~*~::{Reading Blog #36: Bollywood}::~*~

So I decided to switch up the order on the blog sheet. It said I should do one about a different culture, but I decided to do the Bollywood one right now and do the other one for Sunday. So…Bollywood. I’ma ramble about the movie “Bride and Prejudice” which is a surprisingly wonderful movie. When I was told we had to watch this movie from India that was a musical on top of it all, I thought “Oh crap, this is gonna be a snore-fest. Get the doodling paper and such…” But actually watching the movie, it was really good. The music was really good, the characters were good, and I really enjoyed watching it wanting to know what would happen next. I know I’m a loser when I say this, but when I went to the library, I found the soundtrack, and I’ve been listening to it nonstop for the last week or so. I mean, the songs have a really catchy beat and make me just wanna dance…even though I don’t know half of the words because they’re in Punjab, but still. Does it matter? I like rap and can’t understand half the words even though they’re in English. I still dance like an idiot to them…but that’s another blog entry.


Bride and Prejudice. Dir. Gurinder Chadha. Perf. Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson. DVD. Miramax Film, 2004.

~*~::{Reading Blog #35: Change}::~*~

This week we had to write about change. I thought, what a way to talk about change than to just start talking about the global warming and pollution. All this gets turned back to petroleum oil and non renewable resources like gas, so the change I'll elaborate on is the change from old to new...too much consumption of gas to going green. The United States are the #1 consumer of gas, using almost three times as much as the second largest consumer, China. The use of petroleum gas is also giving effects to the Greenhouse Effect which is depleting the ozone layer, which is making the world hotter melting the polar ice caps killing the polar bears, which are freaking adorable. If we were to switch to using completely green ethanol fuel, it would cut down massively on depleting the ozone layer. Also, unlike petroleum fossil fuels, ethanol is not known to be a cancer causing agent which means that it would be a lot healthier for the people that smell it in the air. Also, most ethanol comes from vegetable oil, so your car would smell like french fries and such. That would be so delicious…that of course is if you used vegetable oil as opposed to ethanol. Basically, if we change from using petroleum to using other green natural devices, the endangered animals would live better and so would we, and we would live on the planet causing a lot less of a negative impact.


"Ethanol fuel -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 22 Feb. 2009 .

"Petroleum -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 22 Feb. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #34: Stephen King's The Mist}::~*~

This week we’re supposed to talk about hope and what hope means and how it is interpreted. Well, I recently finished reading the book “The Mist” by Stephen King. In the very last chapter when the father, son, girlfriend, and grandparents are in the back of the car driving to somewhere safe, the mist looks like it has no end and they have a half of a gas tank full. The monsters are running a muck out there in the mist and all the people in the car can do is hope. Really, this whole book is about hope. In the mist are terrible creatures that eat meat and kill for the sake of eating. The people stuck in the store had no idea what the monsters were, where they came from, when they would go away, if help would come, or what would happen. After religious cults had begun in the store and after many human sacrifices for god and after many deaths, the Draytons finally decided that just waiting wasn’t enough for them. Their hope of being rescued in the store was gone so they ran to their car with the monsters running after them and they made it to the car. They started driving off again. Hope runs this whole movement. Without hope of being able to escape the mist and be safe from the monsters, everyone would have given up and done whatever. The only reason that some people stayed civilized was them hoping that they would be safe after a terrible monstrosity like this. I loved this book and recommend it to anyone that likes a good book, but even more a good horror.

C:

King, Stephen. Stephen King's The Mist. Los Angeles: Signet, 1985.

~*~::{Reading Blog #33: Beliefs}::~*~

This weeks blog was about beliefs and such. My aunt, my mentor and my inspiration for everything, is pretty much a spiritual guru and knows everything about spirits and such, so I decided to interview her about ghosts and such. Basically what I learned from her is that ghosts are the spirits of the deceased who have either unfinished business or they didn't follow the bright light at the end of the tunnel after they died and they have lost their way to heaven or hell and they are stuck here on earth until they find a true way to get there. The only way to help the spirits of the purgatory state to get to where they need to go, they need to be guided by people of this world through séance which is communicating with the dead. I personally have been to one séance. It was very spooky, but I enjoyed it. I do believe that speaking with the dead and helping spirits and ghosts are real. They are many who believe that it isn't, and I think they need to open their mind a bit and think about all the possibilities that go along with speaking with the dead...

That's what I think. People that don't believe need to open their eyes because ghosts are real and they are with us always.

C:

"Interview With My Aunt About Ghosts." Personal interview. 12 Feb. 2009.

~*~::{Reading Blog #32: Gender Roles}::~*~

Gender roles have many different effects on society, both positive and negative. In the renaissance period, also known as the Middle Ages, the men and the women had many different roles in society. If you were a king, you had absolute control over almost every aspect of life except for church. If you were a queen, you got all dolled up and and dressed up and you got to gossip with DA GIRLZ all day. If you were a nobleman, you devoted all of your worldly possessions to god and lived in a monastery with other monks and holymen to teach the children of things. The knights were protectors of the town and were the ones that would go off to war to protect everyone. If you were a peasant and were a man, you would be forced to work in the fields and farm, farm, and farm some more. They were not allowed to do much but farm and go to the tavern after dark. The women however worked as home-makers. They cooked in the house and made huge dinners for their men and watched after the kids. What I'm trying to say is that the role of women is equal to the work of men even though it is very different.

~*~::{Reading Blog #31: Different Cultures}::~*~

Today's blog is about the different cultures of the world and what they are like. I decided to do one on the Indigenous Peoples of America or Native Americans.

Their culture mostly was like animism in Africa and their small Bantu speaking people. They believed in spirits in all living things like the trees, sky, water, animals, and everything else you could think of. They were good at cultivating crops and had a diverse type of crops they would cultivate. Mostly corn (maiz), they traded this and dried buffalo meat (like jerkey) with other tribes and whatever they grew on their land. They enjoyed telling stories to the children to teach them lessons about life and they tried to teach them valuable lessons through stories of animals and stupid people. They taught morals like not stealing and such by telling stories of a robber who got killed by the spirit of the woods and such. Their culture thrived for hundreds and hundreds of years until the arrival of the "white man" (Europeans). They brought with them guns and disease which killed off many of the native peoples. The rest were slaughtered and used as slaves. The Europeans are the reason that there are so few living descendants of Native Americans today.


"Native Americans in the United States -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 08 Feb. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #30: Overcoming Struggles}::~*~

So for this blog, we are supposed to talk about someone that has overcome struggles. I decided to choose one of my dear friends, President Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has overcome many challenges. One of these challenges being the fact that he became president...but the main reason being that he is black. He is the first african american president of the United States. When he first announced he was going to run as president, he got threats on his life and his family. People in the country aren't ready for change, and frankly, it scares the crap outta them. On several occasions, there were many groups of people (including the KKK) that tried to assassinate the President Elect when he was still running.

With all their ignorance to the wind and all the baddies running scared from the police, Barack was free to take the gold...wait a minute, there was Hillary and all the other president-wannabes.

Another challenge he faced was his opponent, Hillary Clinton. She was a worthy adversary. Either way, history would've been made...but Barack truly was the only one that could've taken the country with such splendor. Hillary would've just made a mess, but Barack is gonna be there to make everything okay.


"Barack Obama -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 04 Feb. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #29: Natural Disasters}::~*~

Hurricanes are some of the most destructive forces on the planet, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, monsoons, volcanoes, and alien invasions. One of the most devestating and most powerful recorded hurricanes of all time, though, was Hurricane Katrina. During Hurricane Katrina, over 1,800 people were killed. The US government tried to help as much as they could down south, but the $81,000,000 worth of damage was just too much for one government to pay for and aid all themselves. On that fateful day of August 28, 2005, nobody would have been able to determine or even begin to try and comprehend the massive amount of damage and heart-break that this hurricane would've brought. Many people tried to wait it out because of some emotional attachment they had to the house or their hometown, and because of this, their whole lives were flipped upside-down. Most losing their homes, many others losing their lives and all of their belongings. Natural disasters truly are God's little reminders that he is there and he is powerful and capable of disasters greater than our imaginations can even begin to try and interpret.


U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. "Hurricane Katrina." United States Department of Health and Human Services. 01 Feb. 2009 .

"Hurricane Picture with Old Woman." About.com. 01 Feb. 2009 .