‘Tis the Season to Slack Off… (Ode to Finals)

As all college students know the weeks before the end of the first semester of college means a countdown until they get a month off from school for some nice “well deserved” R&R (rest and relaxation). This also means classes are winding down, as good as that sounds, it also means its about time to start doing all the work you have to do for all of your classes in addition to all the final projects you have been assigned and start studying for those finals; and if you are like the average college student, that is a lot of work because everyone knows you kept pushing off doing the work because of how much “time” you have. Now as finals and deadlines become a reality and your stress levels become higher than ever, you find it the perfect time to explore any means of finding a distraction to escape this horrific reality. Even as the average student has already spent hours upon hours of doing unproductive things during the semester, they unknowingly start to actually look for ways to derail themselves from being productive and getting their work done. We stay in our rooms, telling ourselves that we are going to do our work, and that we have to. Most students do just that, stay in their room, but as to getting work done… that is a different challenge.

I have personally seen people go to their friends’ dorm rooms to ask if they want to play video games. It is usually greeted with the same answer, or something like, “I have so much work to do… ahhh whatever I’ll do it later,” or an immediate “Yes!” Students will spend half their day playing video games with their friends and then start complaining later on about how much work they still have to do. My personal favorite is going on to Facebook and reading the countless status updates about finals or having to do an unprecedented about of work. It is actually fascinating how the topic of finals can actually be a full-fledged conversation that every college student can relate to. Usually these conversations consist of comparing ‘who has more to do’ so you can hopefully gain the pity and sympathy of your friends. What does that sympathy get you really? My answer: a little stress relief, believe it or not, knowing that there are others that feeling just as crappy as you do knowing how much work you have yet to do.

            What is it really that makes students want to find sources of distractions during this crucial time? Is it a means of doing something that you know will be relaxing at the time? Understanding if the distractions are watching videos, movies, talking with friends, or anything that takes your mind off of doing your work… but playing video games with friends is an odd one. Yes, it is fun to play video games and share time with your friends, but if it is a competitive game, it adds more unneeded stress to your already stressed person. I have seen people get angry after losing a game to their friend, but how do they expect that “quick break” from their work to help them refocus on the remaining work that has yet to be done. Regardless of that, the question still stands as to why students actually exert energy to find things to do other than what actually needs to be done? Taking these breaks and delaying the inevitable just adds more stress in the end when you are finally forced to do the work. At this point any student can hear their parents’ voice ringing in their head saying, “Get your work done early so you won’t have more work later!” or the famous “Don’t procrastinate!” Yet we still ignore those heeds of warning, thinking to ourselves that we have waited until the last minute in the past and everything worked out in the end, meanwhile we know that if we spread out our work and get it done in a reasonable time that we will feel a lot better in the end, but we don’t.

            We all slack off to escape the impending reality because it just easier to do that than do the work we are faced with. I can not pinpoint the exact reason as to what makes students tend to slack off more during this time even when they know they will have a whole month to do as they please once they finish their work. I can just think that we as students do not like the challenge knowing how much is riding on these last crucial assignments. In the end we do indeed complete all of our assignments, but not in the most graceful manner.

Response to Frank's Response of Kody's Blog Post

Kody and in turn Frank talk about to change of books into motion pictures and how they differ, with motion pictures usually leaving out key elements of the books they are based off of. Frank and Kody brought up the Harry Potter franchise of both the books and the motion pictures, stating that there are notable differences between the two. I personally have only seen the first 4 movies, and only read the first book and I was able to pick out differences between the two takes on it. I cannot remember the differences, but I know, like everyone that there was bound to be differences because books are able to be as long as they need to be, and have every little detail an author wants, while a movie has a time constraint due to money.

A book/novel can be thousands upon thousands of pages if an author so pleases, but a motion picture can only be so long because of how money plays into the equation. Due to this constraint a director has to pick and choose which parts to keep and which parts to not use, what details to keep and what details can hopefully be implied or simply were not important enough (in the director’s eyes) to keep. The director also needs to keep in mind of what an audience wants to see, what will keep the audiences attention. Time has shown that as Frank and Kody have said, that an audience wants to see action, any action that can be filled in. These action sequences will keep the audience on their toes and in turn keep their attention. Authors can put in all dialogue with a few built up action scenes, with key details insisting on the upcoming climax with dialogue filled with hidden meanings and metaphors. Directors need less dialogue with more action scenes, so as Harry Potter fanatics have told me, many parts have been switched in the last six films to make the motion picture more exciting and to keep you on the edge of your seats. Scenes have been taken out from the translation of paper to film because of lack of interest.

Motion pictures like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which are three hours long apiece, are able to keep in more of the detail and dialogue of the books because of the length of the film. I have read The Hobbit through The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and have seen all three movies and can see how close to the text the directors tried to keep it. The motion pictures due have a lot of dialogue like the novels, but also have their slight twists in the plot, along with keeping the numerous plot lines within the movies, which in the end all unite for one ultimate and (in my opinion) a fantastic conclusion.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a shining example of book to movie that has done a good job of keeping to the original concept in terms of details. Again, due to the unusual length of the motion picture, has The Lord of the Rings been able to due this.

Due to change from book to motion picture, books have been able to retain their mass popularity because of having details and additional characters and story plots than their movie counterpart.  Movies also have a notorious reputation of taking two different characters and blending them into one single character, and that character sometimes takes the name of only one of the characters, or even has his own name, and only shares the traits and some back story of the original characters it was based off of. With all of this possible confusion and lack of certain/key details within movies, it can be seen as to why many choose the original books and tend to enjoy reading them than viewing the movie.

Response to Classmate (a.k.a. original title)

     In Kait's first post on her blog (http://kaitmusicandmore.blogspot.com/) she writes about her first few days here at Hartford and the "hurricane" that hit us. Here is my experience for my first few days:
     I arrived here and immediately got lost because I was told to go to the wrong building to sign in... ok, so fast forward a drive, I checked into Hawk Hall and went up to my room and unpacked and all. I met my roommate who I had been talking to for a few weeks now, him and I hit it off pretty well, and we still get along really well. As I was saying, "See you later" to my parents, my dad told me to be careful about the hurricane coming my way, Hurricane Irene.
     That weekend I did not plan to do anything because I thought there was going to be extremely strong winds and trees breaking and stuff flying everywhere... that weekend was actually one of the nicest ones since I have been here, it was beautiful weather (if I recall correctly), maybe it was raining, I'm not entirely sure. My home town on Long Island got hit pretty hard from what I heard, my parents sent me a video of a bit of flooding and a tree branch that smashed a car and on its way down, hit a power line, causing a fire in the street and a power outage for the next two and a half days. Here at Hartford, everything was perfectly ok, no strong winds just a bit of rain. My classes were delayed two days due to a weather alert to keep the students safe, so I had an extra day to check out where my classes were.
     Now after a month and some days, I can still say I'm really enjoying college and almost all that comes with it (not a big fan of the constant homework). I like where I'm headed and I intend on keeping myself on track to keep myself and my family happy with my hopeful future success.

'Lion King' Brought Back for the Public

     On roflhusky's blog (http://klengineering.blogspot.com/) he talked about Disney rereleasing 'The Lion King' into theaters in 3D. He talks about the background of the story and how the plot was based off the classic, "Hamlet." Like him, I saw the Lion King when I was a few years old and I loved it instantly. I committed all the songs to memory and even find myself humming Hakuna Matata every so often.
     Although I never saw the other two movies, I only consider the Lion King to be a single, stand alone movie. The first movie was so captivating and emotional that any other sequel could not possibly be that good. Besides, the references made to the Lion King are usually towards the first movie because that is the most popular one and the most touching one of the series.
     The original Lion King was a movie my generation grow up with, and with it being rereleased into theaters, a lot of us would go back and see it, and if it was not for being away at school and lack of money, I most likely would have gone to see it to reconnect with some childhood memories. In my opinion, Lion King was one of their best choices to rerelease due to its massive following, it was probably one of their best animated movies, ever. In an attempt to gain new fans through the rerelease was a good idea because some parents will take their kids to the movie due to its affect on them. Then releasing it on DVD and BluRay will also help spread the distribution of the movie through the public and hopefully give another generation a movie they can connect with and help related the older generations.

Remembering 9/11

     Yesterday was the 10 year anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers, everyone knows that. Most people know exactly what they were doing and where they were, I am one of those people.

     I was in third grade back on Long Island, and I remember my teacher was sitting on a stool in the front center of the class, either telling us a story or teaching us a lesson (I can't remember exactly, I was 8), when another teacher walked into the class room and walked across the front of the room and leaned over and whispered something into my teacher's ear... We all knew it was something bad since each student in the room could see her always smiling face flooded with tears as she stood up and followed the other teacher out of the room. My classmates and I sat in our seats looking to each other for answers as to what could make our teacher break down in front of us.

     After about five minutes, she returned and told us we were going into another classroom to watch a movie; the entire way to the classroom my teacher was bombarded by basically the same question, "What happened? What's going on?" because as we walked students were being called for early dismissal. My teacher said, "I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to tell you."

     The rest of the school day, students were continuously called out for early dismissal, with us children thinking of it as a good thing since we could go home instead of staying in school. My older sister, my twin sister, and I were all kept in school because my mom thought it would be worse and pointless to take us out of school since we were as safe there as we would be at home at that time.

     Finally school ended and I finally arrived home after a long bus ride. After being let off at my bus stop, my mom waited for my sisters and I at the end of our drive way repeatedly saying, "Don't worry, your father is ok." I had no idea what that meant but after we were taken inside I walked past my living room tv, on the screen were two tall building surrounded in smoke. My dad then called the house and my mom put him on speaker. My dad told us, "I'm alright guys, don't worry. They evacuated us out of our building and I'm safe, I'll see you guys tonight, I love you." After we left, my mom and dad talked on the phone for a bit longer. After their talk concluded, she hung up and came into the living room with the four of us sitting there (my older brother, my two sisters, and I), and she told us that terrorists took control of two air plains and flew them into the Twin Towers.

     Me being eight years old, this did not really mean that much to me since I didn't know the extremity of the situation and I was too young to truly understand the situation, but as I've grown I've come to know what this meant to the world, my country, and each individual person. Throughout my life I have met people ranging from people who were actually evacuated from the building as this all occurred, and people who have had family, friends, or coworkers who lost their life in this horrific incident. Because of this tragedy, the world has become a much darker place, a world a never thought that people would fear what would happened next. My hopes and prayers go out to all those affected and effected by this tragedy, but I would also like to say thank you to all the first responders that were there and proudly served not only for their local station, but the entire country as well. It is a day that will live in infamy, but nonetheless a day we will never forget and forever remember.