The Dead Have Something to Tell You

             Being that Halloween is on Wednesday, I decided to share an article related to Halloween. This article, The Dead Have Something to Tell You, is about how much our culture has changed over the years pertaining to death and the celebration of death. I found it while I was glancing at the New York Times website.

            The author, Bess Lovejoy, basically summarizes how people have been treating death since the beginning of time. She says that in the Middle Ages, cemeteries were actually town squares and that people often slept with corpses because there was no other room for them. She also writes about how we used to always die at home, in a natural setting, although for a while that changed. The hospice movement, however, has caused people to once again pass away in their homes. 

         I don't really enjoy talking, or thinking really, about dead people, and I chose this article not because of that but because the author is criticizing the fact that Halloween has drifted from its Pagan and spiritualistic roots. Although I agree this is true, I don't think it is a bad thing. I really like Halloween, and I think its a great holiday where people can have fun dressing up and eating free candy. And of course, scaring people. Sure, this is not what Halloween was once about. But then again, we no longer sleep with corpses. Just because something was one way a long time ago does not mean it has to stay the same now.

          If not intellectual or agreeable, this article was still an interesting read, and now I know a little more about dead people! Hope everyone has a happy Halloween!

              So I've been trying to think of what to write about for my blog post all week. Last week, I basically just talked about other people's blogs, and then an article that I found interesting. This week, I wanted to do something else, but I didn't know what. I still don't, so I think I'm going to share another article that I found really interesting. 
              This morning my mom was reading the newspaper, and was excited to tell me she found something that we might be covering in journalism class. There was an article about really rich people in Virginia on the back page of the metro section, and right next to it was an article stating that by the end of this year there will most likely by 2,500 homeless students in Fairfax County. My mom shared this with me because she thought that it was horrible juxtaposition. She pointed out that the two stories were conveying opposite points and did not work being right next to each other on the page. Although I found that interesting, what I found much more interesting, and saddening, was the article itself. 
It can be found here.
              The article basically says that the number of homeless students is on the rise. I had to read the article multiple times to decided how I felt about it. I know that the economy is not good, and that we are in a recession, and that unemployment is high, and that people are homeless. But it is still hard for me to understand that people in my grade, people my age, don't have a place to go home to. There may be students at Blair that are homeless. 
              When this sunk in, I realized that I take many things for granted. One girl in the article says that she has to lie when people want to come to her house, because she doesn't have one. If I want to invite someone over to my house, I don't think twice. My biggest worry is if I'll procrastinate too much and not have time to do my homework, while these kids don't even have a place to do homework. 
                A homeless single mother who is still in school said "“I hear girls say, like, ‘Oh, hey my life is hell,’ ” she said. “I want so bad to tell them, ‘Sweetie, I’ve been to hell and back. You don’t know what it’s like.’ ” This quote really hit me. I thought about it, and found myself guilty of saying something similar to that not just once, but probably once a day. I find myself thinking 'wow my life sucks' because my mom won't drive me somewhere, or I have a lot of work. But the people in this article have much larger problems. It opened my eyes to what other people are going through, quite possibly people in my own school.
                I think that I may continue sharing an article or something I find interesting or inspiring each week for my blog post, but I'm not sure yet. I like writing my feelings about things I read. But I don't know what I'll do for next week. We'll see.

New Freedoms

           When the CAP teachers announced that basically, our blogs are boring and we need to make them more interesting (we are in a communications program, after all) there were mixed reactions. Some people were excited to post about their favorite teams or TV shows, and others were upset that we had to write more, period. I was kind of in the middle. I think it's interesting to see what everyone else is interested in, and to see what people think of things. I also know that without guidelines, I'm going to have trouble coming up with something to write about every week. Its not that I don't have passions, I just can't think of anything that others would really find interesting to read, if anyone were reading this. For this specific post, I started by looking at other peoples blogs for inspiration. And some of the things I read were really cool. Cherie wrote about how she wants to become an Olympic sprinter. Alex shared a video that made me cry. Kyra posted an amazing picture of Andrea's eyes. Many people wrote about how they didn't know what to write about. Most of the posts I read made me think. And they changed my opinion about these blogs. At first I thought that although a good idea, the blogs wouldn't work. People don't want to have to do more work than they have to. But now, I see what the teachers were thinking. If people take the time to read each other's posts, we can all learn something new, about the world or about each other.
Wow. That came out really corny. What I was trying to say: I think that it's cool to be able to see what interests other people in CAP and their take on what's going on.

            I decided that for this post, I'll share an article/post that a friend posted on facebook that I found to be very thought provoking. Although the only way that I can relate to it is that I too am a woman (I don't have a job, or a husband, or kids, and I wouldn't go as far as calling myself a feminist...), I think it brings up interesting questions and makes a lot of good points.

You can find it here.

            I think the most important thing that Spar (the author) says is that so much pressure is put on the modern woman: to make sure that she uses her freedom and independence that was fought so hard for to get an important job in an important place and to be successful while maintaining the role of the traditional woman and keeping together the house and taking care of her children. Yes, men also feel the pressure to be successful and to raise their kids, but not at the same level. Society has always and will always make it so that we are always in competition mode, as Spar states. She says that instead of working together, women are too busy trying to be the best at their job, the best PTA member, the best parent. If women were to work together, they could make the load a little lighter. But this does not happen. Spar writes, "Why? Because we’re too busy being perfect." She closes with this statement, which I wholeheartedly agree with and I think is put very powerfully. 

"Feminism wasn’t supposed to make us miserable. It was supposed to make us free; to give women the power to shape their fortunes and work for a more just world. Today, women have choices that their grandmothers could not have imagined. The challenge lies in recognizing that having choices carries the responsibility to make them wisely, striving not for perfection or the ephemeral all, but for lives and loves that matter."

Poster for trailer

Propaganda Poster

In our trailer, Vu represents the government. Because of this I thought, what wouldn't be better than having a poster with a big picture of Vu on it. So, our poster came out cleanly and simply with a picture of Vu staring down the viewer and a glittering generality that reads "obey". This is a reference to the fact that in our society everyone must listen to the government about everything. We plan to print out multiple copies of the poster and hang them in the background of our shots for added dramatic affect and to make the trailer more realistic. The poster is still a work in progress, but it is coming along nicely.