A Room with a View

Love is an unpredictable thing. It baffles scientists because love is not quantifiable, yet it is the greatest force that drives humans. Marriage is supposed to be the greatest manifestation of love between a man and a woman, yet humans have found a way to poison this sacred bond. People have come as far as thinking of marriage as a financial decision.
In the movie "A Room With a View", we are presented with Lucy, a woman ready to marry a man she does not love, all because he is of the right social class. This is something that used to happen, and still does happen very often: two people marry because it is what seems correct in the eyes of society. Lucy is engaged to a man she does not love.
Before all this, when Lucy goes on a visit to Florence, Italy, she meets and starts becoming attracted to another man: George, a man of  a lower social class. George shows an unreserved passion for Lucy as he kisses her without any questions. She then falls in love with him, but is convinced by her cousin Charlotte to repress those feelings, all because Charlotte believes George is not a worthy man. Lucy then accepts a proposal from a man named Cecil. He is a man of the upper class, and marrying him seems like the politically correct thing to do. Nonetheless, as I said before, love is the greatest force driving humans.
Lucy, unable to go through with marrying a man she does not love, breaks the engagement and tries a trip to Greece. Later, she realizes that the only reason she plans the trip is to try and escape her feelings for George.
In the end, Lucy marries George, and does not give in to what society expects of her. This, I believe, is a true example of bravery and independence.

The 60s Part 2

In the second part of the movie "The 60s" we are presented with different characters, all going through great difficulties. We have Katie, whom has just given birth to a child whilst away from her family. We have Josh protesting the ludicrous Vietnam war; Brian, a soldier returned from the war who is suffering of the post traumatic stress disorder; and we have Emmet, facing the fact that he was, in part, responsible for the death of his father.
These characters, are each facing a brutal reality. In the latter half of this movie, we see how these characters adjust themselves in order to deal with what life has dealt them. Josh sees what the war did to his brother, and is driven with even more passion to protest the Vietnam war, Emmet becomes part of a charity that feeds children living in poverty, Katie does her best to raise her child, named Rainbow, under the circumstances. Brian, on the other hand, is haunted by memories of the battlefield, and he even comes to attack a man in the Woodstock festival, thinking that he is still at war. Josh also battles for the woman he loves, a fellow protester.
In the final moments of this movie, we see Katie, Josh, and Brian return home. Josh and Katie make amends with their father, whom has finally accepted the people his children have become. Here we see how the Liberal (Katie and Josh) come to an understanding with the Conservative (their father). The woman Josh loves finally realizes she loves Josh too, and that she is meant to be with him.
Lastly, we see Emmet finally gather the strength to visit his father's grave looking for forgiveness and a fresh start. The movie ends with the Herlihy family (Josh, Brian, etc.) playing football out on the front yard, a true depiction of the American dream.

the 60s part 1

"The 60s" is a movie about the life of several people during the years of the Vietnam War, segregation, and the "hippie" movement. We are presented with a family of three children facing different paths and a black family involved in the black rights movement being led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The father of the first family, Bill Herlihy, is a conservative army veteran whom is also a Republican. His daughter, Katie becomes pregnant at a very young age, This angers him to the point that she is driven out of her house, and she moves to San Francisco to live freely with the hippies. His eldest son, Brian, after failing to obtain a football scholarship for college, enrolls himself in the army to follow in his father's footsteps. The youngest son, Josh, is a pacifist who becomes a part of the antiwar movement. In this family we see a manifestation of the events of the 60s. We see a young man fighting in the Vietnam war, another who stands against this unjustified war, and another who decides to raise her child in the free, unprejudiced, yet imperfect environment created by the hippies. The father of the second family is Baptist man who teaches his family of the power of a pacific revolution. He, along with his son, Emmet, participates in the marches led by Dr. King. He teaches his son that no matter how much discrimination they face, they should never give in to the anger. Instead, they should stand up for the rights they deserve in a pacific way, like Ghandi. By the end of this first part, we see Brian in Vietnam scared while watching his fellow soldiers die, Katie giving birth far away from her family, Josh protesting the war, and Emmet holding dead his father, whom has been shot as a result of police brutality, in his arms

In summary, we are presented with war, racism, liberal thinking, conservative thinking, pacifism, and murky politics, all things that made up this pivotal decade in American history. 

Trifles

"Trifles", by Susan Glaspell, is a one act play about a murder investigation. In the play, we are presented with a murder scene, which the main characters are investigating. To be more specific, two men are investigating the house where the murder took place, and they have brought their wives with them. The victim's wife was the only person present in the house when the murder took place.
Whilst the men are investigating the house, the women are looking for things to take to the victim's wife, who is being held in the county jail. In their search, the women start finding odd things like a quilt's sewing pattern, the way the kitchen looks, and a box with a dead bird inside. The men regard the women's search as meaningless. They think the women worry about thing of little importance. Their biased views of men and women prevent them from even suspecting the victim's wife of commiting the murder. Throughout the story they make fun of what the women are doing by saying things like: "Women worry about such trifles", meaning that the women are not capable of finding anything of use in the crime. It may seem very primitive, but these were the views of the times. Men were regarded as the only ones capable of this type of work; the women were regarded merely as housewives. In the end, the women realize that the person responsible for the murder was the victim's wife, but the men in their arrogant state of minds never stop to consider this.

My journal

Growing up I always thought about writing a journal. I saw people on TV doing it all the time, and it looked pretty cool. For my Advanced English class I was given the opportunity to take up journal writing. I Think it is safe to say that it was not what I expected. You see, the rules of the journal made it clear that I had to write whatever was on my mind, and I couldn't stop writing for ten minutes. These rules made me learn a lot about myself, so here I give you my journal story.

I am a very whiny kid during college time. There is page after page in my journal of me complaining about schoolwork. I love music more than almost anything else in the world, and i cannot concentrate on college work if I have something band related going on. I am not a saint, as much as I wish that I was. God helps me to be better than myself. This, above all, is what keeps me going.

The journal helped me by letting write down my problems; it really is a  relief when problems can be somewhere other than just in my head. My songwriting got better thanks to the journal. Also, as I wrote about my band, I got new ideas and motivations. I thank the professor for giving us the opportunity to go beyond our daily routines and be a little more spontaneous. My writing skills and my creative mind certainly improved thanks to this exercise. 

Lastly, I would like to encourage anyone who reads this to start his or her own journal. Writing is a beautiful thing, and the mind is a terrible thing to waste.