Today was a very scary day for Manhattan workers. It was an early Monday morning, people had just gotten to work from their busy weekends. Two planes an airliner and a super sonic fighter jet flew close to many New York skylines. This scared tons of people and it only brought memories of the tragic 9/11. Buildings were evacuated and workers called loved ones to tell them this news. The good news is that it was nothing more then a photo op. No one really knew about this which is why it scared allot of people. The president and the mayor also claim they didn't know anything of this photo op. This brings up allot of questions including one that would fall along the lines of "is this a conspiracy?". Many people don't believe that no one would know about this especially after 9/11. You would think people would be informed. I'm not sure what to believe but for now I will trust what the news are saying. You cant really say I'm only following the media, its just that there are no facts to prove everything else. This event also kind of goes with the law that states you cant say or do anything that would put people in a state of panic. For example you cant yell fire in a movie theater where there is no fire. It would make panic and run away. So this is very similar to today's incident. It was not really a terror attack but it made people panic to the point where they had to be evacuated. This is partially all because no one told anyone about it. It is also bad because many people are still afraid of low flying planes let alone ones near sky scrappers. This shows how New Yorkers will never get over 9/11. Were not supposed to forget, but this was not the way everyone should be reminded.

War has been apart of the world for a long time. I recently got interested in all this after hearing more about WWII and WWI. In class we've talked about reasons why war began and what happened. Recently after watching part of a movie in English I started getting interested in the technology and strategies used in war. I started to realize why there were some people strictly against war. Watching the movie and learning what went on from different sources like novels (although they are fictional they all try to be as real as possible) I started to think about how most people who fought in war died. It was hard to think about it, especially how soldiers managed to survive. I am not promoting or going against the idea of having a war but I just feel that its not a game. I play VIDEO games based on wars and some people online would say "it would be cool if I was in war" or "I want to join the marines" its funny and sad that people especially some younger kids feel this way without knowing that its not easy to be a soldier. In real war you probably wont be able to go in, kill six people and run away safely and for the most part THERE ARE NO RESPAWNS. Today's war is different from WWI and II its not comparable. There are newer weapons but also newer ways to stay protected. I cant say its safer but it is deadlier. Allot of people die and that's sad, in my own opinion if I HAD to fight in a war I would. I would also pray everyday to make it back in one piece (literally with newer weapons today this would be hard to do). War is bad but we sometimes benefit from it especially if were defending ourselves. When it comes to being pro/anti war I am in the middle.

4-6-09 blog

How many people do you know that are creative and come up with great ideas. I once heard that it is always better to die and leave something behind then to leave nothing.You would think that it only applies to those people who go "I want to be known and famous" but it can apply to everyone. When I heard this I was thinking "what could I leave behind?". You would probably think that you will all have had a healthy family but I feel its about something more productive. Like people who invent things or artists that paint. That is why we have things like art, music and anything else that allows you to be creative. It can be hard to leave your mark on the world and half the time your not remembered anyway. The point is that whatever you made will go on forever unless a tragedy happens and it is destroyed. Today the Internet it is almost like a permanent place to store all your work for everyone to see. An example, unless we delete our blogs they will be sitting there until the site closes forever. So its not so permanent but its still easy now to keep things saved forever. If you have a skill in art you should probably share with everyone. If your lucky you can become famous. Its very rare but look how many famous people there are on YouTube.com. I have even recognized artists like poster boy through our very own blogs. If you feel your good at singing why not put it on the Internet? Afraid you ll get bad feedback? from who? you probably wont know any viewers anyway. Its good to get some feedback from people too. I'm not trying to encourage people to use the Internet but I am encouraging people to share their talents in art, music or writing with every one else. At least then you wont have to ask what have you left behind because people would have witnessed what you wanted them to see. Then you can go on being proud sharing these things with everyone as you get older especially if you pass them on to your family.

music

At the end of the day if its one thing most people look forward to is music. Music is another form of art, another way to express yourself and show your creativity. Yea we have all these professionals but there are allot of amateurs and plenty of people who like to sing in the shower or play an instrument. One thing we learned recently is that music brings people together. It may have been obvious by now but if you think about where and why it started to bring people together you'd be surprised. In our Humanities class we watched a documentary on jazz and the great depression. I'm sure music connected people before this but this time was truly a time where music was important. We were able to watch and witness how Jazz comforted people during this time. We said that it gave people hope and since it was free it became very popular not only that but it brought the best out of people. Luis Armstrong was a musical genius that transformed jazz and singing he really made it popular. When we heard one of his pieces I felt like tapping my foot or dancing my self, and I don't even dance. This is how you know how jazz is a great type of music . We said that Jazz opened the door to the black world for white people. It brought everyone together black and white, when you were out dancing and listening to jazz it didn't matter. This all led to the many types of music we have today. Along with bringing people together music also has created tension between people. Today we have people arguing about what type of music sounds bad or good. These arguments are still a form of bringing people together because now they are able to share opinions freely. The Internet is a great way to share your idea on music or even post a song that you've created. You can go on YouTube.com and watch a video of your favorite song and be able to read pages and pages of comments of people arguing or agreeing. Everyone wants to share their opinions especially on their favorite rapper or band. The point is that even today with all the different types of music (stemming from the Jazz times) it still brings us together.

Frida

Frida the movie was a very interesting movie. It is about the life story Frida Kahlo a famous artist from the surrealist era of art. Frida can be considered today as one of the most famous surrealist woman of that time. Her art is inspired by a bus accident she was in when she was younger and her marriage to Diego Rivera. When she was 18 she was in an accident that left her paralyzed. The film really presented the accident very well showing it in slow motion so the viewers can see what is going on. The fact that we were able to see the accident clearly added more drama to that scene. We were also able to see very clearly how the accident affected Frida emotionally and physically. Physically she was paralyzed but emotionally it made her stronger. You can tell that she was eager to get moving again. Frida was a very strong woman which made her a perfect feminist. The humanistic tradition book states that it was her "determined effort to present the female image as something other then the object of male desire". This is also the reason why her appearance was different from most woman (with her uni brow). Her paintings are mostly portraits of herself and according to the film they are what got her started. Frida went to Diego Rivera (who was a very famous Mexican painter) to get opinions on her work. After seeing how good she was he took her under his wing and the two started working together. The two also ended up getting married. To me their relationship in the film was very interesting they did seem to love each other even though Diego cheated on her and they argued allot. Many might disagree but I thought Diego's character was very interesting. His dedication for what he believes in is a similar trait that Frida has which is why they were a good match. I see why the humanistic tradition book says that she refers her marriage as one of the great accidents. Allot of her paintings also show her heart ache after Diego broke her heart a number of times. After watching this film we can all say that Frida has been through allot of overwhelming problems. We were able to see how nothing was able to stop her. She was a very strong woman, definitely a new image for feminists everywhere.

A few weeks ago we talked about Freud and the human psyche. Freud had a huge impact on art because he changed the way people thought. Many poets and artists of all types based their work on his ideas. They also used free association and dream analyses for their work. Freud came up with idea that the human psyche is made up of 3 parts. The Id which is what tells you that you want something, the ego which manages the Id it "attempts to adapt needs of the id to the real world" and the super ego which is your conscious. Some times this conscious can never develop that is what makes mass murderers and other people who you could tell have no morals. This is why the conscious is important to your mind because it tells you what is right and what is wrong. It can also develop that feeling of guilt after doing something wrong. Why is that some peoples conscious never develops? and if it doesn't develop can they be accountable for what they did. Of course they can, but if it was a justified excuse more people would use it everyday. The humanities tradition workbook states that "the super ego monitors human behavior according to principles, inculcated by parents,teachers and authority figures. Basically the conscious learns form childhood experiences which is true because it usually develops around 7 or 8 years of age. Based on this information I can guess that most murderers probably do have a bad childhood. In most movies and TV shows its also the same way. Today I read an article (Austria Incest Case )about a man who locked his daughter up for 21 years and raped her. Besides being disgusting one thing in the article made me think about that idea of childhood and the conscious. "At one point, his voice breaking, Fritzl briefly recalled his childhood and said life with his mother was "very difficult." Asked if he had friends, he said simply: "No."". This section came from the article, even though there is no proof of this it does make sense and goes with the idea that childhood really does affect the conscious. I'm sure everyone agrees that to do what he did really shows that he had no morals. This doesn't mean he is really innocent because he definitely isn't but it shows that we should be very careful with children growing up. One bad experience could probably scar them for the rest of their life and turn them into something horrible.

Metamorphosis Reaction

The metamorphosis written by Kafka is the story of a young man that was turned into a bug over night. I'm not sure what type of bug he became but the charwoman called him a dung beetle (http://www.kotaku.com.au/2007/10/03/dung.jpg) which is what I generally pictured him as. I have to admit the idea of the story is crazy but that's how Kafka likes it. I enjoyed the story more towards the end because I really wanted to know what happens to Gregor. During the first 2 readings I actually found myself dozing off a bit. This is probably the first time I have done that during a homework assignment. The reason this happened was because there was allot of information that was unimportant to the story or was uninteresting. I was really surprised because overall this short story was very interesting. In tonight's reading I was very upset to see how it ended with Gregor dieing. I feel that the ending was a surprise because any other writer would probably have made Gregor turn back into a human and make him leave his family for good. But this is Kafka's work and because he writes in a nightmarish way it does make sense. This is also why the story was so interesting because it was like one big bad dream. Talking about Gregor's family I should mention how surprised I was to their reaction of Gregor's death. They basically felt that God had taken away a heavy burden that was actually their son. The person who upset me the most might have been Gregor's sister. Gregor had so much respect and love for her, he even thought she felt the same way. He believed that after his transformation his sister still felt that there was some human left in him. In reality she felt he was a "thing" like any other creature that creep people out. She was even the one that proposed the idea of getting rid of him. That's partially why it probably ended like it did. If he did become human he would end up being the small insect he used to be in the real world. Realising how his family felt about him made him very depressed which could show how he does have some emotion. Gregor's death to me is unclear even though he was hurt why would he die in what I guess we could say was in his sleep. I was under the impression maybe his sister had killed him because they said she was pale and had not slept. Then i remembered that as readers we witness his last breathe. Another good thing about this story is that even though we know that Gregor died we don't actually know what happens to his body. The charwoman said that she had taken care of it but she never explains. I thought that the butcher's boy could have done the job but that would be kind of last on the list of things that could have happened. Overall I did enjoy the story, I felt that it was good because towards the end it made me want to find out what happens next. It also raised a few questions that will probably not get answered. So its up to us to think about what could have happened. I recommend this story in the novel to anyone who has the free time to read it on their own.