Assignment 18-Aiden Beach

Actually finish high school.

Finish a coding project still in progress.

I honestly couldn’t think of a third goal to complete not just before college or before I die, but specifically high school. I actually sat in my bed for 20 straight minutes not being able to come up with a single thing.


Learn C++, a complex but powerful coding language.

Start another coding project, but with a bigger objective in mind.

Afford an apartment.


Get a very profiting job in coding.

Have learned multiple languages.

Die--or “finish living”--old.


For the specific goal to talk about, I’ll talk about how much I’d like to die old. Dying old seems fun. I’d like to not die early. That’d be very not epic not cool. Especially if it would be a slow and painful death. However, if me dying old causes a slow and painful death, I’d rather die a quick and painless death earlier. Otherwise, though, death seems cool when I’m old and am too wrinkly to live.

Assignment 19- Katie Taylor

 I've always been someone who worries about the future. Whether it be the status of our environment or what job I'll hold, I've always looked at the future with reluctance and anxiety. My most memorable piece of advice was to "live in the moment," but I never really gave it much thought until COVID struck. I realized that we really have no clue what the future holds, and nothing is really promised. This idea was initially met begrudgingly, as the perfectionist in me wanted to have my whole life planned out. But as the months passed and I realized I wasn't going anywhere, I've begun to embrace this philosophy. Obviously, I haven't been able to act on this during these current circumstances, but as soon as we're given the OK to get back into society, I will welcome it with open arms- I cannot wait to just be outside and with friends again. 

Jake Walters assignment 18

 Before I finish High school I want to

1. Get a 34 or above on my act and achieve that 3.9 gpa this semester

2. Go on a large trip with all of my homies

3. Be able to go back in person for my senior year to finish it out with everyone

Before I finish college I want to

1. Become proficient in everything psychology related  

2. mentally prepare myself for the possibility of med school 

3. Have felt like the 4 years were worth it in academic and social sense

Before I finish life I want to

1. Go Sky diving

2. become a psychiatrist 

3. Cook everything I possibly can

Before I finish life one of my goals is to become a psychiatrist and a good one. Psychology is my favorite topic in anything and any of my friends can vouche that I talk about it every chance I get. So making it my profession to help and talk to people would be a dream come true being able to incorporate my interest into my job. It also brings in that mula can never forget that need to be able to afford everything else I want to do with my life too. 

Jake Walters assignment 19

 The most perspective changing advice I have received actually came from a fortune cookie surprisingly enough. I still have the fortune I received from the cookie pinned up in my room so I see it everyday. "It does not matter how many hours you put in but what you put into the hours." What the fortune cookie is basically saying is that you can put in as many hours as you could fathom into a project but if you don't work hard and put in your best effort during those hours, it wont matter how many hours you put in. This has always lived in my mind and has made me strive that when I do do work I put in my maximum effort into my hours so that I don't spend extra time doing it. This piece of advice changed how I looked at my work forever. I stopped looking at how long I spent on a homework assignment or project to determine how good I was doing. Now, I determine how good I used my time based on how much work and effort I put into those hours doing the assignment. 

Ghazzal Hammad - Assignment 18

High school:

1) getting good grades

2) getting into good colleges

3) receiving the academy medallion

College:

1) get an internship (maybe at a hospital or research lab)

2) get a job

3) study abroad

Life:

1) travel to different countries

2) go skydiving

3) have a good, stable career that I enjoy

Of these, the most important to me is having a good, stable career that I enjoy. Everything I have done -- sports, extracurriculars, taking advanced classes, spending hours studying -- and everything I will do in undergrad and grad school all lead up to one thing: my career. Being financially stable is important, which is why having a stable job is vital. However, none of this matters if I am not doing something I enjoy. Because my career is something I will have spent my life working towards, I want it to be something that makes me happy, and something that I think is worthwhile. If it is something I am going to spend years doing, I at least want to enjoy it.  

How To Video- Henry Adams

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dNLx9ytWzsgFdqdLiLfxYgHicuRJeP1r/view?usp=sharing

Assignment 19: Plastics

Most of the advice we receive in our lives is unsolicited and quite frankly inane.  However, every once in a while we get a real gem and changes our trajectory.  What is the one piece of advice given to you that has stuck?  Explain its effect on your life.

The Piece of advice that was most profound was for me was:
The most important decision you'll ever make is who you choose as a spouse/partner.  Choose wisely.
Ask me and I'll elaborate...

Minimum of 150 words

Due Sunday, February 7 at 11:59 pm

February 14 is the last day to make up blogs 17-19

Assignment 18 - Palmer Lee

Before I finish high school:
-Park in the senior parking lot during an actual school year at least once just to say that I did
-Get a 1400 on PSAT (we'll see how that goes)
-Go over to a friend's house

Before I finish college:
-Get a job (any)
-Get into a vet school
-Go out on a date

Before I die:
-Own at least one dog or cat
-Get a job as a veterinarian
-Go to another country

Of the things listed, I believe the most important one overall is getting a job during college. Getting a job will help me to figure out how the world works, along with the economy and figuring out how much I probably would need to get paid later in life in order to be able to support myself. Assuming all goes to plan, I probably won't need a job in order to pay for college - hopefully I'll be able to get enough scholarships to pay for most of it, and then my parents have lots of money saved up to hopefully pay the rest of it - but it's good to be able to have something to fall back onto in case things don't exactly go to plan. If I had to guess, my first job would probably be just above the minimum wage in retail - not exactly something I'm looking forward to doing, but I think it'll be a good experience overall.

Assignment 18- Zent

 

1. Get the academy medallion

2. Get into college

3. Go to prom

1. Get good grades

2. Get an internship

3. Study abroad

1. Find something I’m passionate about and make that my job

2. Surround myself with good friends and family

3. travel

All of the things I have put on these lists are important to me. But, I think the thing I think is most important is on my life bucket list. Surrounding myself with good friends and family. My mom has always said that life is all about the people around and it's those people that make and change who you are. And I think that's really important. I want to surround myself with people who bring out the best in me and who I bring the best out of. And people who I can trust to be there for me when I need them but also for me to be there for when they need me. All of the other things on this list are important and are goals of mine, but this is definitely my top goal.

Assignment 18- Sara Anderlich

Three Things Before I Finish Highschool:

1. I want to go to prom
2. I want all A's
3. I want to get my driver's license

Three Things Before I Finish College:

1. I want to have a part time job
2. I want to have a wonderful group of friends
3. I want to graduate

Three Things Before I Finish Living:

1. I want to get married and have children (also 2 cats and a dog)
2. I want to go paragliding
3. I want keep strong friendships and do things together

I don't know which to choose. All of these are important to me, at least after the things in high school. I want to experience life and I want to do new things everyday. I guess, thinking about it, I would choose to get married and have children. As much as I want to explore things outside of a family, I really want to have my own and make them as happy as I can. I look at other people, and watching some parents with their unconditional love for their child makes me really really happy. I know families aren't all perfect, but I want to do as much as I can. I think just relationships in general. Friendships that are created over the course of time... If I can have successful relationships with people (and dogs), I think that's all I really need in life. 

Assignment 19: Plastics Henry Adams

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ip6E2IMyU2F-0aydR_4r7W2hB9CLyVtcKa8kzcH8KAk/edit

Assignment 18- Katie Taylor

 3 Things I'd Like to do Before the End of High School

1. get my driver's license

2. get all A's

3. get into the college of my dreams

3 Things I'd Like to do Before the End of College

1. have an internship at NBC/NPR/a film studio

2. go on a road trip with friends

3. study abroad

3 Things I'd Like to do Before the End of My Life

1. get married

2. get a stable job that I love

3. live a fulfilled life

I'd like to expand on my goal of "living a fulfilled life". Over the past few months in quarantine, I had a bit of an existential crisis about how everything I usually worry about is very unimportant in the grand scheme of things. I was so worried about getting into college and having a high-paying job, when I realized that's not truly what I want, and rather what our capitalist society trained me to want. What I really want is to always have fun, and see all of the earth's beauty. I want to never take a second for granted. I want to surround myself with magnificent, one-of-a-kind humans. I only have one life, so I might as well not get caught up in the stressful stuff and instead enjoy the time I have, doing what I love. I think if I followed that mindset, I will live a very well-fulfilled life.

Assignment 18- Church

Before I finish high school

1. I want to go to prom

2. I want to be the president of a club

3. I want to be a bird specialist at canes

Before college

1.  Be a manager at canes

2. Join a sorority 

3.  Get an apartment

Finish living

1.  skydiving 

2. meet a celebrity 

3. go to Greece

I'm not sure if this is the most important to me for my fun life but I think it will be important to my future and that is to be a manager at canes before I finish college. This is one of the most important because they pay you to go to college and it would help me financially as an adult in college. It is also important because It will put me in a good position to get a job at any time in a management position post college and just in life, but you also have the option to move up in canes and work in corporate for salary jobs. Although this is not the most fun option and could be stressful at times it would be the most beneficial for me. However if we were just talking about something fun then I want to go skydiving because it just seems so thrill seeking and exciting and I would like to just say that I did It once.

Ghazzal Hammad - Assignment 17

 Over the break, I watched a few movies. One movie I watched was the new Wonder Woman 1984 movie. Before watching this movie, I read reviews (many of which were bad). I, personally, am more of a Marvel fan than a DC fan, so I was not super excited to watch this movie from the start; however, my parents wanted us to watch it as a family, so the 5 of us sat down and watched it together.

    I really liked the start of the movie. It started with Diana (Wonder Woman) as a young girl, competing in an event against much older women. Throughout the competition, Diana was actually beating everyone else, despite the age gap. However, towards the end, she stumbles and messes up. She then decides to cheat to try and catch back up to everyone else. At the end of the scene, she is told that she will not win through cheating. She will instead win when she is ready to win.

    This introduction was interesting, and it was supposed to set up the theme for the rest of the movie; however, no other part of the movie seemed to coincide with the introductory sequence, so it felt a bit useless to me.

    As for the rest of the movie, I can't say I liked it. Personally, I think the plot was really underdeveloped, and everything seemed thrown together. The villain was pretty weak, and the resolution was very unrealistic and anticlimactic. For a superhero movie, it lacked a lot of action and excitement. Overall, I would probably rate this a 5/10. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't very entertaining and I probably would not watch it again.

(for some reason my review won't publish on the website, but hopefully this is sufficient enough)

Rukavina- Assignment 17

Option 2

 Over the break, I decided to watch Remember the Titans because it was the only movie my family and I could all agree on. For starters, if you have not watched this movie you need to stop reading this blog post and go watch it right now because it is a cinematic masterpiece. This movie might be one of my favorite movies of all time. I mean you can’t not like a feel-good movie. This movie has it all: a football team that doesn’t like each other, a high school that has never won a championship, and a new head coach. These three things set up the movie for a classic coming together movie moment and an inspiring team win at the end. I won’t spoil too much, but basically the movie is about a football team in a newly unsegregated school. Of course, this leads to a lot of controversy between the new and old members of the team and especially the people of the town when they hear the old head coach is being replaced with a black man. Truth be told, just looking at what happened at the Capitol this movie would be a great watch for anyone who found themselves climbing the Capitol wall the other day but that’s another story. But if you're trying to figure out some good movies to watch be sure to add this one to the list 

Assignment 18- henry adams

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ip6E2IMyU2F-0aydR_4r7W2hB9CLyVtcKa8kzcH8KAk/edit

Assignment 18- Koen

     1. High school:

- Maintain good grades

- Get accepted to a university/college

- Graduate from high school

    2. College

- Figure out what major I should be dedicated to

- Find a community wherever the college may be

- study abroad

    3. Life

- Travel the world

    All of my life I felt somewhat unsure of where my community was. I used to believe it was Lexington, but nothing could compare to the community in Taiwan, where my family lived. I was only able to travel to Taiwan every other year and each year that I wouldn't go, I would long to be there. I learned that Lexington is truly a tiny place and I wanted to go to places that I have never been before like New Zealand, Japan, and the UK.  The world is a vast place with millions of new people and new perspectives. If I get the opportunity, I would like to travel the world and experience as much as I can. I would also encourage everyone else to travel the world as there are many places outside of Lexington and even the US where people are truly different and have different upbringings.

- Build my own house

- Have a car where I could race

Assignment 17- Koen

     Over the break, I go the chance to see the film Tenet by Christopher Nolan. The movie was about  a crisis in the world where the villain, Sator, was in charge of inverting things in the world which was basically reversing their entropy and it is up to the protagonist to stop that from happening or it would set off the end of the world. If Sator achieved his goal, he would make the inverted objects and the present ones collide with one another and that would end the world. The new take on time travel, or in this case, time inversion was truly brilliant by Christopher Nolan. The characters you meet with the protagonists are key people that you would not expect to be at certain points. For example, Neil was the protagonist's friend and sidekick throughout the journey. The protagonist meets him and thinks he doesn't know about the time inversion but when they were in trouble with Sator, it was Neil who knew more than the protagonists and called on more tenet soldiers to aid them. Another amazing aspect about this movie is that the protagonists has to go back and see things play out with Neil. You would never expect it, but towards the end of the movie, it is revealed that Neil was the one who saved the protagonist at the very beginning of the movie. Christopher Nolan's complexity in the movie Tenet is truly something to  witness. The movie's vagueness wants you to figure out the time loops and the linear progression of the story. It is truly a movie you would want to watch twice.

Assignment 17-Zent

 Option 2

Over the winter break, I watched Wonder Woman 1984. Before I watched it I had heard that it had gotten bad reviews, but I kept an open mind.the movie opens with young Diana (wonder woman) competing in the amazon games. Young Diana goes up against the best adult warriors and in an amazing action packed stunt sequence, she completes the course. This scene is by far the coolest and best stunt scene in the entire movie. The story flashes forward to 1984 where Diana is being Wonder Woman in secret and working at the Smithsonian in Washington DC in the open. From the beginning sequence, the story flows nicely but lacks major action. Don’t get me wrong the fight scenes are intense and technical but the remainder of the plot is just ok. Of course Wonder Woman in the end defeats the bad guy, but only after having to give up someone she loves which is a nice twist. Overall I liked the movie, it just could have upped the plot a little bit.

Assignment 17- Option 2 - Palmer Lee

Soul is fine. It's fine. It did what it wanted to do, and while I would've much rather watched a movie about a jazz teacher trying to make it big, what was there was done well. The voice acting and animation were very good, as can be expected from Pixar. But, I have one really big issue with it that stopped me from being able to like this movie. The only other animated Disney movie with a Black protagonist is The Princess and the Frog. While this is also a good movie, Tiana spends most of the movie as a frog. In Soul, Joe Gardner spends most of the movie as either a fish-looking soul being or a cat. Whether they realize they're doing it or not, Disney is dehumanizing Black characters. You would think in 2020 a corporation as big and as influential as Disney would maybe go, "Hey, wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't have both of our only two black protagonists be animals." For this reason, I could not bring myself to like Soul.

Assignment 17- Church

 The Perks of being a Wallflower 

This might have become my new favorite movie. The movie actually aired on September 12, 2012, but I just watched it during this crazy pandemic of 2020. The movie follows around Charlie, a freshman in high school who was taken out of the social game when two people who he loved dearly and would have considered his closest friends died. His best friend shot himself without any context and his aunt died in a car crash. Charlie tries to navigate the difficulties of the high school social scene while battled the own personal mental battles inside himself. Things start to take a turn for the worse when he meets two care free and spirited seniors. Sam and her step-brother Patrick show Charlie that life isn't the worse and they culture him in the real life experiences of high school. As time goes on he becomes great friends with not only Sam and Patrick but with the rest of their friend group. He starts going to parties, football games, and overall just begins to enjoy high school. He even says that he no longer sees things and if he does he can shut them out, but with all good things they come to an end, when he lets his feelings for Sam blind him he ends up causing a rift in the friendship. From there you can see how much the friends meant to him and he starts to go bad, although he reunites with his friends, he realizes that they will be going to college and growing up without him which causes his mental status to plunge even lower. At the end of the movie we see a glimpse into his past life where you learn he was abused by the aunt that he loved, this causes him to question his life status and ended up blacking out before he could take his own life. The movie ends with such a happy ending but the emotional journey that it takes you on, not just through Charlies life but through his friends and their struggles. The movie allows many high schoolers to relate to the common struggles and understand that the way they might feel in high school is similar to how others feel as well. It truly took me for an emotional ride and if you are looking for a movie with heartbreak and edge of the seat anticipation that still holds some great actors than this is the move you are looking for. Definitely a 7.3/10 for me!

Assignment 17: Hurray of Hollywood - During Break - Watch a movie! -- Henry Adams

 Link to Blog Post:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ip6E2IMyU2F-0aydR_4r7W2hB9CLyVtcKa8kzcH8KAk/edit 

Link to Rotten Tomatoes review:

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_martian

Assignment 17- Katie Taylor

 1/10/21

Juno (2007)

dir. Jason Reitman

 starring Elliot Page, Michael Cera, and Jennifer Garner

 review by Katie Taylor

   

    As I sit in my room, 10 months into quarantine and over halfway done with my junior year of high school, I can't help but live vicariously through Juno, the titular character. In this beautiful, quirky coming of age film, Juno manages to capture the struggles of both pregnancy and navigating "love" and what it means to be in love. On top of all that, Juno is trapped in high school. Elliot Page brings Juno to life wonderfully, creating a cynical yet caring young girl. Michael Cera plays the love interest "Bleeker", who is both dorky yet genuine. Cera creates such a comforting character- I wish we could all have a Bleeker in our lives. Juno finds a wonderful mother for her unborn child in Jennifer Garner's character, Vanessa.

    Juno is like a warm hug. It shows both the audience and Juno what love really is, as messy as it may be. Through the unrelenting support from Juno's father and stepmother, the goofy affection from Bleeker, and Vanessa's love for the unborn child, there is somewhat of a tight-knit community surrounding Juno during her pregnancy. It shows that even in the face of adversity, there are people that will love you regardless.

    As if this movie couldn't get any better, Juno is tied together with a beautiful soundtrack, including artists such as The Moldy Peaches, Kimya Dawson, Cat Power, and The Velvet Underground. This lighthearted indie folk soundtrack creates the perfect lighthearted atmosphere for Juno's shift from teenage years to adulthood. 

    And of course, the "cool indie music guy" turned out to be the worst character (as it usually is in real life as well).

In conclusion, I cried. 

    

Assignment 18: Buckets and Buckets

Welcome to your first blog prompt for 2020! Yay!

A bucket list is a list of everything you want to accomplish before you kick the bucket. That doesn't mean you can't have such a list for specific aspects of your life as well.

To begin the year, generate your own bucket lists (three items each) - one list for high school, one list for college, and one list for life. Then, write at length about one item that is the most important of the 9.

1. What are three items on your bucket list before you finish high school?
2. What are three items on your bucket list before you finish college?
3. What are three items  on your bucket list before you finish living?

(This blog is inspired by Axel Liimatta - former academy teacher - my friend and former colleague that inspires me to live every day more fully)

Minimum of 150 words - due Sunday, January 24  at 11:59 pm

February 14 is the last day to make up blogs 17-19

Assignment 17- Sara Anderlich (Option 2)

 Soul

Outstanding! This movie follows Joe Gardner, a middle school band director, who has a dream to play in a real jazz band. After finally making his first gig, he is overjoyed! Maybe even too much so... 

Within the first 10 minutes of the movie you will have felt nearly every emotion from happiness to frustration to sadness... and it leaves you in a place of, "Where is this going?" But it's 110% worth it. You get to see Joe Gardner's soul, for who he really is, and even get to watch him grow alongside the life (or before-life) of a very special, and unlikely, friend. In attempts to avoid falling into the "Beyond", the two journey into all parts of the physical and mental being where they learn about each other's "sparks". 

Overall, it is a fantastic and imaginative movie, with outstanding world building, that teaches you the importance of appreciating all aspects of life. It is a story that everybody will love!

Assignment 17-Aiden Beach

The new DCU movie, Wonder Woman 1984, was a good definition of mediocre. It wasn’t a horrible movie, but it definitely wasn’t better than its predecessor, Wonder Woman. The movie obviously takes place in 1984, before the events of Justice League but after the events of Wonder Woman. The movie itself is a sort of subplot, not giving anything else to the bigger plot of all the DCU movies. However, that is not a complaint, just a statement. Before getting into the complaints, there were some good aspects of the movie. One of the main characters plays as the Mandalorian in…you can guess. He, along with many other actors and actresses such as the woman who plays Wonder Woman, do a phenomenal job playing their parts. However, the building of those character personalities is off. There are some characters that the movie tries but fails to build sympathy towards, and then there are some characters that switch sides without any warning and with little reason. Overall, the movie is okay, but not a great movie.

Jake Walters Assignment 17

The two films  of the horror genre that I have watched and chosen to compare are IT and The Blair Witch Project. Two classic movies of the horror genre but both execute it in their own style and so differently yet both equally terrifying. While the plots of the two movies are drastically different with It being about a murderous clown that terrorizes a city every 23 years and The Blair Witch Project being about a documentary about a supposed witch that lives in the woods. The Blair Witch project is a much more slow burn horror movie relying on the unknown to scare you. Its slowly builds up tension throughout with them getting lost in the woods, then odd occurrences and noises start happening at night, finally leading up to one of the members going missed and found posessed at the end. While in IT it is a lot more jump scare dependent on the cheap jumping at you with loud noises along with the disturbing images. Cant lie, this movie did scare me bad when I saw it in theaters so I'm not saying its not scary just that it all relies on jump scares. Through this, both movies achieve their title of a horror movie just very differently with one being a slow burn and making you scared of the unknown or of what could be happening while the other focuses on a more direct approach of trying to get a scare out of the audience. Both movies are amazing in their regards and deserve a watch. 

Assignment 17 - The Joker - David Butler

    The Joker, a movie that is a true homage to the long series of movies featuring the villain the joker while he battles batman. However, one key difference is that while all the other movies featuring the Joker dehumanize and villainized him, this movie humanizes and victimizes him. The movie revolves around Arthur Fleck as he lives out his life and you can see his slow degradation into the Joker. It is interesting because he is the protagonist in the movie as it is obviously sympathizing with him, however, he is also the antagonist in the end from the perspective of many other characters. Like I said earlier, this movie humanizes the joker as Arthur Fleck, someone that you can relate to and could realistically see that happening too. The movie starts off with Arthur living in utter poverty, living in the slums of Gotham which was actually shot in the Bronx of New York, along with New Jersey. It was really amazing how they transformed this area into a believable, grimy, dystopian, Gotham and really sells the plot of the movie. The time period was set in 1981 when there was chaos in the streets, a garbage strike, and overall crime running amuck. During the exposition we see Arthur in his rundown, poorly light apartment made it all too clear of the state of the poor in Gotham and this makes a very believable case for Arthur being quite distraught about how poorly the city treats its people. Arthurs poverty also makes it very difficult for him to get the mental and physical health services that he needs. During the rising action the government shuts down the financial aid program that provides him his medication and counseling. This means that he can no longer get his medication because he is so impoverished it and will only get worse from there. Many wouldn’t know of Arthurs background and how much he had to deal with as a kid, they only saw the joker. That there is the single most reason why I truly believe that this Movie is a genius masterpiece. The statistically most common villain for people to know of, the joker, was now, after decades, being revived, brought into a new light, and most of all, made into a character that someone would perceive as believable. It was even a take on past and modern-day society and how poor our mental health institutions are. This trait of the plot is really shown when Arthur goes into a downwards spiral after losing everything around him. This catapulted him into the Joker persona where nothing mattered to him anymore, he couldn’t lose. This was the climax of the movie when he finally transformed from this weak, powerless character, to a powerful, seemingly invulnerable character. After this transformation there wasn’t any falling action either which broke the stereotypical movie format. The only thing I would say that I disliked was that there wasn’t more of the movie. I mean this in the sense that nearing the end of the movie you get a similar feeling that you get around the end of Christmas break, how did the time pass me by so quickly and I don’t want it to end. The actors in this were phenomenal, especially Joaquin Phoenix who played into the role of Arthur Fleck so well that you truly believed you were there inside his deranged, depressed mind. He also heavily committed to the role by doing certain things behind the scenes to prepare for the movie. One such thing he did is that he was told 3 months in advance that he would have to lose 30 pounds for the role of Arthur. They told him that they could provide a trainer and nutritionist, but he said, “that’s not how I do things”, so for the next 3 months, all he ate was an apple a day. Overall, I loved this movie as it broke ground on the Joker character as a person not just a villain. It also showed how even those who are seen as the vilest or villainous, have had a past, and often aren’t all bad. We often hear this in society; however, it is headed so infrequently, don’t judge a book by its cover.

It’s a must see for anyone, fanatic or not!