distracted just staring at a screen, I always feel like I have ADD, and I start checking out other things in the internet, and even with out me checking those sights, just staring at a screen makes it a little weird. A great comparison would be for this class and the media class, compared to the american film class. Professor Rheuban is very traditional when it comes to teaching so sometimes though it is more boring I find it easier. Here's an assignment with the question, answer it and its easier for me to get my thoughts down by handwriting it; and what comes to prove that is Essay number 3 compared to Essay number two. I guess staring at a blank screen makes my mind go blank. For me, school would just always be the same; I will always love learning but hate school. The thought of getting up in the morning, projects that take you weeks to do.. My senior year in highschool had to be the hardest year of my life because I was going to be making a life changing decision, I wanted to leave the city so I can feel more independent I wanted the college experience and I didnt want to have to be living with mom and dad, but come to think of it now I would be more dependent than anything far from home.Then I figured why should I dirty my name with debt when I can get the same education some where for less. My oldest sister graduated from Syracuse University and that diploma hasnt taken her very far, only time would tell I guess, but my sisrer that graduated from City College has just a good enough job, so what is really the big deal? And I can just go on about this...

A Day At NYPL Performing Arts Library

First off, I must say it was not hard getting around but I am glad I had a partner because it was hard to look for specific things. When we went up to the third floor there were security guards there and a coat check, it was sort of scary. There were a couple of computer stations but the ones on the second floor were the least confusing to use. Brwosing through their catalogs I saw that they had drama, circulating arts, and dance collections. The collections included a wide variety of periodicals, books, tapes, etc. For the drama collection they had certain topics such as theatre, film, plays & screen play, radio & television, magic in performance, sostume & design, performance art, puppetry, circus, vaundeville, and biographies. The dance collection included all sorts of dance, physiology aesthetics of movement, non-verbal communication, dance, design, ceremonies in which they dance, yoga, martial arts,and basically anything that has to do with body language and movement. The circulating arts collection included administration & management, funding. grant seeking, institutional level. The performing arts library helps you find electronic resources and guides you to finding clippings, books, periodicals, etc on specific collections and topics, by using the computer stations located on the second floor, it makes it much easier for you to find pretty much anything. While roaming on the second floor I also found a lot of books that may be help some of you guys, I didn't find anything related to my topic. I saw a lot of books that could help some of you guys doing something in how homosexuality is expressed in the media. I saw many books that spoke about advertisement and freedom of speech in the press. Most books I found dealt with our cluster and they had a whole collection on american film books. Broadcasting, screen writing, film development, etc. were also topics of books I found. They had such a big collection of movies and DVD's it was pretty hard to find specific genres. I saw a couple of movies which I found interesting that also dealt with this class such as "THX-1138" I know its weird and you could tell it definitely dealt with virtual reality. For Joyce's class, I remember her mentioning how there was abig ordeal over the movie "Citizen Kane" and they actually had a documentary on it. "Star Trek: Insurrection" was another one that dealt with our cluster and also seemed pretty interesting. In conclusion, it was nice roaming around the library. Now the question isn't what did I find, its what did'nt I find. That was my first visit there but I think I would be going back for future references. :)

Sim_One

Sim_One is now.

I believe that what Tron was trying to say when he said "the future is now" is that you should live the present as it is the future because you never know what would happen. In other terms, I also thinks this means that everything that would happen in the future is happening in the present like technological advances. In the movie Simone , she is the future. After a director can't find any actresses to act in one of his movies, he takes matters into his own hand and makes his own virtual actress. He fools everyone for thinking she was a real person by using a computer to make her talk and do what he wants her too, so its like he can never go wrong. Though people would definitely want a real human to look up to, people would have never known and they still looked up to her. She was perfect and she portrayed the "American Dream". Everything any young girl wants; to be beautiful and talented and have everyone look up to you. Simone was made just how everybody would like her and if something went wrong he could just adjust it. How great and easy would that be, directors wouldnt have to have castings and if someone just didnt cut it they wouldnt bother because they can make someone exactly as they want them to be. This movie can trace back to how young girls always want to portray the "it" girl. Hollywood makes you think there is only one certain way to look and that is why they usually have tall, skinny models, and they make you think that is the only way to look causing young girls to become anorexic, and have self esteem issues.

Research

Okay, so after discussing more in detail about the projects, I think I'm going to do something totally different than what I had plan since day one. I will be writing about the way that Fast Food Restaurants are advertised in different countries. My friend is a dancer so she gets to travel all around the world, I was seeing some pictures of her while she was in Australia and saw a place called "Hungry Jacks" in one of her pictures. It was so weird because the logo and font is exactly the same as Burger King but with a different name. After doing some research I find out that Hungry Jacks is actually another franchise of Burger King but in Australia. Why couldn’t they just call it Burger King over there as well. Though it makes sense since a jack is a baby kangaroo and there are many of them in Australia, but would changing the name make business run differently? We also discussed in class that many fast food restaurants like McDonalds in certain countries serve beer, and I would like to look more into that. I know that in places like the Dominican Republic, places like Pizza Hut and McDonalds are allied. Most of the food there tastes completely different than here and they have different prices, etc. In many places a fast food restaurant can be considered "high class" because they may have higher prices. I would also like to talk about they way they are advertised like billboards and their campaigns and commercials etc. if any and if things they use here to represent them are still the same, like Ronald McDonald for McDonalds. Since I have also had a lot of bad experiences in America with fast food restaurants I would like to research how they handle customer service, etc.

The Uncanny and The Shadow

The "Uncanny" in short terms is just fear of the unfamiliar. Something that might be normal to certain people you may think twice about it and think their weird, like a baby drinking from a baby bottle is normal, if you see an 18 year old drinking from a baby bottle, there is something weird going on there. Sigmund Freud's student Carl Jung believed that there was such thing as "the shadow" and anima and animus. "The shadow" was what people would hide ways they really felt about things, or things they hid from other people and some time in their lives they would reach into that shadow, act a certain way and the reason would be because of something that happened in their past. for example, my younger sister got teased about her pointy ears when she was younger, she put that behind her (in her shadow). As she grew up she started changing her personality and being more uptight and mean about things, always getting into fights for the smallest things because she felt everyone was out to get her. When her violence started getting out of control she started seeing a psychologist and it turns out that the reason she acts that way is linked to her getting teased a lot when she was younger and she is still holding that grudge. The anima is a feminine personality found in the unconcious of men and the animus is a masculine personality found in the unconcious of women. The shadow in some way is considered "the truth", it is who you really are and how you really feel but if you were to act the way your shadow shows, then you would be considered more of like a "savage"; since the shadow portrays what you secretly think but would'nt literally do. In the movie "Abre Los Ojos" after the accident he felt as if he had to act as ugly as he felt because his face was destroyed after the accident. After the operation he felt better and had the love of his woman but when he would look at himself in the mirror he would still look ugly though nobody else saw him that way he saw himself that way. This made him act out and beat his girlfriend and try to kill her because he also saw her as the lady that ruined his face. I believe that the reason he was acting that way was because his shadow or unconcious was telling him he was going to be ugly anyway since alll he cared mostly about was vanity and money. Also, it seemed like he could'nt get enough and he already had everything he wanted. I think that these parts were foreshadowing so that the truth about what happened and him buying the life insurance would explain everything and these parts were giving the audience a heads up. In the movie "The Matrix" Neo's shadow comes out while he is in the matrix, since he is in a different place, I guess he feels he can act differently. The term "uncanny" can be used frequently in "The Matrix" because everything they see outside of the matrix seems weird to them, like when they see the lady with the red dress. I believe that both Freud and Jung have good theories about these pyschological themes. We do have an unconcious mind that makes us do things we don't want to at times, and since everyone has a different view of perception, some things may be uncanny to some and not to others, especially in different countries and cultures.

Genocide

I was watching late night television last night, and saw one of those feed the children commercials come up and I was so overwhelmed, how things like this could just happen . So it got me to thinking about a protest I walked by last week. It was a bunch of Sri Lankan people, children included, protesting about genocide; and then I figured this could also be a very great idea for my Research Project.