Sunday 11/8

About a week and a half ago I went to see the founder of Tom's shoes speak at Purdue. His company sells shoes, and for every shoe bought, they give a pair away to a child in need. They have given shoes to thousands of children all over the world. Some of these children have never had shoes before. It was such an amazing speech he gave, inspirational.
It makes you want to go out into the world and make a difference and change a life.
I would love to be involved in an organization like this. They have internships, and I am thinking of filling out an application. I doubt I would even be considered, but it would be an amazing experience. I would thrilled to work for a company like this.

Our technology pitches are coming up this week. My group came up with an idea already, but I just thought of a different one. I've actually thought about it before.......see I dream a LOT....and my dreams lately have been very vivid. I had one recently where I won an Emmy! (I wish!, haha) It felt so real in the dream......the point is I wish I could remember more. I would be the first person to buy this technology if someone could invent a machine or device to record dreams. I would love to re-watch/re-experience my dreams after I have them. I had two just the other night that were so bizarre, but also SO detailed, but of course I couldn't remember all the detail. I think a lot of people would be interested in a technology like this. My brother, who died 5 years ago in a car accident, has been in several of my dreams the past years, and if I could go back and re-experience my dreams with him in them, that would be wonderful!
I guess I can only hope that someday someone smart enough will invent this.

So I've watched a lot of movies lately. In the theater I saw Whit it and Bright Star. Both were really good. Whip it was entertaining, maybe a little sappy. It made me and my friend interested in roller derby. Bright Star was a little long, but visually beautiful. The story was total romance, something I just love. I just completely fall for the romance of period films, "we love each other but can't be together" struggle is really appealing to me for some reason. It is about a love affair thatthe poet John Keats had toward the end of his life. The acting was also really great. It was directed by Jane Campion, which in my opinion is an amazing director, and there should be more women directors.

I've also gotten several movies from the library lately. An unending source of movies for free!
One of them was also directed by Jane Campion, The Piano. I liked the directing, but didn't love the story as much as Bright Star. The sad part is pretty much all the movies I watched just seemed mediocre to me.

Also this weekend I went to 9 Irish Brothers and saw a band named Searson. I've seen them a few times before. It was so much fun, my friends and I even got up and danced!

I've tried and tried to think about what to write about for this blog, so there is some sort of a theme, and that I will hopefully be doing this blog the way we are supposed to. I think I have thought of a fairly good idea, to write about movies and television. I love both. My family just grew up watching a lot of TV and I have always loved movies. I can write about what movies/tv I've seen lately and about the communication in the them.

I saw Whit It on friday night. It was directed by Drew Barrymore. It was very entertaining. I liked it a lot. It was about a girl who found herself and her passion through roller derby. (Side note: Lafayette has a roller derby team! I thought that was pretty cool, and they are having a match this coming saturday, and I believe I will be going.) Anyway the main character didn't communicate very well with her mother, because her mother kept pushing her to do pageants, something which she did not want to do at all. The music for this movie was reallllly good. I think the right soundtrack is just as important as the right casting or director.

Another movie that I re-watched this weekend was Slumdog Millionaire. The soundtrack is amazing! It is such a beautifully told story of two people trying to find their way back to each other. The main character Jamal can only communicate with Latika via the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He knows she'll be watching. In a city of millions they keep coming back to each other one way or another. I can't stop watching this movie!

I've been watching a lot of period movies and mini series lately. All in the 1700 to 1800's. I love Jane Austen and I have been re-watching many those movies. I started watching the mini series of Tess of the D'ubervilles, and also re-watched The Duchess.
I was thinking about the contrasts between now and then. Communication during these times was so different. The time you would have to wait for news to reach you. It was incredible. If you were a woman, you usually could not write to a man, unless he asked if he could write to you first. So many things were miscommunicated because you couldn't just come out and say what you felt. You wouldn't be able to walk up to a guy and say "I like you". You couldn't even hardly, if ever, be alone with a man. All communication would happen in the company of others, at parties, dinners, and other gatherings.

I think I love Jane Austen partly because of her happy endings. I know that when I read one of her books, that even though there are hardships, that in the end the heroine will always end up happy and in love. In all her novels the writing of letters between characters is so important. Can you imagine waiting days, weeks, or months, to hear word from the person you love? or even a friend. So much can happen in that time. Today there are dozens of ways to talk to the people you love everyday. If you want to talk to someone on the other side of the world all you need to do is get online. I have not personally used Skype, but I hear great things about it.
I watched most of Tess of the D'ubervilles, but I couldn't finish. The main character Tess, she kept having the worst things happen to her. She was an innocent young woman who was taken advantage of, because of one incident her whole life was changed for the worse. I was deeply saddened by her story. Even though it is a fictional story, it could have been true. What the women of those times had to go through could be horrible. It makes me feel very lucky to live in the time I do.

Okay so even though the times could be tough back then, I still would love to go back to that time period in a second........just for a little visit :)

What's been happening

Went fishing on last Sunday afternoon with my dad. We go in the creek at our farm. I got 3 or 4 nibbles but only caught one. One tiny sad little fish, I felt bad b/c he was so small! Dad thankfully took him off the hook (he always does, b/c I can't deal with that part) This isn't why I don't take the fish off the hooks, but when I was 5 I got a fish hook in my thumb! It got caught on my dress, I didn't know what it was so I tried to brush it off. Well I brushed it into my thumb! It went in one side of my thumb and out the other!! My parents rushed me to the hospital, which took about 2o minutes, the whole time I'm screaming my head off! All turned out well, the doctors took it out, and my parents bought me ice cream afterward.
It was really great to be away from technology and noises, and to just be out in the country. Very calming and peaceful.







Tuesday night I went out with some friends and I sang Karaoke! I've never done it before, but have always wanted to! My friend Katie and I sang Hall & Oates "make my dreams come true"
we wanted to sing a beatles song, but they didn't have it.

Thursday I went flying with my dad at Lafayette Aviation. He is a retired pilot. It was great, except as soon as we took off my head started to hurt so much! It kinda ruined the whole time for me, but I was still glad I went. Then later that night I had my astronomy lab and it was the first time we got to go outside to look at the stars. We charted constellations, saw the milky way galaxy, jupiter, and the andromeda galaxy. I saw two shooting stars! Such a beautiful night!

After school today, my mom called and said that a family friend would be flying through Lafayette. He couldn't land, due to some law about government contracts and gasoline. So He just did a few touch-and-go's. I saw him fly over our neighborhood in the T-4 he was flying.
That was very cool.

Now I'm just trying to decide what to do for dinner.....I'm SO hungry....Bruno dough sounds good

First Blog

Congratulations to me, I successfully created my first blog. It may get some getting used to, I am confident all will turn out well. I'm kind of excited to start this, even though I am not sure how interesting it will be. Hopefully I will become more proficient in blogging over time. This blog was created for my Communication & Emerging Technology class at Purdue.