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.

Movies!

When it comes to picking out a movie to watch I find myself being not the normal girl. In my opinion I would pick out not the usual girl movies, those movies that guys hate seeing. An average girl would no doubt go to those mushy romantic movies or those "chick flicks." You know those types of movies that are so predictable it makes you think, why even bother watching this movie? There is always the man and woman, that everyone knows they are going to end up together, but they try to trick you by having some kind of event or obstacle that stops the two from falling in love.  Then towards the end of the movie they suddenly fall happily in love and live happily ever after and so on. In my opinion I find those movies being very boring and too dull for my entertainment. The types of movies that I enjoy watching are those high-action movies, comedies or horror flicks. I would much rather watch The Dark Knight over The Notebook any day. Yes, I do  know that the Notebook is one of the classic romantic movies out there-it was good, just not for me. I would rather be entertained by some high action going on or a scary movie where you are almost jumping out of your seat. Some of my personal favorites are The Dark Knight, Transformers, The Hangover, Wedding Crashers, The Longest Yard and Disturbia. These movies just grab my attention from beginning to end. These types of movies have a way of entertaining me so much that i want more and more of these types of movies, I never want to stop watching! I feel like I'm so not a typical girl at all when it comes to movies. I never want to watch romantic movies, and if I do happen to watch one with my friends I'm just not as into the movie as they are. As I see them crying over the movie, and I haven't found this to be so emotional enough to cry at.

Writing Process

My personal writing process that I follow includes somewhat of an organized step by step process. How I start off for writing a paper or essay is I will get at least a few ideas in mind of what I will want to write about, usually I do this right away from getting the writing prompt. After having a few ideas in mind I'll think of main points or arguments that I can write about in the paper for each of the ideas. This allows me to figure out which idea will best work for me for the particular paper. Once that's all done and I got the idea I won't start the whole paper for awhile until maybe couple weeks before it's due. When I do eventually sit down for the first time to actually start my paper, I probably write all of my main paragraphs or the "body" of the paper. The first time writing the paragraphs will be in a very rough format and may not even make sense, but it gets me going. I then go back to that few days later to actually start looking at the paragraphs and seeing what actually makes sense and I'll be revising as I'm writing my paper from what rough draft I had before to adding on the intro and conclusion as well. I like to write my paper in an advance or an earlier date than its due date. Sometimes I'll even have my own due date, so I can get it done. Sometimes I'll have some plans later in the evening so I'll make my day to be set on writing out my whole paper in order for me to allow myself to go out and have fun. I like doing this way of writing my paper because then I'll think of it as I have earned to have a good time for that night or weekend. Some other methods of the writing process that I thought were interesting and that maybe I'd like to try out was to try having several drafts within the time period of the due date. This would be helpful as it would be useful and more organized for me to get my paper done and done early.

Advertisement

What kinds of visual and emotional appeals draw you into an ad? What makes you pay attention? What makes you remember it? What makes you want to buy what they are selling?

When looking at advertisements in like magazines the most appealing visual elements that draws my attention to the specific ad are colors in general. The brighter or the more the colors stand out from the magazine makes me pay more attention to the specific advertisement. Some other visual appeals that make me really look at an advertisement are, celebrities, clothing brands, jewelry and makeup. These different appeals are all interests of my own that make me want to pay attention to the ad or even buy that product that it’s selling. Celebrities can be a big part of my own appeal as seeing a celeb will pop out and make me look. It also makes me think about, maybe this celeb is using this product and that’s how she looks that good and maybe I should go try it out, so I go buy that specific product. Celebrities have a huge impact on products; they are a big selling point to any product they may endorse. Some emotional appeals that draw interest to myself to an ad could be those certain ads that have a sad feel to it, whether the advertisement is about a specific cause, disease or organization. Using focus points such as; a sad puppy dog, a baby, children or dark colors on a picture really draws me into an advertisement using an emotional appeal. Also this can use an opposite affect, if the ad has someone who looks happy or excited on it makes me look and pay attention because maybe I’ll want to buy the product that makes them feel that way. Some advertisements that make me pay attention and actually remember it are the ones with lots of exciting bright colors. The advertisements that make me remember it and its product the most are ones with famous and trust-worthy celebrities using and endorsing that product. This kind of advertisements make me want to go out and buy that product right away!

Experience at ISU

I moved into Illinois State University on August 17^th of 2010. Everything changed so suddenly. For coming to ISU I was mildly excited to come to school here and get to get a great life experience as I would be living on my own. It was all so sudden and summer flew by it felt like, but it was one of my best summers yet. As this summer I was just getting excited and ready for college in the fall. Summer life was amazing; all I did was just hang out with my friends and family and counting down the days until freedom!  Then the day came when my family had to take me and my car loaded with my stuff to move into the dorm. The day was filled with sadness as I’m my mom’s last child and of course it’s for some reason harder to say goodbye and let go of your daughter. Once they left the campus, I was free!

So far I’ve been at Illinois State living on my own for almost a month now. It seems so unreal that it’s been a month since all of my curfews, rules and those annoying chores around the house. It feels so relieving being on my own at college, and I love it, but I do miss everyone back home as well. Sometimes I find myself double checking to look and see if my parents are there to tell me what to do and when to do it. It’s so different being away from home, you’ve lived your life for 18 years of being sheltered and protected from the outside world and not having a worry on your mind. Then coming here and having to deal with life on your own, having to feed and take care of yourself. It’s a major change in my life, and in my opinion I hate change. I like having a simple life, but as of now I like the concept of college and living on my own.

Peer Review 1

When I start to do peer editing and looking over my first draft of my book cover assignment, I would like the editor to focus on my understanding of following the task, color schemes and the elements involved in both the front and back book covers.  The first question I would want the editor to look over is; does the color schemes go well with the overall theme of the book? Is it missing any colors that are necessary with this cover or pictures? I would like them to look over and add on any colors or shades that might be better suited for my book covers. The next question I would like the reader or peer editor to focus on when looking over my covers is this question, does everything visually go well and tie together nicely? Are there any missing elements that should be added to the cover? What other images can be added with a reasoning of it being on the front or back cover of this book? The last question for my peer editing session that I would like them to take a look at would be is the title an important element on the cover? How does the title explain the book and does it match the story well? With this question I want to know if the title goes well with the colors, story and even just matches with the cover. I hope this peer editing session will go well in making my project even better, I love other people’s ideas and advice on how to make things greater.

Book Cover Explorations

Hello. So for this book cover project I’m going to look back to a story that has happened in my life when I was in middle school. This memory is about my older brother, Chris being hospitalized for a heart condition we weren’t aware that he had. For the front cover of my book I was thinking of making it a dark colored background like a black or a grey as this book would be about a distressed time in someone’s life. For the images that would be included on the front I think I would want to have an ambulance vehicle in black and white drawing. I want the ambulance to be in dark colors so it can give off a feeling of dark and sadness. The ambulance would be an important visual, as he had to ride in one to get to the hospital because he was in an unstable condition at that point of time. I was also exploring with the idea of having a deep colored red cross faded into the dark background to give the front cover a little bit of color and show some sort of seriousness in the cover. I want a red cross, as that would be a symbol of the hospital or medical help. For the fonts on the book cover I plan on using a white color so it pops out on the dark colored background and using a corporate gothic font, as it’s a more serious font showing no playfulness. For the back cover I was going to have few quotes from some magazines or newspapers that my target reader’s would be interested in their opinions of my book. I’ve also thought about putting a picture of the author on this back cover to show the readers the author, but not positive in that idea. I will also have the normal barcode and ISBN number to show its price as well.

About Me

Hey, my name's Carol and I am currently attending college to become an elementary education teacher. I have always wanted to become a teacher since about middle school, I enjoy teaching and dealing with children. I have chosen to come to Illinois State to study teaching because it is well known for its college of education. I intend to get the best out of my courses that I’ll be taking throughout my college career. To tell you a little about myself, I'm a pretty average girl. I love meeting new people and making new friends where ever they come from. I enjoy doing any outdoor activities such as swimming, going to baseball games, hanging out with friends. Although I don't follow sports heavily but, I am a Cubs fan and come from a big family who loves the cubs whether they win or lose! My family of five is great and supportive; I have two older brothers and a mother and father just your average, traditional family. Some interesting traits about my life are that I can be a huge klutz you can always find me falling down flights of stairs or even falling up stairs. I would trip on anything or even on flat surfaces, but the most interesting thing is I have never broken one bone in my body.  I think I’m a rather caring and nice person.  I have a love for watching good movies. I’m not your typical girl who loves all of the chick flick or romantic movies. I actually prefer some of the high action and comedy movies. One of my favorite movies of all time would be The Dark Knight. A couple others of my favorite movies involve, Transformers, Disturbia, and Pirates of the Caribbean. My favorite male actor is definitely Shia Labeouf.