Honestly, the movie The Power of One was good, but not as good as Hotel Rwanda. I learned more about Africa from Hotel Rwanda because it showed the conflict throughout the entire movie. Although, I did learn about the horrors of apartheid and the ignorance of those in charge of the country at the time the movie was made. In Hotel Rwanda, Paul was in a constant struggle to save those in need, while in The Power of One, the plot switches from P.K. Fighting apartheid to his personal life. Some of the movie was not quite related to the main topic, probably because it only represented it's main conflict at certain points. But, the movie was somewhat hard to watch. The violent and disgusting parts were the hardest to watch, while the first boxing scene was inspiring to see because it was amazing how much one person can accomplish in an amount of time spanning a few years, but the final fight at the end of the movie, and the scene at the church where P.K.'s girlfriend is killed were really violent. Some of the gross parts include when the people at P.K.'s first school urinated on him. On the other side, in Hotel Rwanda the hardest parts to watch were the bodies in the road, and the murders of innocent people occurring in the middle of broad daylight. Both movies were touching, but I liked Hotel Rwanda better.

One of my family traditions for Christmas is going to my aunt's house for Christmas Eve. We exchange gifts and eat dinner and dessert, with my aunt's famous pudding-brownie pie. This Christmas Eve, I brought my guitar and played a few songs for the family. My favorite gift that I received this year was the “More Cowbell” shirt that I've wanted for a long time and, and are wearing even as I type this. Another tradition we have is to play some Wii games for a while before we leave. This year, we played the new Super Mario Brothers game. On other holidays like Easter, we roast lamb and crack dyed eggs. My aunt, for some reason, used to eat the roasted eyeballs of the lamb we roast, which is a Greek Orthodox tradition. It's really disgusting, but also kind of funny. Then, we like to give each other chocolates and other candy. For Thanksgiving, we get together and have a giant dinner with cranberry Jell-O, stuffing, corn, and mouth-watering turkey. We all eat together, with the exception of the little kids at the kiddie table. This year, I finally got bumped up with the adults. Why there was a delay in moving me, I don't know. My family has a habit of watching and talking about football for at least half of the party. The party usually ends around 11 o'clock, and everyone is dead tired. After the Christmas party, my sister and I always go right to bed because we are so tired. We woke up the next morning to find three huge boxes, which we later found to contain a drum set. We were ecstatic! After setting it up, my sister grabbed the included drumsticks and started to bang on the drum set as hard as she could. I was surprised at how good she was for her first time.

This new year, my girlfriend and my sister's friends came over. We showed them our drum set, and we ate dinner together. I gave my girlfriend some earrings, and she gave me seasons one and two of The Office. We had Pizza Hut for dinner, meat lover's style. I added loads of Tabasco sauce on my slices, and everyone thought that I was crazy for adding at least a teaspoon of hot sauce. We talked about what we got for Christmas and what we wanted to do next year. Unfortunately, my girlfriend had to leave at around five. We stayed up until midnight and listened as people in my neighborhood set off fireworks. After that, my sister's friends noisily played pop music in her room while I tried to get to sleep. It took me about two hours to finally fall asleep. Sadly, the morning after, everyone somehow got sick, with the exception of myself. I had to take care of everyone, and I was busy most of the day. Later, my grandma brought us some chicken soup to lift their spirits, and the next day all but my sister were feeling better. On Sunday, we went to the Detroit Institute of Arts for my cultural event. We saw a lot of really interesting things, including a contraption known as a “Rube Goldberg”. Basically, it is a machine that does something very simple, but using complicated mechanics and physics to accomplish it. For example, dominoes knock each other over and hit a catapult, which fires a ball at a toy car, and so on in a way that is much more complicated than needed. There was a thirty-five minute video of a Rube Goldberg in action, entitled “The Way Things Go”.

Rabbit Proof Fence Writing

I’ve learned that film making opportunities can come at the most unconventional of times, and that film directors like Phillip Noyce should never ignore them. For example, when Noyce was woken at three in the morning by Christine Olsen, he decided that he wouldn’t hear the script for her new movie idea until morning. Once he saw the script, he loved it. Once filming Rabbit-Proof Fence, Phillip casted people native to the area he was filming in. The man chosen for Moodoo, or the Tracker, was the same aborigine actor that played the bush boy in the movie Walkabout. Molly, Gracie, and Daisy, age twelve nine and eight, are the three protagonists of the film, were chosen from their hometowns in Northern Australia. Noyce wanted the audience who saw the girls to feel as if they could be their own children, which brings me to my next topic.
The film inspired emotions in its audience, making the three girls beloved everywhere. Emotion is one of the many things directors use to influence opinion and understanding. The emotions Noyce used were sadness, joy, fear, and hatred. People were sad that the girls were ripped from their homes because “the papers said so,” and this also created a feeling of hatred. They also experienced these feelings when Gracie was kidnapped. The audience was happy when the two made their way back to their home in Jigalong. The film also inspired fear, fear that when the three were exposed the raw elements of the Australian Outback, they would’ve died. And finally, those watching the movie deeply hated A.O. Neville, or “Mr. Devil”, as the girls at the Moore River Aborigine camp would call him. Neville is the main antagonist of the story, along with most of the supervisors at the camp. He believed that by total immersion in Australian culture, he could eventually “breed out” the Aborigines. Political understandings are also affected by these types of movies. People become inspired to support or stop whatever the movie was based on, and they may write letters to the president or a state representative to try and do something about it, such as get a law passed or raise even more national awareness than a movie could generate.

The Ten Things I'm Thankful For

The Ten Things
I am Thankful For

1. Family
I know, cliché. But my family is really supportive of me, and very patient. They've cared for me ever since I was born, feeding me, providing me with a home and warmth, and it would be stupid of me not to put them at the top of my list. These are the people I am most thankful for.

2. Friends
Buddies, pals, acquaintances, and friends. Whatever you call them, they should be important to you. These people were there from when you were little, and are the second closest thing to your family. My friends support me, defend me, and make sure I'm not always acting like an idiot. Whether we're in school or not, my friends are there for me.

3. Music
Now, close your eyes. Imagine you are walking to your car. You turn the keys and flip on the radio. Talking is all you hear. You decide to change the station. More talking. This is life without music. Nobody knows how to compose, play an instrument, or express themselves through sound. I am happy to live in a world of music.

4.Food
It's obvious that I'm thankful for this. I need it to live, I need it to function. I need it to... well... be thankful for it. It's also another form of expression. People use food to show off their creativity and culinary skills. Food is a form of togetherness, and it's the reason for the binding of peoples, such as the Native Americans and Pilgrims.

5. Shelter
Whether it's a house, cabin, apartment, condo or mansion, humans need shelter to survive. Shelter is the reason that we're not freezing our faces off in the middle of the winter or sweating up a river in the summer. I am thankful for the house I live in and the protection it provides me.

6. An Education
No, I am not sucking up to the teacher. Sure, sometimes I hate school, but I know about all the people in the world that don't get an education or even teachers to talk to. I am also thankful for the supplies I get for my schoolwork. Not all children get pencils, erasers, notebooks, and rulers.

7. Communication
Without phones, we wouldn't be able to call our friends, family, or other loved ones. Work in a business would be very slow without communication devices. People could even die. Think about emergency radio in an ambulance, or dispatch in a police cruiser, how many lives would be lost if we couldn't communicate with each other.

8. The Planet
Without the planet we live on, there would be nothing to be thankful for. I am thankful for the planet because it provides us with food, water, building supplies, air, and natural wonders. This is the reason that people should be thankful to the earth and treat it with care.

9. My Cabin
I am very thankful for my cabin up north. Many people barely even own one home, let alone two. I am very thankful to be one of the lucky people who has a place to go to for a vacation every summer.

10. Good Health
Without our medicines and medical treatments, there would be much less people on this earth, and that means less cultures to study and celebrate. Without our good health, we wouldn't be able to celebrate a Thanksgiving, because many family members would be too sick to celebrate.

Culture, Culture, Culture

American culture is not only a mix of the world’s many cultures, but all of those cultures combined into one. American culture is not just the people that live here, but the foods we eat, the music we listen to, the holidays we celebrate, and the clothes we wear. In America, most people eat meats like chicken and beef, or the infamous American hamburger. Some choose to eat only vegetables and fruits, like Florida grown oranges or Michigan cherries. There are many kinds of music in America. Some include Rock, Rap, Hip-Hop, Techno, Reggae, and many more. American holidays are often religious, Christian holidays being the most celebrated, like Easter or Christmas. Some Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah are also celebrated in America. National holidays established by the government include Independence Day, Constitution Day, and President’s Day. The clothes we wear depend on where we are in America. Residents of Florida might wear a sleeveless shirt and shorts, while an Alaskan may wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants on the same day.
Greek culture is different from American culture. Some Greeks eat pita bread, feta cheese and such, although they don’t have much of a problem with McDonald’s every once in a while, too. Musical tastes include not only classic Greek dancing music, but newer songs too. Many Greeks dance with each other by dancing in unison in a circle, snapping their fingers in the air to a beat. The main religion in Greece is Greek-Orthodox Christian. At Easter, Greeks roast lamb over a charcoal fire and crack colored eggs. On New Year’s, a quarter is hidden inside a loaf of pita bread, where the coin represents good fortune to the person that receives the slice of bread with the quarter in it.