All Good Things Must Come To An End

I have absolutely nothing to write about! With the year’s end creeping closer my ideas are running out and this may very well be my final blog post. Right now, at this very second in time, 8:56 am on May 25^th 2012 I am amongst my classmates as we all struggle desperately to finish our blog post requirements for the year. Everyone, except for three students, is arching over their computer screens either writing their blog posts of pretending to do so. For some of us it is overjoying to think that this post may be our last, while others silently mourn about how this is their last post, and of course we have those that are barley starting to write their first of three blog posts with the excuse that “I have all weekend to work on it”.

Every so often there is a beep from a Facebook message reaching a student who has forgotten to mute their computer followed by everyone else looking at the bottom right of their screen, double checking that they have not made the same mistake. However, all the students seem to be working appropriately despite the secret Facebook tab amongst the various others: Blog Ideas for Dummies and Blogger.com. But now, seeing as I have reached the word count requirement for the blog post I guess I will say my final goodbyes. It has been a good year and I have posted lots of acceptable work and honestly I am quite proud of this blog, but all good things must come to an end right? So goodbye, and remember…

Just Follow the Yellow Brick Road

FINALS Approch

The year is coming to a rapid close, projects are approaching deadlines and the anticipation of finals is in the air. As dead week creeps closer the questions about the finals begin to emerge, some students are going mad with questions. What will be on the test? Will we need to know Malaysia? Can you give us a study guide? But of course with a variety of questions comes a variety of answers from teachers. Some give us detailed descriptions of the test, some simply say “The test will be made for you,” and others like to leave it as a “surprise”.

Your never know, stress could lead to this!

The stories of last year’s finals also begin to arise from the higher ups in the student hierarchy. “The English final will leave your fingers twitching with pain” and “Half the class cried after the Math final last year” they say with a dead serious tone, it’s quite scary. The idea of such a magnitude that it can ruin your grades if failed is poisoning to a 9^th grade mind you know. It fills us up with terrifying thoughts of failing the test. However, everyone knows in the back of their mind that when we all approach the lined up desks in the fluorescently lighted room we are all going to be fine; and although everyone’s eyes dash back and forth trying to read the emotions of our companions, in the end we are all going to be relieved and believe me, there is no better feeling.

The Scorch Trials

Lately I have not been reading very much independently and honestly, its technology’s fault. I will just admit it now; I am weak when it comes to the temptation of technology, so naturally the desire to read is suppressed by this temptation. Fortunately I have read a variety of books anyways amongst them is The Scorch Trials. The Scorch Trials is a continuation of a book in my previous posts, The Maze Runner. The Scorch Trials begins with the same characters as in the Maze Runner; however, they find themselves once again in another life or death situation in which they are the guinea pigs for a scientific experiment meant to “save the world” from certain destruction. The kids in the story, having been thrown into a barren waste land of dust and the scorching sun must work together to get through the Scorch Trials alive.

The book was interesting to read, yet does not rank very high if I had a list of my favorite books. It was a book with a tremendous amount of mystery to it, maybe too much of it? It was because of this huge amount of mystery that the beginning seemed boring and confusing; however, as the book picked up it was full of climatic moments and intriguing scenes. Overall, I enjoyed the book but I think that it could have been much more interesting with less of a mystery factor to it.

Shark Night

Recently, I watched a movie with a friend of mine called Shark Night and let me just say that the movie is quite nerve racking. It is the story about six collage kids who go to saltwater lagoon to celebrate the end of their semester. However, they are not aware that three people in the lagoon have let out 46 sharks out into the lake to record the attacks and sell them. Like any movie you know that everyone will die except for the main character and their boyfriend/girlfriend, for this reason it was difficult to accept that most of the characters had to die, considering every character had an individual yet fun personality that you had a small connection to as the audience. Another aspect that impacted me was the horrid personality of the “bad guys” in the film who saw fun in watching people die through shark attacks, one of them even referred to one of the attacks as a “Happy Hour”. However, their sick minded attitude was made up for when they were all killed by sharks. Overall, it was quite a suspenseful film, so suspenseful in fact that by the end of it I was sick to my stomach; and making the impact stronger was the fact that I was going to the beach the next day…

As you can imagine the combination of a shark movie and a beach trip is not the best for any teenagers mind. I did get into the water; don’t get me wrong, I was not terrified but there were times where I could see my feet dangling from the surface of the water and the Jaws theme song played within the depth of my mind. Not to mention the thought of having a face like the one below looking at me from the depth of the salty water.

 

I’m sure you could understand why it was not the best trip to the beach I’ve ever had.

Here is the link to my friend’s blog who also took interest in writing about the movie: http://anonymousinterviews.blogspot.com/2012/02/terror-en-lo-profundo-shark-night.html

Anime!

So recently I have been watching an anime show that I have been following for quite some time now called Naruto. It is quite incredible although I have to watch it by reading the English subtitles since I don’t speak Japanese; but that is just a minor negative feature to watching the show. It is full of suspense and has a detailed well-structured story line that can affect the viewer greatly at times, which is probably why even those who read the subtitles at times get obsessed; and as much as I hate to admit it I feel that I am obsessed with the show, its naturally addicting.

Now, I don’t know if lots of people have seen the show but it has rapidly expanded its viewer’s rates and is growing to a global level, they have already created an English dubbed version! However, the dubbed versions always come out much later and I like to stay updated with the show. Besides hearing the original voices to any show or movie greatly changes the rate of how you interoperate the show, even if they are in another language. Overall, if you have not seen Naruto or heard of it I recommend it to you, and although you may not like it depending on your taste it has definitively addicted me to a certain point that at times embarrasses me.

Winter Break

We have some back from winter vacation of two weeks now and I was planning to update you on my trip. For my vacation I went to Brazil, more specifically Rio and Iguaçu Falls, unfortunately Rio was rainy the whole time we were there, cloudy skies and beaches just don’t match up to well don’t you think? However, the weather in Iguacu Falls made up all the bad days in Rio, clear skies and a blazing sun ALL day long. This trip was my first ever to a country which spoke a language I did not making it a different experience. It was different to be in a place where you could not communicate, using your hands and facial expressions to simply ask for an empanada at a bakery; to top it all off my dad was convinced he could communicate so he read out loud every portuguese sign we saw simply to embarrass my sister and I.

Iguacu Falls were amazing! Never had I seen so many waterfalls in one place, the vegetation and scenery of the entire area was beautiful indeed. We decided to go under the water falls… twice; once in the Brazilian side and once on the Argentinean (I Honestly Preferred the Brazilian Better). On our flight back home I had the luck of being sick, and trust me it is the most terrible feeling in the world to be on a plane for 6 hours with a plugged nose and terrible stomach ache. Overall, the one con to the trip in my opinion was that retched flight to Caracas. 

What has Happened To Disney?

I’m going to be a little bit off topic again with this post. So I was watching some videos the other day of YouTube when I saw one particular video about the Lion King. As I have mentioned earlier, Disney’s “Lion King” is the only movie that surpasses the Wizard of Oz and I realized I had never spoken about the movie on this blog before today. I don’t know particularly why the movie is so appealing to me; I’m not sure if it is because I first saw it when I was young and really enjoyed it or if it simply is an incredible movie.

Anyways, the Lion King tells of this free land in Africa which is ruled by a pack of lions. The main character is the son of the king, his name is Simba. However, one particular member of the royal line is evil, the king’s brother and Simba’s uncle, his name is Scar. Scar had always envied the king (His Brother) and one day formulates a plan with the infamous hyenas in order to take the throne; this plan was one which involved the death of the king and the heir to the throne (Simba). The plan succeeds to the point where the king is killed; however, Simba manages to escape from the grasp of the hyenas.

I believe what most appealed to me in this film was how free the world was. The story line being so pure yet intriguing, I honestly don’t know what has happened to the old Disney films, better said, the GOOD Disney films. Now-a-days movies are filled with complicated story lines that are overly confusing. I miss those classic films of The Lion King, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc. What ever happened to the greatness of that movie era? Are we cursed to producing “realistic” movies from now on with complex plots? Is this was our advancements in movie making have brought us? I wonder if maybe, someday, we will get the chance to produce another one of those movies that use to fill me with laughter, but, I doubt it will happen…