A Night at the Theater 2

I went to the Normal Theater this Saturday and saw the classic holiday movie called, Holiday Inn with Bing Crosby and other stars. It was great and new experience, part of what I imagined when I first thought about this assignment. I loved it just on the walk there; it was pretty as I saw all of the theater lit up because of the sign and seeing all of the little downtown area. It was so cute with the actual classic ticket booth with just one person to get your tickets from. The theater itself, where you watched the movie was small and exclusive rather than regular theaters at the malls today. It was nice to have it smaller than what I’m used to. It was such a nice and friendly environment, as a host was there before the film started and was talking to the audience. It was so nice that the workers actually care for their customers and are making sure that the audience is having a great experiment at the Normal Theater.

When they started the movie it was Amazing!! It started off with a classic episode of Looney Tunes. I loved Looney Tunes when I was a child I couldn’t get enough of the shows. The best part of that was it was in classic black and white. When the Looney Tunes started out the film, they officially hooked me and got my attention. When the official movie started it was interesting as it was in black and white and started off by showing everyone who was involved in the making of the film. The movie had officially started and began to weird me out, as it was all just so different from what I’m used to. I’m so used to loud sounds, big crashes, and lots of special effects. This movie had none of that, but was really great without all of it, actually a little better than all of that. This movie was high quality movie with an excellent and not so predictable storyline.

Overall, this whole experience was great. I was able to watch an old classic holiday movie, seeing it in black and white was a good and different experience as well. I’m so glad I had to do this assignment because it is such a great idea and memory now. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie that I chose to watch as well it was a great storyline. 

A Night at the Theater 1

What I plan on going to see this Saturday at the Normal Theater here, close to the Illinois State campus is a classic film called, Holiday Inn. This movie was filmed in 1942 and according to IMDb website it was directed by Mark Sandrich with main stars being, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Marjorie Reynolds. To give a little brief summary of this classic film is that at a hotel inn, which is only opened on holidays and a singer and a dancer both compete eagerly for the affections of the most beautiful up-coming performer at the hotel.
Going to this theater will be an excellent experience as I am a new student and new to the Normal area. It will be a great opportunity to visit and look at new areas and things around this town. I have always been interested in going to that area and theater as it looks like a classic movie theater. I pass by this theater a few times a week and it always reminds me of older times way back when in history. Reminds me of movies that are black and white and when everyone would dress up nicely for everyday life, rather than just wearing sweatpants outside as we, college students do.
I decided to pick this movie for this particular project rather than the Bachelor Mother movie as a choice because I wanted to experience an older movie that was made, but also wanted a holiday and Christmas movie. Considering it is that time of year where everyone just wants to watch classic holiday movies. I thought this storyline and plot was very interesting to me as it is a different kind of story. I thought that the other movie was just a typical movie and didn't catch my interest like this one had done. I would rather choose a holiday movie now that Christmas is near and it just gets me in the mood for holiday cheer. I also hope to take away from this movie experience is watching an older movie from the 1940s. I hate to admit it, but I have never seen a movie that is in black and white as an original. I hope that they show this film in black and white so I can gain that experience. Then I can cross off that want or task of watching an old time classic black and white film from my bucket list! I hope I enjoy this experience from my freshmen year at college, here at Illinois State. I also hope that I get to take away what I hope to and gain experience from this project.

Thanksgiving Break

Normally when thanksgiving comes around it truly feels like the holidays are coming. For some reason this year, in my opinion it still doesn't feel like the holidays. It could have to do with being here away from home, stuck on this campus. When thanksgiving break came around, I was so excited no matter what if it really felt like the holidays. Who wouldn't be excited? Once I got home I just didn't know where or how to start off my whole week off of school and a week at home! It was the greatest feeling ever to come home after being at school for months now. Not only at home did we have real homemade food, but I also had a car to go anywhere I wanted, and anytime I wanted to. At school I hate how I don't have a car to drive places. Without a car at school I just feel so trapped in this Illinois State bubble with not much to do on the weekdays. As break went on, I was so grateful for being home and being surrounded with all of my friends from back home and especially my family. Although, the most important thing that I was grateful and excited for was all of the homemade food that there were at my house. I had tons of food! Over break I didn't have to have the same cafeteria food over and over again, day after day. Yes, the dining centers' food isn't too bad, but I got sick of this food after a month or two of eating it everyday. I loved the dinner at thanksgiving. I stuffed myself with all the usual thanksgiving foods. I possibly ate enough to get me through these last three weeks of school eating at the dining centers.

Letters

For this project, on writing letters to two people that you care about and trying to convince them that the major you picked at Illinois State University is the best choice for yourself I picked my aunt and my best friend. My aunt from my dad's side of the family will totally understand and be persuaded by a letter from me as she has a lot of the same interest that I do when she was my age. When she was going to school she also wanted to become a school teacher, so that is what she studied to be and succeeded. She went on and graduated college with a teaching degree and then got married and has three children who she takes care of and teaches every day. I picked my aunt as one of the recipients for the letters because of all the experience and knowledge she knows about having this major and all of the courses that are taken throughout the journey. I feel like sending a letter to her would have greater meaning and I would be able to use more convincing tactics towards her. The second person is my best friend from back home. She has been my friend since the second grade in elementary school. Ever since we known each other we've done practically everything together and hung out with each other until we basically have gotten sick of each other. We both share many things in common, one being the major that we are studying in college, but at two separate colleges. I picked my best friend for the non-relative person that we needed to write a letter to because I feel like she could understand and I could persuade her a little better than I could persuade any of my other friends from here or back at home.

Free Write!!

So, this last weekend was family weekend, but unfortunately my parents couldn't come down because of their work and no hotel's were available because of the numbers of families coming to visit their college students. Although it was a little odd though seeing all of these parents and students showing them around campus because you aren't used to that. I definitely had some jealousy that everyone had their parents coming down visiting and going out to eat and shopping. Yet, I was able to be fine because next Saturday my mom, her friend and my family friend is coming down here to stay overnight. I'm so excited for them to come down and I get to show them around to my new home for a couple of months now. We're planning on going to the football game agains Eastern Illinois and tailgating which will be fun, but hopefully it won't be that cold outside. It's also going to be pretty cool to explore the Meriott hotel that is on campus near the dorms, Waterson, Hewett and Manchester. All of my visitors are going to be staying at that hotel, so it's very nice and convenient that it's not so far where we can just walk there. I don't know about everyone else, but I just love when visitors coming here at ISU! It's so cool because you are the host and everything is new to them and you get to be their own tour guide! Also, my friend is coming down and she's a high school senior and she get's to stay with me in my dorm to experience the dorm life for one night. I'm hoping she will love it!

Free Write!

Nothing is more exciting then the holidays in the winter, at least for me! I love the winter unlike some people. I think it's so exciting to just look out the window and all you see is bright white snow on the ground, the wet streets, the frosted windows of buildings and the trees all perfectly topped with white snow flakes. I think it’s so pretty and joyful to just walk outside and enjoy the outdoors, even though it's cold or freezing outside. Don't get me wrong; I do not like the cold weather to the point where you are freezing your hands off. Believe me, I know what it's like to freeze outside, I live outside of Chicago in the suburbs! But the good thing about winter is all of the holidays that come along with it. I love the great feeling of having all of your family around for the holidays starting with thanksgiving. I am certainly a family-oriented girl, I love being around all of my family and friends for the holidays. I enjoy those peaceful and relaxed winter nights where all you do is sitting around and hangout with the family or friends sipping on hot chocolate occasionally. I love nights with my friends where we always come to my house in my basement and hangout and watch movies all night. It’ll definitely be different this year as many of my old friends have changed since we’ve been apart, but I do know it’ll still be so great to be together like old times. I definitely feel so at peace in the winter because a majority of people are at a happy state and have the holiday spirit. I honestly can't wait to go home to spend the holidays with everyone back at home, especially since there will be no classes for me during that time!

Project 3: Research-ed Topics

My intended major to study here at Illinois State University is the early education major. Since this research-ed project allows us to go into a deeper topic within our major. When researching what other topics that I can expand my ideas about teaching on is difficult, as they’re many sub-topics of teaching as a major. One topic that I came across in my research was possibly writing about how there is a shortage of teachers around the United States. Writing about this topic may be a little difficult though, as there are few shortages of teachers now except I could talk about shortages of teachers in specific areas of education. Whether the shortage is in subjects or the ages of teaching or grade levels.

Another topic that I came across was the issue with teachers and money. The issue is that there are a lot of teacher cuts lately because of schools or districts going into great debt. The teacher’s cuts have been occurring because of budget concerns within the districts. They can't be going into debt, so what they are cutting back on in schools are the teachers, more of the teachers that are new in the teaching field.

One topic that struck my attention greatly was teacher's salary. Teacher's salary has been an issue for a number of years. What I could expand on this idea would be how much money an average teacher makes in the United States. I could even go deeper into this idea by researching and comparing the amounts of money teachers make all around the world and explain why certain countries pay teachers more or less. Also with this topic I could go into an even more arguments of why some countries pay their teachers more, based on their educational values and economic levels.