The ultimate purpose of Beau Otto's presentation was to show that what we see can be interpreted differently depending on the factors that surround it, in this case different lighting on colors and colors on top of colors. Also he is inferring that everyone sees things differently based on what they know, they connect things to what they have experienced in life or what others have told them.
Every issue on this planet can be related to this philosophy. When wars are started between countries, the people in each country see the opposite as the enemy based on the information that the government gives them, the experiences with the other country(ies), etc. The only reason that they consider each other as enemies is because of the factors that surround them.
Racism is based on ones experiences in life. If your parents are racist you most likely will be one too, because you have recieved information from your parents that "this" race is bad and "this" race is good. The way that this can be changed is if you actually experience another race, I'm not saying that you have to be a Black, Asian, etc. person to not be racist towards them but if you gather information from them (talk to them, experience their culture) and get positive feedback then your opinions will have changed. For example, in the Movie "Gran Torino" the main character is racist towards people with asian ethnicity because he had participated in the Vietnam war and thus views Asians as enemies. But he ends up befriending his next door neighbors who are Asian and his opinion of Asians change.
The danger of climate change is that the changes on the planet are very slow, and it makes it more difficult for people to be able to see that the world is going through radical changes that could cause multiople disasters in the future. Also, because most people do not study climate change they do not fully grasp the threat of it. The more knowledge a person has on the subject the more worried they would be, and the more changes they would make in their everyday life for the better. Yes, many people know there is a problem with climate change because the television has told them so, but they most likely do not know what is happening or what the consequences will be. So, they end up not caring or caring on a superficial level. People are very disconnected with climate change, and think it will not affect them, but everything that happens on this planet affects every one of us somehow. And once things become very bad, it will be too late to repair the world, but that will be the only time that people care.

1) Being passionate about your job may not be important for getting the job done and pleasing your boss or customers, etc. but it is important for your own well-being. Spending a good deal of your life doing something you do not enjoy would result in dissatisfaction and feeling unfullfilled. But some jobs nobody would like to do have to be done (like the jobs on the television program "Dirty Jobs") but hopefully some of them are passionate about it. I don't mean bragging to people about being a garbage man, etc. but taking pride in what you do. If you are proud of what you are doing then usually you are content with your career. It's also important that, if you are working with other people, you get along well with them, because having bad relations with your co-worker can ruin even the most desired job.
2) I definetly do not have any concrete plans, because I'm not sure that what I enjoy that could result in a dream career. But currently I am interested in psychology, enviromental studies, and Japanese and Korean foreign language studies. I think that before I decide on a job I must have more knowledge in all of these areas, and once I do that I will be able to concretely choose on what I would love to do with the rest of my life. The first step for me is going to college, and then university. I will take courses in these areas, and also courses in other areas to see if there is any other subjects I might enjoy. I agree with the article "Why Dreams Don't Come True", education is absolutely crucial for finding your dream job. I feel like these next few years are extremely critical for deciding on a career, and I don't want to waste them. But I also know I should not stress too much, because as long as I am trying things and working hard I will eventually reach my (currently elusive) goals for the future. I think that many dream careers that teenagers have right now will change once they have a few years of college or university experience. I didn't give a very good outline for my future, but it's all one step at a time for me, and I want to take each step with care so I will not go off course to somewhere I have no desire to be.

Review on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Movie)

The latest installment of the Harry Potter movie saga to be released on DVD is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

One thing to point out is that movies based on books are almost always not as entertaining, profound, emotionally stirring, etc. as the original book. This is inevitable, as a book can hold more information and can express any character's emotions through writing rather than just facial expressions or dialogue.The Half Blood Prince is no exception. Although not a terrible movie, it felt like the weakest among the Harry Potter Movie franchise to be released so far. David Yates (the director) may have had trouble converting the book into a movie, as The Half Blood Prince book is slower than the previous installments, and is setting up for Deathly Hallows and the search for the Horcruxes (fragments of Lord Voldemort's soul) rather than being a complete story to stand on it's own.

David Yates and Steve Kloves (the screenwriter) both did a decent job on character developement for this film, especially when it came to the romance. The love triangle taking place between Ron, Hermione, and Lavender Brown was probably the best part of the film. Jessie Cave (Lavender) did extrememly well acting as a clingy, slightly obsessive young witch and it was pretty funny to watch. Ginny and Harry's relationship on the other hand felt very forced, the scenes were awkward and the dialogue was plain weird. Ginny tying Harry's shoelace was odd and the kiss between them in the Room of Requirement was awkard to the extent of being embarassed for the actors. I appreciate the attempt to try and convey Dumbledore and Harry's relationship and how much it grew in the book, but it did not feel genuine.

As usual the amazing effects and detail put into the Harry Potter movies was present. The Weasley Twins' new joke shop "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes" was so colorful and chalk full of magic, and the entrance to the cave where Voldemort's locket horcrux was apparently stored was dark and foreboding.

There was also one scene that was added that was not in the book. Personally this doesn't bother me when this is done, as long as it contributes to the movie. The particular scene is when some of the Death Eaters (Lord Voldemort's followers) attack the Burrow (Ron's house) which then catches on fire and the Weasley family and friends stand outside and watch it burn. This scene balanced out the comedy and romance in the movie and gave the viewers a glimpse of the world outisde of Hogwarts, the impending danger of Voldemort, and what the outcome would be for many more wizarding families if Harry does not find all of the Horcruxes and destroys them.

The ending climax of the movie was not much of a climax. About four or five Death Eaters sneak into Hogwarts while everyone is asleep and Serverus Snape ends up killing Dumbledore, and he then tells Harry that he is the Half-Blood Prince. By this time I think many of the viewers even forgot about the Half-Blood Prince because it wasn't a big part of the movie (even though it was in the title...).

Overall Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is a rather weak version of the book. Also, it is difficult to succeed in a movie that is leading up to the finale. But I have big hopes for the final two movies, and am very much looking forward to them!

In 400 words, create your ideal place

It's a deep night with the stars dancing merrily in the sky, and the moon gently emitting a silky pearl light. The ancient trees swing lazily in the warm late spring wind, their emerald leaves whispering kindnesses and wisdom for only the listening to hear. A small glade is tucked deep into the forest. It holds an abundance of flowers of many hues and the softest green grass that tickles your face pleasantly when you rest your head down on it's surface. A crisp, cool stream trickles through part of the glade, so clear and sweet, enough to want to drink in earnest. Far away from any city and any bustle or worry, it is a piece of magic that allows you to release all you hold inside and just be. It is the perfect, most comfortable temperature and while you are tucked safetly into the folds of velvet cool grass, you can gaze up into the heavenly bodies embedded in the darkness and ponder the universe and what is beyond. But no worry, only wonder and awe at the absolute mystery of what is out there. You can dig your bare toes roughly into the dirt underneath you, and feel the gritty chilly earth, an earth that continues down, down, down into the scalding center to where it all began. You feel connected to it all. Eventually your eyes droop in somnolence and your mind becomes submerged in sleep.

When you awake the sun shines brightly to welcome you to a new day, peeping through the plump downy clouds. It's rays shoot out like streamers, lighting up parts of the world while leaving others in shadow. Your glade is lit up and it's natural smells fill your nostrils, bringing your mind into sharp awareness like the smell of citrus would. You wash your face with the translucent cold water and decide to wander through the forest. All the trees loom over your head, powerful and strong. Their bark is the color of chocolate and almond, their texture rough and cracked. Yet when you touch they feel like gentle creatures, born to protect the inhabitants of earth from violence and to give them shelter in difficult times. Their leaves hang calmly off the branches, letting the bright sunlight diffuse into pastel yellows and greens to hang in the air under the umbrella of the forest. You can see petite birds flutter and peck at the bead-like, rose berries, and their song pierces the otherwise hushed land.

This is the ideal place for relaxation and solace.

My Review/Rant

Breaking Dawn

Stephenie Meyer's "Breaking Dawn", the last of the Twilight series, is something of a disaster of a book. Although none of her novels have been worthy of the praise they have gotten, they are not one hundred percent terrible- except for Breaking Dawn.

Most of the Twilight series is composed of Bella's constant fawning over Edward and how absolutely wonderful he is. Breaking Dawn is no different, except for the warped nonsensical "plot" stuffed into it.

Firstly, Bella gets impregnated with a child from Edward after their honeymoon. How is that possible? Vampires are not alive in the ways that humans live. According to Stephenie Meyer's storyline, their bodies are frozen in time, they only drink blood for sustenance but have no other bodily functions. Edward is pretty much dead. He does not have to breathe, his heart does not beat, his skin is cold like a corpse. Also, vampires do not have blood flow through their body (blood is only their food, not an actual part of their bodiy's circulatory system.) How does he perform the bodily functions needed to conceive a child? Or right, he shouldn't be able to.

Next, Jacob Black imprints (meaning that he looks at and creates an unbreakable connection) on the child that Bella decides to keep EVEN THOUGH it's slowly killing her by breaking her ribs with it's superhuman-vampire strength. No sane person would keep an unborn child that would kill them, that their husband keeps telling them to get an abortion because he thinks that it is an evil creation that will murder his wife. Stephenie Meyer changed Bella's character to suit the story's need, because Bella would have listened to Edward if she was actually being herself. Back to Jacob imprinting on the child. Stephenie Meyer describes imprinting as an unbreakable connection with the imprinted and the werewolf, something that is whatever kind of relationship it has to be at the time, either romantic or not. But of course when the child is older it would become romantic. She is basically trying her best to make it look as if Jacob is not a pedophile who has fallen in love with a freaky mutant baby girl. It didn't work that well. The character that had been working throughout the entire beginning of the Twilight series to win Bella's heart was turned into a pedophile with no feelings for Bella whatsoever.

Actually almost all the characters' personalities changed dramatically in Breaking Dawn. For example Alice (one of Edward's family members) used to be witty and fun, but became Bella's personal fashion consultant. And way too many characters were introduced in the last book, and all felt rushed with little to no personality.

The entire book was made to build up to the grand finale with the battle between Bella and the Cullens, their other vampire friends, and the werewolves against the Volturi (something of an organization of vampires to keep their existence hidden). But in the end, there was no battle. Bella was turned into a vampire by Edward after giving birth to her child, as he had no other choice because she would have died from bloodloss otherwise. One of Bella's powers as a vampire is to inhibit the affects of vampires abilities that affect the mind not only for herself but for the others around her. So she is able to stop pretty much any of the Volturi members from harming her friends, which was very convenient. Nobody was hurt or killed at the end of the book, there was no finale and no sacrifices were made. I feel like this is a major flaw in Stephenie Meyer's ability as a writer, for she made no morale to the story. Everything turned out perfect and rosy.
Lastly the grammar was atrocious. There were switches between blonde and blond for hair color and in one scene it is said that Bella makes Charlie pancakes, but then he is looking down at his cereal bowl. It is obvious that either the editors did a very poor job at editing or they didn't even look at the book at all and Stephenie was forced to do it herself.
So that is why, in my strong opinion, that Breaking Dawn was not a very good book at all.

P.S. Sorry to any Twilight fans, but we live in a free country where we can expfress our opinions! ;)

Top Three

I have chosen to give my opinion on what I think the top three Harry Potter books are out of the series.

The criteria is:

1. Character Developement

2. Overall Plot

3. Unexpected Twists

4. Book Covers (British, childrens)

Number 3:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:

The start of it all! The Philosopher's Stone set up the foundation of one of the most well-known children's series of all time.

The development of the characters was not full-blown but something of an introduction to everyone. One recieved the fundamental personality traits of the main characters like Hermione being bossy, Ron being slightly bewildered most of the time, or grumpy, and Malfoy being an all around git. One also gets described to them the character's appearances. There is also the feelings of Harry described, his wonder at the hidden wizarding world around him, his love for Hogwarts and the first real friends he had ever had. There is a deep sense of humility to his character, and I could not help but like him for that.

The plot was simple for younger children but had morale lessons woven into it, the most forward one being the power of love and how it can overcome the evilest of evils. It also really felt like it was a child writing the story. I don't mean vocabulary- or grammar-wise, but the way that Harry thinks is so young and innocent, like J.K. Rowling was able to remember what it felt like to be a child again and write it down on paper.

There were a few unexpected twists in The Philosopher's Stone, like timid stuttering Quirrel doing the bidding for a weakened but alive Voldemort. But I am not counting how many each book has, rather how it blends with the story. Since this is the first in the series, it was innocent and childlike like the trio Harry, Ron, and Hermione themselves had been. This whole book had magic flowing through it, the magic of youth and goodness and discovering the world around you. Of course there was some evil, but Harry Potter is only eleven and so were many of the readers, or younger, so more terrifying evils were left later on 'till they could be handled by the audience.

This book sets the stage for a tale to grow up along with the characters. I think it is a very good way to learn about evils in the world and morales, especially for younger children.

The cover is colorful and fun, like the book. It really suits this book's atmosphere!

Number 2:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

***WARNING: If you have not read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and are planning to, this contains some spoilers***

Of course the final book would be on my list! This book was a treat to read, but it was not perfect. Firstly, it ended. And Harry Potter ending was so depressing! (This is just me being a HP nerd, this isn't a real reason...) Acutally some parts of this book were slow, such as them camping for a quarter of the book. I personally didn't mind because it really showed the trios personality on living outside the comforts of home. Ron did not go through it well. He was used to having three large meals a day cooked by Mrs. Weasley, and large meals at the Hogwarts castle. Harry did not mind, as he had lived with the Dursley's full-time for ten years, and they were not generous with food. Hermione just overall was tough and did not complain at all, and I really admired her for that. This book had less character developement than others, obviously as it was the last book and was set up to end the story not continue it. But one character who really stood out to me with how much he had evolved over the whole series was Neville Longbottom. He had started out as a clumsly, socially-awkward boy who had grown into a hero. In the final book he rebelled against the Death Eaters controlling the school, and even sliced off the head of Nagini the snake. He had grown into a man of such honor and goodness and maturity; I was really impressed. I thought the plot and character developement of the finale to this epic tale was wonderful and full of action and excitement. It drew many emotions from me, I who had been a major fan of the books for almost half my life. There is so many more points to discuss about The Deahtly Hallows' plot, I could write a book. But alas, I don't have time.

The unexpected twists were phenomenal. They got to the very core of the questions people had been asking for years about the book; was Snape good or evil? Why did Dumbledore have the gleam of triumph in his eye after the Triwizard Tournament? Would Voldemort be defeated? Who would live and who would die? These are just some of them, and all of them were answered, but I won't type them down as that would take a long while.

This book cover would have to be my second favorite. It seems very adventurous and before the book was released it raised a lot of questions about what was going on in the scene. I especially like the goblin's hand holding the sword of Gryffindor behind Harry.

Number 1:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

This is definetly my personal favorite out of the whole series. The character developement of the three main characters, Harry, Ron and Hermione compared to the two books before was much more advanced. You understood more of Harry's desire to have a parental figure in his life (when Sirius Black suggests to have Harry live with him after he is cleared of his crime, Harry's heart soared). He also ended up developing an extremely strong bond with his godfather. Hermione was more relaxed about the rules around her and was a very good rolemodel for young girls. She also developed a bit of a wild side with walking out of her Divination class and punching Draco Malfoy in the face. Ron's character was also developed in showing how much he loved his pets (and others, and how he wasn't very good at expressing himself). At the time that he thought Scabbers, his pet rat, was killed by Hermione's pet cat Crookshanks, his friendship was almost broken between him and Hermione. This also shows how Ron could be very unfair towards the people around him at times. When he found out that Scabbers was actually the man who commited the crimes Sirius Black was blamed for, he was absolutely horrified.

The overall plot of The Prisoner of Azkaban was more advanced and intricate than any of the others. There was many subplots that all ended up connecting at the climax of the book. Sirius trying to kill Harry (although that wasn't the actual case, but it seemed so), Harry's struggle with trying to ward off Dementors with a Patronus Charm, Hermione and Ron's fighting about Scabbers and Crookshanks, Hermione's Time-Turner Secret, Remus Lupin's werewolf secret, etc. Then end result was very satisfying as all these seemingly chaotic sub-plots came together to create a big bang.

Basically the whole book was full of unexpected twists (the subplots' outcomes being revealed), the biggest one being that Sirius was not trying to kill Harry afterall, but trying to kill Scabbers a.k.a Peter Pettigrew a.k.a Wormatil. Of course all of the Harry Potter books had unexpected twists at the end, but I found this book's ones the most enjoyable.

Although the cover is not my favorite, this one is high on the list. This probably is my third favorite. I think it gives the impression of a darkening wizarding world instead of happy-go-lucky Harry Potter, which was what the first two books were more like.

Superpowers

Batman vs. Superman

If there was a battle between Batman and Superman, Superman would defintely come out victorious. Firstly, Batman does not truely have any superpowers. He is only a wealthy man that has a strong morals and a helpful butler. But Superman has multiple superpowers like flying and super strength. Batman has been succesful in his own alternate superhero universe mainly because there is no other heroes/villans with actual superpowers to defeat him. Although he has powerful gadgets and strong armor, this would not protect him from superhuman strength, as his armor has been designed only for human weapons or "regular" strength. Superman's only weakness is kryptonite, which does not exist in the world of Batman, so there would be no way for him to be defeated. If it ever came down to an actual battle, Batman would have no chance. Superman is obviously the superior superhero between the two.