Quarter 2: Journal 2- Paranormal Activity 2

I saw this movie on Friday night, and it totally freaked me out. While I won't delve too deeply into the plot, I did want to discuss the prevalence of karma in this movie. I am a firm believer in karma, so I definitely liked it being in this movie. Firstly, the daughter of the couple that is being haunted discovers that if one makes a deal with a demon, they must sacrifice their first born son. Interstingly enough, their family line has been all girls up until the point of Hunter, her half-brother, being born. The rule is that the demon will give you something, like wealth, in exchange for that life, and if you do not pay up your child, you will be haunted until he is obtained. These reasons unbeknown to the parents cause the demon to start haunting their family. This is a prime example of karma. The husband, in order to protect his wife and son, uses a cross to transfer the demon from his wife to her sister, because it has to be transferred to a blood relative. The posessed sister then kills her husband, travles to her sister's house, and kills both of them. I believe that the demon kills the husband out of an act of karma, as well as the fact that it is sheer evil. I do believe that things that you do will either come back to help or haunt you, as seen in this movie. Haunt. Hah. Punny.

2nd Quarter: Journal 1- Contact

Let's actually do these right this quarter. So in my Theory of Knowledge class, we watched the movie Contact. This movie is about genius scientist Ellie Arroway, who makes contact with Aliens, hence the title. In this film, Arroway fights many injustices in her path to actually meet the aliens. Predominantly ones of love, greed, fear and religion. The conflict arises in that only one person can go on the spaceship that will go to the Alien star, Vega, and that is where these injustices arise. The people who are funding their mission want someone who best represents the United States. Ellie's love interest is another possible candidate for the mission, and not only does he want to go (greed), he also wants to protect her (love and fear.) In order to attain both of these, he brings up the point that she is not religious, and most of the United States is. This completely ruins any chance she has of going. To make matters worse, right before the spaceship is about to leave, a kamikazi takes place on the ship, shattering all of her hopes and dreams. Luckily for her, Japan was building the same exact thing, and they called her, as they saw her best fit to go on the mission. She then reconciles her problems with her love interest, and the movie has a happy ending. Yay. I did want to discuss the four conflicts that arise in the movie: love, greed, fear and religion. These things are constantly problematic factors in our society today. People constantly operate off of fear, and let it control them. People kill each other over religion; take a look at the middle east. Greed is what drives society. We are a capitalist nation, after all. Finally, struggles with different kind of love are constantly brought up in our society and in politics. Gays, for instance, are not allowed to marry in most states. The movie Contact combines four very prevalent issues in society today, and centers them about a battle between religion and technology.

Solution

So I really don't know what else to do for these journals, so I'm going to attach them in an email and emial them to you.. The first 9 are on here, and the second 9 are on the word document. I'm sorry for the incovenience. Jake

Maurice

Hi Mr. Wilcox. So I'm at Purdue and I'm having trouble copying and pasting the journals that I typed last night in the car, so I'm going to save them as images and post the rest here.

Sorry they're a little late!

that's not working either. I really didn't anticipate this, but they'll be up soon!

Competition

I thought that I'd preface this journal with some questions. What are the differences between a good loser and a bad loser? What defines a cutthroat competitior. Is competiton unhealthy? A good loser is someone who can accept their losses, congratulate those who beat them, analyze their mistakes, and learn how to improve for next time. A bad loser is someone who cannot realize the mistakes they win and blames others for their loss. I think that being a good loser is a quality everyone should strive to posess. A cutthroat competitor is one who is willing to sacrifice for their win. On the reality show, The Biggest Loser, for instance, a lot of the competitors are not willing to sacrifice their intergrity in order to cast votes for certain people; however, on Survivor, it seems as though people are willing to sacrifice a lot more. Of course, that could be because the point of The Biggest Loser is to lose weight, while Survivor is to win the game. I do think that competition is healthy, to an extent. If you are too competitive, a lot of people will not want to be around you, and you will lose friends. However, if you are not competitive at all, then I think there is a lot to be lost. Competition is what makes the world go round. Not everyone can win. In order to win, others do have to lose. While competitions can create food, they also show skills in certain areas. These are vital to know who is best fit to do what. Therefore, while dangerous, I believe that competiton is necessary.

Senior Skip Days

We all know they exist. And we all know that one is coming up. The monday after homecoming is a legendary senior skip day, and one which I will not participate in. I value winning fall student athlete rather than a day off, because I believe that will make senior year more memorable. I originally was going to skip, too. One thing I want to do with my senior year is have fun! I don't want to be constantly drowned by homework. That doesn't sound fun to me at all! My priorities of course, lie with my grades, and I have too many borderline classes to miss at the very end of the quarter. Maybe I'll be able to participate in the next one. I do think that participating is worth it. As long as you're not skipping like once a month, and you keep your grades up, I think it's an okay privilege to use sparingly. I also do think that the amount of work you have to make up is worth, as long as you actually have fun on that day. I wouldn't want to waste my day just sitting around. You should catch up on sleep, then party hard with friends! (without alcohol, of course). I feel that senior skip days are important, because they let seniors have some piece of mind amongst all of the craziness. Everyone could use a break now and then.

Leadership

What constitutes a good leader? Are there bad leadership styles? Do we need leaders? I think the best way to be a leader is to be the support system, or the glue if you will, of the team. By trying to keep everything together, A leader would garner respect from his crew, and be viewed as a strong leader because his crew likes him. Furthermore, more people would be willing to work if they think their contribution makes a difference. I think that this would only work for leading a small group of people. For leading a country, for instance, I would have no idea what to do. Though I suppose if anyone truly knew that, the country wouldn't have as many problems as it does. Of course there are bad leadership styles. Leaders like Lenin and Stalin may have been effective, but they were by no means good people. But it could also be debated that since they got so many things accomplished, were they bad leaders? I would venture to say that they were, since the people they led probably did not like them. And I also think that civilization would not exist without leaders. People need to be told what to do, or else they will act out in chaos. I think that people are too greedy not to have rules.