iStudiez Pro

I love this app. I really do. I mean, on Graduation Day if I am asked to give thanks, this would be the first thing I thanked.

So, what is this fabulous app? Essentially, a planner. You know, the kind you used in school to write down your homework. Except it is so much better than that. There are a lot of different features, but let me tell you a couple of the one's I've found most useful.

The most useful has been the schedule/calendar. I put in all my classes and it looks like this. (This isn't my phone, but an image I found.)

So, you see, it says what classes on a particular day, as well as the assignments for the class, the professor, the location, and the time. But then in calendar view you can quickly see when things are. What's even cooler, it pulls from your phone calendar, so if I have a Doctor's appointment it will show up on the iStudiez calendar.

It sends you a notification 15 minutes before class starts, as a reminder, which has been helpful. It is really helpful having easy access to class rooms.

But that is just one useful component.

It also has a section for instructors. This allows you to have a sort of separate phone book for all your TAs, instructors, and Professors.

I love this because it is easier than trying to track down the syllabus if I want office hours, and sometimes the TAs don't have an official syllabus, they write it on the board during the first tutorial and that's it. That's all you get. And if you lose the piece of paper you wrote it on, switch tutorials, can't read your writing, were absent, or didn't think to write it down at the time you are in trouble. 

The third, and last feature, I will talk about is the assignments feature. 

It lets you put in the assignment information, what course it is, if you have partners and who they are, it lets you set a priority, and set up a reminder of anywhere between a week or a few hours before. It then keeps them all in a list and lets you sort by date, class, or priority. And once you complete it, you select it and it saves it but takes it off the list. 

Also a week before something is due, no matter the priority or reminder date, a little number will appear in the corner of the app just as a subtle reminder. 

I have taken online classes and gotten in trouble, because I lost track of dates and then had to rush or missed something. I have forgotten about small assignments. I have lost track of professor information. I am kind of scatter-brained and this app keeps that scatter in line. 

I would definitely recommend this app to ALL students of EVERY grade. It is really useful as an University student, but I feel like there are features that are here that will help students of every grade. Who knows, there might even be features that will help non-students as well. 

Post 126: Is Spring Here Yet?

I really hope spring gets here soon. It certainly is starting to feel like it. It has been pretty sunny lately, even (dare I say it) warm. But I hesitate to declare Spring is on its way, for fear of jinxing it. Though, if I had that much control over the universe that I could jinx away a season, I'd have a superhero name and a cape.

Actually, I don't know how I feel about capes. The idea seems nice. And as a fan of swishy skirts and dresses, a cape seems like it would fit well with that category.

Except, just because I like them doesn't mean I like them for me. I don't really wear skirts or dresses much anymore. For a variety of reasons.

So, would I want to wear a cape?

Although, the fact that I, personally, wouldn't pick to wear a cape might mean that to protect my secret identity I should wear a cape.

I have a secret name or two for websites and the like, but it isn't akin to a superhero name. Though, sometimes my pen name feels like it.

I mean, you can say more under a pen name about what you think about people, the world, issues, etc. without having to worry about the consequences the same way. I don't mean how people use anonymity to trash people. I mean having the freedom to say things about social issues without having to worry about getting fired for addressing real issues in the work place.

That's really more of an example than anything, but you can see how it would be important to have a pen name if you were going to talk about things that your workplace might want to bury.

I am currently only volunteering, and have no access to such information.

But I have friends who work in places and sometimes complain to me about things that are going on that are serious, but that they aren't really supposed to be talking about (sexual harassment from supervisors/ legal issues) and for some of them, they really want to tell someone to keep it from continuing.

Anyway, I have gotten really off topic from talking about if it is Spring yet.

So, I guess, I will conclude with a general shrug like answer that Spring is a constant reoccurring thing. Is it Spring yet? I don't know. But it will be Spring eventually.

Post 125: Post Gap

There has been a relatively long gap between the last time I posted and now. Not to say I didn't sign in or start a post or two, I just haven't had the chance to post anything. I have, at least, two or three started blog posts queued up in drafts, I just haven't had the chance to finish them. And some of that is because I've been busy lately, but it is also been a loss of my train of thought.

One of them I started and then had to put on hold, but when I went back to continue it, I no longer knew what it was I wanted to say.

I am so behind, but I will catch up. I have reviews to do (some of which are done but just haven't been posted because they were hand-written or typed when I didn't have internet) and I am going to finish the drafts that I have saved, but I might not get to the drafts for awhile.

Waiting to remember what I wanted to say for them might take longer than writing new ones.

Anyway, just a notice that I am in fact alive, if anyone was wondering, and that I will be back to posting soon.

Chopped (TV Series - 2009)

Chopped is another reality TV Show, like Kitchen Nightmares, but it is much friendlier. The only reality TV shows I really watch involve cooking or kitchens. Another one I watch is called Cutthroat Kitchen, but it really isn't very nice.

Chopped is nice because contestants compete against the clock more than each other. In Cutthroat they are forced to sabotage each other, which means they are much more antagonistic. Sometimes in Chopped, they even help each other out.

I like the show because it is so amazing what these chefs can do with the ingredients they are given. Some of the worst ingredients they they've been given (in my opinion): durian, whole chicken in a can, pork rinds, bacon popcorn, a three-tiered vanilla fondant cake (for the appetizer round), pickle juice, and pickled pigs feet.

How the show is set up is that there are three rounds. The first round is the appetizer round, the second the entree, and the third is dessert. There are four contestants to start and each round the chef that did the worst, goes home. The last one standing wins $10,000 (or more - some rounds have money for charities or money for scholarships).

Somethings that I think people should really have learned by now:

Taste everything. A lot of people who get in trouble, get in trouble for not tasting things and making things too salty or too bland. If they had just tasted it, they would have known.

Include everything. There are four ingredients give to each contestant and they have to use all four. They don't specifically say in the rules that the ingredient needs to be highlight or transformed, but you lose points for not, so - that should be kept in mind.

And the one I think is the most important and most overlooked...

Check the equipment! Like every other episode someone goes to use something and it doesn't work! The ice cream maker doesn't always work. The meat grinders in the hamburger episode didn't work. And people will count on ice cream or something being apart of their dish and then, oops! Not going to happen.

I like the show because contestants show a lot of creativity. And it really is impressive what they can do with what they are given. But what is also interesting is how much variety there ends up being.

Four chefs given the same four ingredients and yet they can end up four completely different dishes. In one episode, the first round gave the contestants things like cotton candy, corn dogs, peanuts, and scallions - and the contestants created things from Pad Thai to Hot Dogs with Pesto and Cotton Candied Peanuts.

I'd recommend it to people who like cooking and people who like puns. Because Ted makes a lot of puns.

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.

Post 119: Unrealistic Character Changes

So, I get that Disney and other makers of kid and preteen movies will tone things done and wrap up the story with some sort of happy ending, but it often is way too unrealistic.

The biggest examples I can think of are 1 Chance 2 Dance and Cloud 9.

In both there is a main character and an antagonist that are competing against each other. The antagonist in both goes to extraordinary measures to take out the competition but then, at the end, claps for the main character when they win.

In 1 Chance 2 Dance, the main character and antagonist are both dancers. The antagonist is threatened by the main character, so she steals her partner. But that's not all. She also tricks her into coming to party, where she uses the main character's mother's alcoholism and her crush to hurt her emotionally. But that's not all, either. On the antagonist's behalf, a boy at the party spikes the main character's drink and then tries to get her to lie down and starts to climb on top of her. Now, the main character's love interest pulled him off her, but it is hard to say how far he was supposed to go and what he did as it was, was way over the line. But that still isn't all. The antagonist trips the main character with an intent to injure her, and when the main character is injured, the antagonist insults her again and walks away.

But then when the main character wins she basically shrugs it off and claps for her. After everything she has done to the main character or tried to do to her, it is absolutely out of character for her to not be upset about the main character winning.

In Cloud 9, it is the same ending.

Except in Cloud 9 the main character and antagonist start out on the same team. The main character is not a very good teammate, but the antagonist (the coach) cannot kick her off the team without a reason, so he has his son/her boyfriend get her into trouble.

Except that how he got her into trouble was actually pretty dangerous. She could have gotten seriously hurt. In fact, while they wrap it up like it was just to get her in trouble, it seems more realistic that the dad's actual goal was for her to get hurt, but didn't want to tell his son that.

Anyway, the son and the main character stole someone's sled (which really seems like it should have been enough). They were riding in it and all was well, until the son directed the sled towards a sign, which was really more like a giant billboard, and jumped out so that the main character would crash into it (at his father's behest).

She was lucky she didn't get hurt.

I had a friend when I was younger, a neighbor more than friend, and she cracked her skull open while sledding. She needed 19 stitches. Thankfully, she was alright but it was day and there were a lot of people around to help her. And it was not a steep hill and it was not a big hill, she just hit a patch of ice the wrong way and next thing she knew she was in the hospital.

The main character wasn't on a hill. It was a mountain. And it was steep and there were trees and she was sent directly into a giant sign. And it was night. And the guys she was with ran away, if she had been hurt there wouldn't have been people to help her. She was seriously lucky.

And yet, the coach clapped at the end like him sabotaging her and putting her life in danger were really no big deal.

There have been other shows or movies where this has come up and I don't get it. It doesn't really seem realistic and I'm sure (well, I suspect) I am not the only person out there thinking it is ridiculous and unfair.

Both these people got away with it and it is hard to say which is worse. On the one hand, the antagonist in 1 Chance 2 Dance went further, especially when she drugged the main character, but on the other side the antagonist in Cloud 9 was her coach, an adult who is supposed to take care of his team and be responsible for their safety, not jeopardize it. And they both showed in doing these acts, as well as the mention of the antagonist in 1C2D having a history of this kind of behavior, they will probably continue it.

They got away with it after all.

I would have liked to see the coach fired. Especially since what he did came out in front of her dad (who, technically, signs his paychecks and could have fired him or sued him)  but he wasn't fired and his team wasn't disqualified, it showed no repercussions for his behavior. Same with the antagonist in 1 Chance 2 Dance, she wasn't disqualified, or suspended, or punished, or anything.

So, my biggest problems with this should now be clear: they wouldn't have clapped, it isn't in their nature, and they will do it again, so there is no real happy ending.