SUPA Writing 105

  The 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is about an incredibly dysfunctional family caught in an unexpected journey across the country. The family of six consists of Richard and Cheryl (mom and dad), uncle Frank, Grandpa Edwin, and the two kids Olive and Dwayne. While Cheryl and Richard are at a difficult point in their marriage, Olive gets picked to be a contestant in a beauty pageant, the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. The trip that no one in the family was excited about only got more and more painful for them as their van would consistently break down. Before they could leave their current stop, it required the family to cooperate and push the van to start and quickly hop on. As more and more setbacks and troubles are sent their way, the family realizes that they need each other's support and have to stay strong for Olive's sake. It gets worse when the family arrives at the pageant late and Olive is unable to participate.  ...

    What starts arguments?  Resentment for another person?  Differing opinions?  Most of the time it comes from a desire to be "right."  Though it seems that many arguments create more tension between individuals rather than solve their issues, arguing is a necessary and trivial factor of humanity.  In recent times it seems that arguing has been given a highly negative connotation and many people associate that word purely with yelling, screaming, and anger.  However, the purpose of arguing is not to win a screaming contest, it is to share one's opinions with one another and show others your point of view on a subject.  Instead of wasting unnecessary amounts of time by yelling at someone else to prove that we are right, we as a whole need to learn more about how we can get our points across to others by remaining calm, collected, and also listen to our opponents' ideas.     Arguing, while making many people uncomfortable because it ...

    Documentaries are a very niche form of expression, one that doesn't always resonate well with everyone.  I, being one of those people, had a difficult time finding Op-Docs, or at least titles that seemed captivating enough to delve into.  However, I did find two pretty enjoyable ones that had quite intriguing titles,  The first one being Arctic Boyhood  and Santa is a Psychedelic Mushroom.  While the latter seems to be quite an inappropriate idea, it was actually very informative on the origins of Santa Claus. Arctic Boyhood     If you were to ask a majority of people around the world what they believed the lifestyle of someone who lives in the Arctic Circle, I guarantee many would assume it is simply ice-fishing and that's about it.  Though, these Arctic peoples have lives just as complex and quite varied from a person who lived in a city their whole life.  This Op-Doc followed a young Greenlandic Inuit boy who was ma...

     Toxic masculinity, a very prominent feature of modern American culture, has been a constant and relentless issue since its inception.  The idea that a man has to prove, through violence and anger, that he is indeed a man.  Over time, the problem in our country has gotten increasingly worse, but now is the time to truly combat this problem.       In Tough Guise 2,  Jackson Katz explains how a history of violent stories. told through folklore and film, has shaped the masculine identity of men.  These past stories have given out the idea that men have to be big and strong and "manly" to be a "real man."  The ways that these ideas are expressed, however, have consistently become more violent and full of anger.  Another compounding factor into toxic masculinity is how our society berates men, through feminine insults like "bitch", "pussy", or even just calling them a woman.  These types of insults have had a devastati...

10 ways to have a better Conversation | Celeste Headlee This TedTalk was one of the most intriguing I've ever watched.  Headlee brought up a few very interesting points during her speech, one was to tell you to truly listen to someone about what they're talking about.  She explained how, no matter that topic of the conversation if you actually focus on the information the other person shares, your responses, and further additions to the conversation will come naturally.  I hadn't ever thought about it before, but when I look back on interactions I've had with others, especially when it is about a subject I find interesting those are the most enriching and enjoyable conversations to have.  One other point that she made was about relating to something that the other person says.  Headlee explained how you should never relate a traumatic experience or troubling event that the other person experienced, with something of your own.  This struck me with the idea t...

SpaceX Blog This blog has many qualities to it that greatly associate with my interests and hopes for my own blog.  Technology is always a fascinating subject and reading this short blog about the applications it is being used for is currently is very interesting.  While the information itself is very intriguing, I thought it was nice how they presented the information.  They wrote almost as if they were a friend trying to tell you about something cool that they had learned recently, so it assisted in its ability to catch your interest.  I hope to use this same style of "speech" in my own future blogs. Game Development Blog This blog is a great inside into video games and the development of them.  I personally plan on going to college for this exact occupation, so it has a perfect correlation to my future plans.  Other than that, however, the format they chose when conveying the information was perfect.  It captivates you, showing how a small change va...