Mattan Masri- Week 16: Animation is not a Genre

 Film awards like the Oscars often have a “best-animated film” category, and this is dumb. It’s like having a “best live-action” award. It’s extremely reductive to group all animated films together and only consider them for that reward. This seems to stem from a very limited view of animation, grouping them all together under the idea that “animation” is a genre of film and all animated films share certain characteristics. The problem is that animation is not a genre, it is a medium.

Even grouping all of animation as one medium is reductive, as there are many different forms of animation, such as traditional 2d animation, 3d animation, and even stop motion. Animation can also encompass any genre, and it’s extremely ignorant to consider them as one, as an example, would you consider something produced by Disney, like, say Frozen to be in any way similar to something like Coraline? Animation is still often regarded as a childish art form, despite studios like Studio Ghibli have proven that animation can tell deep, compelling, and mature stories, so what will it take for animation as a storytelling medium to gain more mainstream recognition on the same level as other films?

Pick a poet- Week 20- Gabriel Winter

     "Birthday"

        By Carl Dennis 

         The poem "Birthday" by Carl Dennis shows us the thought process of a man who is doubting whether or not he is worthy of the life that he has had. The poem describes a man who is looking back on his life and is thinking about all that he has done but is also thinking about what he could have appreciated better and what the true meaning of his life is. 

    He seems to be very focused on the fact that others who did not have the chance to have a life like his would appreciate all that he has more than he does. He first introduces this self doubt when he claims, "I wonder how many of them would have felt more lucky (Dennis 14)." The question that is posed is the introduction to what is to come of this poem which is a monologue of himself thinking to himself about how the little things are the ones that matter and that he has not taken those little things with the respect that they deserve. By writing the poem the author wants us to think about the little things in our own lives and the things that we can show more gratitude that we would not think to before. 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=48967

 

My Graduation Speech - Week 22 - Noah Rubin

Most assignments can be half-*ssed and submitted 5 minutes before the deadline. You might not get the best grade, but most of the time, if you’ve left the assignment til the last minute you’ve accepted your loss and are expecting a mediocre or even bad grade. Sometimes you’ll even submit an assignment late and not lose any sleep over it - like this blog (sorry Mrs. Ho). The Graduation Speech assignment was different though. It didn’t feel like an assignment for Mrs. Ho or Mrs. Joseph or even my parents - it was an assignment for me.

As I stared at the blank paper, I felt scared and worried that whatever I wrote wouldn’t be good enough for my own standards. When the deadline came and went, I got stressed over it and started to really put ideas on the page, but every time I read my work it sounded dumb, cliche, repetitive, and annoying… It was a hard assignment and I’m still not done with it, but I did submit a draft.

I think it’s ok - it definitely needs work, but the fact that I stressed over it caught my attention. Since I’ve gotten into college (not to flex) I’ve been pretty chill about my homework and classes, and when I realized that I cared about this speech I felt refreshed. I’ll definitely be working on this speech over the break and leading up to our big day, but in this blog, I just wanted to write about how it was an assignment that I really cared about and how I needed to get to 250 words for an assignment that didn’t mean nearly as much to me.

Bella Furst | Week 22.5 I'm an Idiot 3.0

 I'm not even bashing myself at this point...

EDIT: Apparently I did do week 13!! I just forgot to save the article :)) So I wrote an extra one... for no reason... I want to rot in silence.

        Believe it or not, the original name of this was "I'm an Idiot", but I actually ended up accidentally deleting this post, so thus the second title! Man, I am so worn out after writing like 6 blog articles today because I procrastinated like hell and didn't do all this sooner. But deleting it after FINALLY thinking of something to write? Icing on the cake.

        I'm honestly extremely ready for this week to be over. I can't wait for it to be Thursday and to have all my made-up work finished and then just be (mostly) done with classes. I was really excited to be done with my blogs and be able to finally get started on my missing Chinese and biology work, but the universe hates me and I cannot have nice things <3 

        I don't even know what to write at this point and I'm just searching for crumbs to talk about. This blog will be dry! But it is the last one that I ever have to write for this class, and even though it's almost 10 pm, I can go do my other homework that's due tonight and fall asleep at peace with myself. 

PRO-Tip: Don't procrastinate all your work for the night before... or for the night you have a ton to do AND work that was due a week ago. Senioritis really knocked me up this year...

SPRING BREAK PLEASE COME SOONER SO I CAN BREATHE.

Subathon - Josh Rosenblatt Week 22

 I decided to take a look at Twitch this week for the first time in many months and I discovered something interesting.  This guy who goes by “Ludwig” on Twitch and Youtube (I assume that’s his real name too) was doing a subathon.  A subathon on Twitch is a live stream that has a countdown on it.  Everytime someone subscribes to him, the timer goes up by ten seconds and he can’t end the stream until the timer hits zero.  When people subscribe, they pay at least $5 which is split between Ludwig and Twitch.  

When I first noticed this, I clicked on the channel and I just saw the guy passed out asleep in his bed, yet the timer was at 35 hours and people were still subscribing to him.  Oh and he had 43,000 people just watching him sleep.  That’s insane.  I’ve never heard of Ludwig before, but once I saw how crazy he was for doing this, I had to check out some of his content on Youtube.  If anyone is curious, he is a variety streamer with over 2 million subscribers on youtube.  He basically plays a bunch of different games.

Apparently he began this stream last sunday and thought it would last only a few days.  As of today, he’s been going on eight days of non-stop streaming his life.  He plays games on stream, eats meals on stream, works out on stream, and even has showered on stream (clothed of course).  I believe he began at around active 35k subs on twitch and now he is close to 105k.  Since every subscriber increases the countdown by 10 seconds, you might imagine how large that timer is now.  As of this very moment, the timer is at 53 hours and 11 minutes and seems to be only going up.  At this rate, Ludwig will be streaming for the rest of his life.

Bella Furst | Week 22 Last Blog Yay!!

 Last Blog Ever (please)

        You can probably assume I dislike writing these blogs based on the fact I’m last minute uploading a ton of late ones that I didn’t do earlier, so having this be the final blog post I ever have to write for a class (I hope) is so exciting. I am going to miss reading everyone’s stupid thoughts and experiences, and it was really fun to see what a lot of everyone’s lives are like because even though I’ve known you guys for years, I hardly know anything about most of you.

That being said, seeing you all make poor decisions (I suppose myself included…) was really entertaining and even though I think I won’t miss our class, I know I’m probably going to miss you all once we graduate. I’m super bummed that I won’t be back in time for the Senior Bash night thingy this Thursday night because I thought it would be cool to see you all again to vibe and hang out before we graduate in a group setting, but maybe that’s just incentive to have a safely planned grade event post-finishing classes. In any case, I can’t believe we’re finished with high school. Yeah, we still have classes and tests and all that, but we’re really almost done… I’ve known some of you since I was 9 and I’m having a hard time processing that next year’s social events won’t have the familiar faces I’m used to seeing at school-planned events.

Yet at the same time, I’m so excited for the next step in my life! I’ve already made some really incredible friends who’ll be in my class in the fall and though it’ll be really hard, I know I’m ready for the next step in my academic journey. Thank you to all of you for the dreadful (but somehow bearable) years these last couple years. I know I talk major crap about the school, but I feel really lucky that a lot of you guys were in my grade.

What are your plans for next year? :)

Bella Furst | Week 20 "The United States Welcomes You" by Tracy K. Smith

 "The United States Welcomes You" 

by Tracy K. Smith

        I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs that I really enjoy the fact that Smith writes a lot about socio economic issues and modern politics in a lot of her work. This poem, “The United States Welcomes You”, seems to outline the difficulty and interrogative feeling for newly immigrated immigrants to the US. The title explicitly says a welcome, but the poem is harsh and feels very uncomfortable when read from the perspective of a new immigrant. 

The entire poem is laced with questions like “Why and by whose power were you sent?” and “What do you see that you may wish to steal?”, common misconceptions many are forced to experience when first arriving in the US. It seems that the worst is always assumed of those who immigrate here. They’re asked if they have “anything to do [w]ith others [who bring] harm” here, and the tone is very accusatory, as if the only plausible answer for someone moving here is to commit a crime or wreak havoc. 

The ending of the poem seems to be a glimpse at the thoughts of the immigrants themselves, posing the questions “Is this some enigmatic type of test? What if we Fail? How and to whom do we address our appeal?”, in that they feel so heavily interrogated and are afraid to answer “incorrectly” when in actuality they come seeking a newer, better life than the country they had left behind.

This poem is so heartbreakingly relevant, and unfortunately it seems that its relevance will be prominent in our society for a long while. I really love the more humanitarian, introspective poems, as it can often be difficult to understand the injustices felt by many minorities, especially with the US being such a major international power known for having harsh immigration rulings.