URL's (Blog)

http://fedappolon.blogspot.com/2012/04/take-care.html#comment-form

http://kevinbeebie.blogspot.com/2012/02/endless-possibilities-first-blog-post.html#comment-form

http://stanceinthearts.blogspot.com/2012/03/to-party-doesnt-mean-to-drink.html#comment-form

Eval

As the end of my freshman year comes to a close I would say it was a lot harder than I expected. There were many fun times but there were also a lot of hard lessons to be learned. Some of the academic ones of course included not procrastinating as much and to keep a better eye on my studies. I also learned to be careful of the people that you meet and hang out with. Though it's a lesson that every mother has been telling their child since second grade, it's a lesson that had been well forgotten until recently. I can remember entering into college and being afraid and not knowing what to expect. I can say that after this I am not as afraid as I was. I have learned to take some chances and have fun but, I have also learned to be cautious and not be stupid. After this year, I am looking forward to heading into sophmore year with this newly aquired knowledge.

As of my writting evoulution, writting (especially creative writting) has become a lot easier after having this blog. I was never one for creative writting but after this semester I am thinking about taking a creative writting class this summer and keeping a blog of my own. I would like to become more involved in the arts. There were poetry readings and cultural events that I had never even heard of and will probably never hear of again after this class is over but my goal for next year is to go to more readings and events offered by Penn State. I never realized how enjoyable it could be to sit down and listen to someone read to me or hear about someone else's life.

　

I completed the SRTE'S (and I would like to say this is very clever because I probably wouldn't have completed them if you hadn't of made me write this sentence)

Cultural Event 2

      For my second cultural event, I went to the Moving On concert next to Beaver Stadium. I had been looking forward to this concert for awhile and was one of those people who could be seen walking over to beaver stadium around 4 even though Ludacris wasn't set to open until 8.

     At first I was a little skeptical because I wasn't sure why Ludacris, such a big name artist, would be opening for someone else. If he had wanted to come to Penn State, why wouldn't he insist upon being the main act? If the reasoning was to get as many people out there to begin with so they would stay for the rest of the concert, it worked.I told myself that I was going to see Ludacris but ended up staying until late at night and I had a great time listening to artists that I had never heard of. My favorite part of concerts is feeling the energy of everyone out there. As soon as Ludacris stepped onto the stage, the level of excitement could be felt in the air. Though there was so much to begin with, somehow Ludacris was able to maintain this level of excitement throughout his entire act.

    One the craziest parts of the concert was when this artist, Little Fate?, I think he was called stepped onto the stage to perform. The majority of the people had no idea who he was and there were some shouts of "Who are you?" that could be heard across the field only ending after calls back of "Who are you?" and "Shut the ......"

     Apart from all of the carnival types of food that I hadn't had in awhile, I got a new sense of music from this concert. There were people there that I hadn't even heard. These artists were able to create new twists on music that I found interesting and will be sure to explore.

Cultural Event Number One

      The first cultural event that I went to was the 10:00 showing of The Vow at the Penn State HUB. It was one of those romantic movies that all my friends wanted to go to and needless to say NEEDED me to go see as well. Even though I hadn't wanted to, I decided to take this "Study Break" and go see it anyway.

      After showing my ID to the man outside, I entered into the almost full auditorium. Turns out everyone else had the same "study break" idea. I could just say that the movie was a typical romance about how a man tries to win the love of his life back again. However, there is something about this movie that sets it apart from all the others. It could be that Channing Tatum plays his part so earnestly that we can feel the pain he feels as he realizes that his wife no longer loves him.

      The movie starts off with this married couple parked at a stop sign and the wife Paige (Rachel McAdams) takes off her seat belt to give her husband Leo (Tatum) a kiss. One can hear some gasps in the audience as people know what is about to happen but cannot stop it. From behind, comes a huge truck that slams into the back of the parked car and Paige goes flying out of the front of the vehicle. We find out that she has suffered brain hemorrhaging and does not remember ever loving Leo. To make matters worse, the last man she remembers was being in law school and being in love with was her ex-fiance. At first she tries living with Leo but since she is so scared and confused she eventually goes back and lives with her parents. Finally accepting that his wife doesn't remember him, Leo decides to start from the beginning and ask her on dates. The movie progresses like this for awhile but then she finds out that her father cheated on her mother (a fact she had known before but forgot through her brain hemorrhaging) and moves back into the city. The movie twist at the end is that Paige never falls back in love with Leo and they can never be more than friends.

      Though I hate the typical movies where everything goes exactly like the other romance movies, I was a little disappointed that things didn't work out for them in the end. This sad but necessary plot twist is what sets the movie apart from all the rest and along with McAdam's and Tatum's brilliant acting, The Vow is sure to be a movie to please.

Over 100 people crowd into the dark room eagerly waiting for the screen to light up. At 12:35 on the dot a hovercraft fills the screen as it flies across a desolate field in a world we can only be thankful isn't our own. As punishment for a rebellion many years ago, the people are forced to send their children into an arena to fight to the death. If they win they become famous. If they lose they die. Based on a best selling book by Suzanne Collins, the movie The Hunger Games is already a promising watch.

The plot starts to pick up as children file into the town square to see who will be chosen to go into the arena and fight to the death. When her younger sister Prim is chosen as a tribute, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to take her place. As an added twist, her fellow tribute from district 12 is Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), who saved her life years ago by giving her and her family food after their father died. The pair travel to the Capitol wondering how they can kill each other when Peeta saved Katniss’s life and Peeta is in love with Katniss. Then, in a surprising turn of events, the rules are changed and for the first time two tributes are allowed to win if they are from the same district. Lawrence proves exceptional at her role already having two successful movies under her belt (Winter’s Bone  and X-Men: First Class). Josh Hutcherson  also proves his ability to  convince the audience  in  multiple movies such as Bridge to Terabithea and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

However, even the terrific cast was unable to hide some serious flaws in the movie. For those who have read the books, there is no hiding the fact that major details are significantly different from the movie. For one, the cornucopia is not even the right color. How hard is it to make the main source of the tributes weapons and food gold instead of silver? Then, the symbol of freedom and uprising is not given by Madge, Katniss’s friend, but by her younger sister. While this may have been done to cut out the numbers of characters it seems unwise to change such a major detail. There were also multiple details that were left out so that many who had might not have read the books would be left in the dark about some events.

Nonetheless, the movie has many major twists and turns to keep the audience wondering what will happen next.  We are hopeful when Katniss pairs up with Peeta to defeat the other tributes but caught of guard when the Capitol changes the rules again meaning only one tribute can win. With only those two left, how can they face their hometown after killing the other. Better yet, how can they face themselves? One has to watch the movie to find out.

PSU-Party School?

          When I first plugged in my headphones and started to listen to the podcast I felt the reporters were being a little biased. Here they were sitting up in the early hours of the morning waiting for drunk college students to walk by so they could use them as examples. However, I also felt the woman's annoyance at them was justified. Why does she deserve people peeing in her yard and ripping signs off of her street. On one hand I can sympathize with her because it really is unfair that she should be subject to this because she lives in a college town. On the other hand I can understand how it is to want to do crazy stupid things and be young. When your friend is peeing in the grass next to someones lawn you often don't stop and think.....wait, how would the person feel if they knew she was doing this? Instead the only thing on your mind is that you want to have fun, or really don't want to see your friend pee her pants.

          I believe that there was a sense of balance throughout the piece so that even when Penn State maybe wasn't portrayed in the best light, the reporters did relate to the students and admit they were the same way when they were younger. I also feel that even though there were heavy parts in the podcast there was a bit of humor to lighten the mood. For me, I feel as if the party scene was portrayed fairly accurately. There are still bus rides on the weekends where drunk people sing songs and you can still see people doing dumb stuff like stealing street signs or throwing garbage cans. The part where the guy at the frat was saying he just wanted to get the girl drunk so he could take advantage of her was funny and probably true. A lot of my girl friends want to get drunk and have fun and a lot of the guys want to get the girls drunk so they can have fun later.

          The most shocking and provocative part of the podcast for me was when they were talking about all the deaths that have occurred at Penn State due to drinking. I think the scariest part of it was the "averageness" off all the nights and how it could relate to anyone. As humans we have this thought process that it will never happen to us. We will never go to jail because we'll never be dumb enough to do something that will put us in jail, we'll never get in an accident because we're really good drivers. However, I feel the podcast did a good job showing how this could really happen to anyone because it's not like the people who died did anything crazier than what we do on our weekends. They didn't drink any more than we do or act crazier than we do. This was enlightening because it made me think, if these people did the same things that we do then what is to stop us from becoming like them?

Defining Art

           Art isn't like baseball or video games. OK, well bad examples but my point is that art isn't easily defined. While we have set characteristics of what a video game is and why swimming can't be considered baseball, how do we say what is or isn't art? Some people consider poetry or music to be art while others believe that only paintings and drawings can be considered art.  And even when we look at different paintings and drawings there is still confusion as to what is art. Do we consider abstract paintings to be art or a mess of paint on a canvas? If we consider music to be a form of art is rap music art or simply people talking fast?
       I believe art is an expression of ones self or of anything really,that takes skill and imagination. Therefore, art can be dance, song, poetry, stories, sculptures, paintings, pictures and more. My reasoning is that it takes skill to dance, sing, write stories or poems, to paint, draw, make a sculpture and capture a scene just right so that it expresses what you want it to. While doing all these things you are also putting yourself out and expressing yourself or what you are going through. This is why art is often something that historians look at to see what history was like.  Stories like the Grapes of Wrath capture the hard times that people faced during the Dust Bowl in the 1930's and the sense of desperation that they felt. Maybe I'm going too far but my point is, if you look at art you can get a sense of history through what people were feeling during that time.
   
One of my favorite works of art is called Relativity by M.C. Escher. http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Escher.jpg

My first reaction when I encountered this lithograph in one of my art classes was a sense of uneasiness. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not because I didn't understand it. Why were there so many staircases and which way was up? Was there even an up, down, left or right? After I got over my initial confusion I realized that I liked the painting because it was so provocative and open to interpretation. It wasn't like the usual paintings of fruit or people, instead it was unique and mysterious. I believe the title Relativity is appropriate because you decide which way is up or down relative to where you are standing. Though  impossible, it depicts a world in which the normal laws of gravity don't exist and this impossibility displayed in art is interesting to me because art is one of the places where artists can make the impossible seem possible. I would definitely classify Relativity as art because it is an expression of life that took skill and a great amount of imagination to make the impossible seem possible.

Lynched-Seymour Lipton

             While the Palmer Museum was filled with plenty of interesting and unique paintings, the piece of art that stood out the most to me was a small mahogany sculpture on the second floor. Though the sculpture was simple, uniform brown and small, it held much more meaning than any of the other paintings there. Made by Seymour Lipton in 1933 , the sculpture depicted a black man in fetal position, arms tied behind his back, head turned violently with a look of anguish on his face and a noose around his neck.  The only words present on the tag below it were the artists name, the names of the people who donated money for this sculpture and the name of the sculpture itself, Lynched.  Though it wasn't much, I didn't need anything else to understand the sculpture.
            The sculpture was created in the 1930's, a time when African Americans faced discrimination and segregation. Though it wasn't legal, groups such as the KKK found ways to keep blacks enslaved. African Americans getting lynched, mugged or killed was a common occurrence and thought there were many people during that time that did not care for the mistreatment of African Americans, there were many that didn't care for change. This sculpture depicts the harassment and abuse that blacks were subject to at that time. I believe the point of the sculpture was to use pathos in order to make a provocative statement about discrimination. The agony on the man's face appeals to our emotions because it shows you how the African Americans suffered. Because reading about the abuse and actually seeing the abuse happen are different, the emotions on the sculpture's face bring the pain to life and make it more real to us. While we may thing, wow that is a terrible thing that happened, when we read about a black getting murdered, actually seeing the look of terror and pain on his face in the statue brings up stronger emotions. This terrible depiction of lynching is meant to make a negative statement and speak out against discrimination. It is meant to show the inhumane parts of what people were doing to African Americans. The man in the sculpture is being treated like an animal, not even being allowed to have clothes on. The fetal position and look on the man's face bring up images of pain. Since he is wearing a noose around his neck we can also deduce that he will be hung soon and thus die.
         Seymour Lipton is known to make works of art that speak out against discrimination and slavery. Another sculpture John Brown and the Fugitive Slave is an example of his focus on African Americans and their struggles. Lipton also establishes his identity in art through other sculptures such as Sea King, Mandrake, Moby Dick, Arctic Bird and Scroll. 
          Though I had already been the the Palmer Museum multiple times before, I would still go back.My experience at that museum was a positive one and I enjoy looking at the different pieces of art and sculptures. One of my favorites at the Palmer Museum is the Peacock Blue and Yellow Seaform Set with Yellow Lip Wraps by Dale Chihuly in 1995. The hand blown glass grabs my attention because of it's vibrant colors and interesting positioning of the different hand blown pieces within the display itself. I also like that way that the display was placed in front of the window because of the way the light seems to catch the glass and make the colors even more colorful. This is one of the many reasons why I enjoy the Palmer Museum.

When I first heard about the blogging assignment I thought it might be a little fun, but nothing too crazy. Several days and a blog later I can see that I was mistaken.  I knew I was always technologically challenged, but when it takes  two days and the computer assistants  in the commons to show me how to add a template I know I have some serious issues. Needless to say, I chose everything in and about my blog to be as simple as possible. I chose my template because it was the most interesting one in the set of already designed templates. I made my font to be big and bold because I wanted to be able to see my blog with my glasses off. I do like my blog for what it is, simple and easy to navigate. This does reflect me well because it shows that I do not possess any technological genius at all. I believe the bright colors and profile picture capture my quirky and outgoing personality. The actual making of the blog website was a lot harder than I expected it to be, but I hope to be able to get a sense of other people's views of blogging from this assignment.