Final Post!

Media communication… I didn’t really pick that class; somebody did it for me. And I am glad! I am not going to lie; I wasn’t thrilled by the very first project that I had to work on: write a blogpost about the Pulitzer Prize pictures. Plus it was very hard at the beginning because I wasn’t used to write in English that much. It was obvious for me when I compared my first blogspots to the latest ones; I think I made some progress with my writing but you tell me! It is kind of the same with the vlogs and the pronunciation… Although I regret to have not done that from the beginning of the year because I bet the difference would have been even bigger.

My favorite project through the whole year was Digital Nation. It very interesting, and made the class think about some topics very rarely brought up in the media like how the technology affects the media… I love being put in positions when I have to push my thoughts further. It appears that now I could talk about how video games affect kids for hours!
If I had to pick something during the year that I liked the least, that would be the Epic chapter… Watching the Lords of Rings, I mean. I kind of like those movies but I really took a lot of notes and didn’t really pay attention to the movie itself. Plus it was so long! The presentations afterwards were interesting though, when we had to compare Lord of Rings to another epic movie… But yes, I guess that part of the school year would be the one I appreciated the least.
I loved learning technical things like how to make a podcast, how to edit a video, how to put a video on youtube… I think it’s great because even if kids master facebook, most of them do not know how to use a computer in details. And we are the future, and future is technology… So we might want to get on it. I was lost at the beginning but Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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think that I remember pretty much everything that we learnt about that and would be able to do it again.
I thought the Food Inc. thing was very…rewarding… I think we all had an idea about it but we just want to keep our eyes closed, too comfortable in our fast food way of life. When I watched the movie, I didn’t have a choice but realize what was happening behind my back! I don’t know that I will totally change the way I eat but now am I going to watch it and not always go for cheap/fast/easy? Yes.
If there was one thing to change about that class it would be the debates. The class has to find a way to communicate without biting each other’s head! I think it is one of the most important things ever to be able to exchange your opinion with other people, to know what they think… It makes you a better person because in your little bubble, there are some primordial things you might not see, but the person next to you will.
What is Media Literacy? It sounds like a vast question, but I guess my answer would be kind of quick and simple. For me, it consists of learning about the media and especially trying to see behind the appearances… How does it work? That is the question you want to ask yourself. And of course it is necessary to do that! It’s really important to know how we are manipulated; this way at least you have a choice. When you don’t know, the only choice you have is do what people above you want you to do. Be your own and only boss: take the right directions. Either you decide to not care about shocking things you heard, ignore the guilt and go on with your life, either you decide to change things from your place, starting by changing yourself. I think it is really important to have a choice.

Anyway… This is really weird because it is my last blogpost and I try to make it last forever because I don’t want to stop writing. I’ll just say that even if sometimes I didn’t enjoy this class that much, most of the time it was a blast. It is a very interesting class and for a first year I think we’ve all done pretty well!!

Food Inc.

We just watched Food Inc. in class. It was a very interesting movie, and disturbing at the same time… It was divided in 6 chapters with very powerful and shocking statement in each of them. I will talk about things that caught my attention in each chapter, then I am going to try and explain how much it changed my way of thinking and my point of view about this whole situation.



The first chapter of the movie, Fast Food to All, stated the idea of people in general want their food to be cheap, fast and easy. This idea is very important because it is used during the whole movie. I kind of already knew that though… It has a lot of consequences, for example where the food we eat come from. Few people are aware of this but animals that have for only destiny to end up in boxes in our supermarket receive terrible treatements. They are “things”, when they should be treated like livings. They don’t have any right, besides the one to do their job which is more of an obligation than a right… They don’t have a choice. Treating them bad affect their biological organism, which affects us since we eat them… In the movie they say that this person had an antibiotics intolerance due to food.
Corn-u-copia of Choices, the second chapter, was very interesting and a huge eye-opener. There is corn in EVERYTHING we eat. I had no idea about that… I eat corn in cans, or I frie it, but I leart that I am also eating corn everytime I am eating McDonalds, chips, ketchup, cheese, drinking coke.. It all comes from what the animals are fed with. Farmers give them corn because it’s cheap, and we end up eating have corn in 90% of our food as Larry Jonhson said. This other guy in the movie says “Corn is really cheap, and corn make them fat very quickly”. At the end, that is exactly what we want, isn’t it? Cheap, easy and fast?
I was very shocked by the 3rd chapter of the movie, Unintended Consequences. It is about how this little kid died in 12 days from eating hamburgers… The mother was moved and moving during the multiple interview she gave. She is been fighting the companie that fed her son the deadly hamburger for 7years. Like she said, all she wanted was an apology and for them to take the product out of the market. Food contamination will become an even bigger issue than it already is if we don’t do something. Something else caught my attention though. They say in the movie that if you take the cow out of her corn diet and feed her grass for 5days, she will shoot out 85% of E. coli (one of the food contaminations I guess) she got. Instead of doing it though industries come up with high tech fixees that will allow the system to survive… Just because it is faster and answers the people’s demands.
Chapter 4, The Dollar Menu, was rewarding, even if I did know most of the things that they said… People don’t want to bother raising money to eat healthy. They will prefer fast food. Putting all the blame on them would be too easy though… Vegetables have become very expensive, it is even ridiculous. You can try to eat healthy but if on the top of the prices beeing crazy you have some recurent disease like diabetes or cholesterol, you just can’t do it. Medicines are expensive too… Nowadays healthy food is affordable to people who has good jobs and a good level of life. It is crazy to say but so true at the same time! Eating healthy should be a right, not a priviledge… It is also a responsibility; the responsibility to make the right choices… Some smokers will prefer buying their two packs of cigarrettes a day instead of getti ng vegetables for their kids. This is when you stop, look around, and realize there is a problem.
The main thing that poped out of chapter 5, In The Grass, is the illegal immigrants working for the chicken slaughter houses. Of course I knew they were being exploited, we have the same issue in France with North African countries… I guess I am just taking a chance to tell my opinion. I think this is crap and YES I am saying it, that they are treated that way. Companies take so much advantage of them it is not even funny. They know that immigrants won’t say anything because if they do they will be in trouble with the service of immigration. So they don’t respect them as persons, they barely pay them – when they pay them. The thing is I don’t know that there is any solution to this problem… Because they are not supposed to be in the US, so in a way if they are not happy with their work they could just go back from where they come from but it sounds so terrible to say!! I guess I am just very shocked by the companies who are really acting like monsters. It would be up to them to be fair if they hire them. If they don’t want to be fair and give them a chance to raise money and build a life here, then just don’t do it. Don’t do it if it is to treat them as things, and not as persons… But once again this is just my opinion.
I am not going to lie, chapter 6, Hidden Costs, was my least favorite one. I guess one of the only point that caught my attention was the fact that small companies are usually taken over by big companies… There is nothing new about it. The small town business wouldn’t be anything when a Wallmart get built right next to it. Big supermarket have an easy access and we are use to them… On the other hand we feel bad for the owner of the little bakery, plus we don’t trust the big supermarkets and the big companies as much as we trust the shop of the town. It also ruins the social interactions.



So this is when I am supposed to give my opinion about all this and to say how it changed my thinking… Well I learned a lot of things, and I was shocked by most of it. I am just wondering how we can all be sitting on our couches, while all this is happenning. Nobody will say anything or protest because people are comfortable with it. They do not want to hear the truth! When they do they act concerned for a bit, then go right back to their McDonalds because this is just what they do. They don’t want to give up the comfort of getting a meal in 5minutes for cheap money, especially when vegetables and healthy food is so expensive! Because it is, let’s face it. I just think there is some point when we didn’t make the right choices. For example there is those lands all over the country: how about growing vegetables? Nobody would do it. But I am going to tell you what: this is not a lack of room, but a lack of motivation. We are lazy. We complain that food is expensive, but we don’t change our way of life. I am blaming people for that but I am lazy, and I love fast food too. But I do wish I knew how to speak up and fight what this food system has become. The way they treat animal makes me want to throw up. It does! I will definitely make some researches about how to change things from my powerless and helpless place.



It was a really good movie, and I only wish more people knew about all this… We need to spread it out, talking to people around us about it, who will talk about other persons, who will talk to other persons, etc. Because I don’t know about you guys but I am just grossed out and very pissed off about our society right now. This needs to stop.

Digital Nation

This project was quite interesting because it made us think about how big of an impact new technologies have on society. My section ("Relationships") was very interesting, and there is so much that I would like to tell about it but I’m supposed to talk about the presentations other students made. I picked “Living Fast”, “Learning” and “Virtual Worlds” because I thought they were really interesting.

The first one, “Living fast” caught my attention because at first I could not understand the relation between the title of the section and what it was about. I learned that 60% of a little kid’s brain grows and is getting formed by what he uses it for… This person in one of the video said “What kids do or don’t do affect them for the rest of their lives”. We also debated in class how focusing is compromised by Internet because of the multitasking getting bigger. I think we could discuss that… Some people actually focus better when they read a computer screen than a book. That kind of scares me a little bit because I’ve always been told that looking at a computer screen to often and too long will affect the vision… And that would be why most of those persons wear glasses (that sounds crazy but I’ve read a lot of studies about it). Since a lot of things will become virtual, we are all going to have to adapt… Classes are already taken on the computer by a lot of persons, for example.

They say technology is invasive… My opinion? I totally agr

ee. The problem isn’t that it’s getting bigger and newer every day… It is that we have NO control over it. We don’t have another choice but get used to every new gadget they invent, because living in society disowning technology is just impossible. We have to keep up with it… What if we don’t want that for our kids? Because who knows what they will invent next…

The second topic that I picked was “Learning”. Is it possible to teach kids with video games or on the computer in general? Of the debate we have had over this, those that were the closest to my opinion were for example how real world doesn’t work like video games. And it doesn’t! Why would we be teaching things to kids that they are never going to use? Because the point of school education is to prepare to a job, and life after school isn’t it? In general, I don’t think video games are a good thing for kids. They start to play young and it becomes a severe addiction… I’m a book person. I think there is nothing better to learn. Even just reading a novel will teach you the grammar… On Internet our vocabulary is very limited, and the use of text messaging is ruining the grammar. Another thing is we don’t focus on information because they are too many… Adults cannot do it. How would a little kid be able to, when it is the age you have to keep an eye on him all the time because they are so impressionable?…

Finally I am going to cover my last pick: “Virtual Worlds”. The one was really interesting, and I remember the class debating over it for at least an hour. This guy in one of the video was talking about the videogames and said, “Neither good or bad, it’s the use that is intended to”. It is a great quote, and it sort of resumes the general opinion about video games but it is not mine. I think most of them are very violent, and shouldn’t be allowed on the market. The most popular ones are about killing people and… that’s it! What is there good about it?

Another thing was very interesting… When they used digital for therapy to an Iraqi soldier: they wanted him to revisit the terrible experience he went through. I thought it can be a good idea because it making people re-living bad things that happened to them makes them release all the inhibitions and things they have inside of them. We are like an iceberg: the most of us is hidden deep inside us. When the ex-soldier is experiencing that, he starts to sweat because he feels like it’s real. The big question is are we soon going be able to virtually feel?

My last point about this section will be video games addiction. Who defines it? I don’t have any question at this answer… I just know that when the kid starts to play 9hours in a row without a break just to finish his game, there is a big problem. Some people said: what’s the difference between spending time trying to get better at football or video games? Well here’s the difference: any human being cannot spend 9hours in a row playing football without ANY break. He has to sleep, eat, and drink. Do video games make you forget the basic functions? I think it does. And that’s what is sad about it… I sort of experience it myself when I start watching series online, when I’m into it I cannot stop. It’s miserable.

Like I said this project was very interesting, even if the debating part in class was not always easy… I learned a lot of things, realized a lot of things too. Now I think the main question after all this is: are our body and our mind able to keep up with technology??

Vlog 5 : Digital Nation

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PPT Presentations' post

First I'd like to say I really appreciate this project. I think it is a fun way to share opinions and movies' tastes, but still we had to work around the same topic: parallels and comparison between two epic movies. I enjoyed making my PowerPoint over Harry Potter, but I liked watching those others made too; it was really interesting. I picked three of them that I am going to talk about in this post, for different reasons that I will cover later.

The first one that I picked is Shelby's: Thelma & Louise vs. Lord of Rings.

I think she made great parallels between the movies, about the actual words I mean. She matched adjectives, verbs and names perfectly when she was comparing the two movies. For example I liked how she compares the moment when Thelma and Louise drive off the cliff with Sam and Frodo sitting on the rock stranded on the volcano. Another good one is when she makes a parallel between the two movies showing us how the main characters both wanted to end their life once the adventure is over. Thelma and Louise drove off the cliff and Frodo went on the boat. Plus I thought her symbolism slide was very interesting. She said that when Thelma and Louise shoot the man, when they blow up the truck, or rob the store; it actually represents women's rights. This topic is very important to me. I think nowadays there are still some differences of treatment between women and men, despite what everybody will say. The gender will be a "+" or a " -" to get some jobs, for example. It just makes me want to scream... Anyway, I thought it was a good idea to talk about that. These two women do affirm themselves and they scream freedom. That is the main point of the movie of what it seems in the Powerpoint; and it does make me wanting to watch it - again. Another symbol very interesting is the one about the Fellowship of the Ring, she actually thinks it represents how lots of countries came together during World War II, which is just genius. I didn't think about it watching the movie, I just thought it was a way to show that different people can get together to fight the same cause. I thought what she said was a great idea.

The second Powerpoint I picked is Reece's: Iron Man vs. Lord of Rings.

What amazed me about this one is that I am usually not attracted to this kind of movie; I honestly hardly ever watch them because I don't like them. But the thing is it got me so interested that I found myself wanting to watch Iron Man! You can obviously tell he is passionate by this film. He makes every word very interesting. He leaves the reader/spectator curious, and wanting to find out if it is actually that great by watching it.
The other thing is his PowerPoint was nothing like the others. He made his parallels in a different way than most of the class did. He didn't talk about Lord of Rings that much, but developed what made him think about Lord of Rings in Iron Man instead. He used great images too. A good example is when he covered the camera angles, the pictures perfectly match every shot he describes; I was very impressed. I loved the one in the second slide too, after the presentation slide, showing the two faces of the main hero Stark.
Finally, he did this amazing parallel between Stane and Gollum. Comparing the traitors in both movies was a great idea. We actually find out they are very similar; they both betrayed the hero: Stane by having Stark kidnapped, almost killed, and by developing a suit against him, and Gollum by trying to kill Frodo leading him to Shelob and trying to take the Ring back at the very end. They both died in horrible circumstances too: Stane by in the arc reactor explosion and Gollum in the volcano.

The last one I choose to talk about is Kinsey's: Titanic vs. Lord of Rings.

The first, and big thing that decided me to pick this one is that I am a huge fan of this movie, and I thought Kinsey did a great job. It is very realistic and truthful. I loved how she compared the supernatural forces in Lord of Rings to the technology in Titanic. Indeed, magic is what amazes the viewer in the kind of movie like the trilogy we watched in class; but Kinsey made it clear, technology is definitely Titanic's magic. The luxury and the size of the ship, especially at this time, are incredible, almost out of place. She pointed out some good themes too. There is one common to both movies: stay true to self. Frodo has to fight the Ring that tries to take control of him and turn him into a blind and greedy person; Jack stays the not wealthy but free and true person from the beginning to the end, even after he gave a try to Rose's world.
The last thing I want to talk about is the vast setting. We've study the epic characteristics, and this is a very important one. When you think about it, Titanic is basically set on a ship; we would be expecting vast landscapes, huge castles, long travels through different countries, anything but a boat, at least for an epic movie. But what Kinsey pointed out is they cross the Atlantic Ocean! Is there anything bigger and mysterious than the ocean? Personally it blows my mind, and I actually think it is the perfect setting for an epic movie. When the boat sinks at the end, it is more than the viewer can imagine: being at the bottom of the ocean in the ship, or in the middle of nowhere swimming in a icy water with no chance of survival. It is kind of the effect you want an epic movie to have on you, isn't it? Seeing more than you can handle...







All the PowerPoints I watched were really, really good. I picked those because of special things that I listed that got my attention. They did an awesome job and were really realistic about the movies; at least I know Kinsey and Shelby were... About Reece, like I said he got me wanting to watch a movie that I would have never watched in other circumstances, so it's all good!

Harry Potter vs. Lord of Rings PPT

Harry Potter vs. Lord of Rings

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