Post 124: Write-A-?

Today in Adv. Creative Writing, we tried an exercise where we were told to write (with specfic constraints) off the top of our head. First, we were given the constraint of a setting.

Off the top of my head for setting, I got:

Three years after the civil war's end Arena's border lands were still scarred by the fire's of war. Funeral mounds speckled the land between homes in disrepair. Fields that were once lush with all sorts of life, only just starting to show signs of re-growth. People, though few remained, scoured the land with harsh looks and dirty faces. There were no luxuries to this life of their's, only work and torn collars. It hadn't rained in weeks.  

Then, after setting, we were instructed to connect character. 

From that I got:

Not since the day Ava was born. "It's a curse. She's a curse, " the people thought, but never said. There was no time to talk, only time to work. Ava was born in the afternoon to two ambivalent parents. Her mother would have never known she had, had a daughter if it weren't for the sudden prescence of a tiny person in their home following her horrible stomach pains, she had previously attributed to the old beef she'd had for lunch. If they had known what their daughter would become, maybe they'd have paid better attention. 

Then we were instructed to introduce conflict. 

So from that I got....nothing. Literally, I came up with what I wanted the conflict to be, but couldn't add it to the story the way we were intended too. I decided I wanted her to go to the Capitol to see if she could raise awareness and get resources sent home, but she would only find corruption that would lead to her joining a rebellion. A rebellion that was fruitless, so when one of her fellow rebel friends are killed she and some others break from the main group and start a more violent revolution. Which one lead to another more secondary conflict, that is internal to the character when she sort of loses herself in the cause and forgets why she left home to begin with. 

But we only had like five minutes, how could I allude to all of that in five minutes, especially past the last line I had already created for character. 

It was a very different style for me. I usually have a character, then a conflict and then put it in a setting. It was hard starting with setting and then character. It would have been even harder if we had started with setting then went into conflict. Or conflict, then setting, then character. 

I probably would have completely frozen up. Or just come up with something really obscure. 

Post 123: Counterpoint - Hercules

I was trying to find plot holes for this series, and so many are truly impossible to fill. But this movie has a plot hole that I think with my background in Philosophy and old TV shows can be filled in no time.

Movie: Hercules

Plot hole: How was saving Meg what made Hercules a true hero when he had already risked his life on a number of occasions for more people who meant nothing to him. (i.e. when he went up against the Hydra to save the town's people even after they ridiculed him, when he saved Meg from the Centaur before he was interested in her, etc.)

Well, I think this goes back to my old TV show knowledge. ( Charmed ). More specifically the episode of Charmed on the Seven Deadly Sins. I don't remember the exact line, but it was something along the lines of "there is no selfless deed to pride".

Everything Hercules did before he saved Meg from the Underworld was towards his dream of becoming a hero, from saving her the first time to saving the town's people. It didn't matter that he risked his life or genuinely wanted to help them, because in the back of his mind every action was always attributed to his desire to prove himself a hero and gain glory. 

When he risked facing death to save Meg, it was fully selfless. He didn't think he would survive. He didn't care, so it was the first act where he was fully putting himself towards a selfless act. 

If he died, he would never be a God. But, even though it meant giving up on everything, he still put Meg before himself. 

So, I think that is what I have wrapped it up as. Not that what he did before wasn't heroic, but that because he only set off to be a hero and do heroic deeds to benefit himself and become a God, it wasn't until he made a choice that wasn't so much heroic as human that he was able to be truly selfless and prove himself a "true hero".

Post 122: Define Friend

In Phil of Ed. (what I will be calling Philosophy of Education from now on), we discussed necessary and contingents truths, which isn't as important as one of the truths the Professor put up as one he believed was necessary: "happy people have friends".

And it got me thinking, is that really necessary? I mean, I think that people need to form relationships, that is like a basic part of human nature, but does that mean they have to be friends?

Let's use a student as an example.

If the student has lots of good relationships with people in classes, (they talk, walk out of class together, laugh together), does that mean they are really friends? If they are friendly with every one in all their classes, they could fulfill the need for human interaction. But does friendly mean friend? 

There are a lot of people I am friendly with, but wouldn't classify as a friend. And I think that this is an important distinction and idea to think about, especially in the age of social media where anyone can "friend" anyone without knowing much, if anything, about them. 

I can "friend" a professor, TA, stranger, classmate, celebrity, etc. But that doesn't mean they are my friend. And I wouldn't really recommend "friending" your professors, maybe your TAs but that kind of depends.

Anyway, back to the student.

Let us assume that they have had Facebook for three or four years now, and they have had group projects in half their classes, and during each group project they have added their group mates. If they are a third year having taken four classes a semester, with no summer semester that is at least 6 "friends". Plus the friends they had from high school that they no longer talk to, so maybe "60". Then the friends of friends that come up as suggestions, "10". Then the people they have met at parties, who lived in their dorm, who they met on the bus, "60". Then the celebrities they follow, "10".

That is almost 150 people.

That is a low estimate. On average Facebook users (adults) have over 300 friends, the mean is about 200 friends.

So, that is a lot of people that sit there in their "friends" list. But how many do they talk to?

More importantly, how many of them are real "friends"?

I guess, it depends on the definition. I think that there are certain things required in a relationship between two people to count as friendship: like trust, loyalty, etc.

I mean, I have friends that I am very different from, but I know that I can trust them with a secret or count on them to help me when I am in trouble.

If all 300 and some odd number "friends" were real friends, then great!

But that doesn't really seem the case.

So, if the student has people to talk to and has formed relationships, do they have to be friendships?

I honestly don't know. I think it depends on what we define as "friendship", in this day in age where it extends to anyone with internet access, then maybe it does require friends. I don't know what a friend is, not in a way that can be defined, but I do know who my friends are and that is really good enough for me. It doesn't answer my questions, but I didn't really expect to find the answer. 

Post 121: Outside the Box

Well, out of all my classes this semester I didn't expect Philosophy of Education to be the most inspiring, but so far - it has been. Though, most of the inspiration that has come from it is the reminders of all the things I found most interesting about Philosophy.

One that did not link back to Philosophy, but rather Education, was the idea of out of the box thinking and kids that don't color within the lines. 

In an ideal world education would benefit everyone, would be suited for helping everyone. However, that is not always the case. There are abstract-thinkers, students that dance to the beat of their own drum and other similar cliches, who are not always receiving the education best suited for them. 

This has come up both in class and out of class. Both seem to hold the idea that education shouldn't stifle their creativity or individuality. But is that really the point of school? Can it even be done?

I actually don't think so. Schools have structured systems of grading so that everyone is graded by the same means, and this might benefit some students more than others, it doesn't mean that there are better options available right now. 

If every student was graded as individuals, on their own scale, based on their learning style and thinking style, it would be exhausting for teachers. And who would come up with each of the individual grading schemes? 

There are not really enough teachers in the field to do this. And it doesn't really prepare students for the world. 

When they go off to work, some might find jobs that are suited to a more loose performance scale, but a lot of employers aren't going to look at their employees' work and say, 'well they didn't get as much done, but they did do it in a very creative way'. 

I think that schools should have Philosophy classes and Art classes so that students are exposed to out-of-the-box and creative thinking. But, I don't think that schools should reorient themselves for everyone who thinks differently. Sometimes you need to think inside the box or stay in the lines, and it is important that students are taught how. 

I like creative thinking and I am an outside the box person when it comes to a lot of things, but I can think practically and linear if I need to. At least, that is my thought now. Change is slow in education and a lot of teachers who have been teaching for years and years aren't looking at changing. A lot would need to change to get this to a place where it would work as it should and I think that the time it would take to start getting it implemented would just be an awkward phase for those involved. 

BoxTrolls (2014)

Cute and creepy, the two words that would succinctly wrap up what this movie was. The BoxTrolls are cute, but creepy. The little girl was cute, but disturbed. Like really disturbed. Overall, I am not sure whether the movie was weird or inspirational, or really if it was trying to be either.

There seems to be a message that: material things do not make you who you are.

But the overall message ends being kind of diluted by the sheer ridiculousness that someone would really be willing to murder for cheese, or rather the right to wear a white hat and eat cheese. They don't even get to keep the cheese themselves, and this person is ALLERGIC to cheese. I mean, his face swells up and they have to use leeches to stop it.

I think that overall I liked the movie, but would have liked a few more laughs. It looks like a kids movie. But it isn't really what you would expect from a kid's movie.

It starts off with rumors spreading around town of a baby being kidnapped and taken down into the sewers by monsters where he is supposedly eaten alive, while his father is murdered when he tries to save him. Creepy, right?

Then it jumps ahead, the kid wasn't eaten but was adopted as one of their own (like with Timon and Pumba in Lion King, except...not). The BoxTrolls are being captured and killed. The boy-BoxTroll decides to go find out why and see if he can't stop it.

He meets the crazy little girl who seems a little too interested in BoxTrolls and spends a lot of time thinking about them and romanticizing the idea that they might come tear off her face and wear her toes as a necklace. She meets BoxBoy and one of the first things she asks him is if they LET him watch them murder his parents. LET HIM. She later corrects it to MAKE him, but she meant let. She is psychotic. I mean, I found her to be one of the scarier characters and she was meant to be one of the good guys!

So, you can see why I'm not really thinking of this as a kids' movie. Which makes the whole message a little murkier, because who is it even for?

Anyway, it wasn't bad. It had some cute moments and it had a happy ending. Would I recommend it? Sure. Would I recommend seeing it in theatres? No. No, I would not. Wait until it comes out on DVD.

Post 120: What Big Picture? Killers

Killers (2010) a movie starring Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher. Basically the plot of the movie is:

Watch a hit-man fall in love with a female control freak. Then watch as a few years later the people in their lives turn out to be killers who try to kill them but fail and die in horrible ways all because of a misunderstanding that doesn't make sense.

Katherine's character is a control freak who meets Ashton's character while she is on vacation. He was a spy and retires after meeting her. They get married and years later his old boss calls him and gives him a post card. Then their neighbors, coworkers, etc. all turn against them and try to kill them.

The big twist at the end? All of the killers sent after them were sent by her father for a large bounty. Turns out Ashton's character's boss was corrupt and when Katherine's dad saw the postcard, he thought Ashton's character was corrupt and because apparently her dad works for the government Katherine's dad thinks Ashton's character is trying to kill him.

My big issues with this?

For one, some of them were their neighbors for years. If Ashton's character just came under suspicion, then why were all these killers already in their lives?

Also, a lot of the killers that attacked the couple, while mainly aiming at Ashton, almost killed Katherine's character in the process. Why her father didn't just kill Asthon himself is beyond me. I mean, he had access and he could have just given him something that made it look like he had an allergic reaction and died.

This would be easy. It would be cheap. And it wouldn't put his daughter in any danger.

But, no, he sent killers after his son-in-law and, at the same time, put his daughter in great danger. Without warning her, helping her, trying to get her out of the way, or even instructing the killers not to hurt her. I mean, why not have her and her mom go to a spa together for a few days. That gets her out of harm's way. Or, do anything at all for that matter? Oh, that's right! It might give away the nonsensical plot twist.

My second issue came at the end, when the father and son-in-law are arguing at gunpoint. The father says that he saw the postcard and wanted to kill Asthon before Asthon killed him. Which didn't really make sense because the postcard was asking for a meeting, not telling him to kill someone. So, it wasn't really definitive proof of anything. I mean, one post card asking for a meeting and suddenly he is sending dozens of people to kill his daughter's husband.

I mean, her father was supposed to be some high level member of the intelligence agency and he didn't even bother to do any more research or observation after that. He didn't try to see how the meeting went or check to see if there were any more communications between them, he just took out a hit. I mean, if he had checked in, he'd have seen that Ashton refused his old boss's offer to get involved in anything and insist he was retired.

My third issue, also with this scene, is the only reason that her dad dropped the gun and calmed down was because she said she was pregnant. He didn't bother seeing if his son-in-law was actually corrupt, he just dropped it when he found out that he was going to be a grandfather. Like really? You weren't that worried about your daughter's safety before. You weren't worried about depriving her of her husband before. But suddenly, it doesn't matter, because she's pregnant.

My last big issue is that a lot of people died over this misunderstanding. And if they actually worked with or for her father, that meant that they were spies working for the government not just killers looking to collect some money. Yet, no one seems to have cared at all that so many people died for nothing. Literally nothing. Dozens of people died. More were injured. People they worked with. People they hung out with. But does any one care that they died over a misunderstanding? Nope. My neighbors tried to kill me so I killed them? I blew up my coworker? Who cares?! I'm going to be a dad. My coworkers were all murdered because I leaped to conclusions? Men and women put their life on the line and will no longer be going home to their families because of me? My son-in-law might be corrupt and trying to kill me? Who cares?! Bust open the champagne, I'm going to be a grandpa.